Quotes About Philosophy

Jains, in contrast, believe that karma is a physical particle that floats about and is attracted to sentient beings, depending on their actions and their intentions.

In this connection, unlike their Christian counterparts, Hindus are not disturbed with anavasth? (infinite regresses). The necessity to posit a "first cause" that had no previous cause, as the Christian philosopher Thomas Aquinas suggested, does not appear on the Hindu radar. So there are some metaphysical questions that are neither asked nor answered by Hindus.

Cicero concluded that "the actual hitting of the mark [is] to be chosen but not to be desired,

De qué sirve volver a los sufrimientos pasados y ser infeliz porque tiempo atrás lo fuimos?

Actuar con moderación, ver las cosas no solo desde nuestra perspectiva, descubrir aquello que está fuera de nuestro control, desarrollar la empatía, asumir la autocrítica, analizar las causas de nuestra ira e impaciencia… Esto es lo que este extraordinario manual nos permite aprender al aplicar la filosofía estoica en nuestro día a día.

We are born only once and cannot be born twice, and must forever live no more. You don't control tomorrow, yet you postpone joy. Life is ruined by putting things off, and each of us dies without truly living. —Epicurus, Principal Doctrines

The basic idea of the new philosophy was that in order to figure out how to live a life worth living, a eudaimonic life, as both modern philosophers and psychologists still refer to it, we have to master two things: we need to develop a decent understanding of how the world works, so not to engage in wishful thinking and waste a lot of time and resources; and we need to reason as well as we can about things, or we risk arriving at the wrong conclusions as to what to do and how.

There are two crucial ideas underlying Stoicism, and they each correspond to one major promise the philosophy holds for its practitioners. The first crucial idea is that life is fundamentally about being a morally good person, which is achieved through the continuous practice of four cardinal virtues. The second idea is the so-called dichotomy of control, the notion that some things are "up to us," as the Stoics say, and other things are not.

To a Stoic, it ultimately does not matter if we think the Logos is God or Nature, as long as we recognize that a decent human life is about the cultivation of one's character and concern for other people (and even for Nature itself) and is best enjoyed by way of a proper—but not fanatical—detachment from mere worldly goods.

Stoics shifted the emphasis very much toward the social, essentially arguing that the point of life for human beings is to use reason to build the best society that it is humanly possible to build.

One of the first lessons from Stoicism, then, is to focus our attention and efforts where we have the most power and then let the universe run as it will. This will save us both a lot of energy and a lot of worry.

Para decidir cuál es la mejor forma de vivir (ética), hay que entender cómo funciona el mundo (física) y razonar adecuadamente sobre ello (lógica).

Popper rightly believed that the public-not just scientists or philosophers-needs to understand and appreciate that distinction, because science is too powerful and important, and pseudoscience too common and damaging, for an open society to afford ignorance on the matter.

That framework is the idea that in order to live a good (in the sense of eudaimonic) life, one has to understand two things: the nature of the world (and by extension, one's place in it) and the nature of human reasoning (including when it fails, as it so often does).

Epictetus suggests that those who fall into circumstances they wish to avoid are those who suffer misfortune, by which he means that much suffering comes from a disconnect between what you want to happen and what actually happens. Or, as the Stoics would say, what is in accordance to nature as opposed to contrary to nature.

The way the Stoics put all of this into practice is by means of the four cardinal virtues: practical wisdom, the ability to navigate complex situations, especially morally salient ones, in the best way possible; courage, of the moral kind, as in the courage to stand up and do the right thing; justice, meaning treating others as worthy of the respect and dignity that comes with being fellow humans; and temperance, responding to situations in just measure, without excess or defect.

He is reminding us that—as he puts it elsewhere—everything we have is actually "on loan" from the universe, and the right attitude is to enjoy it while we have it and relinquish it when it is gone. Indeed, precisely because it will one day be gone, it is all the more precious while we have it.

Zhuangzi, another pivotal Daoist sage in the fourth century BCE, says, "Resign yourself to what cannot be avoided and nourish what is within you—this is the best.

These are often referred to as the three Stoic disciplines: desire, action, and assent.

But as Epictetus tells his students: "Remember that it is we who torment, we who make difficulties for ourselves—that is, our opinions do. What, for instance, does it mean to be insulted? Stand by a rock and insult it, and what have you accomplished? If someone responds to insult like a rock, what has the abuser gained with his invective?

Two of the four Stoic virtues are pertinent to regulating desire: courage (to face facts and act accordingly) and temperance (to rein in our desires and make them commensurate with what is achievable).

What should we do then? Make the best use of what is in our power, and treat the rest in accordance with its nature." Epictetus, Discourses I, 1.17

Le but du jeu pour moi, c'est de rester vivant malgré la mort.

Por qué creemos que vivimos nuestras vidas-dije, al fin-, cuando son nuestras vidas las que nos viven a nosotros?