Philosophy Quotes - Page 5

• Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.

  Albert Camus

  Inspirational, Courage, Philosophical

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• Whence? wither? why? how? - these questions cover all philosophy.

  Joseph Joubert

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• Whoever does not philosophize for the sake of philosophy, but rather uses philosophy as a means, is a sophist.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Mean, Doe, Use

  "Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms" by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, translated by Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, Pennsylvania University Press, 1968.

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• The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.

  Aristotle

  Life, Death, Education

  Aristotle (2015). “The Aristotle Collection [50 Books]”, Catholic Way Publishing

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• Philosophy is like trying to open a safe with a combination lock: each little adjustment of the dials seems to achieve nothing, only when everything is in place does the door open.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Doors, Trying, Doe

  Conversation in 1930. "Ludwig Wittgenstein: Personal Recollections". Book by Rush Rhees, Chapter 6, 1981.

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• Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisioned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Art, People, Soul

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• O Heaven, it is mysterious, it is awful to consider that we not only carry each a future Ghost within him; but are, in very deed, Ghosts!

  Thomas Carlyle

  Philosophical, Heaven, Deeds

  "Sartor Resartus: The Historian".

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• We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.

  Tom Robbins

  Love, Marriage, Time

  Tom Robbins (2003). “Still Life with Woodpecker”, p.122, Bantam

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• The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways: the point, however, is to change it.

  Karl Marx

  Change, Courage, Peace

  Theses on Feuerbach no. 11 (written 1845). This is the epitaph on Marx's tombstone in Highgate Cemetery, London.

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• Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop.

  Lewis Carroll

  Running, Philosophical, New Beginnings

  'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' (1865) ch. 12

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• Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind is also rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.

  Bertrand Russell

  Greatness, Imagination, Mind

  Bertrand Russell (1997). “The Problems of Philosophy”, p.161, Oxford University Press, USA

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  Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

  Winston Churchill

  Ignorance, Democratic Socialism, Envy

  Speech at the Scottish Unionist Conference, Perth, Scotland, May 28, 1948.

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• When I study philosophical works I feel I am swallowing something which I don't have in my mouth.

  Albert Einstein

  Philosophical, Swallowing, Mouths

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• Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Leadership, Math, Science

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.181, University of Georgia Press

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• Philosophy when superficially studied, excites doubt, when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.

  Francis Bacon

  Doubt, Overcoming Doubt, When In Doubt

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• A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.

  Laozi

  Inspirational, Leadership, Wisdom

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• Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Inspirational, Life, Wisdom

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• To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Love, Life, Trust

  Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.9, Courier Corporation

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• 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

  Science, Philosopher, Moments

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• We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

  Will Durant

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

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• 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

  Plato, Science, Should Have

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Late President of the United States”, p.248

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• The proper method of philosophy consists in clearly conceiving the insoluble problems in all their insolubility and then in simply contemplating them, fixedly and tirelessly, year after year, without any hope, patiently waiting.

  Simone Weil

  Science, Years, Waiting

  Simone Weil (2015). “First and Last Notebooks: Supernatural Knowledge”, p.335, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• Any creed whose basic doctrines do not include respect for the creeds of others, is simply power politics masquerading as philosophy.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Doctrine, Power Politics, Creeds

  Sydney J. Harris (1976). “Best of Sydney J. Harris”

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• To recognize untruth as a condition of life--that certainly means resisting accustomed value feelings in a dangerous way; and a philosophy that risks this would by that token alone place itself beyond good and evil.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Mean, Evil, Feelings

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2009). “Basic Writings of Nietzsche”, p.202, Modern Library

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• Common sense is not so common.

  Voltaire

  Life, Wisdom, Witty

  Dictionnaire Philosophique "Common Sense" (1765)

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