Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
I would not think that philosophy and reason themselves will be man’s guide in the foreseeable future; however, they will remain the most beautiful sanctuary they have always been for the select few.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can … As a peace-maker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
To study philosophy is nothing but to prepare one’s self to die.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
May you live every day of your life.
—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
Keep quiet and people will think you a philosopher.
—Unknown
Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages might be filled up, as vainly as before, with the sad usage of all sorts of sages, who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore! The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
Philosophy, if rightly defined, is nothing but the love of wisdom.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
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
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
Science is what you know. Philosophy is what you don’t know.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn’t wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
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
Take from the philosopher the pleasure of being heard and his desire for knowledge ceases.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
Of what use is a philosopher who doesn’t hurt anybody’s feelings?
—Diogenes Laertius (f.3rd Century CE) Biographer of the Greek Philosophers
I was thrown out of N.Y.U. my freshman year for cheating on my metaphysics final. You know, I looked within the soul of the boy sitting next to me.
—Woody Allen (b.1935) American Film Actor, Director
I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.
—Baruch Spinoza (1632–77) Dutch Philosopher, Theologian
The courage of the truth is the first condition of philosophic study.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German Philosopher
Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.
—Socrates (469BCE–399BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher
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
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
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
My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.
—Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) English Theoretical Physicist, Cosmologist, Academic
Real philosophy seeks rather to solve than to deny. While we hear, every day, the small pretenders to science talk of the absurdities of alchemy, and the dream of the Philosopher’s Stone, a more erudite knowledge is aware that by alchemists the greatest discoveries in science have been made, and much which still seems abstruse, had we the key to the mystic phraseology they were compelled to adopt, might open the way to yet more noble acquisitions.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
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
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain
—John Adams (1735–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
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
My advice to you is to get married. If you find a good wife, you’ll be happy; if not, you’ll become a philosopher.
—Socrates (469BCE–399BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher
Unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.
—Henry Adams (1838–1918) American Historian, Man of Letters
The first business of a philosopher is, to part with self-conceit.
—Epictetus (55–135) Ancient Greek Philosopher
The philosopher proves that the philosopher exists. The poet merely enjoys existence.
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American Poet
There’s a difference between a philosophy and a bumper sticker.
—Charles M. Schulz (1922–2000) American Cartoonist, Writer, Artist
How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh and crabb
—John Milton (1608–74) English Poet, Civil Servant, Scholar, Debater
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
To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
It is not a head merely, but a heart and resolution, which complete the real philosopher.
—Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury (1621–83) British Statesman
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
—Carl Sagan (1934–96) American Astronomer
We can only reason from what is; we can reason on actualities, but not on possibilities.
—Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751) English Politician, Philosopher
Man’s Search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a ‘secondary rationalization’ of instinctual drives. This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning… Man, however, is able to live and even to die for the sake of his ideals and values!
—Viktor Frankl (1905–97) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist
We are much beholden to Machiavelli and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
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
One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people’s minds
—Frank Zappa (1940–93) American Rock Guitarist, Singer, Composer
Truth in philosophy means that concept and external reality correspond.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German 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
The creative mind is the playful mind. Philosophy is the play and dance of ideas.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
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
Consciousness is either inexplicable illusion, or else revelation
—C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish-born British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar
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
There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest—whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories—comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author