Quotes About Philosophy

Religion struck me so vague a thing at best, that I could perceive no advantage of any one system over any other.

It is only the inferior thinker who hastens to explain the singular and the complex by the primitive shortcut of supernaturalism.

Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.

Analysis is carried into everything. Even Deity is subjected to chemical tests.

Great truths are portions of the soul of man.

Unable to bring himself to believe in a God who offers salvation, the philosopher is above all one who believes that by understanding the world, by understanding ourselves and others as far our intelligence permits, we shall succeed in overcoming fear, through clear-sightedness rather than blind faith.

The problem, however, is that I have yet to meet anyone, materialist or otherwise, who was able to dispense with value judgements. On the contrary, the literature of materialism is peculiarly marked by its wholesale profusion of denunciations of all sorts. Starting with Marx and Nietzsche, materialists have never been able to refrain from passing continuous moral judgement on all and sundry, which their whole philosophy might be expected to discourage them from doing.

Our history, especially that of the great religions, Christianity in particular, has given us a "hidden prejudice" in favor of the "beyond" at the expense of the "here and now" and this must be changed. (quoted from The Age of Atheists" by Peter Watson, p 25)

True knowledge is not to be had solely through a combat against error, bad faith and untruth, but more generally, through a combat against the illusions inherent in the sensible world.

Or as Seneca expresses it, in the Letters to Lucilius: 'You must dispense with these two things: fear of the future, and the recollection of ancient ills. The latter no longer concerns me, the former has yet to concern me.

Every philosophy is a façade-philosophy' – such is the hermit's judgement … Every philosophy also conceals a philosophy; every opinion is also a hiding-place; every word is also a mask. (Beyond Good and Evil, 289)

Philosophy wants us to get ourselves out of trouble by utilising our own resources,

Uma das principais extravagâncias do período contemporâneo é reduzir a filosofia a uma simples "reflexão crítica" ou ainda a uma "teoria da argumentação".

If progeny and heroism—descendants and earthly renown—do not enable us to confront death with a greater degree of serenity, if these attributes afford no true access to the good life, toward what source of wisdom then can we turn?

appellation

More was lost than mere life and existence.

If the victor had the gods on his side, the vanquished had Cato.

A child said What is the grass? Fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he." ?— ?Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself

Thoughts have no sex.

Sexual difference is probably the issue in our time which could be our 'salvation' if we thought it through.

Death is the real inspiring genius or Musagetes of philosophy, and for this reason Socrates defined philosophy as thanatou mélétè (preparation for death; Plato, Phaedo, 81a). Indeed, without death there would hardly have been any philosophizing.

I am only astonished that, while so many women have intelligent things to say and so many men are still unknown, a publisher cared to print such a little book, and at such a price. That confirms what Schopenhauer reveals to us, among other truths: philosophy is a matter of death. A philosopher living and thinking life is a priori suspect in our philosophical culture.

They see nothing indecent in sexual intercourse, whether heterosexual or homosexual, and indulge in it quite openly, in full view of everyone. The only exception was Socrates, who was always swearing that his relations with young men were purely Platonic, but nobody believed him for a moment, and Hyacinthus and Narcissus gave first-hand evidence to the contrary.

Once when he [Demonax, a supposed Cynic sage] came upon two uncouth philosophers inquiring and wrangling with one another--one of them putting absurd questions, the other answering perfectly irrelevantly--he said "Don't you think, my friends, that one of these guys is milking a he-goat and the other putting a sieve underneath it?