Quotes About Philosophy

I do not begin with concepts and put them together to form a thought or judgement; I come by the parts of a thought by analysing the thought.

Thus the thought, for example, which we expressed in the Pythagorean theorem is timelessly true, true independently of whether anyone takes it to be true. It needs no bearer. It is not true for the first time when it is discovered, but is like a planet which, already before anyone has seen it, has been in interaction with other planets.

If anyone tried to contradict the statement that what is true is true independently of our recognizing it as such, he would by his very assertion contradict what he had asserted; he would be in a similar position to the Cretan who said that all Cretans are liars.

Die Gedanken sind weder Dinge der Außenwelt noch Vorstellungen. Ein drittes Reich muß anerkannt werden. Was zu diesem gehört, stimmt mit den Vorstellungen darin überein, daß es nicht mit den Sinnen wahrgenommen werden kann, mit den Dingen aber darin, daß es keines Trägers bedarf, zu dessen Bewußtseinsinhalte es gehört.

In order to produce it [an infinite series] we would need an infinitely long blackboard, an infinite supply of chalk, and an infinite length of time. We may be censured as too cruel for trying to crush so high a flight of the spirit by such a homely objection; but this is no answer.

Ideas have consequences.

I have never understood why people who can swallow the enormous improbability of a personal God boggle at a personal Devil.

We are all resigned to death: it's life we aren't resigned to.

St. Augustine asked where time came from. He said it came out of the future which didn't exist yet, into the present that had no duration, and went into the past which had ceased to exist.

Nothing in life now ever seems to end. Chemists tell you matter is never completely destroyed, and mathematicians tell you that if you halve each pace in crossing a room, you will never reach the opposite wall, so what an optimist I would be if I thought that this story ended here.

Perhaps we are all fictions, father, in the mind of God.

If I were writing a novel I would end it here: a novel, I used to think, has to end somewhere, but I'm beginning to believe my realism has been at fault all these years, for nothing in life now ever seems to end. Chemists tell you matter is never completely destroyed, and mathematicians tell you that if you halve each pace in crossing a room, you will never reach the opposite wall, so what an optimist I would be if I thought that this story ended here.

how twisted we humans are, and yet they say a god made us; but I find it hard to conceive of any god wo is not as simple as a perfect equation, as clear as the air.

Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism, selfishness, evil - or else, an absolute ignorance.

When we get to the end of human beings we have to delude ourselves into a belief in God, like a gourmet who demands more complex sauces with his food.

How twisted we humans are, and yet they say a God made us; but I find it hard to conceive of any God who is not as simple as a perfect equation, as clear as air.

What will we care for the why and the wherefore?

You don't believe in Him, do you?' 'No.' 'Things to me wouldn't make sense without Him.' 'They don't make sense to me with him.

I laugh at anyone who spends so much time writing about what doesn't exist - mental concepts.

People who like quotations love meaningless generalizations.

Are you a happy man?' Querry asked. 'I suppose I am. It's not a question that I've ever asked myself. Does a happy man ever ask it? I go on from day to day.

When we get to the end of human beings we have to delude ourselves into a belief in God.

Beware of formulas. If there's a God, he's not a God of formulas.

If I were writing a novel I would end it here: a novel, I used to think, has to end somewhere, but I'm beginning to believe my realism has been at fault all these years, for nothing in life now ever seems to end. Chemists tell you matter is never completely destroyed, and mathematicians tell you that if you halve each pace in crossing a room, you will never reach the opposite wall, so what an optimist I would be if I thought that this story ended here.