Philosopher Quotes - Page 40

• The German philosopher Walter Benjamin had the curious notion that we could change the past. For most of us, the past is fixed while the future is open.

  Terry Eagleton

  Past, Curious, Fixed

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• I am not a philosopher.

  Hans Bethe

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• To make the moral achievement implicit in science a source of strength to civilization, the scientist will have to have the cooperation also of the philosopher and the religious teacher.

  Arthur Compton

  Teacher, Religious, Civilization

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• The method of exposition which philosophers have adopted leads many to suppose that they are simply inquiries, that they have no interest in the conclusions at which they arrive, and that their primary concern is to follow their premises to their logical conclusions.

  Morris Raphael Cohen

  Inquiry, Logical, Method

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• It is not impossible to think that the minds of philosophers sometimes act like those of other mortals, and that, having once been determined by diverse circumstances to adopt certain views, they then look for and naturally find reasons to justify these views.

  Morris Raphael Cohen

  Thinking, Views, Mind

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• Don't call me a mindless philosopher, you overweight glob of grease.

  Anthony Daniels

  Grease, Books And Movies, Geek

  "Fictional character: C-3PO". "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope", www.imdb.com. 1977.

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• We're in a post-conceptual era where it's really the artist's idea and vision that are prized rather than the ability to master the crafts that support the work. Today, our understanding of an artist is closer to a philosopher than to a craftsman.

  Jeffrey Deitch

  Artist, Ideas, Support

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• As a philosopher, I'm not obliged to explore every unknown wilderness.

  Harry Frankfurt

  Wilderness, Obliged

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• Like the philosopher, the author views his task as one of establishing a clear connection between life and history, and of making the past bear fruit for the present and future.

  Lion Feuchtwanger

  Writing, Past, Views

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• Last night I dreamed I went to hillbilly heaven and you know who greeted me at the gate? The ole cowboy-philosopher himself, Will Rogers.

  Tex Ritter

  Death, Cowboy, Night

  Song: I Dreamed Of A Hill-Billy Heaven

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• The human understanding is unquiet; it cannot stop or rest, and still presses onward, but in vain. Therefore it is that we cannot conceive of any end or limit to the world, but always as of necessity it occurs to us that there is something beyond... But he is no less an unskilled and shallow philosopher who seeks causes of that which is most general, than he who in things subordinate and subaltern omits to do so

  Francis Bacon

  Science, Understanding, Enquiry

  Francis Bacon (2012). “The Great Instauration”, p.35, Simon and Schuster

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• A hundred years ago, Auguste Compte, ... a great philosopher, said that humans will never be able to visit the stars, that we will never know what stars are made out of, that that's the one thing that science will never ever understand, because they're so far away. And then, just a few years later, scientists took starlight, ran it through a prism, looked at the rainbow coming from the starlight, and said: "Hydrogen!" Just a few years after this very rational, very reasonable, very scientific prediction was made, that we'll never know what stars are made of.

  Michio Kaku

  Stars, Science, Years

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• Seneca brings vividly before us a picture of the various scholars assembled in a school of the philosophers.

  Frederic Farrar

  School, Scholar, Various

  Frederic William Farrar (1875). “Seekers After God”, p.32

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• The great philosophers and the great works are standards for the selection of what is essential. Everything that we do in studying the history of philosophy ultimately serves their better understanding.

  Karl Jaspers

  Philosophy, Understanding, Essentials

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• Political dissension is doubtless a less evil than the lethargy of despotism: but still it is a great evil, and it would be as worthy the efforts of the patriot as of the philosopher, to exclude its influence if possible, from social life. The good are rare enough at best. There is no reason to subdivide them by artificial lines. But whether we shall ever be able so far to perfect the principles of society as that political opinions shall, in its intercourse, be as inoffensive as those of philosophy, mechanics, or any other, may well be doubted.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Philosophy, Political Opinions, Evil

  Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution : Annotated Correspondence”, p.137, Algora Publishing

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• It was a strange man, a kind of black humorist, a true philosopher. One day he said: "If my books could ensure an increase in the number of murders, well, it will mean that they have been quite useful in some way or another."

  William C. Brown

  Book, Mean, Men

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• To philosopher and historian the madness and imbecile wickedness of mankind ought to appear ordinary events.

  David Hume

  Stupidity, Events, Ordinary

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• The Quest of the Holy Grail, the Search for the Stone of the Philosophers - by whatever name we choose to call the Great Work - is therefore endless. Success only opens up new avenues of brilliant possibility. Yea, verily, and Amen! the task is tireless and its joys without bounds; for the whole Universe, and all that in it is, what is it but the infinite playground of the Crowned and Conquering Child, of the insatiable, the innocent, the ever-rejoicing Heir of Space and Eternity, whose name is MAN?

  Aleister Crowley

  Children, Men, Names

  Aleister Crowley (1991). “Little Essays Toward Truth”

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• When the boy begins to understand that the visible point is preceded by an invisible point, that the shortest distance between two points is conceived as a straight line before it is ever drawn with pencil and paper...the fountain of all thought has been opened to him...the philosopher can reveal him nothing new, as a geometrician he has discovered the basis of all thought.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Distance, Boys, Two

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• Einstein's results again turned the tables and now very few philosophers or scientists still think that scientific knowledge is, or can be, proven knowledge.

  Imre Lakatos

  Thinking, Tables, Scientist

  Imre Lakatos, John Worrall, Gregory Currie (1980). “The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Volume 1: Philosophical Papers”, p.8, Cambridge University Press

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• I'm not a minister, I'm not a philosopher, I'm not a politician, I'm in another category.

  Sun Ra

  Politician, Ministers, Categories

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• Philosophers are all caught up in their philosophies. That's their house of cards. Religious leaders are caught up in their religious movements to the point where they forget about freedom. Everybody's got their drama going.

  Frederick Lenz

  Religious, Drama, Philosophy

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• The myth that John Locke was the philosopher behind the American Republic, is easily refuted by examining how Locke's philosophy steered Thomas Jefferson, for example.

  Robert Trout

  Philosophy, Example, Republic

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• The world's philosophers and theologians searched for answers to the same mysteries.

  Robert Vaughn

  Answers, World, Mystery

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• Science fiction has a way of letting you talk about where we are in the world and letting you be a bit of a pop philosopher without being didactic.

  Brit Marling

  Fiction, World, Way

  "Brit Marling Exclusive Interview Another Earth". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. July 18, 2011.

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