Quotes About Philosophy

A man cannot serve two masters: so it is either reason or the scriptures. - On Religion

Puterile lumii sint trei: inetligenta, forta si fericirea.

La solitude offre à l'homme intellectuellement haut placé un double avantage : le premier, d'être avec soi-même, et le second de n'être pas avec les autres.

Our life is to be regarded as a loan received from death, with sleep as the daily interest on this loan.

Aristotle's example is as follows: A Moor is black; but in regard to his teeth he is white; therefore, he is black and not black at the same moment.

the ancient wisdom of the Indian philosophers declares, "It is Mâyâ, the veil of deception, which blinds the eyes of mortals, and makes them behold a world of which they cannot say either that it is or that it is not: for it is like a dream; it is like the sunshine on the sand which the traveller takes from afar for water, or the stray piece of rope he mistakes for a snake.

While illusion distorts reality for a moment, error can reign for a millennia in abstractions, throw its iron yoke over whole peoples and stifle the noblest impulses of humanity; those it cannot deceive are left in chains by those it has, by its slaves.

Since everything which exists or happens for a man exists only in his consciousness and happens for it alone, the most essential thing for a man is the constitution of this consciousness, which is in most cases far more important than the circumstances which go to form its contents.

Byron, in "Don Juan", face o satira amara la adresa femeilor care transforma dragostea intr-o "afacere de cap" uitind ca au "inima". Capul vine dupa inima, caci nu el este centrul corpului, ci o dezvoltare a lui. Cind moare un erou i se imbalsameaza inima, in timp ce filozofii si poetii au parte, dupa moarte, de cercetarea amanuntita a craniului si creierului.

Ein geistreicher Mensch hat, in gänzlicher Einsamkeit, an seinen eigenen Gedanken und Phantasien vortreffliche Unterhaltung, während von einem Stumpfen die fortwährende Abwechslung von Gesellschaften, Schauspielen, Ausfahrten und Lustbarkeiten, die marternde Langeweile nicht abzuwenden vermag.

Truth that is naked is the most beautiful, and the simpler its expression the deeper is the impression it makes.

Time is that by which at every moment all things become as nothing in our hands, and thereby lose all their true value.

It is just as little necessary for the saint to be a philosopher as for the philosopher to be a saint; just as it is not necessary for a perfectly beautiful person to be a great sculptor, or for a sculptor to be himself a beautiful person. In general it is a strange demand on a moralist that he should commend no other virtue than that which he himself possesses.

A solidão é a sorte de todos os espíritos excepcionais.

Whenever we are not occupied in one of these ways, but cast upon existence itself, its vain and worthless nature is brought home to us; and this is what we mean by boredom.

Life is an unpleasant business. I have resolved to spend mine reflecting on it.

There is only one inborn error, and that is the notion that we exist in order to be happy.

Cada um será tanto mais sociável quanto mais pobre for de espírito, e, em geral, mais vulgar (o que torna o homem saudável é justamente a sua pobreza interior). Pois, no mundo, não se tem muito além da escolha entre solidão e a vulgaridade.

To be irritated by trifles, a man must be well off; for in misfortunes trifles are unfelt. SECTION

We, the salt of the earth, should endeavor to follow, by never letting anything disturb us in the pursuit of our intellectual life, however much the storm of the world may invade and agitate our personal environment.

Evil is just what is positive; it makes its own existence felt.

All the cruelty and torment of which the world is full is in fact merely the necessary result of the totality of the forms under which the will to live is objectified.

To talk of rational beings apart from man is as if we attempted to talk of heavy beings apart from bodies.

We all feel that we are something other than a being which someone once created out of nothing: from this arises the confidence that, while death may be able to end our life, it cannot end our existence.