Quotes About Philosophy

Fine writing, next to doing nothing, is the best thing in the world.

How beautiful, if sorrow had not made Sorrow more Beautiful than Beauty's self.

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs

There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings, Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, Empty the haunted air, and gnomèd mine— Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made The tender-person'd Lamia melt into a shade.

What shocks the virtuous philosopher delights the chameleon poet.

Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings, Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine — Unweave a rainbow

Do not all charms fly / At the mere touch of cold philosophy?

Ignatius, what's all this trash on the floor? That is my worldview that you see. It still must be incorporated into a whole, so be careful where you step.

Like two figures in the medieval Morality play, Pragmatism and Morality spar in the boxing ring of my brain.

I would very much like to know what the Founding Fathers would say if they could see these children being debauched to further the cause of Clearasil. However, I always suspected that democracy would come to this . . . "A firm rule must be imposed upon our nation before it destroys itself. The United States needs some theology and geometry, some taste and decency. I suspect that we are teetering on the edge of the abyss.

How come God has to make it so tough for you?" "We must not question His ways," Ignatius said. "Maybe not, but I still don't get it." "The writings of Boethius may give you some insight." "I read Father Keller and Billy Graham in the paper every single day." "Oh, my God!" Ignatius spluttered. "No wonder you are so lost.

The modern conservative is not even especially modern. He is engaged, on the contrary, in one of man's oldest, best financed, most applauded, and, on the whole, least successful exercises in moral philosophy. That is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. It is an exercise which always involves a certain number of internal contradictions and even a few absurdities.

We all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect.

God is a concept by which we measure our pain.

Sometimes you wonder, I mean really wonder. I know we make our own reality, and we always have a choice, but how much is preordained? Is there always a fork in the road, and are there two preordained paths that are equally preordained? There could be hundreds of paths where one could go this way or that way -- there's a chance, and it's very strange sometimes.

Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King are great examples of fantastic nonviolents who died violently. I can never work that out. We're pacifists, but I'm not sure what it means when you're such a pacifist that you get shot. I can never understand that.

Everything is true and not true about everything. That's one thing I've learned.

existiera y nuestro terapeuta fue Tucídides.

y Tolstói están, por tanto, más cerca de lo que parece y nosotros tenemos la suerte de asistir a sus seminarios siempre que queramos.

That aspect of reality of most central concern and importance to human beings is, of course, human beings. And in order to survive and succeed in his fullest capacity as a human being, man must be able to identify his own nature (including his means of knowledge) as well as the nature of the world (or universe) in which he acts.

To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.

Chaos was my philosophy. Oh, yeah. Have no rules. If people start to build fences around you, break out and do something else. You should never, ever be understood completely. That's like the kiss of death, isn't it? It's a full stop. I don't ever think you should put full stops on thoughts. They change.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, the physician father of the Supreme Court justice, was not much overstating when he declared, "I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind—and all the worse for the fishes.

The question "why" is too deep for science. Science instead believes it can only learn "how" something occurs.