Quotes About Philosophy

But French people understand that first you live, and then you die. It's not an outrage. It's something that's been happening since the dawn of time. It

I guess she couldn't think of anything to say. But the truth was, I was doing OK at that point. Life was unfolding the same way it always had for everyone. Sooner or later you ended up an orphan. There was no escaping it. It had happened that way for a thousand generations. No point in getting all upset about it.

Pascal's Wager.

ideologically

She's a fatalist," I said.

Without having navigated waters shallow enough for us to see bottom, we'll be easy prey to mystifiers who want to sell us radical metaphysical fantasies in the guise of science.

there is nothing real or true that is timeless

Of course, there really is no chicken and egg problem; certainly there were eggs long before there were chickens.)

We live in a broken world; Jesus was honest enough to tell us we'd have trials and tribulations. Sure, I'd like to understand more about why. But Kreeft's conclusion was right--the ultimate answer is Jesus' presence. That sounds sappy, I know. But just wait--when your world is rocked, you don't want philosophy or theology as much as you want the reality of Christ. He was the answer for me. He was the very answer we needed.

Physicist Paul Davies 1 Would

What mortal creations are language and memory!

To enjoy in tragedy that which one would not willingly suffer in reality is "miserable madness" (miserabilis insania).

The distinction between nature and convention is fundamental for classical political philosophy and even for most of modern political philosophy, as can be seen most simply from the distinction between natural right and positive right.

Nietzsche was not an Existentialist. Existentialism emerged out of the conflict between Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, the Danish religious writer.

Spinoza was I think a cool, not to say cold, man. His posture toward revealed religion—in particular, Judaism—was simple contempt for the confused ideas underlying revealed religion [which he regarded as] nonsense. His posture I believe is [more] that of the cocksure unbelieving scientist than that of any man of an inner tragedy.

Nothing lovable is eternal or sempiternal or deathless, or that the eternal is not lovable.

But I must say, if you could vulgarize what Nietzsche says you [would] arrive at what is going on all the time in the social sciences: the destruction of the whole, of every possibility of distinguishing responsibly between high and low, good and bad.

So I believe then that the primary motive, the most intelligible motive of the doctrine of eternal return in Nietzsche is to make intelligible nature as humanly willed and not given. And the whole difficulty in Nietzsche's philosophy, I believe, is concentrated in this point.

Nietzsche is never boring. He is always interesting, exciting, thrilling, glittering, breathtaking. He possesses a kind of brilliance and tempo which I believe was unknown in former times.

By virtue of being an -ism, pluralism is a monism.

In a sense, all political use of Nietzsche is a perversion of his teaching. Nevertheless, what he said was read by political men and inspired them. He is as little responsible for fascism as Rousseau is responsible for Jacobinism. This means, however, that he is as much responsible for fascism as Rousseau was for Jacobinism.

This book is addressed to those who for whatever reason believe that students of political science must have some understanding of the philosophic treatment of the abiding questions; to those who do not believe that political science is scientific as chemistry and physics are — subjects from which their own history is excluded.

Nietzsche's atheism is characterized by an element of gratitude; it is not simply a rebellion.

Men are constantly attracted and deluded by two opposite charms: the charm of competence which is engendered by mathematics and everything akin to mathematics, and the charm of humble awe, which is engendered by meditation on the human soul and its experiences. Philosophy is characterized by the gentle, if firm, refusal to succumb to either charm.