quotations about philosophy
Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind is also rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The Problems of Philosophy
Philosophy is common sense with big words.
JAMES MADISON
attributed, Quote Junkie Presidents Edition
It has been said that he is a fool who works for philosophy instead of making philosophy work for him; but a man cannot give to the world even a little of a true philosophy without reaping sevenfold himself.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
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
Philosophers are both effects and causes: effects of their social circumstances and of the politics and institutions of their time; causes (if they are fortunate) of beliefs which mould the politics and institutions of later ages.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
History of Western Philosophy
A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Personal Recollections
Philosophy unravels the knots in our thinking; hence its results must be simple, but its activity is as complicated as the knots that it unravels.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Philosophical Occasions
Philosophy is a good horse in a stable, but an arrant jade on a journey.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
The Good-Natured Man
Professional philosophers are usually only apologists: that is, they are absorbed in defending some vested illusion or some eloquent idea. Like lawyers or detectives, they study the case for which they are retained.
GEORGE SANTAYANA
The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy
More and more it seems to me that the philosopher, being of necessity a man of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, has always found himself, and had to find himself, in contradiction to his today: his enemy was ever the ideal of today. So far all these extraordinary furtherers of men whom one calls philosophers, though they themselves have rarely felt like friends of wisdom but rather like disagreeable fools and dangerous question marks, have found their task, their hard, unwanted, inescapable task, but eventually also the greatness of their task, in being the bad conscience of their time.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Beyond Good and Evil
In the information age, you don't teach philosophy as they did after feudalism. You perform it. If Aristotle were alive today he'd have a talk show.
TIMOTHY LEARY
attributed, The Best Advice Ever for Teachers
In order to live, man must act; in order to act, he must make choices; in order to make choices, he must define a code of values; in order to define a code of values, he must know what he is and where he is -- i.e. he must know his own nature (including his means of knowledge) and the nature of the universe in which he acts -- i.e. he needs metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, which means: philosophy. He cannot escape from this need; his only alternative is whether the philosophy guiding him is to be chosen by his mind or by chance.
AYN RAND
"Philosophy, Who Needs It?"
Philosophy stands in the same relation to the study of the actual world as masturbation to sexual love.
KARL MARX
The German Ideology
Philosophy ... must not bargain away anything of the emphatic concept of truth.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Why Still Philosophy?
For philosophy to be effective, it has to understand the world in which it operates.
RICHARD BOURKE
"Hume's Call to Action", The Nation, April 20, 2016
A philosopher is one who disengages himself from all former prejudices, masters his passions, and learns to think, speak, and act, according to rule and order. He is ready to teach, but more ready to learn. He is of all, and yet of no sect.... If he thinks with few, it is not because they are few, but because there are few that think.
ANNE MARY PERCEVAL
Miscellaneous Thoughts, Maxims, Essays, Aphorisms, and Extracts
Philosophy is life's dry-nurse, who can take care of us -- but not suckle us.
SOREN KIERKEGAARD
Journals and Papers, 1837
To philosophise is to learn to die -- philosophising is a soaring up to the Godhead -- the knowledge of Being as Being.
KARL JASPERS
"Philosophy and Science", World Review Magazine, March 1950
Welders make more than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers.
MARCO RUBIO
Republican presidential debate, November 10, 2015
Philosophers, for the most part, are constitutionally timid, and dislike the unexpected. Few of them would be genuinely happy as pirates or burglars.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Unpopular Essays