The usual picture of Socrates is of an ugly little plebeian who inspired a handsome young nobleman to write long dialogues on large topics.
—Richard Rorty (1931–2007) American Philosopher
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
Apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there?
—Harold Pinter (1930–2008) British Playwright
Tell me what gives a man or woman their greatest pleasure and I’ll tell you their philosophy of life.
—Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American Self-Help Author
In Plato’s opinion, man was made for philosophy; in Bacon’s opinion, philosophy was made for man.
—Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–59) English Historian, Essayist, Philanthropist
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
Of what use is a philosopher who doesn’t hurt anybody’s feelings?
—Diogenes Laertius (f.3rd Century CE) Biographer of the Greek Philosophers
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
What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing about the origin and destiny of cats?
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
In philosophy if you aren’t moving at a snail’s pace you aren’t moving at all.
—Iris Murdoch (1919–99) British Novelist, Playwright, Philosopher
Your philosophy determines whether you will go for the disciplines or continue the errors.
—Jim Rohn (1930–2009) American Entrepreneur, Author, Motivational Speaker
Philosophy! Empty thinking by ignorant conceited men who think they can digest without eating!
—Iris Murdoch (1919–99) British Novelist, Playwright, Philosopher
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.
—Carl Sagan (1934–96) American Astronomer
Philosophy may be dodged, eloquence cannot.
—Edgar Quinet (1803–75) French Historian, Poet
Keep quiet and people will think you a philosopher.
—Unknown
Philosophy is the product of wonder.
—Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English Mathematician, Philosopher
The courage of the truth is the first condition of philosophic study.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German Philosopher
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
One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another.
—Rene Descartes (1596–1650) French Mathematician, Philosopher
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.
—John Donne (1572–1631) English Poet, Cleric
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
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
I know that you, ladies and gentlemen, have a philosophy, each and all of you, and that the most interesting and important thing about you is the way in which it determines the perspective in your several worlds.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
What wreath for Lamia? What for Lycius?
What for the sage, old Apollonius?
Upon her aching forehead be there hung
The leaves of willow and of adder’s tongue;
And for the youth, quick, let us strip for him
The thyrsus, that his watching eyes may swim
Into forgetfulness; and, for the sage,
Let spear-grass and the spiteful thistle wage
War on his temples. 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 gnomed mine –
Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made
The tender-person’d Lamia melt into a shade.
—John Keats (1795–1821) English Poet
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
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
Perhaps it is of more value to infuriate philosophers than to go along with them.
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American Poet
The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.
—Denis Diderot (1713–84) French Philosopher, Writer
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
All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist