Quotes About Philosophy

Nevertheless, there seems good reason for adhering to the common usage, and calling (as indeed Hobbes himself does in other places) the word sun the name of the sun, and not the name of our idea of the sun. For names are not intended only to make the hearer conceive what we conceive, but also to inform him what we believe.

It may be objected that the meaning of names can guide us at most only to the opinions, possibly the foolish and groundless opinions, which mankind have formed concerning things, and that as the object of philosophy is truth, not opinion, the philosopher should dismiss words and look into things themselves, to ascertain what questions can be asked and answered in regard to them.

Every induction is a syllogism with the major premise suppressed.

The justice of giving equal protection to the rights of all, is maintained by those who support the most outrageous inequality in the rights themselves.

since persons, even of considerable mental endowment, often give themselves so little trouble to understand the bearings of any opinion against which they entertain a prejudice, and men are in general so little conscious of this voluntary ignorance as a defect that the vulgarest misunderstandings of ethical doctrines are continually met with in the deliberate writings of persons of the greatest pretensions both to high principle and to philosophy.

A cultivated mind—I do not mean that of a philosopher, but any mind to which the fountains of knowledge have been opened, and which has been taught, in any tolerable degree, to exercise its faculties—finds sources of inexhaustible interest in all that surrounds it; in the objects of nature, the achievements of art, the imaginations of poetry, the incidents of history, the ways of mankind past and present, and their prospects in the future.

Es ist besser, ein unzufriedener Mensch zu sein als ein zufriedenes Schwein; besser ein unzufriedener Sokrates als ein zufriedener Narr.

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied, better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.

or others, unless we take in, as part of the question, its influence on the regulation of our, or their, affections and desires?

É melhor ser Sócrates insatisfeito do que um porco satisfeito; é melhor ser Sócrates insatisfeito que um imbecil satisfeito. E, se o imbecil ou o porco são de opinião diferente, é que só conhecem um lado da questão: o deles. A outra parte, para fazer a comparação, conhece os dois lados.

Our moral faculty, according to all those of its interpreters who are entitled to the name of thinkers, supplies us only with the general principles of moral judgements; it is a branch of our reason, not of our sensitive faculty; and must be looked to for the abstract doctrines of morality, not for perception of it in the concrete.

It is better to be human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied. It is better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.

Nadie puede ser un gran pensador sin reconocer que su primer deber como tal consiste en seguir a su inteligencia cualesquiera que sean las conclusiones a que se vea conducido.

this benefit from the Montesquieu of our own times, M. de Tocqueville.

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.

The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.

there does in fact prevail a much greater unanimity among thinking persons, than might be supposed from their diametrical divergence on the great questions of moral metaphysics

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig is of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.

My natural pessimism now works on Hay's natural pessimism until we are both quite out of our minds." Henry Adams

Is it any wonder that Socrates was outraged at the accusation he took money to teach? Even then, philosophers saw clearly the inevitable direction the professionalization of teaching would take, that of pre-empting the teaching function, which, in a healthy community, belongs to everyone.

The short sayings of the wise and good men are of great value, like the dust of gold, or the sparks of diamonds.

Religious feeling is as much a verity as any other part of human consciousness; and against it, on the subjective side, the waves of science beat in vain.

The brightest flashes in the world of thought are incomplete until they have been proved to have their counterparts in the world of fact.

To him [Faraday], as to all true philosophers, the main value of a fact was its position and suggestiveness in the general sequence of scientific truth.