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Philosophy, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
AMBROSE BIERCE, The Devil's Dictionary
A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.
I have tried in my time to be a philosopher; but, I don't know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in.
OLIVER EDWARDS, Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson
To a philosopher no circumstance, however trifling, is too minute.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH, Citizen of the World
The true philosopher is a brave spirit; dauntless to discover, and bold to declare the truth at all hazard. He feels the inner constraint of his messages, and, as a prophet to his day and generation, he must needs speak, though the whole world cry to him, silence.
JOHN GRIER HIBBEN, The Problems of Philosophy
Philosophy is concerned with that which is, in contrast with that which seems to be. Its aim is to reveal the reality which underlies appearance.
JOHN GRIER HIBBEN, The Problems of Philosophy
To believe only possibilities is not faith, but mere Philosophy.
SIR THOMAS BROWNE, Religio Medici
The problems of philosophy and the systems designed to solve them are formulated in terms which tend to refer, not to the realm of actuality, but to the realms of possibility and necessity: to what might be and what must be, rather than to what is.
ROGER SCRUTON, Short History of Modern Philosophy
You can't do without philosophy, since everything has its hidden meaning which we must know.
MAXIM GORKY, Power Quotes to Energize Your Life
The maxim, "An unexamined life is not worth living," is the priceless legacy of Socrates to the generations of men who have followed him upon this earth. The beings who have stood on humanity's summit are those, and only those, who have heard the voice of Socrates across the centuries. The others are a superior kind of cattle.
NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, lecture at Columbia University, Mar. 4, 1908
Philosophy should quicken life, not deaden it.
SUSAN GLASPELL, Little Masks
Philosophy, like science, consists of theories or insights arrived at as a result of systemic reflection or reasoning in regard to the data of experience. It involves, therefore, the analysis of experience and the synthesis of the results of analysis into a comprehensive or unitary conception. Philosophy seeks a totality and harmony of reasoned insight into the nature and meaning of all the principal aspects of reality.
JOSEPH ALEXANDER LEIGHTON, The Field of Philosophy
A philosopher ... is not fairly judged by his eccentricities, nor by the frailties to which he is liable; still less should his philosophy as a whole fall into ill-repute because of those among its devotees who have stumbled into wells, or who aimlessly pass their lives in whetting their faculties and then neglecting to use them.
JOHN GRIER HIBBEN, The Problems of Philosophy
It is unfortunately very difficult to describe the nature of philosophy in a small compass; the only satisfaction that an author can draw from the attempt to do so lies in the knowledge that an answer to the question "What is philosophy?" is apt to seem persuasive only to the extent that it is brief. The more one ponders over the qualifications that any reasoned answer must contain, the more one is driven to the conclusion that this question is itself one of the principal subjects of philosophical thinking.
ROGER SCRUTON, Short History of Modern Philosophy
The philosopher is neither a chemist, a smith, a merchant, or a manufacturer; but he both teaches and is taught by all of them; and his prayer is that the intellectual light may be as general as the solar, and uncontrolled.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON, Lacon
- Do not all charms fly
- At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
Man is a philosopher in spite of himself.
JOHN GRIER HIBBEN, The Problems of Philosophy
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