Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
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.
—Karl Popper (1902–94) Austrian-born British Philosopher
The traditional disputes of philosophers are, for the most part, as unwarranted as they are unfruitful.
—A. J. Ayer (1910–89) English Philosopher
Art requires philosophy, just as philosophy requires art. Otherwise, what would become of beauty?
—Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French Post-Impressionist Painter
A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-born British Philosopher
I have always taken as the standard of the mode of teaching and writing, not the abstract, particular, professional philosopher, but universal man, that I have regarded man as the criterion of truth, and not this or that founder of a system, and have from the first placed the highest excellence of the philosopher in this, that he abstains, both as a man and as an author, from the ostentation of philosophy, i.e., that he is a philosopher only in reality, not formally, that he is a quiet philosopher, not a loud and still less a brawling one.
—Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804–72) German Materialist Philosopher
A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine in the three following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope?
—Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) Prussian German Philosopher, Logician
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.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
Every philosophy is the philosophy of some stage of life.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Philosophy! Empty thinking by ignorant conceited men who think they can digest without eating!
—Iris Murdoch (1919–99) British Novelist, Playwright, Philosopher
Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
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.
—Desiderius Erasmus (c.1469–1536) Dutch Humanist, Scholar
All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
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.
—Herman Melville (1819–91) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist, Poet
Then, like an old-time orator impressively he rose; I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes.
—Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) American Poet
Apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there?
—Harold Pinter (1930–2008) British Playwright
Keep quiet and people will think you a philosopher.
—Unknown
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.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
The courage of the truth is the first condition of philosophic study.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German Philosopher
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.
—Timothy Leary (1920–96) American Psychologist, Author
Every philosophy is tinged with the coloring of some secret imaginative background, which never emerges explicitly into its train of reasoning.
—Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English Mathematician, Philosopher
Unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.
—Henry Adams (1838–1918) American Historian, Man of Letters
If you set your heart upon philosophy, you must straightway prepare yourself to be laughed at and mocked by many who will say Behold a philosopher arisen among us! or How came you by that brow of scorn? But do you cherish no scorn, but hold to those things which seem to you the best, as one set by God in that place. Remember too, that if you abide in those ways, those who first mocked you, the same shall afterwards reverence you; but if you yield to them, you will be laughed at twice as much as before.
—Epictetus (55–135) Ancient Greek Philosopher
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.
—Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–55) French Soldier, Duelist, Writer
Englishmen are babes in philosophy and so prefer faction-fighting to the labor of its unfamiliar thought.
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) Irish Poet, Dramatist
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.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
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.
—Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) Italian Catholic Priest, Philosopher, Theologian
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