It is the bounty of nature that we live, but of philosophy, that we live well; which is, in truth, a greater benefit than life itself.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
It is one of the chief skills of the philosopher not to occupy himself with questions which do not concern him.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-born British Philosopher
There is no statement so absurd that no philosopher will make it
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Philosophy is a study that lets us be unhappy more intelligently.
—Unknown
What do you know and how do you know it
—Ayn Rand (1905–82) Russian-born American Novelist, Philosopher
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.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
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
Philosophy is a route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
Bad philosophers may have a certain influence; good philosophers, never.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
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.
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American Writer
A little philosophy inclineth men’s minds to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds to religion; for while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no further.—But when it beholdeth the chain of them, confederate and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
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.
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
All men desire to know
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
Never judge a philosophy by its abuse
—Augustine of Hippo (354–430) Roman-African Christian Philosopher
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
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?
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
There’s a difference between a philosophy and a bumper sticker.
—Charles M. Schulz (1922–2000) American Cartoonist, Writer, Artist
I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.
—Baruch Spinoza (1632–77) Dutch Philosopher, Theologian
Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
Every landscape appears first of all as a vast chaos … . But the most majestic meaning of all is surely that which precedes and, commands and, to a large extent, explains the others… . My aim is to recapture the master-meaning, which may be obscure but of which each of the others is a partial or distorted transposition… . I quite naturally looked upon Freud’s theories as the application to the human being of a method the basic pattern of which is represented by geology… . Marxism, psychoanalysis and geology demonstrate that understanding consists in reducing one type of reality to another; that the true reality is never the most obvious; and that the nature of truth is already indicated by the care it takes to remain elusive… . But I had learned from my three sources of inspiration that the transition between one order and the other is discontinuous; that to reach reality one has first to reject experience, and then subsequently to reintegrate it into an objective synthesis devoid of any sentimentality.
—Claude Levi-Strauss (1908–2009) French Social Anthropologist, Philosopher
To teach how to live with uncertainty, yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy can do.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
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?
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
The intelligentsia …was kept busy embroidering white stitches on the philosophical and ecclesiastical vestments of the bourgeoisie – that old and filthy fabric besmeared with the blood of toiling masses.
—Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) Russian Writer, Dramatist, Political Activist, Novelist
Philosophers make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light because they are so high.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
The philosopher proves that the philosopher exists. The poet merely enjoys existence.
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American Poet
Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
It is a maxim received among philosophers themselves, from the days of Aristotle down to those of Sir William Hamilton, that philosophy ceases where truth is acknowledged.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophies.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Every one of us, unconsciously, works out a personal philosophy of life, by which we are guided, inspired, and corrected, as time goes on. It is this philosophy by which we measure out our days, and by which we advertise to all about us the man, or woman, that we are…. It takes but a brief time to scent the life philosophy of anyone. It is defined in the conversation, in the look of the eye, and in the general mien of the person. It has no hiding place. It’s like the perfume of the flower-unseen, but known almost instantly. It is the possession of the successful, and the happy. And it can be greatly embellished by the absorption of ideas and experiences of the useful of this earth.
—George Matthew Adams (1878–1962) American Columnist, Journalist