Quotes About Philosophy

Historicism and cultural relativism actually are a means to avoid testing our own prejudices and asking, for example, whether men are really equal or whether that opinion is merely a democratic prejudice.

The history of liberal thought since Locke and Smith has been one almost unbroken decline in philosophic substance.

In the new order a Locke was freewith almost no danger of being interfered withto think his sublime thoughts, to seek the first causes of all things, to understand the nature of things. He could talk with his friends and teach the young. And there was money enough. The academies and universities satisfied Socrates demand to be fed in the prytaneum.

Bacon, Locke, Descartes, Hume, and all the others knew they were giving rights to vulgarity. But in so doingin addition to caring for mans well-beingthey were providing rights for themselves.

Plato says a multitude can never philosophize and hence can never recognize the seriousness of philosophy or who really philosophizes. Attempted to influence the multitude results in forced prostitution.

Only exceptionally rational men can afford to be absurd.

Contrary to rationalism, there are no a priori concepts; but contrary to empiricism, there are axiomatic concepts about which we can be certain; contrary to both schools, perception is not awareness of images, impressions, or sense data, but of objects that exist independent of our awareness of them.

A minha felicidade ou infelicidade depende da utilidade ou inutilidade da presente existência.

Vivemos, pensamos e operamos — eis o que é positivo. E que morremos, não é menos certo. Mas, deixando a Terra, para onde vamos? Que seremos após a morte? Estaremos melhores ou pior? Existiremos ou não? Ser ou não ser, tal a alternativa.

Só ela pode dizer ao homem de onde ele vem, para onde vai, por que está na Terra, e justificar todas as anomalias e todas as aparentes injustiças que a vida apresenta.

E assim como só conhecemos a doutrina de Jesus pelos escritos de seus discípulos, só conhecemos a de Sócrates pelos escritos de seu discípulo Platão.

porque no hay fe inalterable sino la que puede mirar frente a frente a la razón en todas las edades de la humanidad".

É melhor repelir dez verdades do que admitir uma única falsidade, uma só teoria errônea.

Se os sofrimentos da vida parecem longos, que seria se a ele se juntasse a lembrança do passado?

Is it God? Did God set up the dominoes and wait for some human to flick the first one? Or is it the opposite way around? Did humans set them up so God could do the flicking?

She herself vacillated when it came to belief. She did not particularly believe in God. Or, rather, she didn't believe in a particular God. Nevertheless, she kept an open mind. She was not a melancholy agnostic, but the optimistic kind. She liked to give God the benefit of the doubt.

I don't think there is any truth. There are only points of view.

Which way will the sunflower turn surrounded by millions of suns?

Serious poetry deals with the fundamental conflicts that cannot be logically resolved: we can state the conflicts rationally, but reason does not relieve us of them.

Certainty is not to be had. But as we learn this we become not more moral but more resigned. We become nihilists.

La Historia con mayúscula desprecia los amores del cuerpo, la carne débil que la distorsiona, la desencaja, la desordena con una saña que no está al alcance de los amores del espíritu, más prestigiosos, sí, pero también mucho más pálidos, y por eso menos decisivos.

La cuestión no era la bondad o la maldad de las personas, sino la naturaleza de sus ideas.

Lo que diferencia al hombre del animal es que el hombre es un heredero y no un mero descendiente. José Ortega y Gasset

The Christian philosopher has a perfect right to the point of view and prephilosophical assumptions he brings to philosophic work; the fact that these are not widely shared outside the Christian or theistic community is interesting but fundamentally irrelevant.