Quotes About Philosophy

Atheists have to live with the knowledge that there is no salvation, no redemption, no second chances. Lives can go terribly wrong in ways that can never be put right.

To begin to know the philosophy of socialism, in backward countries where the class differences are great, very great, and terribly exaggerated over the conditions we know in this country, to overcome this, the theory of revolution, of force and violence, was necessary within those political conditions. It couldn't be anything else.

Why is our fancy to be appalled by terrific perspectives of a hell beyond the grave?

People into hard sciences, neurophysiology, often ignore a core philosophical question: 'What is the relationship between our unique, inner experience of conscious awareness and material substance?' The answer is: We don't know, and some people are so terrified to say, 'I don't know.'

I thought that we all were afraid of death, but I've talked to my wife and other people, and they're not afraid of death the way I am. I find that really confusing. I don't like the idea of nothingness - that's terrifying to me.

I'm not very interested in charting a day-to-day familiar reality. I'm always looking for territory in which to explore the BIG subjects, the life-or-death stories.

Every man, either to his terror or consolation, has some sense of religion.

Let a man once overcome his selfish terror at his own infinitude, and his infinitude is, in one sense, overcome.

Sea Shepherd is to terrorism what Groucho was to Marxism.

Test yourself on mankind. It is something that makes the doubter doubt, the believer believe.

In 1987, I had my first opportunity to provide 'advice and consent' on a Supreme Court nominee. At that time, I stated that the qualifications essential for evaluating a nominee for the bench included 'integrity, character, legal competence and ability, experience, and philosophy and judicial temperament.' On that test, Elena Kagan fails.

I think the appropriate response for a physicist is: 'I do not find the concept of God very interesting, because I cannot test it.'

Two of the chief defenders of the faith in the Old Testament and in the New - Moses and Paul - were both well-versed in the language, the thinking, and the philosophy of their cultures.

I don't believe in a personal God, no. And I don't believe in resurrection as it is in the New Testament.

Being, in the testimony it gives of itself, informs us not only about what it is but also about what we owe it.

A man who wants the truth becomes a scientist; a man who wants to give free play to his subjectivity may become a writer; but what should a man do who wants something in between?

True' and 'false' are the evasions of people who never want to arrive at a decision. Truth is something without end.

In her misery she read a great deal, and discovered that she had lost something she had previously not really know she had: a soul. What's that? It is easy to define negatively: it is simply that which sneaks off at the mention of algebraic series.

Philosophers are despots who have no armies to command, so they subject the world to their tyranny by locking it up in a system of thought

And although it might be best of all to be Socrates satisfied, having both happiness and depth, we would give up some happiness in order to gain the depth.

There is room for words on subjects other than last words.

When I was fifteen or sixteen I carried around in the streets of Brooklyn a paperback copy of Plato's 'Republic', front cover facing outward. I had read only some of it and understood less, but I was excited by it and knew it was something wonderful. How much I wanted an older person to notice me carrying it and be impressed, to pat me on the shoulder and say... I didn't know what exactly. from: 'The Examined Life, Philosophical Meditations

Maximising the average utility allows a person to kill everyone else if that would make him ecstatic, and so happier than average.

Political philosophers now must either work within Rawls' theory or explain why not.