Metaphysics Quotes

• Logic works, metaphysics contemplates.

  Joseph Joubert

  Math, Logic, Contemplating

  "The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert". Book by Joseph Joubert, translated by Paul Auster, 2005.

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• Our mania for rational explanations obviously has its roots in our fear of metaphysics, for the two were always hostile brothers. Hence, anything unexpected that approaches us from the dark realm is regarded either as coming from outside and, therefore, as real, or else as a hallucination and, therefore, not true. The idea that anything could be real or true which does not come from outside has hardly begun to dawn on contemporary man.

  Carl Jung

  Brother, Real, Dark

  Carl Gustav Jung (1964). “Civilization in transition”

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• Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.

  Carl Sagan

  God, Spiritual, Philosophy

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.54, Ballantine Books

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• He, however, who begins with Metaphysics, will not only become confused in matters of religion, but will fall into complete infidelity.

  Maimonides

  Fake People, Confused, Fall

  Moses Maimonides (2016). “Guide for the perplexed”, p.290, Moses Maimonides

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• I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me.

  Woody Allen

  Inspirational, Funny, Witty

  Audio CD "Woody Allen: Stand-Up Comic 1964-1968", 1999.

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• I acknowledge that four thousand volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what our soul is.

  Voltaire

  Soul, Four, Volume

  "Voltaire – The Philosophical Works".

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• I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Study, Physics, Subjects

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• Go beyond science, into the region of metaphysics. Real religion is beyond argument. It can only be lived both inwardly and outwardly.

  Sivananda

  Real, Religion, Argument

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• It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

  Aristotle

  Inspirational, Motivational, Leadership

  Attributed to Aristotle in "Religion and the Pursuit of Truth" by Lowell Lindsay Bennion, p. 52, 1959.

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• Our scientific age demands that we provide definitions, measurements, and statistics in order to be taken seriously. Yet most of the important things in life cannot be precisely defined or measured. Can we define or measure love, beauty, friendship, or decency, for example?

  Dennis Prager

  Taken, Order, Things In Life

  Dennis Prager (2009). “Happiness Is a Serious Problem: A Human Nature Repair Manual”, p.9, Harper Collins

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• Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

  Albert Einstein

  Love, Life, Motivational

  "Science, Philosophy, and Religion" (1940).

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• It has been said that metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Philosophy, Believe, Reason

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• That's metaphysics, my dear fellow. It's forbidden me by my doctor, my stomach won't take it.

  Boris Pasternak

  Doctors, Dear God, Stomach

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• To regard the imagination as metaphysics is to think of it as part of life, and to think of it as part of life is to realize the extent of artifice. We live in the mind.

  Wallace Stevens

  Life, Thinking, Imagination

  Wallace Stevens (1997). “Collected Poetry and Prose”

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• The most Heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together.

  Samuel Johnson

  Ideas, Together, Violence

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets: Cowley. Denham. Milton. Butler. Rochester. Roscommon. Otway. Waller. Pomfret. Dorset. Stepney. J. Phillips. Walsh. Dryden. Smith. Duke. King. Sprat. Halifax. Parnell. Garth. Rowe. Addison. Hughes. Sheffield, duke of Buckinghamshire”, p.14

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• the senses alone are not implicitly to be depended on. We must correct their evidence by reason, and by considerations, derived from the nature of the medium, the distance of the object, and the disposition of the organ, in order to render them, within their sphere, the proper criteria of truth and falsehood.

  David Hume

  Distance, Order, Spheres

  David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.1058, Delphi Classics

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• If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

  David Hume

  School, Math, Numbers

  An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding sec. 12, pt. 3 (1748)

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• My studies in Speculative philosophy, metaphysics, and science are all summed up in the image of a mouse called man running in and out of every hole in the Cosmos hunting for the Absolute Cheese.

  Benjamin De Casseres

  Running, Atheist, Philosophy

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• I guess I wouldn't believe in anything if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch.

  Steve Martin

  Believe, Astrology, Watches

  "Steve Martin: A Wild and Crazy Guy", 1978.

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• Metaphysics,--the science which determines what can and what cannot be known of being and the laws of being.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Law, Being Me, Determine

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, James MARSH (D.D.) (1829). “Aids to reflection, in the formation of a manly character ... illustrated by select passages ... especially from Archbishop Leighton ... First American, from the first London edition ... Together with a preliminary essay, and additional notes, by James Marsh”, p.397

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• Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.

  William James

  Mean, Thinking, Effort

  1890 The Principles of Psychology, ch.6.

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• The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Reading, Thinking

  Samuel Johnson (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.398, Harvard University Press

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• Ancient metaphysics underwent many changes at the hands of medieval thinkers who brought it in line with the dominant religious and theological movements of their day.

  Wilhelm Dilthey

  Religious, Hands, Movement

  Wilhelm Dilthey, Rudolf A. Makkreel, Frithjof Rodi (1991). “Introduction to the Human Sciences”, p.59, Princeton University Press

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• Look, there's no metaphysics on earth but chocolates.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Love, Halloween, Food

  "Poems of Fernando Pessoa".

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• It is clear, then, that wisdom is knowledge having to do with certain principles and causes. But now, since it is this knowledge that we are seeking, we must consider the following point: of what kind of principles and of what kind of causes is wisdom the knowledge?

  Aristotle

  Words Of Wisdom, Principles, Causes

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