Quotes About Philosophy

Christopher Hitchens

As a UC Berkeley alumni magazine headline neatly phrased it, 'Philosophy's Popularity Soars: Devotees Find It's More Than "An Interesting Path to Poverty"'.

croire en un dieu est une façon d'exprimer une disposition à croire en n'importe quoi. Tandis que rejeter la croyance n'est d'aucune manière professer que l'on ne croit en rien.

I sympathise afresh with the mighty Voltaire, who, when badgered on his deathbed and urged to renounce the devil, murmured that this was no time to be making enemies.

We speculate that it is at least possible that, once people accepted the fact of their short and struggling lives, they might behave better toward each other and not worse.

fueron capaces de señalar que si los triángulos tuvieran dioses, sus dioses tendrían tres lados

Tertullian put it, either disarmingly or annoyingly according to your taste. I believe it because it is absurd. It is impossible to quarrel seriously with such a view. If one must have faith in order to believe something, or believe in something, then the likelihood of that something having any truth or value is considerably diminished.

You don't even have a cat or a dog or anything? You think I should? George asks, a bit aggressive. The poor old guy doesn't have anything to love, he thinks Kenny is thinking. Hell, no! Didn't Baudelaire say they're liable to turn into demons and take over your life?

To say time is evil because evil happens in time is like saying the ocean is a fish because fish happen in the ocean.

The gramophone keeps reiterating a statement about life with which I do not agree.

Good and bad are just constructs people use.

A life without truth is illogical. Surak wrote that the truth is simply the actual state of the universe. To live at odds with the truth is to be in conflict with reality itself. Such an existence is unsustainable.

Members of the educated elite upheld open-mindedness as the supreme political virtue but refused to debate their own idea of the good life, perhaps because they suspected that it could not withstand exposure to more vigorous ideas.

Philosophy is odious and obscure; Both law and physic are for petty wits; Divinity is basest of the three, Unpleasant, harsh, contemptible, and vile. 'Tis magic, magic that hath ravished me.

We really have to get going, Sam said. Can we leave the car here and pick it up later? The monk said, Does a dog have a Buddha nature? Does a fish have a watertight asshole? said Coyote.

Confucius is like the Torah, rules to follow. And Lao-Tzu is even more conservative, saying that if you do nothing you won't break any rules. You have to let tradition fall sometime, you have to take action, you have to eat bacon.

The three jewels of Tao: compassion, moderation, and humility. Balthasar said compassion leads to courage, moderation leads to generosity, and humility leads to leadership.

Why understand when you can believe?

We Ask the Gods for Answers and They Give Us Questions

You cannot believe what you do not believe, Rumi siad. I am an Untouchable because my karma dictates it.

About to be hanged is my status quo, not a condition that requires your repair.

No. Tommy turned and headed toward the door. As he reached it he turned and said, I'm not fucked. The Sartre reader looked up from his book and said, We all are. We all are.

He had tapped into the Zen of ignorance, the enlightenment of absurdity.

She's studying the Existentialists this month. Asked for a study day last week to kill an Arab on the beach.