Quotes About Philosophy

Man would be otherwise. That is the essence of the specifically human.

The world is a comedy to those who think; a tragedy to those who feel.

A perfect poem is impossible. Once it has been written, the world would end.

In North America there is the general belief that everything can be fixed, that life can be fixed up. In Europe, the view is that a lot can't be fixed up and that living properly is not necessarily a question of mastering the technology so much as learning to live gracefully within the constraints that the species invents.

Man is what he believes.

Man is only miserable so far as he thinks himself so.

To be ambitious for wealth, and yet always expecting to be poor; to be always doubting your ability to get what you long for, is like trying to reach east by travelling west. There is no philosophy which will help a man to succeed when he is always doubting his ability to do so, and thus attracting failure. No matter how hard you work for success, if your thought is saturated with the fear of failure, it will kill your efforts, neutralize your endeavors and make success impossible.

All this of Pot and Potter - Tell me then, Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?

The greatest man in history was the poorest.

To stand on one leg and prove God's existence is a very different thing from going down on one's knees and thanking him.

Sermons in stones and good in every thing.

Important principles may and must be flexible.

The greatest and most important problems of life are all in a certain sense insoluble. They can never be solved, but only outgrown.

That which comes into the world to disturb nothing deserves neither respect nor patience.

The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is.

Property is theft.

There ain't no answer. There ain't gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer.

I am an atheist. I don't believe in Zeus.

What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?

Free man is by necessity insecure; thinking man is by necessity uncertain.

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they might have been.

If one considered life as a simple loan, one would perhaps be less exacting.

I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.