Quotessence
Home / Authors / Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Maurice Merleau-Ponty Quotes

Philosopher

Filter quotes by topic

AllWorldPhenomenologyBodyExistencePhilosophyThinkingPerceptionExpressionFieldsLanguageObjectsSelfArtConsciousnessDoeKnowsMenSpeakActionBelieve

Famous Maurice Merleau-Ponty Quotes

“Theology recognizes the contingency of human existence only to derive it from a necessary being, that is, to remove it. Theology makes use of philosophical wonder only for the purpose of motivating an affirmation which ends it. Philosophy, on the other hand, arouses us to what is problematic in our own existence and in that of the world, to such a point that we shall never be cured of searching for a solution.”

WorldHumansEndsPhilosophyUseHandsPurposeExistenceWonderSolutionsPhilosophicalTheologyRemoveAffirmationHuman ExistenceContingency
Book:In Praise of Philosophy and Other Essays
Create image

“Lichtenberg ... held something of the following kind: one should neither affirm the existence of God nor deny it. ... It is not that he wished to leave certain perspectives open, nor to please everyone. It is rather that he was identifying himself, for his part, with a consciousness of self, of the world, and of others that was "strange" (the word is his) in a sense which is equally well destroyed by the rival explanations.”

WorldShouldWellsKindSelfCertainExistenceConsciousnessStrangePerspectivePleaseFollowingDenyDestroyedExplanationRivalsIdentifyingExistence Of God
Author:Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Create image

“Science manipulates things and gives up living in them. It makes its own limited models of things; operating upon these indices or variables to effect whatever transformations are permitted by their definition, it comes face to face with the real world only at rare intervals. Science is and always will be that admirably active, ingenious, and bold way of thinking whose fundamental bias is to treat everything as though it were an object-in-general - as though it meant nothing to us and yet was predestined for our own use.”

ThinkingWorldWayGivingRealUseFacesEffectsObjectsGiving UpModelsTreatsTransformationFundamentalsDefinitionsActiveReal WorldBiasManipulateWay Of ThinkingFace To FaceIntervalsVariablesIngeniousPredestined
Book:The Primacy of Perception: And Other Essays on Phenomenological Psychology, the Philosophy of Art, History and Politics
Create image

“Our view of man will remain superficial so long as we fail to go back to that origin [of silence], so long as we fail to find, beneath the chatter of words, the primordial silence, and as long as we do not describe the action which breaks this silence. the spoken word is a gesture, and its meaning, a world.”

MenWorldLongActionViewsSilenceBreakFailingGesturesSuperficialSpoken WordChatterPhenomenology
Book:Phenomenology of Perception
Create image

“True reflection presents me to myself not as idle and inaccessible subjectivity, but as identical with my presence in the world and to others, as I am now realizing it: I am all that I see, I am an intersubjective field, not despite my body and historical situation, but, on the contrary, by being this body and this situation, and through them, all the rest.”

WorldBodyRealizingSituationFieldsReflectionHistoricalContraryDespiteContemplationIdleIdenticalSubjectivityInaccessiblePhenomenology
Book:Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Basic Writings
Create image