Quotes About Philosophy

can the need for philosophy be met by humans assisted by AIs, which interpret and thus understand the world differently?

Action, and not knowledge, is man's destiny and duty in this life; and his highest principles, both in philosophy and in religion, have reference to this end.

Life is a dead-end street.

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore.

but the world is apt to make an erroneous estimate: ignorant of the dispositions which constitute our happiness or misery, they bring to an undistinguished scale the means of the one, as connected with power, wealth, or grandeur, and of the other with their contraries.  Philosophers and poets have often protested against this decision; but their arguments have been despised as declamatory, or ridiculed as romantic.

My 'I', my conscious self, writing these words, does not feel like electrochemistry, but that is what it is.

In the attempt to defeat death man has been inevitably obliged to defeat life, for the two are inextricably related. Life moves on to death, and to deny one is to deny the other.

Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to enduring fact of mystery.

What we all hope in reaching for a book, is to meet a man of our own heart, to experience tragedies and delights which we ourselves lack the courage to invite, to dream dreams which will render life more hallucinating, perhaps also to discover a philosophy of life which will make us more adequate in meeting the trials and ordeals which beset us. To merely add to our store of knowledge or improve our culture, whatever that may mean, seems worthless to me.

I have found God, but he is insufficient.

From CATS ARE KIND "A man said to the universe, 'Sir, I exist!' 'Excellent,' replied the universe, 'I've been looking for someone to take care of my cats.

A biblical metaphysics implies a biblical theory of knowledge and a biblical ethic.

If there was a god, he wouldn't let a guy walk right up and shoot you in the face now would he? That's right, now you get the picture. Truth burns doesn't it?

But fortunately no shadow ever broke a rock, and one can ask himself why he lives a thousand times and yet never die.

The good of any one individual is of no more importance, from the point of view (if I may so say) of the Universe, than the good of any other; unless, that is, there are special grounds for believing that more good is likely to be realized in the one case than in the other.

Reason shows me that if my happiness is desirable and good, the equal happiness of any other person must be equally desirable. ...

The mystery of death is not solved by dying just as the mystery of life is not solved by living .

whereas the philosopher seeks unity of principle, and consistency of method at the risk of paradox, the unphilosophic man is apt to hold different principles at once, and to apply different methods in more or less confused combination.

Whatever poet, orator, or sage may say of it, old age is still old age.

Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning - an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies.

True Tenacity is in the Uncovering of the Purpose of Existence Rather than in the Pursuit of Existence.

Expedients are for the hour, but principles are for the ages.

HENRY WHITNEY BELLOWS

Thoughts like mine are not reckoned among the delights of life. It is like the dog trying to catch his tail; he does not catch anything. I do not prove anything, only tire myself; but have the satisfaction that another day has passed, or another night gone by. I