Metaphysical Quotes - Page 11

• Mathematics has not a foot to stand upon which is not purely metaphysical.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Feet, Mathematics

  Thomas De Quincey, James Thomas Fields (1854). “De Quincey's Writings: Essays on philosophical writers and other men of letters. 1854-60. [v. 14 stereotyped”, p.103

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• To accept the fact that, after fertilization has taken place, a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion. The human nature of the human being from conception to old age is not a metaphysical conception. It is plain experimental evidence.

  Jerome Lejeune

  Taken, Abortion, Age

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• I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research programme.

  Karl Popper

  Research, Evolution, Theory

  Karl Popper (2005). “Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography”, p.195, Routledge

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• In the American Metaphysical, reality is always material reality, hard, resistant, unformed, impenetrable, and unpleasant.

  Lionel Trilling

  Reality, Materials, Hard

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• Metaphysical ghosts cannot be killed, because they cannot be touched; but they may be dispelled by dispelling the twilight in which shadows and solidities are easily confounded. The Vital Principle is an entity of this ghostly kind; and although the daylight has dissipated it, and positive Biology is no longer vexed with its visitations, it nevertheless reappears in another shape in the shadowy region of mystery which surrounds biological and all other questions.

  George Henry Lewes

  Twilight, Science, Shadow

  George Henry Lewes (1867). “The History of Philosophy from Thales to Comte by George Henry Lewes: Ancient philosophy”, p.84

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• ...the scientific attitude implies what I call the postulate of objectivity-that is to say, the fundamental postulate that there is no plan, that there is no intention in the universe. Now, this is basically incompatible with virtually all the religious or metaphysical systems whatever, all of which try to show that there is some sort of harmony between man and the universe and that man is a product-predictable if not indispensable-of the evolution of the universe.

  Jacques Monod

  Religious, Attitude, Science

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• I suppose what makes me most glad is that we all recognize each other in this metaphysical space of silence and happening, and get some sense, for a moment, that we are full of paradise without knowing it.

  Thomas Merton

  Knowing, Space, Silence

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• Art alone makes life possible - this is how radically I should like to formulate it. I would say that without art man is inconceivable in physiological terms...
  Even the act of peeling a potato can be an artistic act if it is consciously done.

  Joseph Beuys

  Art, Men, Creative

  Interview in "Artforum" Magazine, November 1969; as quoted in "Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972" by Lucy R. Lippard, University of California Press, (p. 121), 1973.

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• The law is this: that each of our leading conceptions-each branch of our knowledge-passes successively through three different theoretical conditions: the Theological, or fictitious: the Metaphysical, or abstract; and the Scientific, or positive.

  Auguste Comte

  Knowledge, Science, Law

  Auguste Comte (1975). “Auguste Comte and Positivism: The Essential Writings”, p.68, Transaction Publishers

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• Consider the Koran... this wretched book was sufficient to start a world-religion, to satisfy the metaphysical need of countless millions for twelve hundred years, to become the basis of their morality and of a remarkable contempt for death, and also to inspire them to bloody wars and the most extensive conquests. In this book we find the saddest and poorest form of theism. Much may be lost in translation, but I have not been able to discover in it one single idea of value.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  War, Book, Years

  "The World as Will and Representation" by Arthur Schopenhauer, translated by E. Payne, Vol. II, Ch. XVII, 1958.

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• Words are very powerful and can lead anyone reading them or hearing them, into contemplation and insight. How the mind follows suit is rarely palpable or expected. This impact is not a matter of metaphysical effects nor of an unexplainable phenomenon. It’s simply part of being human.

  David Mitchell

  Powerful, Reading, Impact

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• I don't believe in god, so I don't have to make elaborately sounded structures. ... Pain always produces logic, which is very bad for you. ... As for measure and other technical apparatus, that's just common sense: if you're going to buy a pair of pants you want them to be tight enough so everyone will want to go to bed with you. There's nothing metaphysical about it.

  Frank O'Hara

  Pain, Believe, Common Sense

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• The act of surrendering sort of puts me in a different mindset that allows me to be more of a channel - because I'm not holding on so tightly to things, I'm letting go, and I find that in letting go I become more of a channel for life to really happen on life's terms. I mean, maybe that sounds sort of metaphysical, but that's honestly how I feel.

