Quotes About Philosophy

Samsung and Apple seem to think that they're going to provide everything. Apple believes services will drive hardware, while Google wants to own each user regardless of hardware, so you have differing philosophies.

There are only individual people, different individual people, with their own individual lives. Using one of these people for the benefit of others uses him and benefits the others. Nothing more. What happens is that something is done to him for the sake of others. Talk of an overall social good covers this up.

I was never interested in looking at myself in an aesthetic mirror. My intention was always to get away from myself, though I knew perfectly well that I was using myself. Call it a little game between 'I' and 'me.'

To be a utilitarian means that you judge actions as right or wrong in accordance with whether they have good consequences. So you try to do what will have the best consequences for all of those affected.

Effective altruism is a philosophy and social movement which tries to work out the most effective ways to improve the world. Effective altruists - conform to old-school utilitarian principles - consider all causes and actions, and then act in the way that they believe brings about the greatest positive impact.

I'm a Utilitarian, so I don't see the rule against lying as absolute; it's always subject to some overriding utility which may prevent its exercise.

True believers of Scientology seem to know with utmost certainty that they have found the answer to the deepest riddles of all time - they may or may not be right, but that kind of self-belief is very appealing.

If we began deconstructing the myths at the heart of every religion, we would be citizens of a Marxian Utopia.

None of the abstract concepts comes closer to fulfilled utopia than that of eternal peace.

I think that historical processes have meaning and that we have to accept this - or else face utter despair.

I am a misanthrope and yet utterly benevolent, have more than one screw loose yet am a super-idealist who digests philosophy more efficiently than food.

When I first was exposed to Buddhism in the mid-1960s, I said it was so practical and utterly pragmatic. That's what attracted me to Buddhism.

It should now be clear why the method of Philosophy is so different from that of the natural sciences. Experiments are not made, because they would be utterly useless.

It's hard to pin Beto down on what he really stands for. Between the clumsy apologies and vacant platitudes, he doesn't seem to have a set of philosophical priorities other than using his goofy ears to do a lot of listening so he doesn't have to make any truly bold policy declarations.

For my Oxford degree, I had to translate French and German philosophy (as it turned out, Descartes and Kant) at sight without a dictionary. That meant Germany for my first summer vacation, to learn the thorny language on my own.

And when did mere preaching do any good? Put something in the place of these things. Fill the vacuum of the mind.

I guess I could say that I pursue questions that interest me in ways that interest me on the page, but that's awfully vague.

I am only conscious of any satisfaction in Scientific Reading or thinking when it rounds off into a poetical generality and vagueness.

Everything is vain and tortures the spirit instead of calming and satisfying it.

One cannot long remain so absorbed in contemplation of emptiness without being increasingly attracted to it. In vain, one bestows on it the name of infinity; this does not change its nature.

This preparatory sort of idealism is the one that, as I just suggested, Berkeley made prominent, and, after a fashion familiar. I must state it in my own way, although one in vain seeks to attain novelty in illustrating so frequently described a view.

I think the materialist conception of history is valid.

There are proofs that date back to the Greeks that are still valid today.

Although none of the rules for becoming more alive is valid, it is healthy to keep on formulating them.