Quotes About Philosophy

truly my opinion is, that all our opinions are alike vain and uncertain. what we approve today, we condemn tomorrow. we keep a stir about knowledge, and spend our lives in the pursuit of it, when, alas! we know nothing all the while: nor do i think it possible for us to ever know anything in this life. our faculties are too narrow and too few. nature certainly never intended us for speculation.

The same principles which at first view lead to skepticism , pursued to a certain point , bring men back to common sense

I had rather be an oyster than a man, the most stupid and senseless of animals.

Upon the whole, I am inclined to think that the far greater part, if not all, of those difficulties which have hitherto amused philosophers, and blocked up the way to knowledge, are entirely owing to ourselves--that we have first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see.

T]he communicating of ideas marked by words is not the chief and only end of language, as is commonly supposed.

What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind.

Esse est percipi.

THE SECOND DIALOGUE

Few men think; yet all have opinions

IT IS A HARD THING TO SUPPOSE THAT RIGHT DEDUCTIONS FROM TRUE PRINCIPLES SHOULD EVER END IN CONSEQUENCES WHICH CANNOT BE MAINTAINED or made consistent

I choose not to make a graveyard of my body for the rotting corpses of dead animals.

Two percent of the people think; three percent of the people think they think; and ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think.

A man of my spiritual intensity does not eat corpses.

A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.

The English are not a very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity.

The average age (longevity) of a meat eater is 63. I am on the verge of 85 and still work as hard as ever. I have lived quite long enough and am trying to die; but I simply cannot do it. A single beef-steak would finish me; but I cannot bring myself to swallow it. I am oppressed with a dread of living forever. That is the only disadvantage of vegetarianism.

Nobody could stand an eternity of Heaven.

Besides, do any of us understand what we are doing? If we did, would we ever do it?

Suppose the world were only one of God's jokes, would you work any the less to make it a good joke instead of a bad one?

Thus, I blush to add, you can not be a philosopher and a good man, though you may be a philosopher and a great one.

Those who do not know how to live must make a merit of dying.

We know now that the soul is the body, and the body the soul. They tell us they are different because they want to persuade us that we can keep our souls if we let them make slaves of our bodies.

You think, because you have a purpose, Nature must have one. You might as well expect it to have fingers and toes because you do.

It is quite useless to declare that all men are born free if you deny that they are born good.