Quotes About Philosophy

Spinoza compares the feeling of free will to a stone's thinking, as it travels through space, that it determines its own trajectory and selects the place and time of its fall.

Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement. Philosophy is a hypothetical interpretation of the unknown (as in metaphysics), or of the inexactly known (as in ethics or political philosophy); it is the front trench in the siege of truth.

When Zeno, who did not believe in slavery, was beating his slave for some offense, the slave pleaded, in mitigation, that by his master's philosophy he had been destined from all eternity to commit this fault; to which Zeno replied, with the calm of a sage, that on the same philosophy he, Zeno, had been destined to beat him for it.

religion stands, and philosophy accompanies it to the grave. In the beginning of all cultures a strong religious faith conceals and softens the nature of things, and gives men courage to bear pain and hardship patiently; at every step the gods are with them, and will not let them perish, until they do. Even then a firm faith will explain that it was the sins of the people that turned their gods to an avenging wrath;

In general, the wise in all ages have always said the same things, and the fools, who at all times form the immense majority, have in their way too acted alike, and done the opposite; and so it will continue. For, as Voltaire says, we shall leave the world as foolish and wicked as we found it."65

How much more suffering is caused by the thought of death than by death itself!

The author believes that epistemology has kidnapped modern philosophy, and well nigh ruined it; he hopes for the time when the study of the knowledge-process will be recognized as the business of the science of psychology, and when philosophy will again be understood as the synthetic interpretation of all experience rather than the analytic description of the mode and process of experience itself.

À posteriori: reasoning from observed facts to general conclusions. À priori: reasoning from general propositions to particular conclusions.

Philosophy begins when one doubts one's own beliefs, dogmas, and axioms

Before Aristotle, science was in embryo; with him it was born.

Science is analytical description, philosophy is synthetic interpretation.

Now began the great game of epistemology

The further I go, the more I am confirmed in the idea that systems of metaphysics are for philosophers what novels are for women."59 "It is only charlatans who are certain. We know nothing of first principles. It is truly extravagant to define God, angels, and minds, and to know precisely why God formed the world, when we do not know why we move our arms at will. Doubt is not a very agreeable state, but certainty is a ridiculous one.

One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing, 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 philosophy until the mind turns round and examines itself. Gnothi seauton, said Socrates: Know thyself.

bene vixit qui bene latuit.

I am exceedingly anxious to meet and talk with you, whether you think yourself one of His works, or a particle drawn, of necessity, from eternal and necessary matter. Whatever you are, you are a worthy part of that great whole which I do not understand.82

says a fine Greek adage, is the gift of nature; but beautiful living is the gift of wisdom.)

I dealt with so recklessly some years ago in my books Philosophy and the Social Problem (1917), The Story of Philosophy (1926), Transition (1927), The Mansions (or Pleasures) of Philosophy (1929), and On the Meaning of Life (1932). I know that life is in its basis a mystery; a river flowing from an unseen source and in its development an infinite subtlety; a "dome of many-colored glass," too complex for thought, much less for utterance.

Perhaps, for the common people a rewarding and avenging God is necessary. Bayle had asked, If a society of atheists could subsist? Voltaire answers, Yes, if they are also philosophers. But men are seldom philosophers.

My formula for greatness is Amor fati: . . . not only to bear up under every necessity, but to love it.

On August 26 the Assembly responded by conferring French citizenship upon Joseph Priestley, Jeremy Bentham, William Wilberforce, Anacharsis Cloots, Johann Pestalozzi, Thaddeus Kosciusko, Friedrich Schiller, George Washington, Thomas Paine, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton.

What crime have these children committed that they should be born? If

IV. IS MAN A MACHINE? Yes, said Julien Offroy de La Mettrie.

I do not wish to belittle reason, but it should be the servant of love, not of pride.