PHILOSOPHY QUOTES III
quotations about philosophy
When people begin to philosophize they seem to think it necessary to make themselves artificially stupid.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Theory of Knowledge
The sole function of philosophy is to lead us to happiness by way of the shortest possible route.
HENRI BERGSON
The Philosophy of Poetry
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet
The wisdom of philosophy is set in opposition to the common sense of mankind. The first pretends to demonstrate, a priori, that there can be no such thing as a material world; that sun, moon, stars, and earth, vegetable and animal bodies, are, and can be nothing else, but sensations in the mind, or images of those sensations in the memory and imagination; that, like pain and joy, they can have no existence when they are not thought of. The last can conceive no otherwise of this opinion, than as a kind of metaphysical lunacy, and concludes that too much learning is apt to make men mad; and that the man who seriously entertains this belief, though in other respects he may be a very good man, as a man may be who believes that he is made of glass; yet, surely he hath a soft place in his understanding, and hath been hurt by much thinking.
THOMAS REID
Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man
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 has its bugbears, as well as superstition.
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
Egeria: or Voices of Thought and Counsel for the Woods and Wayside
Philosophy is reason with the eyes of the soul.
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
Egeria: or Voices of Thought and Counsel for the Woods and Wayside
Any philosophy that can fit into a nutshell belongs there.
GRENVILLE KLEISER
Dictionary of Proverbs
A mind rightly instituted in the school of philosophy, acquires at once the stability of the oak and the flexibility of the osier.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
Citizen of the World
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, March 4, 1908
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
We often have need of a profound philosophy to restore to our feelings their original state of innocence, to find our way out of the rubble of things alien to us, to begin to feel for ourselves and to speak ourselves, and I might almost say to exist ourselves. Even if my philosophy does not extend to discovering anything new, it does nevertheless possess the courage to regard as questionable what has long been thought true.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook B", Aphorisms
In every philosophical discussion, conclusions turn on intuitions about what's right or wrong, plausible or implausible, something one would or would not say. Philosophy needs psychological experiments to understand how we're arriving at our conclusions.
JOSHUA GREENE
"Philosophers are using science and data points to test theories of morality", Quartz, March 28, 2016
Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. Philosophy does not result in 'philosophical propositions', but rather in the clarification of propositions. Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Tractacus Logico-Philosophicus
When philosophy has gone as far as she is able, she arrives at almightiness, and in that labyrinth is lost; where, not knowing the way, she goes on by guess, and cannot tell whether she is right or wrong.... She runs into Omnipotency; and, like a petty river, is swallowed in that boundless main.
OWEN FELLTHAM
Resolves, Divine, Moral, and Political
Philosophy should quicken life, not deaden it.
SUSAN GLASPELL
Little Masks
Each of the parts of philosophy is a philosophical whole, a circle rounded and complete in itself. In each of these parts, however, the philosophical Idea is found in a particular specificality or medium. The single circle, because it is a real totality, bursts through the limits imposed by its special medium, and gives rise to a wider circle. The whole of philosophy in this way resembles a circle of circles. The Idea appears in each single circle, but, at the same time, the whole Idea is constituted by the system of these peculiar phases, and each is a necessary member of the organisation.
GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL
Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences
We've associated that word philosophy with academic study that in its own way has gotten so far beyond the layman that if you read contemporary philosophy you've no clue, because it's almost become math. And it's odd that if you don't do that and you call yourself a philosopher that you always get 'homespun' attached to it.
ROBERT FULGHUM
"Robert Fulghum: Philosopher King", January Magazine
Philosophy is not the owl of Minerva that takes flight after history has been realized in order to celebrate its happy ending; rather, philosophy is subjective proposition, desire, and praxis that are applied to the event.
MICHAEL HARDT & ANTONIO NEGRI
Empire
The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The Philosophy of Logical Atomism