Philosopher Quotes - Page 39

• The business of the philosopher is well done if he succeeds in raising genuine doubt.

  Morris Raphael Cohen

  Doubt, Done, Succeed

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• The ideal state for a philosopher, indeed, is celibacy tempered by polygamy.

  H. L. Mencken

  Celibacy, States, Polygamy

  H. L. Mencken (2003). “Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche”, p.35, See Sharp Press

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• What makes philosophy so tedious is not the profundity of philosophers, but their lack of art; they are like physicians who soughtto cure a slight hyperacidity by prescribing a carload of burned oyster-shells.

  H. L. Mencken

  Art, Philosophy, Philosophical

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.617, Vintage

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• Modern historians are all would-be philosophers; who, instead of relating facts as they occurred, give us their version, or rather perversions of them, always colored by their political prejudices, or distorted to establish some theory . . .

  Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington

  Giving, Political, Prejudice

  Marguerite Gardiner Countess of Blessington (1838). “The Confessions of an Elderly Lady”, p.5

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• I am obsessed by the idea of silence. I went through an entire library studying art, artists and their critics, philosophers, too, on the meaning and significance of the color white. I dreamed of white birds and white bears. I thought about the white pages of my mother's journals. I became enthralled with John Cage and his work, 4'33”, his masterpiece of ambient sound. Rauschenberg, too. And then at some point I let go. What sticks to the soul is what gets placed on the page. Maybe that's the unknown part, the mystery, the power of the empty page.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Letting Go, Mother, Art

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• Philosophy has a fine saying for everything.-For Death it has an entire set.

  Laurence Sterne

  Philosophy, Fine

  Laurence Sterne (1996). “Tristram Shandy”, p.248, Wordsworth Editions

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• Let no young man delay the study of philosophy, and let no old man become weary of it; for it is never too early nor too late to care for the well-being of the soul.

  Epicurus

  Philosophy, Men, Soul

  Epicurus (1964). “Letters: Principles Doctrines, and Vatican Sayings Translated, with an Introd. and Notes, by Russel M. Geor. Indianapolis Merrill”

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• Women make us poets, children make us philosophers.

  Malcolm De Chazal

  Children, Poet

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• Two half philosophers will probably never a whole metaphysician make.

  Gaston Bachelard

  Philosophy, Two, Half

  "Fragments of a Poetics of Fire (A Retrospective Glance at the Lifework of a Master of Books)". Book by Gaston Bachelard edited by Suzanne Bachelard, 1988.

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• It has often struck me that the relation of two important members of the social body to one another has never been sufficiently considered, or treated of, so far as I know, either by the philosopher or the poet.

  James Payn

  Two, Important, Body

  James Payn (1882). “Sammlung”

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• Novelists don't age as quickly as philosophers, who often face professional senility in their late twenties.

  Martin Amis

  Age, Twenties, Novelists

  Martin Amis (2014). “The War Against Cliche: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000”, p.315, Vintage

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• The greatest horrors in the history of mankind are not due to the ambition of the Napoleons or the vengeance of the Agamemnons, but to the doctrinaire philosophers. The theories of the sentimentalist Rousseau inspired the integrity of the passionless Robespierre. The cold-blooded calculations of Karl Marx led to the judicial and business-like operations of the Cheka.

  Aleister Crowley

  Integrity, Ambition, Principles

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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

  Philosophy, Science, Moments

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• It is a wonderful thing to see a first-rate philosopher at prayer. Tough-minded thinking and tenderhearted reverence are friends, not enemies. We have for too long separated the head from the heart, and we are the lesser for it. We love God with the mind and we love God with the heart. In reality, we are descending with the mind into the heart and there standing before God in ceaseless wonder and endless praise. As the mind and the heart work in concert, a kind of loving rationality pervades all we say and do. This brings unity to us and glory to God.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Prayer, Heart, Reality

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• How something important happens is the business of historians and newspapers, the effect it has is the business of philosophers and writers and especially poets.

  Karl Shapiro

  Important, Events, Poet

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• Why are philosophers intent on forcing others to believe things? Is that a nice way to behave towards someone?

  Robert Nozick

  Philosophy, Nice, Believe

  Robert Nozick (1981). “Philosophical Explanations”, p.5, Harvard University Press

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• Find the god in your own heart and you will understand by direct intuition what all the great teachers, real mystics, true philosophers and inspired people have been trying to tell you by the tortuous method of using words.

  Paul Brunton

  Teacher, Real, Heart

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• Suppose cats became philosophers, they would see a cat universe and have a cat solution of the problem of the universe, and a cat ruling it. So we see from this that our explanation of the universe is not the whole of the solution.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Cat, Problem, Ruling

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “Jnana Yoga: The Yoga of Knowledge”, p.65, editionNEXT.com

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• To rove about, musing, that is to say loitering, is, for a philosopher, a good way of spending time, especially in that kind of mock rurality, ugly but odd, and partaking of two natures, which surrounds certain large cities, particularly Paris.

  Victor Hugo

  Cities, Two, Paris

  Victor Hugo (1862). “Marius”, p.9

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• Those who have the largest hearts have the soundest understandings; and they are the truest philosophers who can forget themselves.

  William Hazlitt

  Wisdom, Heart, Understanding

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• There is nothing more dangerous than a philosopher who wants to change the world

  Piero Scaruffi

  Inspirational, World, Want

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• I was introduced to Mr. Davy, who has rooms adjoining mine (in the Royal Institution); he is a very agreeable and intelligent young man, and we have interesting conversation in an evening; the principal failing in his character as a philosopher is that he does not smoke.

  John Dalton

  Character, Science, Intelligent

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• The great masses of people do not consist of philosophers; precisely for the masses, faith is often the sole foundation of a moral attitude. ... For the political man, the value of a religion must be estimated less by its deficiencies than by the virtue of a visibly better substitute.

  Adolf Hitler

  Religious, Attitude, Men

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• For the learning of every virtue there is an appropriate discipline, and for the learning of suspended judgment the best discipline is philosophy.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Discipline, Judgment

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.380, Psychology Press

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• It is good a philosopher should remind himself, now and then, that he is a particle pontificating on infinity.

  Ariel Durant

  Infinity, Now And Then, Should

  Will Durant, Ariel Durant (1975). “The Story of Civilization: The age of Napoleon; a history of European civilization from 1789 to 1815”

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