Motivational Quotes

Philosophers and philosophy

Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.

- Cicero, Marcus T.

Philosophers and philosophy Motivational Quotes

Best Quotes about Philosophers and philosophy

Philosophers are only men in armor after all.

Dickens, Charles

Existentialism is about being a saint without God; being your own hero, without all the sanction and support of religion or society.

Brookner, Anita

How very paltry and limited the normal human intellect is, and how little lucidity there is in the human consciousness, may be judged from the fact that, despite the ephemeral brevity of human life, the uncertainty of our existence and the countless enigmas which press upon us from all sides, everyone does not continually and ceaselessly philosophize, but that only the rarest of exceptions do.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

The ultimate triumph of philosophy would be to cast light upon the mysterious ways in which Providence moves to achieve the designs it has for man.

Sade, Marquis De

Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

Philosophers call God the great unknown The great misknown is more like it!

Roux, Joseph

What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind.

Berkeley, George

A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

And new Philosophy calls all in doubt, the element of fire is quite put out; the Sun is lost, and the earth, and no mans wit can well direct him where to look for it.

Donne, John

10.

Apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there?

Pinter, Harold

11.

One may summon his philosophy when they are beaten in battle, not till then.

Burroughs, John

12.

Philosophy is like trying to open a safe with a combination lock: each little adjustment of the dials seems to achieve nothing, only when everything is in place does the door open.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

13.

As an example of just how useless these philosophers are for any practice in life there is Socrates himself, the one and only wise man, according to the Delphic Oracle. Whenever he tried to do anything in public he had to break off amid general laughter. While he was philosophizing about clouds and ideas, measuring a flea's foot and marveling at a midge's humming, he learned nothing about the affairs of ordinary life.

Erasmus, Desiderius

14.

There is no philosophy without the art of ignoring objections.

Maistre, Joseph De

15.

The real discovery is the one which enables me to stop doing philosophy when I want to. -- The one that gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself into question.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

16.

Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.

Cicero, Marcus T.

17.

In it he proves that all things are true and states how the truths of all contradictions may be reconciled physically, such as for example that white is black and black is white; that one can be and not be at the same time; that there can be hills without valleys; that nothingness is something and that everything, which is, is not. But take note that he proves all these unheard-of paradoxes without any fallacious or sophistical reasoning.

Bergerac, Savinien Cyrano De

18.

Bishop Berkeley destroyed this world in one volume octavo; and nothing remained, after his time, but mind; which experienced a similar fate from the hand of Mr. Hume in 1737.

Smith, Sydney

19.

The pursuit of what is true and the practice of what is good are the two most important objects of philosophy.

Voltaire

20.

Take from the philosopher the pleasure of being heard and his desire for knowledge ceases.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

21.

Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.

Camus, Albert

22.

Every philosophy is the philosophy of some stage of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

23.

The origins of disputes between philosophers is, that one class of them have undertaken to raise man by displaying his greatness, and the other to debase him by showing his miseries.

Pascal, Blaise

24.

In philosophy if you aren't moving at a snail's pace you aren't moving at all.

Murdoch, Iris

25.

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.

Diderot, Denis

26.

What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing about the origin and destiny of cats?

Thoreau, Henry David

27.

Every philosophy is tinged with the coloring of some secret imaginative background, which never emerges explicitly into its train of reasoning.

Whitehead, Alfred North

28.

The philosopher proves that the philosopher exists. The poet merely enjoys existence.

Stevens, Wallace

29.

If I wished to punish a province, I would have it governed by philosophers.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

30.

The philosopher believes that the value of his philosophy lies in the whole, in the building: posterity discovers it in the bricks with which he built and which are then often used again for better building: in the fact, that is to say, that building can be destroyed and nonetheless possess value as material.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

31.

Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.

Aquinas, St. Thomas

32.

The courage of the truth is the first condition of philosophic study.

Hegel, Georg

33.

Art requires philosophy, just as philosophy requires art. Otherwise, what would become of beauty?

Gauguin, Paul

34.

To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

Pascal, Blaise

35.

Of what use is a philosopher who doesn't hurt anybody's feelings?

Diogenes of Sinope

36.

Philosophy is a bully that talks loud when the danger is at a distant; but, the moment she is pressed hard by an enemy, she is nowhere to be found and leaves the brunt of the battle to be fought by her steady, humble comrade, religion.

Colton, Charles Caleb

37.

Philosophy may be dodged, eloquence cannot.

Quinet, Edgar

38.

The most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men.

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

39.

Philosophy! Empty thinking by ignorant conceited men who think they can digest without eating!

Murdoch, Iris

40.

Many talk like philosophers yet live like fools.

Proverb

41.

The philosopher is Nature's pilot. And there you have our difference: to be n hell is to drift: to be in heaven is to steer.

Shaw, George Bernard

42.

Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated about among men of thought.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

43.

Actual philosophers... are commanders and law-givers: they say thus it shall be!, it is they who determine the Wherefore and Whither of mankind, and they possess for this task the preliminary work of all the philosophical laborers, of all those who have subdued the past -- they reach for the future with creative hand, and everything that is or has been becomes for them a means, an instrument, a hammer. Their knowing is creating, their creating is a law giving, their will to truth is -- will to power. Are their such philosophers today? Have there been such philosophers? Must there not be such philosophers?

Nietzsche, Friedrich

44.

While wading through the whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible jargon of this work [Plato's Republic], I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this?

Jefferson, Thomas

45.

Perhaps it is of more value to infuriate philosophers than to go along with them.

Stevens, Wallace

46.

I have tried too in my time to be a philosopher; but, I don't know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in.

Edwards, Oliver

47.

Philosophy always requires something more, requires the eternal, the true, in contrast to which even the fullest existence as such is but a happy moment.

Kierkegaard, S°ren

48.

Then, like an old-time orator impressively he rose; I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes.

Teasdale, Sara

49.

Being a philosopher, I have a problem for every solution.

Zend, Robert

50.

Philosophy is the product of wonder.

Whitehead, Alfred North