best quotations about
Philosophy |
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Quotations
 | By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you ‘ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. — Socrates, 469-399 BC, Ancient Geek Philosopher 73 likes |
 | The philosophy of a generation is the common sense of the next. — Gebhard von Blücher, 1742-1819, German field marshal 26 likes |
 | There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. — Albert Camus, 1913-1960, French writer, Nobel 1957 18 likes |
 | Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art. — Will Durant, 1885-1981, American historian & philosopher 12 likes |
| Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom. — Will Durant, 1885-1981, American historian & philosopher 11 likes |
| The Greeks offered the East philosophy, the East offered Greece religion; religion won because philosophy was a luxury for the few, religion was a consolation for the many. — Will Durant, 1885-1981, American historian & philosopher 9 likes |
 | A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it. — Anonymous (wrongly attributed to Mencken, Oscar Wilde and others) 9 likes |
 | There is nothing so absurd that it has not been said by some philosopher. — Cicero, 106-43 BC, Roman orator & statesman 9 likes |
| In philosophy, as in politics, the longest distance between two points is a straight line. — Will Durant, 1885-1981, American historian & philosopher 7 likes |
| In its youth a people produce mythology and poetry; in its decadence, philosophy and logic. — Will Durant, 1885-1981, American historian & philosopher 7 likes |
 | It is not the pretended but the real pursuit of philosophy that is needed for we do not need the appearance of good health but to enjoy it in truth. — Epicurus, 341-270 BC, Ancient Greek philosopher 7 likes |
 | 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, 1920-1996, American psychologist 6 likes |
 | To live alone one must be an animal or a god - says Aristotle. There is yet a third case: one must be both: a philosopher. — Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900, German philosopher 6 likes |
 | A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it. — H.L. Mencken, 1880-1956, American columnist & cultural critic 6 likes |
 | My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute. — Ayn Rand, 1905-1982, American writer & philosopher (“Objectivism”) 6 likes |
 | If I had a province to punish, I would let it be governed by philosophers. — Friedrich II, 1712-1786, Emperor of Prussia [1740-1786] 6 likes |
 | Man was born when for the first time, in front of a corpse, he whispered: “Why?” — André Malraux, 1901-1976, French writer & statesman 5 likes |
 | I have gained this by philosophy: I do without being ordered what some are constrained to do by their fear of the law. — Aristotle, 384-322 BC, Ancient Greek philosopher 5 likes |
 | Perhaps it is of more value to infuriate philosophers than to go along with them. — Wallace Stevens, 1879-1955, American poet 5 likes |
 | Losing love is so rich a philosophical ordeal that it makes a hairdresser into a rival of Socrates. — Emile M. Cioran, 1911-1995, French-Romanian philosopher 4 likes |
 | The aim of philosophy is to erect a wall at the point where language stops anyway. — Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1889-1951, Austrian philosopher 4 likes |
| Plato is boring. — Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900, German philosopher 4 likes |
| It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters. — Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900, German philosopher 4 likes |
 | Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous. — David Hume, 1711-1776, Scottish philosopher 4 likes |
 | When lost in a forest go always down hill. When lost in a philosophy or doctrine go upward. — Ambrose Bierce, 1842–1914, American writer 4 likes |
| A novel is never anything but a philosophy put into images. — Albert Camus, 1913-1960, French writer, Nobel 1957 4 likes |
 | Whoever does not philosophize for the sake of philosophy, but rather uses philosophy as a means, is a sophist. — Friedrich von Schlegel, 1772-1829, German writer 4 likes |
 | Plato found philosophy made of brick, and made it of gold. — Joseph Joubert, 1754-1824, French author of maxims 4 likes |
 | God created man in his own image, says the Bible; the philosophers do the exact opposite, they create God in theirs. — Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, 1742-1799, German author of maxims 4 likes |
