Quotes About Philosophy

If I replace the word God with the word nature, I am far more at ease with the whole religious enterprise.

One could continue quoting Irigaray, but the reader is probably lost (so are we).

A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human. ~ Alan Turing

At the foundation of moral thinking lie beliefs in statements the truth of which no further reason can be given.

Imprisoning philosophy within the professionalizations and specializations of an institutionalized curriculum, after the manner of our contemporary European and North American culture, is arguably a good deal more effective in neutralizing its effects than either religious censorship or political terror

For Kant one can be both good and stupid; but for Aristotle stupidity of a certain kind precludes goodness.

When a thing is perfect it is eternal. It can be destroyed afterward, or slowly decay, but its perfection is safe in the past, which is the only inevitable part of the universe.

Man is essentially a story-telling animal, but a teller of stories that aspire to truth.

The exercise of the virtues is itself a crucial component of the good life for man

Contemporary moral argument is rationally interminable, because all moral, indeed all evaluative, argument is and always must be rationally interminable. Contemporary moral disagreements of a certain kind cannot be resolved, because no moral disagreements of that kind in any age, past, present or future, can be resolved.

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible.

If there is any religion that could respond to the needs of modern science, it would be Buddhism.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.

When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.

It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.

The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with joy are goodness, beauty, and truth.

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy furniture let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies.... It would be a sad situation if the wrapper were better than the meat wrapped inside it.

What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the World.

I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind... to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein (1929)

In the view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who says there is no God. But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views. (The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton University, page 214)