  Lana Del Rey

  Letting Go, Mean, Sound

  Source: www.wbur.org

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• I am metaphysical inasmuch as I am looking for a non-eloquent painting, immobile and of atmosphere, which feeds on static situations.

  Domenico Gnoli

  Atmosphere, Painting, Static

  Source: observer.com

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• When spiritual, metaphysical, material, or immaterial events come into my life, I can only fix them by way of painting.

  Max Beckmann

  Spiritual, Healing, Events

  Max Beckmann (2003). “Max Beckmann On My Painting”, Tate

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• This [terrorists attacks on 9/11] was part of nothing. It was a leap into another realm - the realm of crazy abstractions and mythological generalities, involving people who have hijacked Islam for their own purposes. It's important not to fall into that trap and to try to respond with a metaphysical retaliation of some sort.

  Edward Said

  Crazy, Fall, People

  Source: www.progressive.org

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• [Mindfulness] is not concerned with anything transcendent or divine. It serves as an antidote to theism, a cure for sentimental piety, a scalpel for excising the tumor of metaphysical belief. (130)

  Stephen Batchelor

  Mindfulness, Sentimental, Belief

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• It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Men, Heaven, Soul

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1988). “Frankenstein, Or, The Modern Prometheus: With Supplementary Essays and Poems from the Twentieth Century”, p.32, Orchises Press

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• We could speak about the meaning of life vis-a-vis non-consequential/deontological theories, apodictic transformation schemata, the incoherence of exemplification, metaphysical realism, Cartesian interactive dualism, revised non reductive dualism, postmodernist grammatology and dicey dichotomies. But we would still be left with Nietzsche's preposterous mustache which instills great anguish and skepticism in the brain, which leads (as it did in his case) to utter madness. I suggest we go to Paris instead.

  Maira Kalman

  Paris, Mustache, Brain

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• To live strikes me as a metaphysical mistake of matter, a dereliction of inaction.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Mistake, Matter, Strikes

  Fernando Pessoa (1996). “The Book of Disquietude: By Bernardo Soares, Assistant Bookkeeper in the City of Lisbon”

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• Any black person who clings to the misguided notion that white people represent the embodiment of all that is evil and black people all that is good remains wedded to the very logic of Western metaphysical dualism that is the heart of racist binary thinking. Such thinking is not liberatory. Like the racist educational ideology it mirrors and imitates, it invites a closing of the mind.

  Bell Hooks

  Educational, Heart, Thinking

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• Dawkins’s problem is that he doesn’t know the difference between probabilistic empirical theorizing and strict metaphysical demonstration, and thus misreads an attempt at the latter as if it were the former. That is not to say that Aquinas might not be mistaken at some point in the argument – though obviously I don’t think he is – but if you’re going to show that he is, you first need to understand what kind of argument he is giving, and thus what kind of mistake he’d be making if he’s made one at all.

  Edward Feser

  Mistake, Thinking, Differences

  Edward Feser (2008). “The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism”, St Augustine PressInc

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• The Earth is beautiful. If you start living its beauty, enjoying its joys with no guilt in your heart, you are in paradise. If you condemn everything, every small joy, then the same Earth turns into a hell. It is a question of your own inner transformation. It is not a change of place, it is a change of inner space. Live joyously, guiltlessly, live totally, live intensely. And then heaven is no more a metaphysical concept, it is your own experience.

  Rajneesh

  Beautiful, Wisdom, Heart

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• What differentiates time from space is that time does have a direction. In that sense it is different from space. I think that's certainly true that whereas spatial dimensions don't have direction or an arrow, time does. It runs from past to future. But I see that arrow of time as rooted in a deeper metaphysical reality, namely the reality of temporal becoming - of things coming to be and passing away. That is why time has this arrow. But it's not sufficient to simply say that time and space are distinct because time has a direction. The question will be: why does it have a direction?

  William Lane Craig

  Running, Past, Reality

  Source: www.patheos.com

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• A pleasant comedy, which paints the manners of the age, and exposes a faithful picture of nature, is a durable work, and is transmitted to the latest posterity. But a system, whether physical or metaphysical, commonly owes its success to its novelty; and is no sooner canvassed with impartiality than its weakness is discovered.

  David Hume

  Faithful, Age, Weakness

  David Hume (2016). “The History of England, vol. 1~6, Completed: Revision of Great Book”, p.2565, VM eBooks

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