Quotes About Philosophy

There are times when the end justifies the means. But when you build an argument based on a whole series of such times, you may find that you've constructed an entire philosophy of evil." --Luke Skywalker

The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, 'Is there a meaning to music' My answer would be, 'Yes.' And 'Can you state in so many words what the meaning is' My answer to that would be, 'No.'

There is a saying, drawn from the ages of Old Earth and written by a council of Ancient Merican kings, that all men were created equal. I'd often wondered if the words sounded as false and idealistic to those men's ears as they did to mine. Truly, humanity has an infinite capacity for self-deception.

Arabic equals Sanskrit plus history, equals Greek minus tragedy

The liberal theory of religion is homeopathic. (The more you water it down, the stronger it will become.)

Establishing an equilibrium between the Islam of truth and Islam as an identity is one of the most difficult tasks of religious intellectuals.

I was willing to accept what I couldn't change.

I don't jog. If I die I want to be sick.

Qué es la felicidad? Nada. Una palabra para designar algo que siempre ocurre en el pasado, y, como siempre ocurre en el pasado, resulta que nunca ocurrió.

Many Americans first fell in love with the poetry of the thirteenth century teacher and spiritual leader Jelalludin Rumi during the early 1990s when the unparalleled lyrical grace, philosophical brilliance, and spiritual daring of his work took modern Western readers completely by surprise. The impact of its soulful beauty and the depth of its profound humanity were so intense that they reportedly prompted numerous individuals to spontaneously compose poetry.

Some have speculated that the way [Albert] Camus died made his theories on absurdity a self-fulfilling prophecy. Others would say it was the triumphant meaningful way he lived that allowed him to rise heroically above absurdity.

If we mean to have Heroes, Statesmen and Philosophers, we should have learned women. The world perhaps would laugh at me, and accuse me of vanity, but you I know have a mind too enlarged and liberal to disregard the Sentiment. If much depends as is allowed upon the early Education of youth and the first principals which are instill'd take the deepest root, great benefit must arise from literary accomplishments in women.

The Pugachev rebellion,' the historian Nicholas Riasanovsky has noted, 'served to point out again, forcefully and tragically, the chasm between French philosophy and Russian reality.' The Pugachev rebellion has become enshrined in Russian history and folklore, revered by many peasants and radicals and deplored by the rest of society.

The worship of reason is arrogance and betrays a lack of intelligence. The rejection of reason is cowardice and betrays a lack of faith.

We are forever asking Nature whether it has stopped beating its wife.

There is thus no objection to the use of the term 'faith' for that function of the soul by which it attains certainty immediately or directly, without the aid of discursive demonstration. This places faith over against demonstration, but not over against knowing.

There are no accidents in my philosophy. Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to the infinite.

I am for those means which will give the greatest good to the greatest number.

Dispassionate objectivity is itself a passion, for the real and for the truth.

Roses would be annoying weeds if the blooms never withered and died. Beauty resides in the knowledge that it doesn't last.

What did it matter? We are dying while we are living. We are old even when we're young. We are clinging to life even as we resign ourselves to leaving it.

Have an earnestness for death and you will have life.

Fine art can only be defined as exclusive, negative, absolute and timeless. It is not practical, useful, related, applicable, or subservient to anything else.

My heart was full and uplifted; it seemed that in my soul the question arose whether such things as Art, literature, science encompassed and completed life or whether there was still something in the distance which encompassed it even more completely and filled it with a far greater happiness.