 | Philosophy is a bully that talks loud when the danger is at a distant; but, the moment she is pressed hard by an enemy, she is nowhere to be found and leaves the brunt of the battle to be fought by her steady, humble comrade, religion. — Charles Caleb Colton, 1780-1832, English cleric & writer 3 likes |
| There are issues which, once approached, either isolate you or kill you outright. — Emile M. Cioran, 1911-1995, French-Romanian philosopher 3 likes |
| Profound thinkers are only the ones who do not suffer from a sense of the ridiculous — Emile M. Cioran, 1911-1995, French-Romanian philosopher 3 likes |
 | I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion. — Baruch Spinoza, 1632-1677, Dutch philosopher 3 likes |
 | The history of thought may be summed up in these words: it is absurd by what it seeks and great by what it finds. — Paul Valery, 1871-1945, French poet 3 likes |
 | It is a safe rule to apply that, when a mathematical or philosophical author writes with a misty profundity, he is talking nonsense. — Alfred North Whitehead, 1861-1947, British philosopher & mathematician 3 likes |
| Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains. — Alfred North Whitehead, 1861-1947, British philosopher & mathematician 3 likes |
 | Philosophy is an unusually stubborn attempt to think clearly. — William James, 1842-1910, American philosopher 3 likes |
 | A defeated man does not become a good philosopher. — Jean Dutourd, 1920-2011, French writer 3 likes |
 | Philosophy is the invention of the rich. — Vladimir Nabokov, 1899-1977, Russian-American writer 3 likes |
| Aphorisms are the true form of the universal philosophy. — Friedrich von Schlegel, 1772-1829, German writer 3 likes |
| A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes. — Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1889-1951, Austrian philosopher 3 likes |
| Philosophers are often like little children, who first scribble random lines on a piece of paper with their pencils, and now ask an adult “What is that?” — Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1889-1951, Austrian philosopher 2 likes |
| The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. — Alfred North Whitehead, 1861-1947, British philosopher & mathematician 2 likes |
 | The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it. — Karl Marx, 1818-1883, German philosopher 2 likes |
| Philosophy, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing. — Ambrose Bierce, 1842–1914, American writer 2 likes |
| You wanted to destroy philosophy and poetry in order to make room for religion and morality. — Friedrich von Schlegel, 1772-1829, German writer 2 likes |
| Whatever can be done while poetry and philosophy are separated has been done and accomplished. So the time has come to unite the two. — Friedrich von Schlegel, 1772-1829, German writer 2 likes |
 | Those that study particular sciences, and neglect philosophy, are like Penelope's wooers, that make love to the waiting women. — Aristippus, 435-355 BC, Ancient Greek philosopher 2 likes |
 | We are not philosophizing to save the revolution, but to save our thinking and our cohesion. — Cornelius Castoriadis, 1922-1997, Greek-French philosopher & social critic 2 likes |
 | Philosophy is a science, and as such has no articles of faith; accordingly, in it nothing can be assumed as existing except what is either positively given empirically, or demonstrated through indubitable conclusions. — Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860, German philosopher 2 likes |
 | There is nothing so strange and so unbelievable that it has not been said by one philosopher or another. — René Descartes, 1596-1650, French philosopher 2 likes |
 | I would love to meet a philosopher like Nietzsche on a train or boat and to talk with him all night. Incidentally, I don’t consider his philosophy long-lived. It is not so much persuasive as full of bravura. — Anton Chekhov, 1860-1904, Russian writer 2 likes |
 | As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us. — Thomas Jefferson, 1749-1826, American President [1801-1809] 2 likes |
| Luxurious food and drinks, in no way protect you from harm. Wealth beyond what is natural, is no more use than an overflowing container. Real value is not generated by theaters, and baths, perfumes or ointments, but by philosophy. — Epicurus, 341-270 BC, Ancient Greek philosopher 2 likes |
 | What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? — Tertullian, 155-240 AD, Berber-Roman Christian author (was against Greek philosophy) 1 likes |
 | Philosophy is an art form — art of thought or thought as art. — Susan Sontag, 1933-2004, American writer, critic, activist 1 likes |
