Quotes About Philosophy

The mind is not forced to believe in the existence of anything (subjectivism, absolute idealism, solipsism, skepticism: c.f. the Upanishads, the Taoists and Plato, who, all of them, adopt this philosophical attitude by way of purification). That is why the only organ of contact with existence is acceptance, love. That is why beauty and reality are identical. That is why joy and the sense of reality are identical.

The supernatural greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering but a supernatural use for it.

Belief in immortality is harmful because it is not in our power to conceive of the soul as really incorporeal. So this belief is in fact a belief in the prolongation of life, and it robs death of its purpose.

We have to believe in a God who is like the true God in everything except that he does not exist, since we have not reached the point where God exists.

Existence is not an end in itself but merely the framework upon which all good, both real and imagined, may be built.

Real genius is nothing else but the supernatural virtue of humility in the domain of thought.

The poison of skepticism becomes, like alcoholism, tuberculosis, and some other diseases, much more virulent in a hitherto virgin soil.

A village idiot, in the literal sense, who really loves the truth, even when he only babbles, is in his thinking infinitely superior to Aristotle. He is infinitely nearer to Plato than Aristotle ever was.

At a certain moment, the pain is lessened by projecting it into the universe, but the universe is impaired; the pain is more intense when it comes home again, but something in me does not suffer and remains in contact with a universe which is not impaired. - Simone Weil

But a better remedy is indifference to ourselves, and being happy because the good is good, although we are far from it and may even suppose that we are destined to remain separated from it forever.

The fact of dying for what is strong robs death of its bitterness—and at the same time of all its value.

L'esprit de verite peut resider dans la science a la condition que le mobile du savant soit l'amour de l'objet qui est la matiere de son etude... La vraie definition de la science, c'est qu'elle est l'etude de la beaute du monde

I still think today, that one can never wrestle enough with God if one does so out of pure regard for the truth. Christ likes us to prefer truth to him because, before being Christ, he is truth. If one turns aside from him to go toward the truth, one will not go far before falling into his arms. (from Waiting for God, 2009 edition page 27)

The Gospels: God's perfection consists in non-intervention.

An atheist may be simply one whose faith and love are concentrated on the impersonal aspects of God.

How much time do you devote to thinking each day?

God can only be present in creation under the form of absence.

We have to believe in a God who is like the true God in everything except that he does not exist, for we have not reached the point where God exists.

The great enigma of human life is not suffering but affliction.

La foi, c'est l'expérience que l'intelligence est éclairée par l'amour

A görögök nem ismerték a jog fogalmát. Még szavuk sem volt rá. Beérték az igazság nevével.

All greek civilization is a search for bridges to relate human misery and divine perfection. Their art, which is incomparable, their poetry, their philosophy, the sciences which they invented (geometry, astronomy, mechanics, physics, biology) are nothing but bridges.

Les choses sensibles sont réelles en tant que choses sensibles, mais irréelles en tant que biens. L'apparence a la plénitude de la réalité, mais en tant qu'apparence. En tant qu'autre chose qu'apparence, elle est erreur. (...) Le temps, à proprement parler, n'existe pas (sinon le présent comme limite), et pourtant c'est à cela que nous sommes soumis. Telle est notre condition. Nous sommes soumis à ce qui n'existe pas.

Des petites filles, attachées au gaullisme comme à l'équivalent français de l'hitlérisme, ajoutaient : la vérité est relative, même en géométrie