Philosophic Quotes

• Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck.

  Immanuel Kant

  Philosophy, Ocean, Philosophical

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• The unexamined life is not worth living.

  Socrates

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  In Plato 'Apology' 38a

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• For the religious the holy is truth, for the philosophic the truth is holy.

  Ludwig Feuerbach

  Religious, Truth Is, Holy

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• There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.

  Albert Camus

  Suicide, Philosophy, Philosophical

  Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus) "Absurdity and Suicide" (1942)

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• The bourgeoisie, which far surpasses the proletariat in the completeness and irreconcilibility of its class consciousness, is vitally interested in imposing its moral philosophy upon the exploited masses. It is exactly for this purpose that the concrete norms of the bourgeois catechism are concealed under moral abstractions...The appeal to abstract norms is not a disinterested philosophic mistake but a necessary element in the mechanics of class deception.

  Leon Trotsky

  Philosophy, Mistake, Class

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• I mistrust the satisfaction which makes a display of the possession of Infinity; that is called fatuity in philosophic terms.

  Edgar Quinet

  Satisfaction, Infinity, Mistrust

  Edgar Quinet (1845). “Ultramontanism: Or, The Roman Church and Modern Society”, p.72

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• Good humor is a philosophic state of mind; it seems to say to nature that we take her no more seriously than she takes us.

  Ernest Renan

  Happiness, Joy, Mind

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• In life and art we need to make sure that we honour that which our hearts and brains tell us is good. And we should cast a philosophic yet curious smile at that which our hearts and brains tell us otherwise.

  Robert Genn

  Art, Brain, Needs

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

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

  Philosophy, Firsts, Philosopher

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• The misconception which has haunted philosophic literature throughout the centuries is the notion of 'independent existence.' There is no such mode of existence; every entity is to be understood in terms of the way it is interwoven with the rest of the universe.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Independent, Literature, Way

  Alfred North Whitehead (2014). “Science and Philosophy”, p.54, Open Road Media

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• ... clothes sometimes gave one more of a lift than any philosophic comforting.

  Erich Maria Remarque

  Clothes, Comforting, Sometimes

  Erich Maria Remarque (2014). “Heaven Has No Favorites: A Novel”, p.59, Random House

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• To a philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less dangerous than their virtues.

  Edward Gibbon

  Eye, Vices, Virtue

  Edward Gibbon, M. Guizot (François) (1854). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.421

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• Rightly viewed no meanest object is insignificant; all objects are as windows through which the philosophic eye looks into infinitude itself.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Philosophy, Eye, Looks

  Thomas Carlyle (1831). “Sartor Resartus: The life and opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh in three books: By Thomas Carlyle”, p.49

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• The Christian philosopher has a perfect right to the point of view and prephilosophical assumptions he brings to philosophic work; the fact that these are not widely shared outside the Christian or theistic community is interesting but fundamentally irrelevant.

  Alvin Plantinga

  Christian, Views, Perfect

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• An attitude of philosophic doubt, of suspended judgment, is repugnant to the natural man. Belief is an independent joy to him.

  William Minto

  Attitude, Independent, Men

  William Minto “Logic, Inductive and Deductive”, Рипол Классик

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• Poets are being pursued by the philosophers today, out of the poverty of philosophy. God damn it, you might think a man had no business to be writing, to be a poet unless some philosophic stinker gave him permission.

  William Carlos Williams

  Philosophy, Writing, Men

  William Carlos Williams, John C. Thirlwall (1957). “The Selected Letters of William Carlos Williams”, p.219, New Directions Publishing

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• Scientific and philosophic truth have parted company.

  Hannah Arendt

  Company

  Hannah Arendt (2013). “The Human Condition: Second Edition”, p.290, University of Chicago Press

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• A declaration of the independence of America, and the sovereignty of the United STates was drawn by the ingenious and philosophic pen of Thomas Jefferson, Esquire, a delegate from the state of Virginia

  Mercy Otis Warren

  Virginia, America, Independence

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• The best generals I have known were... stupid or absent-minded men. Not only does a good army commander not need any special qualities, on the contrary he needs the absence of the highest and best human attributes - love, poetry, tenderness, and philosophic inquiring doubt. He should be limited, firmly convinced that what he is doing is very important (otherwise he will not have sufficient patience), and only then will he be a brave leader. God forbid that he should be humane, should love, or pity, or think of what is just and unjust.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Love, Stupid, Army

  War and Peace bk. 9, ch. 11 (1865 - 1869) (translation by Louise and Aylmer Maude)

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• Liberals think their campaign against Wal-Mart is a way of introducing the subject of class into America's political argument, and they are more correct than they understand. Their campaign is liberalism as condescension. It is a philosophic repugnance toward markets, because consumer sovereignty results in the masses making messes. Liberals, aghast, see the choices Americans make with their dollars and their ballots and announce - yes, announce - that Americans are sorely in need of more supervision by... liberals.

  George Will

  Thinking, Class, America

  "Dems Vs. Wal-Mart". www.jewishworldreview.com. September 14, 2006.

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• The mysteries of Nature and of humanity are not lessened, but increased, by the discoveries of philosophic skill.

  Thomas Noon Talfourd

  Discovery, Skills, Humanity

  Thomas Babington Macaulay, Thomas Noon Talfourd, James Stephen (1854). “Essays, Critical and Miscellaneous: Critical and miscellaneous writings”, p.77

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• To reflect the entire spectrum, the dynamics of the adventure novel must be invested with a philosophic synthesis of one kind or another.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Inspirational, Art, Adventure

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• What we need in literature today are vast philosophic horizons... we need the most ultimate, the most fearsome, the most fearless "Why?" and "What next?".

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Inspirational, Art, Fearless

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• That fact that Athens could condemn its noblest citizen to death did more than make a profound impression on him. It was to shape the course of his entire philosophic endeavor.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Profound, Citizens, Shapes

  Jostein Gaarder (2010). “Sophie's World”, p.77, Hachette UK

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• We read Charlotte Bronte not for exquisite observation of character - her characters are vigorous and elementary; not for comedy - hers is grim and crude; not for a philosophic view of life - hers is that of a country parson's daughter; but for her poetry. Probably that is so with all writers who have, as she has, an overpowering personality, so that, as we say in real life, they have only to open the door to make themselves felt.

  Virginia Woolf

  War, Character, Doors

  "The Common Reader: First series".

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