| Philosophy is like trying to open a safe with a combination lock: each little adjustment of the dials seems to achieve nothing, only when everything is in place does the door open. |
 | If philosophy does not resolve any scientific problem, science, in its turn, does not resolve any philosophical problem. |
 | A little philosophy takes away from religion and a lot leads back to it. |
 | Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know. |
| The pursuit of philosophy is founded on the belief that knowledge is good, even if what is known is painful. |
| A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring. |
| Philosophizing is: rejecting false arguments. |
| It is easy for men to write and talk like philosophers, but to act with wisdom, there is the rub! |
| Philosophy has answers only for individuals, but religion has answers for the masses. |
| There is in Plato a light always ready to show itself, and which never shows itself. |
| To achieve new things in literature, we must move expressions; in philosophy, you have to move ideas. |
| The twenty-first century will be spiritual or it will not be. |
 | Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy. |
| Philosophy will not be able to effect an immediate transformation of the present condition of the world. This is not only true of philosophy, but of all merely human thought and endeavor. Only a god can save us. |
| Why are there beings at all, and why not rather nothing? That is the question. |
 | There is no philosophy without the art of ignoring objections. — Joseph De Maistre, 1753-1821, Savoyard diplomat & philosopher |
 | The great philosophers are poets who believe in the reality of their poems. |
 | The stone that was rolled before Christ's tomb might appropriately be called the philosopher's stone because its removal gave not only the pharisees but, now for 1800 years, the philosophers so much to think about. |
| Take away paradox from the thinker and you have a professor. |
 | No philosopher allows his opinions to be swayed by facts—he would be kicked out of his guild. Theologians, the lot of them. |
 | There is something calming in philosophy, a way of talking about the living as if we were dead. |
 | Philosophy consists mostly of kicking up a lot of dust and then complaining that you can't see anything. — Gottfried Leibnitz, 1646-1716, German philosopher & mathematician |
| Why is there something rather than nothing? — Gottfried Leibnitz, 1646-1716, German philosopher & mathematician |
| The philosopher is not the spokesman of his age, but an angel imprisoned in time. |
| The difficulty in philosophy is to say no more than we know. |
| Reading the Socratic dialogues one has the feeling: what a frightful waste of time! What's the point of these arguments that prove nothing and clarify nothing? |
| All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher. |
 | Immanuel Kant lived with knowledge as with his lawfully wedded wife, slept with it in the same intellectual bed for forty years and begot an entire German race of philosophical systems. |
Personal Stories
 | If I became a philosopher, if I have so keenly sought this fame for which I'm still waiting, it's all been to seduce women basically. — Jean-Paul Sartre, 1905-1980, French philosopher 6 likes |
Latin Quotes
 | A beard does not make a philosopher. Barba non facit philosophum. 43 likes |
 | First live, then be a philosopher. Primum vivere deinde philosophari. — Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679, English philosopher 16 likes |
Funny Quotes
 | "To be is to do" - Socrates "To do is to be" - Sartre "Do Be Do Be Do" - Sinatra — Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007, American writer 7 likes |
 | His philosophy was a mixture of three famous schools – the Cynics, the Stoics and the Epicureans – and summed up all three of them in his famous phrase, “You can't trust any bugger further than you can throw him, and there's nothing you can do about it, so let's have a drink.” |
Ancient Greek
| Life without enquiry is not worth living for a man. O δε ανεξέταστος βίος ου βιωτός ανθρώπω. — Socrates, 469-399 BC, Ancient Geek Philosopher 62 likes |
 | When he was asked what advantage had accrued to him from philosophy, his answer was, “The ability to hold converse with myself.” Ερωτηθείς τι αυτώ περιγέγονεν εκ φιλοσοφίας, έφη, «το δύνασθαι εαυτώ ομιλείν». — Antisthenes, 445-360 BC, Ancient Greek Cynic philosopher 12 likes |
 | Until the kings become philosophers, there will be no end to the troubles of the states. Εάν μη οι βασιλείς φιλοσοφήσουν, ουκ έστιν των δεινών παύλα. — Plato, 427-347 BC, Ancient Greek philosopher 6 likes |
