Quotes About Philosophy

F]ree will seems to violate all we know of how the world works, but as long as we cannot construct a logical proof of its nonexistence we cling to it tenaciously, even desperately.

What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind. —T. H. Key Of

He (Rene Descartes) posited the existence of two parallel yet separate domains of reality: res cogitans, the thinking substance of the subjective mind whose essence is thought, and res extensa, or the extended substance of the material world. Mental stuff and material (including brain) stuff are absolutely distinct, he argued.

If there is a single fundamental underpinning in the intellectual tradition of Western scientific thought, it is arguably that there exists an unbridgeable divide between the world of mind and the world of matter, between the realm of the material (which is definitely real) and the realm of the immaterial (which, according to the conventions of science, is likely illusory).

But the goal of the arts, culinary or otherwise, is not to increase our comfort. That is the goal of an easy chair.

Wenn Vernunft wirklich feurige Materie wäre, wie von Diogenes als Erstem angenommen wurde, so sähe man es doch am besten daran, wie über die Jahrhunderte hinweg der eine Nachdenkende die Gedanken eines anderen aufnimmt und versucht, ihnen das Eigene hinzuzufügen und sie so am Leben zu halten.

The job of the writer isn't to answer questions. The job of the writer is to ask the questions for which there are no answers.

The quantity of pleasure being equal, push-pin is as good as poetry.

Nonsense on stilts

aliment of philosophic pride: the hope of honour and reputation at the

Is life a happy sadness? Or a sad happiness?

Let us play the game of life as sportsmen, pocketing our winnings with a smile, leaving our losings with a shrug.

No; it is not well to rule one's self by theories. We think, when we are very young, that theories, or "philosophies" as we term them, are guiding lights, held out by Wisdom over the pathway of life; we learn, as we grow older, that, too often, they are mere will-o'-the-wisps, hovering over dismal swamps where dead men's bones lie rotting.

But who wants to be foretold the weather?  It is bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand.

In her diary entry of June 15, the day her husband died , Vicky (Victoria, Princess Royal of England, wife of Frederick III German Emperor) wondered, 'why does pain not kill immediately?

Beware of solipsism Funny word. Sounds like it means love of melons or something. I looked it up. It means believing that the self is the only reality. Am I solipsist?

No one can help me find answers, least of all someone who claims he's found a solution to life.

Maybe it's ALWAYS the end of the world. Maybe you're alive for a while, and then you realize you're going to die, and that's such an insane thing to comprehend, you look around for answers and the only answer is that the world must die with you.

And if a moment exists only in one's perception anyway, then perhaps the rush of feeling he has now is THE MOMENT, and not merely its shadow. Maybe every moment occurs at once, and they will always be twenty-two, their lives always before them.

He] mumbled something about how being a Hungarian meant wanting nothing and being prepared for anything. Or was it the other way around.

Prove to me that you are not a figment of my imagination. Am I a computer simulation? Does the door swing both ways? How can something come from nothing? How do you know a line is straight? If animals wanted to be eaten, would it be okay? If time stopped then stared again, would we know about it? What happens when you get scared half to death twice? What is creationism? What is ethical?

Here's the truth. We want to read too much into life because it's convenient. Or fun. But there's no imaginary, invisible man in the sky who makes things happen.

I had expected the turnip metaphor to go over better, but it seems not everyone appreciates a clever philosophically grounded root vegetable reference.

Nothing quite brings out the zest for life in a person like the thought of their impending death