Quotes About Philosophy

Epictetus, the pagan philosopher, proved in his life the truth of his own words — A man can be happy without wealth, without family, without office or honor, without health, without anything that the world seeks after.

Who is the richest of men? asked Socrates. He who is content with the least, for contentment is nature's riches.

We are just beginning to see the wonderful scientific truth in the philosophy which tells us to love our enemies, because if we hate them we merely add more fuel to passion's fire, while love puts it out. The love thought neutralizes hatred, jealousy, and makes friends of our enemies. There is nothing in love which can make an enemy. The injunction to love our enemies is, therefore, as scientific as the advice to put out fire by water.

In philosophy class I think we finally decided that 'good' is an infinitely recursive term - it can't be defined except in terms of itself. Good is good because it's better than bad, though why it's better to be good than bad depends on how you define good, and on and on.

I once heard a tale of a man who split himself in two. The one part never changed at all; the other grew and grew. The changeless part was always true, The growing part was always new, And I wondered, when the tale was through, Which part was me, and which was you.

While you're governing the colony and I'm writing political philosophy, They'll never guess that in the darkness of night we sneak into each other's room and play checkers and have pillow fights.

Where ideas are real and reality is shadow.

A non-materialist. And yet you are unpleasantly fat. A gluttonous ascetic? Such a contradiction.

Free will doesn't exist. Only the illusion of free will, because the causes of our behavior are so complex that we can't trace them back. If you've got one line of dominoes knocking each other down one by one, then you can always say, Look, this domino fell because that one pushed it. But when you have an infinite number of directions, you can never find where the casual chain begins. So you think, That domino fell because it wanted to.

saying you don't know or care about God is the same as saying you believe he doesn't exist, because if you had even a hope that he existed, you would care very much.

This is all so silly,' said Diko. 'Who cares about what's real and what isn't real? [...] And as for our own history, the parts that will be lost, who cares if a mathematician calls us dirty names like unreal? They say such slanders about the square root of minus two as well.

Still, it's better to believe that some high purpose guides our steps than to think that nothing matters except our own small miseries and happinesses.

No, said Ender. I don't know about souls. I just know that while we're alive, in these bodies, we can only do what our body can do. My parents believe in souls. I've known people who were absolutely sure. Smart people. Good people. So just because I don't understand it doesn't mean I'm sure it can't be true.

Life is a suicide course, Miro. Check it out- basic philosophy course. You spend your life running out of fuel and when you're finally out, you croak.

most truth can only be expressed in circular paradoxes.

Heck, everything we decide will be wrong, said Step, because no matter what we do, something bad will happen later. So I refuse to regret any of it.

Most scientists believe in God," said Sel. "Certainly most of us here.

La Escuela de Batalla no nos ha creado, ya lo sabes. La Escuela de Batalla no crea nada. Solo destruye.

Philosophy was as far above her as the sky was above the earth. "But the sky only seems to be far away from you," said Master Han, when she told him this. "Actually it is all around you. You breathe it in and you breathe it out, even when you labor with your hands in the mud. That is true philosophy.

He doubts everything, and contests each point of theology as if it were required to meet the same tests of logic and consistency that prevail in the world of science." "In other words, he expects your doctrines to make sense.

H]is 'philosophy' seemed to consist of anything that would be particularly annoying to the powers that be without being so shocking that they would fire him. He got the reputation among the students as an original and a rebel without having to pay the penalty for actually being either.

Such feelings are natural. They come and go quickly. Only those who make them a way of life are to be condemned for them.

Even if there is no such thing as free will, we have to treat each other as if there were free will in order to live together in society.

Still, it's better to believe that some high purpose guides our steps than to think that nothing matters except our own small miseries and happinesses. - Alai pg.216