Quotes About Philosopher

Thus the man who is responsive to artistic stimuli reacts to the reality of dreams as does the philosopher to the reality of existence; he observes closely, and he enjoys his observation: for it is out of these images that he interprets life, out of these processes that he trains himself for life.

Success has always been the greatest liar - and the work itself is a success; the great statesman, the conqueror, the discoverer is disguised by his creations, often beyond recognition; the work, whether of the artist or the philosopher, invents the man who has created it, who is supposed to have create it; great men, as they are venerated, are subsequent pieces of wretched minor fiction

Wisdom—seems to the rabble a kind of escape, a means and a trick for getting well out of a wicked game. But the genuine philosopher—as it seems to us, my friends?—lives 'unphilosophically' and 'unwisely,' above all imprudently, and feels the burden and the duty of a hundred attempts and temptations of life—he risks himself constantly, he plays the wicked game.

I am a disciple of the philosopher Dionysus, and I would prefer to be even a satyr than a saint.

Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present.

And what magnificent instruments of observation we possess in our senses! This nose, for example, of which no philosopher has yet spoken with reverence and gratitude, is actually the most delicate instrument so far at our disposal: it is able to detect tiny chemical concentrations that even elude a spectroscope.

In all willing it is absolutely a question of commanding and obeying, on the basis, as already said, of a social structure composed of many "souls," on which account a philosopher should claim the right to include willing-as-such within the sphere of morals—regarded as the doctrine of the relations of supremacy under which the phenomenon of "life" manifests itself.

In the philosopher, on the contrary, there is absolutely nothing impersonal; and above all, his morality furnishes a decided and decisive testimony as to WHO HE IS,—that is to say, in what order the deepest impulses of his nature stand to each other.

The philosopher is lacking who interprets the deed and does not merely transpose it.

Hatred for mediocrity is unworthy of a philosopher: it is almost a question mark against his right to philosophy. Precisely because he is an exception he has to take the rule under his protection, he has to keep the mediocre in good heart.

nothing stands so much in the way of the production and propagation of the great philosopher by nature as does the bad philosopher who works for the state.

Can an ass be tragic? To perish under a burden one can neither bear nor throw off? The case of the philosopher.

With all willing we are dealing simply with commanding and obeying, on the foundation... of a social structure of many souls, which is why a philosopher should exercise the right to conceive willing itself under the horizon of morality: that is, morality understood as a doctrine of the power relations under which the phenomenon life emerges.

An einem Philosophen ist es eine Nichtswürdigkeit zu sagen »das Gute und das Schöne sind eins«; fügt er gar noch hinzu »auch das Wahre«, so soll man ihn prügeln. Die Wahrheit ist häßlich. Wir haben die Kunst, damit wir nicht an der Wahrheit zugrunde gehn.

It is the fundamental idea of culture, insofar as it sets for each one of us but one task: to promote the production of the philosopher, the artist and the saint within us and without us and thereby to work at the perfecting of Nature... Only when, in our present or in some future incarnation, we ourselves have been taken into that exalted order of philosophers, artists and saints, shall we also be given a new goal for our love and hate.

As the act of birth deserves no consideration in the whole process and procedure of heredity, so "being conscious" is not in any decisive sense the opposite of what is instinctive: most of the conscious thinking of a philosopher is secretly guided and forced into certain channels by his instincts.

A word of caution, then, is necessary when a statement is made by a scientist turned philosopher, just as a word of caution is necessary when a statement is made by a philosopher turned scientist, or an automobile manufacturer turned historian, or an oil man turned authority on church unity. This does not mean to imply that all the wrong is on the side of the scientists. Very often philosophers and theologians commit the same fallacy by passing premature judgments in the conclusions of science.

I do not know what the spirit of a philosopher could more wish to be than a good dancer. For the dance is his ideal, also his fine art, finally also the only kind of piety he knows, his 'divine service.'

A writer is not a prophet, is not a philosopher; he's just someone who is witness to what is around him. And so writing is a way to... it's the best way to testify, to be a witness.

The fact is, every thinker, every philosopher, the moment he is forced to abandon his one-sided intellectual occupation by practical necessity, immediately returns to the general point of view of mankind.

Jacques Derrida is a very important thinker and philosopher who has made serious contributions to both philosophy and literary criticism. Roland Barthes is the one I feel most affinity for, and Michel Foucault, well, his writing influenced my novel, 'Middlesex.'

God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: 'This is my country.'

In about 1305, Dante called him the "supreme philosopher" who "holds universal sway in teaching everywhere" and whose doctrines "may almost be called universal opinion.

The word 'philosopher' means 'lover of wisdom.' Also there is a Greek word to describe the philosopher's opponent: that word is 'philodoxer,' meaning 'lover of opinion'--that is, an opinionated man suffering from vain wishes, who passionately pursues illusion. Out of the doxa, the false opinion fanatically held, comes disorder in the soul and disorder in the body politic.