Motivational Quotes

Philosophers and philosophy

Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.

- Wittgenstein, Ludwig

Philosophers and philosophy Motivational Quotes

Best Quotes about Philosophers and philosophy

If this is philosophy it is at any rate a philosophy that is not in its right mind.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

The philosopher is like a man fasting in the midst of universal intoxication. He alone perceives the illusion of which all creatures are the willing playthings; he is less duped than his neighbor by his own nature. He judges more sanely, he sees things as they are. It is in this that his liberty consists -- in the ability to see clearly and soberly, in the power of mental record.

Amiel, Henri Frederic

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

Diderot, Denis

Philosophy is doubt.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

Philosophers are only men in armor after all.

Dickens, Charles

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

Your philosophy determines whether you will go for the disciplines or continue the errors.

Rohn, Jim

Bad philosophers may have a certain influence; good philosophers, never.

Russell, Bertrand

Englishmen are babes in philosophy and so prefer faction-fighting to the labor of its unfamiliar thought.

Yeats, William Butler

10.

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

11.

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

12.

Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.

Miller, Henry

13.

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

14.

Every philosophy is the philosophy of some stage of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

15.

Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

16.

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

Zend, Robert

17.

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

Murdoch, Iris

18.

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

Berkeley, George

19.

Truth in philosophy means that concept and external reality correspond.

Hegel, Georg

20.

I have a simple philosophy. Fill what's empty. Empty what's full and scratch where it itches.

Longworth, Alice Roosevelt

21.

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

Hegel, Georg

22.

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

Stevens, Wallace

23.

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

24.

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

Edwards, Oliver

25.

Philosophy does not regard pedigree, she received Plato not as a noble, but she made him one.

Seneca

26.

There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it.

Cicero, Marcus T.

27.

Tell me what gives a man or woman their greatest pleasure and I'll tell you their philosophy of life.

Carnegie, Dale

28.

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

29.

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

Brookner, Anita

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.

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.

James, William

32.

A writer must always try to have a philosophy and he should also have a psychology and a philology and many other things. Without a philosophy and a psychology and all these various other things he is not really worthy of being called a writer. I agree with Kant and Schopenhauer and Plato and Spinoza and that is quite enough to be called a philosophy. But then of course a philosophy is not the same thing as a style.

Stein, Gertrude

33.

Philosophy may be dodged, eloquence cannot.

Quinet, Edgar

34.

Many talk like philosophers yet live like fools.

Proverb

35.

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

36.

If he really thinks there is no distinction between vice and virtue, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.

Johnson, Samuel

37.

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

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

38.

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

39.

Philosophy is an elegant thing, if anyone modestly meddles with it; but if they are conversant with it more than is becoming, it corrupts them.

Plato

40.

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

41.

Philosophy is the product of wonder.

Whitehead, Alfred North

42.

In the information age, you don't teach philosophy as they did after feudalism. You perform it. If Aristotle were alive today he'd have a talk show.

Leary, Timothy

43.

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

Stevens, Wallace

44.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

45.

When philosophers try to be politicians they generally cease to be philosophers.

Lippmann, Walter

46.

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

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

47.

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

Voltaire

48.

The proper method of philosophy consists in clearly conceiving the insoluble problems in all their insolubility and then in simply contemplating them, fixedly and tirelessly, year after year, without any hope, patiently waiting.

Weil, Simone

49.

Philosophers should consider the fact that the greatest happiness principle can easily be made an excuse for a benevolent dictatorship. We should replace it by a more modest and more realistic principle -- the principle that the fight against avoidable misery should be a recognized aim of public policy, while the increase of happiness should be left, in the main, to private initiative.

Popper, Karl

50.

Do not all charms fly at the mere touch of cold philosophy? There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: we know her woof, her texture; she is given in the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an angel's wings, conquer all mysteries by rule and line, empty the haunted air, and gnome mine unweave a rainbow.

Keats, John