Quotes About Philosophy

how to justify . . . the decision which subordinates a reflection on the sign to a logic?

it is based on the foundation, as in Descartes, of the "I am," the foundation of subjectivity and consciousness

presence and self-presence (89).

by this very forgetting, he arrives at a sense for truth.

Jacques Derrida

simply one problem among others.

Limiting the potencies of repetition to presence

to what Derrida, following Husserl, calls "the relation to the object" [84])

Metaphysics is a closed system;

I'm in favor or tradition. I'm respectful of and a lover of the tradition. There's no deconstruction without the memory of the tradition.

Het solipsisme is geen verstandsverbijstering en geen sofisme; het is de wezenlijke structuur van de rede.

Writing is nothing but the representation of speech; it is bizarre that one gives more care to the determining of the image than to the object.—J.-J. Rousseau, Fragment inédit d'un essai sur les langues

La métaphysique n'est qu'une sorte d'appendicite idéologique.

Perché pensiamo all'oceano come a una semplice riserva di cibo, petrolio e minerali? Il mare non è un banco delle occasioni. Siamo accecati dalla cupidigia per le sue grandi ricchezze subacquee. La più grande risorsa dell'oceano non è materiale, ma è data dalla fonte illimitata d'ispirazione e di benessere che ne traiamo. Ma rischiamo di contaminarlo per sempre proprio quando stiamo imparando la sua scienza, la sua arte e la sua filosofia e come vivere nel suo grembo.

I thought of Bobby, of the last look he had given me, and at that moment I understood one of the differences between man and cat: man knows he's going to die, so he can get ready and be willing, even eager, to go. A cat knows the end is near, but that's all. He can't accept death: he can't trust in it; cats are perhaps too metaphysical an entity to need to believe in the idea of a beyond; a cat is his own god and man his creation.

We are all afraid that one day we shall pass away into nonexistence. But if the truth be known, nonexistence is trembling in fear that it might be given human shape.

When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn't a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

James A. Connor

Jan Hus. Kepler was part of the funeral

She has disaffiliated herself from the beliefs that gave our society its structure in the past, but she has found no new structure upon which she can rely for that support which every human life requires.

The first word implied a philosophical system, the second a social order, and the third an attitude toward technology; and he concluded that in each category his reader must grasp three fundamental developments.

I think the idea of simply enduring to the end is a terrible philosophy and an awful way to live one's life. How you spend your days is how you live your life, and if you're spending them enduring anything then you're doing it wrong.

Suffering is always the effect of wrong thought in some direction.

THE aphorism, As a man thinketh in his heart so is he, not only embraces the whole of a man's being, but is so comprehensive as to reach out to every condition and circumstance of his life. A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.