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
Only the extremely ignorant or the extremely intelligent can resist change.
—Socrates (469BCE–399BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher
You cannot go on ‘explaining away’ for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on ‘seeing through’ things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it.
—C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish-born British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar
Philosophy, rightly defined, is simply the love of wisdom.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
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
In philosophy, it is not the attainment of the goal that matters, it is the things that are met along the way
—Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British Essayist, Physician
Philosophy! Empty thinking by ignorant conceited men who think they can digest without eating!
—Iris Murdoch (1919–99) British Novelist, Playwright, Philosopher
To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else’s type of thinking.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
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
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 as far separated from impiety as religion is from fanaticism.
—Denis Diderot (1713–84) French Philosopher, Writer
A hidden connection is stronger than an obvious one.
—Heraclitus (535BCE–475BCE) Ancient Greek 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 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
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
There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
The philosopher proves that the philosopher exists. The poet merely enjoys existence.
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American Poet
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
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
The creative mind is the playful mind. Philosophy is the play and dance of ideas.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
Philosophy is the product of wonder.
—Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English Mathematician, Philosopher
A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price.
—Charlie Munger (b.1924) American Investor, Philanthropist
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
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
Philosophers say a great deal about what is absolutely necessary for science, and it is always, so far as one can see, rather naive, and probably wrong.
—Richard Feynman (1918–88) American Physicist
Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons—that’s philosophy.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
Four thousand volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what the soul is.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.
—John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American Naturalist
Of what use is a philosopher who doesn’t hurt anybody’s feelings?
—Diogenes Laertius (f.3rd Century CE) Biographer of the Greek Philosophers
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