Many talk like philosophers yet live like fools.
—Common Proverb
Science is what you know. Philosophy is what you don’t know.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
Be a philosopher; but amid all your philosophy, be still a man.
—David Hume (1711–76) Scottish Philosopher, Historian
There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.
—Denis Diderot (1713–84) French Philosopher, Writer
Philosophy is nothing but common sense in a dress suit
—Indian Proverb
To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
Truth in philosophy means that concept and external reality correspond.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German Philosopher
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
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Nietzsche was personally more philosophical than his philosophy. His talk about power, harshness, and superb immorality was the hobby of a harmless young scholar and constitutional invalid.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
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
There is no record in history of a happy philosopher.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
True philosophy is that which makes us to ourselves and to all about us, better; and at the same time, more content, patient, calm, and more ready for all decent and pure enjoyment.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) Swiss Theologian, Poet
Only the extremely ignorant or the extremely intelligent can resist change.
—Socrates (469BCE–399BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher
Plato was a bore.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
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
Every system of philosophy is little in comparison with Christianity.—Philosophy may expand our ideas of creation, but it neither inspires love to the moral character of the Creator, nor a well-groomed hope of eternal life.—At most, it can only place us on the top of Pisgah, and there, like Moses, we must die; it gives us no possession of the good land.—It is the province of Christianity to add, “All is yours.”
—Anonymous
Anyone who wants to be cured of ignorance must confess it. … Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, inquiry its progress, ignorance its end.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.
—John W. Gardner (1912–2002) American Activist
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.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-born British Philosopher
Keep quiet and people will think you a philosopher.
—Unknown
To be a husbandman, is but a retreat from the city; to be a philosopher, from the world; or rather a retreat from the world as it is man’s, into the world as it is God’s.
—Abraham Cowley (1618–67) English Poet, Essayist
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
Nobody can have the consolations of religion or philosophy unless he has first experienced their desolations
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
Sublime philosophy! thou art the patriarch’s ladder, reaching heaven and bright with beckoning angels; but, alas’ we see thee, like the patriarch, but in dreams, by the first step, dull slumbering on the earth.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
According to the saying of an ancient philosopher, one should eat to live, and not live to eat
—Moliere (1622–73) French Playwright
Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated about among men of thought.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Philosophy is of two kinds: that which relates to conduct, and that which relates to knowledge. The first teaches us to value all things at their real worth, to be contented with little, modest in prosperity, patient in trouble, equal-minded at all times. It teaches us our duty to our neighbor and ourselves. But it is he who possesses both that is the true philosopher. The more he knows, the more he is desirous of knowing; and yet the farther he advances in knowledge, the better he understands how little he can attain, and the more deeply he feels that God alone can satisfy the infinite desires of an immortal soul. To understand this is the height and perfection of philosophy.
—Robert South (1634–1716) English Theologian, Preacher
If a man’s good for nothing else, he can at least teach philosophy.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
Philosophy is a proud, sullen detector of the poverty and misery of man. It may turn him from the world with a proud, sturdy contempt; but it cannot come forward and say, here are rest, grace, pardon, peace, strength, and consolation.
—Richard Cecil
Philosophy has been called the knowledge of our knowledge; it might more truly be called the knowledge of our ignorance, or in the language of Kant, the knowledge of the limits of our knowledge.
—Max Muller (1823–1900) German-Born British Philologist, Orientalist
Philosophy is a goddess, whose head indeed is in heaven, but whose feet are upon earth; she attempts more than she accomplishes, and promises more than she performs.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
All men desire to know
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
Philosophers, for the most part, are constitutionally timid, and dislike the unexpected. Few of them would be genuinely happy as pirates or burglars. Accordingly they invent systems which make the future calculable, at least in its main outlines
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
Learning Zen is a phenomenon of gold and dung. Before you understand it, it’s like gold; after you understand it, it’s like dung.
—Zen Proverb Japanese School of Mahayana Buddhism
Philosophy can add to our happiness in no other manner but by diminishing our misery; it should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of. Happy were we all born philosophers; all born with a talent of thus dissipating our own cares by spreading them upon all mankind.
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
Every philosophy is the philosophy of some stage of life.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
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
If this is philosophy it is at any rate a philosophy that is not in its right mind.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
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
Philosophy! Empty thinking by ignorant conceited men who think they can digest without eating!
—Iris Murdoch (1919–99) British Novelist, Playwright, Philosopher
I also realized that the philosophers, far from ridding me of my vain doubts, only multiplied the doubts that tormented me and failed to remove any one of them. So I chose another guide and said, Let me follow the Inner Light; it will not lead me so far astray as others have done, or if it does it will be my own fault, and I shall not go so far wrong if I follow my own illusions as if I trusted to their deceits
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
Pragmatism asks its usual question. “Grant an idea or belief to be true,” it says, “what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone’s actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth’s cash-value in experiential terms?
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
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
History is Philosophy teaching by examples.
—Thucydides (c.455?c.400 BCE) Greek Historian
The stoical schemes of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist
In the very books in which philosophers bid us scorn fame, they inscribe their names
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
Philosophy is a bully that talks very loud, when the danger is at a distance; but the moment she is hard pressed by the enemy, she is not to be found at her post, but leaves the brunt of the battle to be borne by her humbler but steadier comrade, religion.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh and crabb
—John Milton (1608–74) English Poet, Civil Servant, Scholar, Debater