Quotes About Philosophy

The simplest meaning of life, then, is joy -- the exhilaration of experience itself, of physical well-being; sheer satisfaction of muscle and sense, of palate and ear and eye. If the child is happier than the man it is because it has more body and less soul, and understands that nature comes before philosophy; it asks for no further meaning to its arms and legs than their abounding use. Perhaps if we used our arms and legs we would be happy too;

There are only three things worth while in this world—justice, beauty and truth; and perhaps none of them can be defined.

So philosophy purifies the will. But philosophy is to be understood as experience and thought, not as mere reading or passive study.

The cleverest defenders of a faith are its greatest enemies; for their subtleties engender doubt and stimulate the mind.

Let me have seven hours a week, and I will make a scholar and a philosopher out of you; in four years, you shall be as well educated as any new-fledged Doctor of Philosophy in the land.

How can we understand man if we do not understand religion?

An ancient critic spoke of him as "moderate to excess.

Spinoza was right: "in so far as the mind sees things in their eternal aspect it participates in eternity."127

His only occupation is to contemplate the essence of things; and since he himself is the essence of all things, the form of all forms, his sole employment is the contemplation of himself. 40 Poor Aristotelian God!—

Voltaire might say, "I have no scepter, but I have a pen.

As long as there is poverty there will be gods."32

Life is that which is discontent, which struggles and seeks, which suffers and creates. No mechanistic account or materialistic philosophy can do it justice, or understand the silent growth and majesty of a tree, or compass the longing and laughter of children.

Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.

Seek not to have things happen as you choose them, but rather choose that they should happen as they do; and you shall live prosperously.

For statesmanship is a science and an art; one must have lived for it and been long prepared. Only a philosopher-king is fit to guide a nation. "Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and wisdom and political leadership meet in the same man, . . . cities will never cease from ill, nor the human race" (473). This is the key-stone of the arch of Plato's thought.

Kant is the last person in the world whom we should read on Kant.

Meanwhile the old "laughing philosopher" was cultivating his garden at Ferney; this "is the best thing we can do on earth.

Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt—particularly to doubt one's cherished beliefs, one's dogmas and one's axioms. Who knows how these cherished beliefs became certainties with us, and whether some secret wish did not furtively beget them, clothing desire in the dress of thought? There is no real philosophy until the mind turns round and examines itself. Gnothi seauton, said Socrates: Know thyself.

Kant's greatest merit," says Schopenhauer, "is the distinction of the phenomenon from the thing-in-itself.

Such was the end of our friend, whom I may truly call the wisest, the justest, and best of all the men whom I have ever known.

Aristotle argued for slavery as natural and inevitable

On his tombstone only three words were necessary: HERE LIES VOLTAIRE

Morality, said Jesus, is kindness to the weak; morality, said Nietzsche, is the bravery of the strong; morality, says Plato, is the effective harmony of the whole. Probably all three doctrines must be combined to find a perfect ethics; but can we doubt which of the elements is fundamental? X. Criticism

If the average man had had his way there would probably never have been any state. Even today he resents it, classes death with taxes, and yearns for that government which governs least. If he asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them; privately he is an unphilosophical anarchist, and thinks laws in his own case superfluous.