Motivational Quotes

Philosophers and philosophy

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

- Cicero, Marcus T.

Philosophers and philosophy Motivational Quotes

Best Quotes about Philosophers and philosophy

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

Diderot, Denis

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

James, William

If He Tom Sawyer had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do and Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

Twain, Mark

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

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

Edwards, Oliver

The philosopher must station themselves in the middle.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

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

Murdoch, Iris

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

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

10.

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

Camus, Albert

11.

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

Stevens, Wallace

12.

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

Murdoch, Iris

13.

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

Zend, Robert

14.

The usual picture of Socrates is of an ugly little plebeian who inspired a handsome young nobleman to write long dialogues on large topics.

Rorty, Richard

15.

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

Yeats, William Butler

16.

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

Rohn, Jim

17.

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

Pinter, Harold

18.

Philosophers are only men in armor after all.

Dickens, Charles

19.

Reason, progress, unselfishness, a wide historical perspective, expansiveness, generosity, enlightened self-interest. I had heard it all my life, and it filled me with despair.

Tait, Katherine

20.

Philosophy may be dodged, eloquence cannot.

Quinet, Edgar

21.

To philosophize is only another way of being afraid and leads hardly anywhere but to cowardly make-believe.

Celine, Louis-Ferdinand

22.

Why, ever since Adam, who has got to the meaning of this great allegory -- the world? Then we pygmies must be content to have out paper allegories but ill comprehended.

Melville, Herman

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

28.

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

Voltaire

29.

There is nothing so strange and so unbelievable that it has not been said by one philosopher or another.

Descartes, Rene

30.

Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.

Cicero, Marcus T.

31.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

32.

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

Burroughs, John

33.

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

34.

The profoundest thoughts of the philosophers have something trickle about them. A lot disappears in order for something to suddenly appear in the palm of the hand.

Canetti, Elias

35.

Truth in philosophy means that concept and external reality correspond.

Hegel, Georg

36.

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

Stevens, Wallace

37.

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

Gauguin, Paul

38.

Keep quiet and people will think you a philosopher.

39.

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

40.

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

Lippmann, Walter

41.

Plato was a bore.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

42.

There is today-in a time when old beliefs are withering-a kind of philosophical hunger, a need to know who we are and how we got here. It is an on-going search, often unconscious, for a cosmic perspective for humanity.

Sagan, Carl Edward

43.

We often have need of a profound philosophy to restore to our feelings their original state of innocence, to find our way out of the rubble of things alien to us, to begin to feel for ourselves and to speak ourselves, and I might almost say to exist ourselves.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

44.

Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

45.

The philosophic spirit of inquiry may be traced to brute curiosity, and that to the habit of examining all things in search of food.

Reade, W. Winwood

46.

Look, I really don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive, you got to flap your arms and legs, you got to jump around a lot, you got to make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death. And therefore, as I see it, if you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy, or at least your thoughts should be noisy and colorful and lively.

Brooks, Mel

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

50.

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

Johnson, Samuel