Quotes About Philosophy

Two elements are combined in our creation, the body, which we have in common with the beasts; and reason and good judgement, which we share with the gods.

but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that the educated only are free. How is this? In this manner: Is freedom anything else than the power of living as we choose? Nothing else.

For what else are tragedies but the ordeals of people who have come to value externals, tricked out in tragic verse?

But they have produced such wonderful fruit in a human mind, as part of their plan to bestow on humanity the true secret of happiness.

You see, then, that it is necessary for you to become a student, that creature which every one laughs at, if you really desire to make an examination of your judgements. But this, as you are quite aware, is not the work of a single hour or day

well as the others, namely, the faculty of reason. Reason is unique among the faculties assigned

Whenever we do something wrong, then, from now on we will not blame anything except the opinion on which it's based; and we will try to root out wrong opinions with more determination than we remove tumours or infections from the body. [36]

Diogenes says somewhere that one way to guarantee freedom is to be ready to die.

Good luck frees many men from punishment, but no man from fear.

The man has to learn 'what each specific thing means', as Socrates often said, and stop casually applying preconceptions to individual cases.

If you ever happen to turn your attention to externals, for the pleasure of any one, be assured that you have ruined your scheme of life. Be contented, then, in everything, with being a philosopher; and if you with to seem so likewise to any one, appear so to yourself, and it will suffice you.

Having this, then, we must inherit that; destroying this, then that is ended too; no birth, old age, disease, or death; no earth, or water, fire, or wind. No beginning, end, or middle; and no deceptive systems of philosophy; this is the standpoint of wise men and sages; the certain and exhausted termination, complete Nirvâna. Such

Demersul suprem al ratiunii este sa afle ca exista o infinitate de lucruri care o depasesc. Si e o ratiune slaba daca nu ajunge pana acolo.

It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible.

Jesus was not a Christian, nor was Marx a Marxist.

If a doctrine is not unintelligible, it has to be vague; and if neither unintelligible nor vague, it has to be unverifiable.

To lose one's life is but to lose the present; and, clearly, to lose a defiled, worthless present is not to lose much.

The intellectual cannot operate at room temperature.

though ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious.

Belief passes, but to have believed never passes.     18

Montaigne: "All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed." PART 1

The beginning of thought is in disagreement, not only with others but also with ourselves.

To me, this passage is essentially the Chinese equivalent of the Socratic claim that the unexamined life is not worth living. It has exactly the same rhetorical assertiveness and moral severity: the unexamined life is not just less good; it's useless.

To put it aphoristically, no experience can feel meaningful to a nihilist—that is, to someone who has already decided that life is meaningless.