Quotes About Philosophy

If one was to think constantly of death, the business of life would stand still.

Of the uncertainties of our present state, the most dreadful and alarming is the uncertain continuance of reason.

How gloomy would be these mansions of the dead to him who did not know that he shall never die; that what now acts shall continue its agency, and what now thinks shall think on for ever. Those that lie here stretched before us, the wise and the powerful of ancient times, warn us to remember the shortness of our present state; they were, perhaps, snatched away while they were busy, like us, in the choice of life.

Nor was his energy confin'd alone To friends around his philosophick throne; Its influence wide improv'd our letter'd isle. And lucid vigour marked the general style: As Nile's proud waves, swoln from their oozy bed. First o'er the neighbouring meads majestick spread; Till gathering force, they more and more expand. And with new virtue fertilise the land.

A books should teach us to enjoy life, or to endure it.

To me,' said the Princess, 'the choice of life is become less important; I hope hereafter to think only on the choice of eternity.

I will venture to say, that in no writings whatever can be found more bark and steel for the mind, if I may use the expression; more that can brace and invigorate every manly and noble sentiment. No. 32 on patience, even under extreme misery, is wonderfully lofty, and as much above the rant of stoicism, as the Sun of Revelation is brighter than the twilight of Pagan philosophy.

Il filosofo che contemplava il teschio di un re e quello di un povero, non vi ravvisò differenza.

They reflected a broader

Not one man in a thousand has the strength of mind or the goodness of heart to be an atheist.

What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole, Its body brevity, and wit its soul.

In poems, equally as in philosophic disquisitions, genius produces the strongest impressions of novelty while it rescues the most admitted truths from the impotence caused by the very circumstance of their universal admission.

Every other science presupposes intelligence as already existing and complete: the philosopher contemplates it in its growth, and as it were represents its history to the mind from its birth to its maturity.

Tutti gli uomini nascono aristotelici o platonici, cioè razionali o irrazionali: le opinioni e le interpretazioni difficilmente interesseranno i primi, i fatti e le dimostrazioni non convinceranno mai i secondi.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

One of Origen's arguments for the truth of Christianity was that while philosophy had only made the elite good, Christianity had lifted people of all levels of society and of every different type and race to a "philosophical" way of life. . . . Just as male needs female, rich needs poor, white needs black, so intellectuals need the simple. . . . The church is itself when it bridges all these gaps and tensions between people of different kinds.

Is only skew insanities, how God survive when we all kilt. How any person worship gods, when gods ain't even brave to die.

And after all, belief was a beautiful thing. That was the trouble with atheists (Kate thought); they might be right, but their unbelief was utilitarian, bleak, like a Brutalist building.

Ce qui est utile à la littérature l'est souvent peu à la vie.

Para que el Bien tenga mérito —enfatizó— hace falta que exista el Mal.

Lo soñado se confunde con lo pensado. La realidad y la irrealidad se vuelven continuas.

WE COULD devote our lives to making sense of the odd, the inexplicable, the coincidental. But most of us don't, and I didn't either.

Why should I even bother? What's the point, really? He thought for a moment. Who says there has to be a point? he asked. Or a reason. Maybe it's just something you have to do.

I looked at the sweatshirt again. 'You swim' is a philosophy? He shrugged. Better than 'you sink', right?