Quotes About Philosophy

It is plain then that they all in one way or another identify the contraries with the principles. And with good reason. For first principles must not be derived from one another nor from anything else, while everything has to be derived from them. But these conditions are fulfilled by the primary contraries, which are not derived from anything else because they are primary, nor from each other because they are contraries.

Men were first led to the study of philosophy, as indeed they are today, by wonder.

To Thales the primary question was not what do we know, but how do we know it.

All those who have become eminent in philosophy or politics or poetry or the arts are clearly melancholics.

No es posible o no es fácil remover por medio de la razón lo que está profundamente arraigado en el carácter

The things about which we inquire are equal in number to the things we understand.

What difference does it make whether the women rule or the rulers are ruled by the women?

For it is about our actions that we deliberate and inquire, and all our actions have a contingent character; hardly any of them are determined by necessity.

State comes into being for the sake of living, but it exists for the sake of living well.

But we must not follow those who advise us…being mortal, [to think] of mortal things, but must, so far as we can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing in us; for even if it be small in bulk, much more does it in power and worth surpass everything.

And retaliation too is pleasant, because if failing at it is painful, succeeding at it is pleasant.

Une chose, quand elle n'est pas excessive, est un bien ; du moment qu'elle est plus grande qu'il ne faut, elle devient un mal.

The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.

to learn gives the liveliest pleasure, not only to philosophers but to men in general

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.

Existentia nunquam ad essentiam rei pertinent.

Once more; it is harder, as Heraclitus says, to fight against pleasure than against anger:

For moral excellence is concerned with pleasures and pains; it is on account of pleasure that we do bad things, and on account of pain that we abstain from noble ones. Hence we ought to have been brought up in a particular way from our very youth, as Plato says, so as both to delight in and to be pained by the things that we ought; for this is the right education.

I having stated in a former part of this treatise that men should choose the mean instead of either the excess or defect, and that the mean is according to the dictates of Right Reason;

On the other hand, because fortune is needed as an addition, some hold good fortune to be identical with Happiness: which it is not, for even this in excess is a hindrance, and perhaps then has no right to be called good fortune since it is good only in so far as it contributes to Happiness.

Beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of introduction.

Even if our contact with eternal beings is slight, none the less because of its surpassing value this knowledge is a greater pleasure than our knowledge of everything around us.

In the next place, Experience and Skill in the various particulars is thought to be a species of Courage: whence Socrates also thought that Courage was knowledge.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it