Philosophy Quotations
Philosophy
From Wikiquote It is perfectly true, as the philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards. ~ Søren KierkegaardQuotes regarding Philosophy and philosophers:
Contents |
Quotes
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it. ~ Karl Marx "Philosophy" is a word which has been used in many ways, some wider, some narrower. I propose to use it in a very wide sense, which I will now try to explain. ~ Bertrand Russell- Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned.
- Anonymous; quoted in Dennett, Daniel C. (2006). Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (1st ed. ed.). Viking Penguin. pp. p. 17. ISBN 0-670-03472-X.
- The philosopher as analyst is not concerned with the physical properties of things, but only with the way in which we speak about them.
- Alfred Jules Ayer in Language, Truth, and Logic (1936)
- "Believe nothing, O monks, merely because you have been told it … or because it is traditional, or because you yourselves have imagined it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings—that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.
- A cleric who loses his faith abandons his calling; a philosopher who loses his redefines his subject.
- Ernest Gellner, in Words and Things (1959)
- Philosophy is explicitness, generality, orientation and assessment. That of which one would insinuate, thereof one must speak.
- Ernest Gellner, in Words and Things (1959), p. 265
- "'You only think you are you barnpots,' shouted angry farmers from the meadows. 'Shut that row up! You're frightening the chickens, you lot and your bloody philosophy. You can't eat philosophy can you? Where would you be if us farmers went round spouting statements like that, eh? Dead, that's where you'd be! Because there'd be naff all to eat!"
- Mike Harding, in "Rambling On"
- 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 and Antonio Negri, Empire
- 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.
- Physics and philosophy are at most a few thousand years old, but probably have lives of thousands of millions of years stretching away in front of them. They are only just beginning to get under way.
- James Jeans, Physics and Philosophy, p.217.,(1942)
- Too much philosophy makes men mad.
- Alan Judd, The Noonday Devil (1987)
- Philosophy is life's dry-nurse, who can take care of us -- but not suckle us.
- Søren Kierkegaard, Journals and Papers, 1837
- It is perfectly true, as the philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.
- Søren Kierkegaard, Journals and Papers, 1843
- The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.
- Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach, thesis 11
- "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' is a word which has been used in many ways, some wider, some narrower. I propose to use it in a very wide sense, which I will now try to explain."
- Bertrand Russell A History of Western Philosophy, Introductory, p. xiii
- Tigers are more beautiful than sheep, but we prefer them behind bars.
- Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, Introductory, p. xxii
- 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, Chapter IV, Part iii, p. 74
- Philosophy makes progress not by becoming more rigorous but by becoming more imaginative.
- Richard Rorty, introduction to Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers, Volume 3 (1998).
- "Shouldn't I join the ranks of philosophers and merely make unsubstantiated claims about the wonders of human consciousness? Shouldn't I stop trying to do some science and keep my head down? Indeed not".
- Kevin Warwick, quoted in Hendricks, V: "Feisty Fragments for Philosophy", King's College Publications, London,2004.
- "I feel that we are all philosophers, and that those who describe themselves as a 'philosopher' simply do not have a day job to go to".
- Kevin Warwick, quoted in Hendricks, V: "Feisty Fragments for Philosophy", King's College Publications, London,2004.
- What characterizes philosophy is this "step back" from actuality into possibility—the attitude best rendered by Adorno's and Horkheimer's motto quoted by Fredric Jameson: "Not Italy itself is given here, but the proof that it exists."
- Slavoj Žižek, Tarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel, and the Critique of Ideology, p. 2. ISBN 0822313952
Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
- Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 596-97.
- A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.
- Francis Bacon, Essays, Atheism.
- Sublime Philosophy!
Thou art the patriarch’s ladder, reaching heaven;
And bright with beckoning angels—but alas!
We see thee, like the patriarch, but in dreams,
By the first step,—dull slumbering on the earth.
- Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Richelieu (1839), Act III, scene 1, line 4.
- Beside, he was a shrewd philosopher,
And had read ev’ry text and gloss over
Whate’er the crabbed’st author hath,
He understood b’ implicit faith.
- Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part I (1663-64), Canto I, line 127.
- Before Philosophy can teach by Experience, the Philosophy has to be in readiness, the Experience must be gathered and intelligibly recorded.
- Thomas Carlyle, Essays, On History.
- O vitæ philosophia dux! O virtutis indagatrix, expultrixque vitiorum! Quid non modo nos, sed omnino vita hominum sine et esse potuisset? Tu urbes peperisti; tu dissipatos homines in societatum vitæ convocasti.
- O philosophy, life’s guide! O searcher-out of virtue and expeller of vices! What could we and every age of men have been without thee? Thou hast produced cities; thou hast called men scattered about into the social enjoyment of life.
- Cicero, Tusc. Quæst, Book V. 2. 5.
- The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.
- Denis Diderot, Last Conversation.
- The Beginning of Philosophy* ** ** ** is a Consciousness of your own Weakness and inability in necessary things.
- Epictetus, Discourses, Book II. Ch, XI. St. 1.
- Philosophy goes no further than probabilities, and in every assertion keeps a doubt in reserve.
- James Anthony Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects, Calvinism.
- This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey.
- Oliver Goldsmith, The Good-Natured Man, Act I.
- How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh, and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo’s lute,
And a perpetual feast of nectar’d sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns.
