Philosopher Quotes - Page 37

• I think philosophers can do things akin to theoretical scientists, in that, having read about empirical data, they too can think of what hypotheses and theories might account for that data. So there's a continuity between philosophy and science in that way.

  Robert Nozick

  Philosophy, Thinking, Data

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• The scientists often have more unfettered imaginations than current philosophers do. Relativity theory came as a complete surprise to philosophers, and so did quantum mechanics, and so did other things.

  Robert Nozick

  Imagination, Surprise, Scientist

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• The philosopher cannot seriously put to himself questions that his civilization has not lived.

  William Barrett

  Civilization

  William Barrett (2011). “Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy”, p.20, Anchor

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• Vain is the word of a philosopher which does not heal any suffering of man. For just as there is no profit in medicine if it does not expel the diseases of the body, so there is no profit in philosophy either, if it does not expel the suffering of the mind.

  Epicurus

  Philosophy, Men, Medicine

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• But Adam Smith was a philosopher as well as well as an economist, famous in his time as much for his Theory of Moral Sentiments as for The Wealth of Nations. And as he understood so well, society is more than the sum of its individual parts.

  Paul Ormerod

  Moral, Wealth, Individual

  "The Death of Economics". Book by Paul Ormerod, 1994.

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• I also realized that the philosophers, far from ridding me of my vain doubts, only multiplied the doubts that tormented me and failed to remove any one of them. So I chose another guide and said, Let me follow the Inner Light; it will not lead me so far astray as others have done, or if it does it will be my own fault, and I shall not go so far wrong if I follow my own illusions as if I trusted to their deceits.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Philosophy, Light, Doubt

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1979). “The indispensable Rousseau”, Quartet Books (UK)

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• APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom. The flabby wine-skin of his brain Yields to some pathologic strain, And voids from its unstored abysm The driblet of an aphorism. "The Mad Philosopher," 1697

  Ambrose Bierce

  Wine, Yield, Mad

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2356, Delphi Classics

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• When they can't win a debate (can they ever?), leftists deploy what the late novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand called the argument from intimidation. Instead of trying to refute the other side, they label their opponents' position evil, attribute sinister motives to its adherents, and charge that its proponents are encouraging violence.

  Don Feder

  Winning, Evil, Trying

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• "When we do not know what harbor we are making for," the Roman philosopher Seneca wrote, "no wind is the right wind." Persons have vision only when they have a dream that drives them on.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Dream, Wind, Goal

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• Philosophy goes no further than probabilities, and in every assertion keeps a doubt in reserve.

  James Anthony Froude

  Philosophy, Doubt, Probability

  Short Studies on Great Subjects Calvinism (p. 51)

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• The proof that a philosopher does not know what he is talking about is apt to sadden his followers before it reacts on himself.

  Henry Adams

  Talking, Doe, Followers

  Henry Adams (2015). “The Education of Henry Adams”, p.129, Booklassic

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• In Plato's opinion, man was made for philosophy; in Bacon's opinion, philosophy was made for man.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Plato, Philosophy, Science

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• A great scholar is seldom a great philosopher.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Scholar, Great Philosophers

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1889). “Early and miscellaneous letters”

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• Every philosophy is the philosophy of some stage of life.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Philosophy, Science, Stage

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.48, Penguin

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• A married philosopher belongs to comedy.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Comedy, Married

  Friedrich Nietzsche, Keith Ansell-Pearson (1994). “Nietzsche: 'On the Genealogy of Morality' and Other Writings”, p.81, Cambridge University Press

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• Every man will be a poet if he can; otherwise a philosopher or man of science. This proves the superiority of the poet.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Science, Men, Poet

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.77, BookBaby

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• In our corrupted state, common weaknesses and defects contribute more towards the reconciling us to one another than all the precepts of the philosophers and divines.

  E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

  Perfect, Weakness, Common

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• The philosophers are wrong: it is not words that kill, it is silence.

  Elie Wiesel

  Silence

  Elie Wiesel (2013). “The Testament”, p.151, Souvenir Press

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• It is a proof of philosophical mediocrity, today, to look for a philosophy.

  Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Looks

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• The courage of the truth is the first condition of philosophic study.

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

  Philosophy, Firsts, Study

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• When I first collected these authorities, I was desirous that every quotation should be useful to some other end than the illustration of a word; I therefore extracted from philosophers principles of science; from historians remarkable facts; from chymists complete processes; from divines striking exhortations; and from poets beautiful descriptions.

  Samuel Johnson

  Beautiful, Illustration, Firsts

  Samuel Johnson (2006). “A Dictionary of the English Language: an Anthology: an Anthology”, p.101, Penguin UK

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• The simplicity of winter has a deep moral. The return of Nature, after such a career of splendor and prodigality, to habits so simple and austere, is not lost either upon the head or the heart. It is the philosopher coming back from the banquet and the wine to a cup of water and a crust of bread.

  John Burroughs

  Heart, Wine, Winter

  John Burroughs (2012). “In the Catskills Selections from the Writings of John Burroughs”, p.15, tredition

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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, Philosophy, Science

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

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• Professors of Greek forget or are unaware that Thomas Aquinas, who did not know Greek, was a better interpreter of Aristotle than any of them have proved to be, not only because he was smarter but because he took Aristotle more seriously.

  Allan Bloom

  Greek, Forget, Professors

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• The facile economic and psychological debunking of the theoretical life cannot do away with its irreducible beauties.

  Allan Bloom

  Economic, Psychological, Theoretical

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.245, Simon and Schuster

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