P Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with P. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Philosophy appears to concern itself only with the truth, but perhaps expresses only fantasies, while literature appears to concern itself only with fantasies, but perhaps it expresses the truth.”
Source: Pereira Maintains
“Philosophy appears to some people as a homogenous milieu: there thoughts are born and die, there systems are built, and there, in turn, they collapse. Others take Philosophy for a specific attitude which we can freely adopt at will. Still others see it as a determined segment of culture. In our view Philosophy does not exist.”
Source: The Problem of Method
“Philosophy arises from an unusually obstinate attempt to arrive at real knowledge. What passes for knowledge in ordinary life suffers from three defects: it is cocksure, vague and self-contradictory. The first step towards philosophy consists in becoming aware of these defects, not in order to rest content with a lazy scepticism, but in order to substitute an amended kind of knowledge which shall be tentative, precise and self-consistent.”
Source: An Outline of Philosophy
“Philosophy, as defined by Fichte, is the "science of sciences." Its aim was to solve the problems of the world. In the past, when all exact sciences were in their infancy, philosophy had to be purely speculative, with little or no regard to realities. But if we regard philosophy as a Mother science, divided into many branches, we find that those branches have grown so large and various, that the Mother science looks like a hen with her little ducklings paddling in a pond, far beyond her reach; she is unable to follow her growing hatchlings. In the meantime, the progress of life and science goes on, irrespective of the cackling of metaphysics. Philosophy does not fulfill her initial aim to bring the results of experimental and exact sciences together and to solve world problems. Through endless, scientific specialization scientific branches multiply, and for want of coordination the great world-problems suffer. This failure of philosophy to fulfill her boasted mission of scientific coordination is responsible for the chaos in the world of general thought. The world has no collective or organized higher ideals and aims, nor even fixed general purposes. Life is an accidental game of private or collective ambitions and greeds.”
Source: Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art of Human Engineering
“Philosophy as practice does not mean its restriction to utility or applicability, that is, to what serves morality or produces serenity of soul.”
“Philosophy as science, as serious, rigorous, indeed apodictically rigorous science -- the dream is over.”
“Philosophy as well as foppery often changes fashion.”
Source: Poor Richard's Almanack
“Philosophy asks the simple question: What is it all about?”
Source: Science and Philosophy
“Philosophy attempts, not to discover new truths about the world, but to gain a clear view of what we already know and believe about it. That depends upon attaining a more explicit grasp of the structure of our thoughts; and that in turn on discovering how to give a systematic account of the working of language, the medium in which we express our thoughts.”
“Philosophy bakes no bread”
“Philosophy became a gloomy science, in the labyrinth of which people vainly tried to find the exit, called The Truth.”
“Philosophy becomes poetry, and science imagination, in the enthusiasm of genius.”
“Philosophy began when man ate the produce of the earth and suffered indigestion.”
“Philosophy begins in wonder.”
Source: Plato's Theaetetus: Part I of The Being of the Beautiful
“Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains.”
Source: Modes of Thought
“Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt -- particularly to doubt one's cherished beliefs, one's dogmas and one's axioms.”
Source: Story of Philosophy
“Philosophy begins when you don't know where to look for an answer.”
“Philosophy begins where religion ends, just as by analogy chemistry begins where alchemy runs out, and astronomy takes the place of astrology.”
“Philosophy begins with the understanding that you cannot just observe or experience and then report what you see, because how you conceptualize and symbolize alters experience.”
“Philosophy begins with wonder.”
“Philosophy by showing - including philosophy in literature - does truly valuable work in leading us to new perspectives from which our arguments can then begin. It does so by introducing new synthetic complexes, which we then reflect on from various points of view. When the complexes survive and grow, that initial showing has been philosophically decisive.”
“Philosophy can add to our happiness in no other manner but by diminishing our misery; it should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of. Happy were we all born philosophers; all born with a talent of thus dissipating our own cares by spreading them upon all mankind.”
