Quotes About Philosophy

One jests because one wants to contemplate.

Next to this, we must consider the soul receiving its beauty from intellect

Il faut assigner le premier rang à la Beauté, qui est identique avec le Bien et dont dérive l'Intelligence qui est belle par elle-même.

I would rather excel in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and possessions.

It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such a one as is unworthy of him for the one is only belief - the other contempt.

Pythagoras, when he was asked what time was, answered that it was the soul of this world.

Abstain from beans.

Learn to be pleased with everything; with wealth, so far as it makes us beneficial to others; with poverty, for not having much to care for; and with obscurity, for being unenvied.

To the Dolphin alone, beyond all other, nature has granted what the best philosophers seek: friendship for no advantage

I am all that hath been, and is, and shall be; and my veil no mortal has hitherto raised.

For though all persons are equally subject to the caprice of fortune, yet all good men have one advantage she cannot deny, which is this, to act reasonably under misfortunes.

take care, in reading the writings of philosophers or hearing their speeches, that you do not attend to words more than things, nor get attracted more by what is difficult and curious than by what is serviceable and solid and useful.

if the "Know thyself" of the oracle were an easy thing for every man, it would not be held to be a divine injunction.

The superstitious man wishes he did not believe in gods, as the atheist does not, but fears to disbelieve in them.

I would rather excel in the knowledge of what is excellent than the extent of my power or possessions.

By the aid of philosophy you will live not unpleasantly, for you will learn to extract pleasure from all places and things: wealth will make you happy, because it will enable you to benefit many; and poverty, as you will not then have many anxieties; and glory, for it will make you honoured; and obscurity, for you will then be safe from envy.

Numa forbade the Romans to revere an image of God which had the form of man or beast. Nor was there among them in this earlier time any painted or graven likeness of Deity, 8 but while for the first hundred and seventy years they were continually building temples and establishing sacred shrines, they made no statues in bodily form for them, convinced that it was impious to liken higher things to lower, and that it was impossible to apprehend Deity except by the intellect.

They died,but not as lavish as their blood, Or thinking death itself was simply good; Their wishes neither were to live nor die, But to do both alike commendably.

Lycurgus, who ordered that a great piece of money should be but of an inconsiderable value, on the contrary would allow no discourse to be current which did not contain in few words a great deal of useful and curious sense.

For humans it is not at all possible to have the best thing of all or to have any share of the best nature—since the best thing for all men and women is not to be born. But the second best thing after this and the first available to mortals, is to die as soon as possible after being born." It is clear that he said this because the way that exists in death is better than the one in life.

As Plato says: 'People cannot be good leaders, unless they have first been good servants.

For if they do not receive the seed of good doctrines and share with their husbands in intellectual advancement, they, left to themselves, conceive many untoward ideas and low designs and emotions.

Some, too, have made banishment and loss of property a means of leisure and philosophic study, as did Diogenes and Crates. And Zeno, on learning that the ship which bore his venture had been wrecked, exclaimed, "A real kindness, O Fortune, that thou, too, dost join in driving us to the philosopher's cloak!

That best and justest fabric of things was of no long continuance, because it wanted that cement which should have kept all together, education.