Quotes About Philosophy

Consciousness, there are about 20,000 papers on consciousness with no consensus. Nowhere in history have so many people devoted so much time to produce so little.

A meme is simply a unit of memorable cultural information. It can be as small as a tune or a metaphor, as big as a philosophy or religious concept. Hell is a meme; so are the Pythagorean theorem, A Hard Day's Night, the wheel, Hamlet, pragmatism, harmony, "Where's the beef?," and of course the notion of the meme itself.

William James gave a name to this conviction: the noetic quality. People feel they have been let in on a deep secret of the universe, and they cannot be shaken from that conviction.

To wit, can authenticity be aware of itself as such and still be authentic? I

existential distress

There is a lot more religion in science than you might expect.

Few people put veal stock in the same category as, say, the Goldberg Variations or Plato's cave allegory, and this lack of understanding amazes

Few people put veal stock in the same category as, say, the Goldberg Variations or Plato's cave allegory, and this lack of understanding amazes me.

Baruch Spinoza, who said, "There is no mind absolute or free will, but the mind is determined for willing this or that by a cause which is determined in its turn by another cause, and this one again by another, and so on to infinity.

No, my friends, the fact of the matter was stated to me by a hobo I met many years ago in the streets of San Francisco. As we spoke, and I looked into his startlingly blue eyes with a shock of white hair, I asked him (he told me his name was Moses), "Moses, do you believe in God?" He looked at me in a puzzled manner and replied, "Who do you think created me?" That solved it for me. I have met many believing people who don't need proof.

Tutto passa. Le sofferenze, i tormenti, il sangue, la fame e la pestilenza. La spada sparirà, e le stelle invece rimarranno, quando anche le ombre dei nostri corpi e delle nostre azioni più non saranno sulla terra. Non esiste uomo che non lo sappia. Perché allora non vogliamo rivolgere il nostro sguardo alle stelle?

The greater part of the world's troubles are due to questions of grammar.

We trouble our life by thoughts about death, and our death by thoughts about life.

The soul in which philosophy dwells should by its health make even the body healthy. It should make its tranquillity and gladness shine out from within; should form in its own mold the outward demeanor, and consequently arm it with a graceful pride, an active and joyous bearing, and a contented and good-natured countenance. The surest sign of wisdom is constant cheerfulness.

There is no more expensive thing than a free gift.

Every other knowledge is harmful to him who does not have knowledge of goodness.

Man (in good earnest) is a marvellous vain, fickle, and unstable subject, and on whom it is very hard to form any certain and uniform judgment.

Can anything be imagined so ridiculous, that this miserable and wretched creature [man], who is not so much as master of himself, but subject to the injuries of all things, should call himself master and emperor of the world, of which he has not power to know the least part, much less to command the whole?

I had rather complain of ill-fortune than be ashamed of victory.

I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics.

We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe, we disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn.

From books all I seek is to give myself pleasure by an honourable pastime: or if I do study, I seek only that branch of learning which deals with knowing myself and which teaches me how to live and die well...

It is only certain that there is nothing certain, and that nothing is more miserable or more proud than man.

We can be knowledgeable with another man's knowledge, but we can't be wise with another man's wisdom.