Quotes About Philosophy

That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject.

I believe in general in a dualism between facts and the ideas of those facts in human heads.

Experience has repeatedly confirmed that well-known maxim of Bacon's that "a little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion." At the same time, when Bacon penned that sage epigram... he forgot to add that the God to whom depth in philosophy brings back men's minds is far from being the same from whom a little philosophy estranges them.

Let a man once overcome his selfish terror at his own finitude, and his finitude is, in one sense, overcome.

The love of all-inclusiveness is as dangerous in philosophy as in art.

It is possible to be a master in false philosophy, easier, in fact, than to be a master in the truth, because a false philosophy can be made as simple and consistent as one pleases.

Each religion, by the help of more or less myth which it takes more or less seriously, proposes some method of fortifying the human soul and enabling it to make its peace with its destiny.

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. The dark background which death supplies brings out the tender colors of life in all their purity.

The Platonic idealist is the man by nature so wedded to perfection that he sees in everything not the reality but the faultless ideal which the reality misses and suggests.

That life is worth living is the most necessary of assumptions, and were it not assumed, the most impossible of conclusions.

why shouldnt things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? they are so, and we are so, and they and we go together.

A habitual indulgence in the inarticulate is a sure sign of the philosopher who has not learned to think, the poet who has not learned to write, the painter who has not learned to paint, and the impression that has not learned to express itself--all of which are compatible with an immensity of genius in the inexpressible soul.

All conditions are bearable, all dignities trumpery, and wisdom simply the gift of making the best of whatever is thrust upon us.

Time and Space are not prior to creation, they are forms under which creation becomes thinkable.

O WORLD, thou choosest not the better part! It is not wisdom to be only wise,. And on the inward vision close the eyes,. But it is wisdom to believe the heart.

The hunger for facile wisdom is the root of all false philosophy

I stand in philosophy exactly where I stand in daily life; I should not be honest otherwise.

I like to walk about among the beautiful things that adorn the world; but private wealth I should decline, or any sort of personal possessions, because they would take away my liberty.

Our occasional madness is less wonderful than our occasional sanity.

Music is essentially useless, as life is.

La belleza, según la sentimos, es algo indescriptible; jamás puede decirse lo que es ni lo que significa.

faith in the intellect...is the only faith yet sanctioned by its fruits

To the uninitiated they have merely murmured, with a pitying smile and a wave of the hand: What! are you still troubled by that? Or if compelled to be so scholastic as to labour the point they have explained, as usual, that oneself cannot be the absolute because the idea of oneself, to arise, must be contrasted with other ideas. Therefore, you cannot well have the idea of a world in which nothing appears but the idea of yourself.

He described what he knew best or had heard most, and felt he had described the universe. (on Hegel)