Quotes About Philosophy

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two imposters just the same

There is no pride,' said the lama, after a pause, 'there is no pride among such as follow the Middle Way.

I could no longer believe even in life. Which meant that I had come to be the reverse, the opposite of a Christian. For me, now, the only reality is death.

The only way I could go on living was to believe I was not living.

Plus when you get down to important moments in life like this your upbringing always seems to kick into over-drive no matter what religion or philosophy you happen to prefer as an adult or as an older kid like me. In a crunch us Christians like to think God even sets the price of airline tickets.

Abbott says, 'Biggest...difference...between...people...is...quality...of...attention.' And since a person's quality of attention is one of the few things about her that a human can control, then she better damn well do it, say I. Put that together with the Golden Rule in a nutshell, and you've got my philosophy of life. Abbott's too. And you don't need religion for that.

The unexamined life is not worth living'...Socrates made provocative remarks like this famous one as part of his daily practice in Athens in the late fourth century B.C. When he made these statements, he was invariably exhorting his fellow Greeks to avoid falling into the trap of what we might call 'ethical complacency,' the point at which an individual ceases trying to become a better person.

But more and more I think that madness is the world's natural condition and to expect anything else is madness compounded.

Here below the surface one studies the depths of TO BE, as manifest in AM, IS, and ARE. And if you don't hold up your end of the conversation I may very well snap you in two.

All of this comes out of what is now an empty space. There are depths to this. It's a lot to think about. From an empty space the future. If there's no empty space where can one put the future? It all figures if you take the time to think it out.

I am a conservative. Quite possibly I am on the losing side; often I think so. Yet, out of a curious perversity I had rather lose with Socrates, let us say, than win with Lenin.

In a revolutionary epoch, sometimes men taste every novelty, sicken of them all, and return to ancient principles so long disused that they seem refreshingly hearty when they are rediscovered.

Life is short, Hades is long. As Agathon says, you can't change the past, and as Aristotle says—paraphrasing—things are as they are, it's how we deal with them that counts.

Do not think that time simply flies away. Do not understand "flying" as the only function of time. If time simply flew away, a separation would exist between you and time. So if you understand time as only passing, then you do not understand the time being.

In the time it takes to say 'now,' now is already over. It's already 'then.' 'Then' is the opposite of 'now.' So saying 'now' obliterates its meaning, turning it into exactly what it isn't.

I don't believe I exist, and soon I won't. I am a time being about to expire.

So then you ask her when her birthday is, and she says, "Hmm, I don't really remember being born

And what does it mean to waste time anyway? If you waste time is it lost forever?

Where do you think poems come from? Everything speaks, young schoolboy! But it is only poets and prophets, saints and philosophers who hef ze ears to hear." "They hear voices?" "Of course! Socrates! And Joan of Arc! Rilke, Milton, Blake . . . !

So then you ask her when her birthday is, and she says, "Hmm, I don't really remember being born . . ." And if you pester her some more and ask her how long she's been alive, she says, "I've always been here as far as I remember.

And what does it mean to waste time anyway? If you waste time is it lost forever? And if time is lost forever, what does that mean? It's not like you get to die any sooner, right?

The past is weird. I mean, does it really exist? It feels like it exists, but where is it? And if it did exist but doesn't now, then where did it go?

Montaigne wrote that death itself is nothing. It is only the fear of death that makes death seem important.

The past is weird. I mean, does it really exist? It feels like it exists, but where is it? And if it did exist but doesn't know, then where did it go?