Quotes About Philosophy

Ultimately it is the Christian attitude which is self-interested and hedonistic, since the aim is always to get away from the painful struggle of earthly life and find eternal peace in some kind of Heaven or Nirvana. The humanist attitude is that the struggle must continue and that death is the price of life.

For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable what then?

We are the dead," he said. "We're not dead yet," said Julia prosaically. "Not physically. Six months, a year—five years, conceivably. I am afraid of death. You are young, so presumably you're more afraid of it than I am. Obviously we shall put it off as long as we can. But it makes very little difference. So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing.

The fallacy was obvious. It presupposed that somewhere or other, outside oneself, there was a 'real' world where 'real' things happened. But how could there be such a world? What knowledge have we of anything, save though out own minds? All happenings are in the mind. Whatever happens in all minds, truly happens.

Every intelligent boy of sixteen is a Socialist. At that age one does not see the hook sticking out of the rather stodgy bait.

for instance, he would say that god had given him a tail to keep the flies off, but that he would sooner have had no tail and no flies.

But if the object was not to stay alive but to stay human, what difference did it ultimately make?

Does the past exist concretely, in space? Is there somewhere or other a place, a world of solid objects, where the past is still happening?' 'No.' 'Then where does the past exist, if at all?

Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense.

Ä°nsanlar insan olarak kald?kça, ölmek ve yaÅŸamak bir noktada birleÅŸirler.

Wszystko istnieje wy??cznie dzi?ki naszej ?wiadomo?ci.

You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident.

Ideology knows the answer before the question has been asked. Principles are something different: a set of values that have to be adapted to circumstances but not compromised away.

but I am so nauseated by Christian and Theosophical guff about the 'good and the true' that I prefer the appearance of evil to that of good.

Theosophy was both a philosophy and a religion, preaching the doctrine of reincarnation as well as spiritual evolution.

Crusoe's religious preoccupations seemed boring and rather silly.

a man's  wealth is not   in the purse he carries.

a truth that had been known and used by wise men long before his time.

Yet, who can measure in bags of gold, the value of wisdom?

Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff: Penny, why don't you write a play about Ism-Mania? Penny Sycamore: Ism-Mania? Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff: Yeah, sure, you know, Communism, Faschism, Voodoo-ism, everybody's got an -ism these days. Penny Sycamore: Oh [laughs] Penny Sycamore: I thought it was some kind of itch or something. Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff: Well, it's just as catching. When things go a little bad nowadays, you go out, get yourself an -ism and you're in business.

My atheism, like that of Spinoza , is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests.

Based on the experience of my life, which I have not exactly hit out of the park, I tend to agree with that thing about, If it's not broke, don't fix it. And would go even further to: Even if it is broke, leave it alone, you'll probably make it worse.

Absurdism was really just realism seen from close to the bottom.

Based on my experience of life, which I have not exactly hit out of the park, I tend to agree with that thing about, If it's not broke, don't fix it. And would go even further, to: Even if it is broke, leave it alone, you'll probably make it worse.