Source: Enquiry into the present state of polite learning. The citizen of the world
“Philosophy can bake no bread; but she can procure for us God, Freedom, Immortality. Which, then, is more practical, Philosophy or Economy?”
“Philosophy can be compared to some powders that are so corrosive that, after they have eaten away the infected flesh of a wound, they then devour the living flesh, rot the bones, and penetrate to the very marrow. Philosophy at first refutes errors. But if it is not stopped at this point, it goes on to attack truths. And when it is left on its own, it goes so far that it no longer knows where it is and can find no stopping place.”
“Philosophy can be said to consist of three activities: to see the commonsense answer, to get yourself so deeply into the problem that the common sense answer is unbearable, and to get from that situation back to the commonsense answer.”
“Philosophy can forsake too easily the details of experience… many writers and painters have demonstrated that thinking long about what art is or ought to be ruins the power to write or paint.”
Source: Beauty in photography: essays in defense of traditional values
“Philosophy can help laymen spot and reject the numerous pseudoscientific beliefs that survive in the media, such as the fantasies of psychoanalysts, evolutionary psychologists, and economic equilibrium theorists.”
“Philosophy can make people sick.”
“Philosophy can only be approached with the most concrete comprehension.”
“Philosophy can’t be avoided if any nation is striving to become a developed country.”
Source: Destiny of Liberty
“Philosophy can't build bridges, but can encourage people to cross them.”
“Philosophy cannot and should not give us an account of faith, but should understand itself and know just what it has indeed to offer, without taking anything away, least of all cheating people out of something by making them think it is nothing.”
“Philosophy cannot be extinguished, though men will try ... The spirit seeks the light, that is its nature. It wishes to return to its origin, and must forever try to reach enlightenment.”
“Philosophy cannot be taught; it is the application of the sciences to truth.”
Source: The Count of Monte Cristo
“Philosophy cannot raise the commonalty up to her level: so, if she is to become popular, she must sink to theirs.”
Source: Guesses at Truth
“Philosophy changes day by day.”
“Philosophy . . .consists chiefly in suggesting unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.”
Source: The Education of Henry Adams
“Philosophy consists mostly of kicking up a lot of dust and then complaining that you can't see anything.”
“Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself.”
Source: Minority Report
“Philosophy defines our world. I see my life in terms of great words.”
Source: Think Great: Be Great!
“Philosophy does not claim to secure for us anything outside our control. Otherwise it would be taking on matters that do not concern it. For as wood is the material of the carpenter, and marble that of the sculptor, so the subject matter of the art of life is the life of the self.”
Source: Discourses and Selected Writings
“Philosophy does not exist. It is nothing but an hypostatized abstraction.”
“Philosophy does not promise to secure anything external for man, otherwise it would be admitting something that lies beyond its proper subject-matter. For as the material of the carpenter is wood, and that of statuary bronze, so the subject-matter of the art of living is each person's own life.”
“Philosophy does not regard pedigree, she received Plato not as a noble, but she made him one.”
“Philosophy does provide me a structure and a way of thinking. Religion - like the religion I grew up with, Mormonism - also provides a way of thinking. And I think those two structures - one highly logical, the other anything but - are always part of my thought process as I'm putting together a story.”
“Philosophy dwells aloft in the Temple of Science, the divinity of its inmost shrine; her dictates descend among men, but she herself descends not : whoso would behold her must climb with long and laborious effort, nay, still linger in the forecourt, till manifold trial have proved him worthy of admission into the interior solemnities.”
Source: Critical and Miscellaneous Essays ...
“Philosophy easily triumphs over past and future ills; but present ills triumph over philosophy.”
“Philosophy eulogises death, perturbs lives.”
“Philosophy exists in profoundest opposition to rhetoric, which is speaking for the sake of producing or controlling some effect in others' perceptions. Philosophy is about the caustic or cauterizing effect of the truth, not the currying of sensibilities.”
“Philosophy
Fat men run
With cake and bun.
I run thin,
Delights of sin.”