Great Philosophers Quotes

• Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Love, Funny, Marriage

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.155, University of Georgia Press

  44 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  There is no remedy for love but to love more.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Love, Life, Break Up

  Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.12, Yale University Press

  246 Copy quote

  Show source

• Another important historical factor is the fact that this already very simple religion was further simplified and purified by the early philosophers of ancient China. Our first great philosopher was a founder of naturalism; and our second great philosopher was an agnostic.

  Hu Shih

  Simple, Historical, Religion

  52 Copy quote

• The great philosophers and the great works are standards for the selection of what is essential. Everything that we do in studying the history of philosophy ultimately serves their better understanding.

  Karl Jaspers

  Philosophy, Understanding, Essentials

  8 Copy quote

• A great philosopher has stated that the worst evil of poverty is, that it makes folks ridiculous; by which, I hope, he only means that, as in the above case, it places them in incongruous positions.

  James Payn

  Mean, Evil, Poverty

  James Payn (1882). “Sammlung”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• What great philosophers do for us is not to hand out such an all-purpose system. It is to light up and clarify some special aspect of life, to supply conceptual tools which will do a certain necessary kind of work. Wide though that area of work may be, it is never the whole, and all ideas lose their proper power when they are used out of their appropriate context. That is why one great philosopher does not necessarily displace another, why there is room for all of them and a great many more whom we do not have yet.

  Mary Midgley

  Light, Hands, Ideas

  Mary Midgley (2011). “The Myths We Live By”, p.223, Taylor & Francis

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• The complexities of adult life get in the way of the truth. The great philosophers have always been able to clear away the complexities and see simple distinctions - simple once they are stated, vastly difficult before. If we are to follow them we too must be childishly simple in our questions - and maturely wise in our replies.

  Mortimer Adler

  Wise, Simple, Adults

  Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren (2014). “How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading”, p.265, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• That great philosopher anonymous once said, never argue with a fool. People might not know the difference.

  Tucker Carlson

  Differences, People, Might

  "The Situation" with Tucker Carlson, www.nbcnews.com. December 15, 2005.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I read all the great philosophers but most people just hear what they want to hear and it makes it easy for them to brand us devil worshippers.

  Marilyn Manson

  People, Devil, Want

  9 Copy quote

• So even these stages of progression, whether it's your career or whatever, you get somewhere, but then it always brings a new host of issues that are relative dissatisfactions to a certain degree. I think it was a great philosopher who once said, "Mo' money, mo' problems."

  Steve Zissis

  Thinking, Careers, Issues

  "Amanda Peet and Steve Zissis discuss what the second season holds for Togetherness". Interview with Gwen Ihnat, www.avclub.com. February 21, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The great philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries did not think that epistemological questions floated free of questions about how the mind works. Those philosophers took a stand on all sorts of questions which nowadays we would classify as questions of psychology, and their views about psychological questions shaped their views about epistemology, as well they should have.

  Hilary Kornblith

  Thinking, Views, Should Have

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have a general moral: great philosophers may be great, but that is not a reason to follow them. Don't be a follower. Work it out for yourself.

  Tim Crane

  Followers, May, Philosopher

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• It would be fun too to put some of the great philosophers and political scientists of the past couple centuries into a time machine, have them look at the world today, and see what they think. Imagine Schumpeter, Malthus, Hobbes, Nietzsche, Marx, and more! That would be good fun.

  Scott D. Anthony

  Couple, Fun, Past

  Source: bobmorris.biz

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Kantians are saddled with absolutist views, Aristotelians are accused of vagueness, and there is almost no horror to which Consequentialists are innocent of, according to some critics. While all these families of views have been victimized in these ways, Consequentialists have gotten the worst of it. I think this may have something to do with the fact that Kant and Aristotle are acknowledged to be great philosophers, and we tend to read the greats sympathetically, while Consequentialism is a family of views not rooted in the work of a single great man to whom this kind of deference is owed.

  Dale Jamieson

  Men, Thinking, Views

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Good comedians are great philosophers.

  Reggie Watts

  Comedian, Philosopher

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• [Benjamin] Franklin may be a great philosopher, [John Adams] told his diary in 1779, but "as a Legislator in America he has done very little."

  Gordon S. Wood

  America, Diaries, Done

  Source: www.theimaginativeconservative.org

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm the best promoter in the world because I haven't taken a day off work since I left the penitentiary, and because I have read all the great philosophers like St. Thomas Aquinine.

  Don King

  Taken, Boxing, Days Off

  32 Copy quote

• I think you must remember that a writer is a simple-minded person to begin with and go on that basis. He's not a great mind, he's not a great thinker, he's not a great philosopher, he's a story-teller.

  Erskine Caldwell

  Writing, Thinking, Simple

  Erskine Caldwell (1988). “Conversations with Erskine Caldwell”, p.51, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• As the great philosopher George Santayana would have said, 'those who cannot remember the past . . . should simply read Jan Van Meter's Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.' Van Meter's greatest hits collection of slogans is the catchiest ever retelling of American history. It's like the greatest minds of Madison Avenue sat down to write a history book. They don't make sound bites like they used to!

  Mo Rocca

  Book, Writing, Past

  5 Copy quote

• Antiquity was often delighted to cast a halo of mythical glory around its illustrious names. The immortal works of this great philosopher seemed to entitle him to more than mortal honors. A legend into the authenticity of which we will abstain from inquiring, asserted that his mother, Perictione, a pure virgin, suffered an immaculate conception through the influence of Apollo. The god declared to Ariston, to whom she was about to be married, the parentage of the child.

  John William Draper

  Mother, Children, Names

  John William Draper (1876). “History of the Intellectual Development of Europe”, p.151

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• A great philosopher in the wrong is like a beacon on the reefs which says to seamen: steer clear of me.

  Jacques Maritain

  Philosopher, Beacons, Clear

  Jacques Maritain (2015). “On the Use of Philosophy: Three Essays”, p.5, Princeton University Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The student who would build his knowledge on solid foundations, and proceed by just degrees to the pinnacles of truth, is directed by the great philosopher of France to begin by doubting of his own existence. In like manner, whoever would complete any arduous and intricate enterprise, should, as soon as his imagination can cool after the first blaze of hope, place before his own eyes every possible embarrassment that may retard or defeat him. He should first question the probability of success, and then endeavour to remove the objections that he has raised.

  Samuel Johnson

  Eye, Imagination, Doubt

  Samuel Johnson (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.77

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Early morning, the orange sun is slowly rising, shining forth in empty luminous clarity. The mind and the sky are one, the sun is rising in the vast space of primordial awareness, and there is just this. Yasutani Roshi once said, speaking of satori, that it was the most precious realization in the world, because all the great philosophers had tried to understand ultimate reality but had failed to do so, yet with satori or awakening all of your deepest questions are finally answered: it's just this.

  Ken Wilber

  Morning, Reality, Sky

  Ken Wilber (2000). “One Taste”, p.105, Shambhala Publications

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The only way to truly conquer something, as every great philosopher and geneticist will tell you, is to love it.

  Christopher McDougall

  Way, Philosopher, Conquer

  Christopher McDougall (2010). “Born to Run: The hidden tribe, the ultra-runners, and the greatest race the world has never seen”, p.125, Profile Books

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Future generations may or may not judge Wittgenstein to be one of the great philosophers. Even if they do not, however, he is sure always to count as one of the great personalities of philosophy. From our perspective it is easy to mistake one for the other; which he is time will tell.

  A.C. Grayling

  Philosophy, Mistake, Perspective

  A. C. Grayling (1988). “Wittgenstein”, Oxford University Press, USA

  15 Copy quote

  Show source