- John Milton, Mask of Comus, line 476.
- That stone,* ** *
Philosophers in vain so long have sought.
- John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book III, line 600.
- Se moquer de la philosophie c’est vraiment philosophe.
- To ridicule philosophy is truly philosophical.
- Blaise Pascal, Pensées, Article VII. 35.
- Philosophy is nothing but Discretion.
- John Selden, Table Talk, Philosophy.
- There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act I, scene 5, line 166. (“Our philosophy” in some readings).
- Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy.
- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1597), Act III, scene 3, line 55.
- The philosopher is Nature’s pilot. And there you have our difference: to be in hell is to drift: to be in heaven is to steer.
- Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (1903), Act III, line 509.
- La clarté est la bonne foi des philosophes.
- Clearness marks the sincerity of philosophers.
- Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues, Pensées Diverses, No. 372. Gilbert’s ed. (1857), Volume I, p. 475.
- The bosom-weight, your stubborn gift,
That no philosophy can lift.
- William Wordsworth, Presentiments.
- Why should not grave Philosophy be styled.
Herself, a dreamer of a kindred stock,
A dreamer, yet more spiritless and dull?
- William Wordsworth, The Excursion, Book III.
Unsourced
- "Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest--whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories--comes afterward. These are games; one must first answer." ~ Albert Camus
- People often say to me, I understand what you are talking about intellectually, but I don't really feel it, I don't realize it, and I am apt to reply, "I wonder whether you do understand it intellectually, because if you did, you would also feel it." ~ Alan Watts
- "Philosophy studies the fundamental nature of existence, of man, and of man's relationship to existence. In the realm of cognition, the special sciences are the trees, but philosophy is the soil which makes the forest possible." ~ Ayn Rand
- "Science is what we know and philosophy is what we don't know." ~ Bertrand Russell
- "What is your aim in philosophy? To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle." ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein
- "Philosophy is to the real world as masturbation is to sex." ~ Karl Marx
- "In pornography philosophers are called virgin voyeurs. They like to watch and criticize as an expert, but have never even had sex themselves" ~ Kevin Warwick
- "Philosophy is the peculiarly stubborn attempt to think clearly." ~ William James
- "Philosophy, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing." ~ Ambrose Bierce
- "Shallow thoughts can be deep, when emphasized properly." ~ Josh Duerrstein
- "True philosophy is that which renders us to ourselves, and all others who surround us, better, and at the same time more content, more patient, more calm and more ready for all decent and pure enjoyment." ~ Lavater
- "Philosophy abounds more than philosophers, and learning more than learned men." ~ W.B. Clulow
- "The road to true philosophy is precisely the same with that which leads to true religion; and from both the one and the other, unless we would enter in as little children, we must expect to be totally excluded." ~ Bacon
- "Philosophy is the art and law of life, and it teaches us what to do in all cases, and, like good marksmen, to hit the white at any distance." ~ Seneca
- "A little philosophy inclineth men's minds to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds to religion." ~ Bacon
- "Whence? whither? why? how?—these questions cover all philosophy." ~ Joseph Joubert
- "I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law." ~ Aristotle
- "Philosophy is just like art, it's not supposed to be dumb, stupid and senseless but people make it that way." ~ Anonymous
- "Philosophy has become the stuff of airport lounges instead of the Sorbonne." ~ Kate Muir, Times columnist.
- "Being a philosopher, I have a problem for every solution." ~ Robert Zend
- "Ther philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next." ~ Henry Ward Beecher
- "Philosophy: unintelligible answers to insoluble problems." ~ Henry Adams
- "Life is an urge of the Universe to understand itself." ~ N S Dhami
- "Philosophy—the purple bullfinch in the lilac tree." ~ T. S. Eliot
- "I believe that in actual fact, philosophy ranks before and above the natural sciences." ~ Thomas Mann
- "Philosophy is useless, Theology is worse." ~ Mark Knopfler in the song Industrial Disease
- "Philosophy is like a damp wash cloth. You wonder who used it before you.... and where." ~ Christine McWilliams
See also
Wikipedia has an article about: Philosophy Look up philosophy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary At Wikiversity you can learn about: Philosophy of Happiness Category:
|
[Hide]▼
The introduction of the terms "philosopher" and "philosophy" has been ascribed to the Greek thinker Pythagoras. The ascription is said to be based on a passage in a lost work of Herakleides Pontikos, a disciple of Aristotle. It is considered to be part of the widespread body of legends of Pythagoras of this time. "Philosopher" was understood as a word which contrasted with "sophist" (from sophoi). Traveling sophists or "wise men" were important in Classical Greece, often earning money as teachers, whereas philosophers are "lovers of wisdom" and not professionals.
Noun
philosophy (countable and uncountable; plural philosophies)- (uncountable) (originally) The love of wisdom
- (uncountable) An academic discipline that seeks truth through reasoning rather than empiricism
-
- Philosophy is often divided into five major branches: logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and aesthetics.
-
- (countable) A comprehensive system of belief.
- (countable) A view or outlook regarding fundamental principles underlying some domain.
- a philosophy of government
- a philosophy of education
- (countable) A general principle (usually moral).
- (archaic) A broader branch of (non-applied) science
- See also Wikisaurus:philosophy
[Hide]▲