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Philosopher Quotes

Browse 2040 quotes about Philosopher.

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Philosopher Quotes

“There is no reaching the Self. If Self were to be reached, it would mean that the Self is not here and now but that it is yet to be obtained. What is got afresh will also be lost. So it will be impermanent. What is not permanent is not worth striving for. So I say the Self is not reached. You are the Self; you are already That.”

IfsMeanSelfWisdomLostWise WordsWords Of WisdomQuietStrivePhilosopherPermanentReachingSpiritual WisdomHere And NowSpiritual AwakeningImpermanenceObtaining
Book:Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi
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“The whole Mediterranean, the sculpture, the palm, the gold beads, the bearded heroes, the wine, the ideas, the ships, the moonlight, the winged gorgons, the bronze men, the philosophers - all of it seems to rise in the sour, pungent taste of these black olives between the teeth. A taste older than meat, older than wine. A taste as old as cold water.”

MenIdeasWholeSeemsBlackWaterColdHeroTasteGoldWinePhilosopherTeethShipsMeatVegetablesPalmsSculptureMoonlightSourOlivesBeadsBronzeCold Water
Book:Prospero's cell: a guide to the landscape and manners of the island of Corcyra
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“Your remarks upon chemical notation with the variety of systems which have arisen, &c., &c., had almost stirred me up to regret publicly that such hindrances to the progress of science should exist. I cannot help thinking it a most unfortunate thing that men who as experimentalists & philosophers are the most fitted to advance the general cause of science & knowledge should by promulgation of their own theoretical views under the form of nomenclature, notation, or scale, actually retard its progress.”

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Author:Michael Faraday
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“I have tried to read philosophers of all ages and have found many illuminating ideas but no steady progress toward deeper knowledge and understanding. Science, however, gives me the feeling of steady progress: I am convinced that theoretical physics is actual philosophy. It has revolutionized fundamental concepts, e.g., about space and time (relativity), about causality (quantum theory), and about substance and matter (atomistics), and it has taught us new methods of thinking (complementarity) which are applicable far beyond physics.”

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Author:Max Born
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“I believe that even a smattering of such findings in modern science and mathematics is far more compelling and exciting than most of the doctrines of pseudoscience, whose practitioners were condemned as early as the fifth century B.C. by the Ionian philosopher Heraclitus as “nigh -walkers, magicians, priests of Bacchus, priestesses of the wine-vat, mystery-mongers.” But science is more intricate and subtle, reveals a much richer imiverse, and powerfully evokes our sense of wonder.”

ImportantScienceNightUniverseWonderVirtueMysteryCenturyExcitingMathematicsWinePhilosopherDoctrineBeing TrueSubtlePriestsCompellingMagicianFifthEvokeIntricateWalkersSense Of WonderPseudoscienceBacchusVatPriestesses
Author:Carl Sagan
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“To turn Karl [Popper]'s view on its head, it is precisely the abandonment of critical discourse that marks the transition of science. Once a field has made the transition, critical discourse recurs only at moments of crisis when the bases of the field are again in jeopardy. Only when they must choose between competing theories do scientists behave like philosophers.”

MadeMomentsScienceTurnsViewsFieldsTheoryCriticismScientistBasesMarkCrisisPhilosopherCriticalBehaveTransitionDiscourseCompetingAbandonmentJeopardy
Book:The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change
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“It can happen to but few philosophers, and but at distant intervals, to snatch a science, like Dalton, from the chaos of indefinite combination, and binding it in the chains of number, to exalt it to rank amongst the exact. Triumphs like these are necessarily 'few and far between.'”

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Book:Reflections on the Decline of Science in England: And on Some of Its Causes
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“Oh, most magnificent and noble Nature! Have I not worshipped thee with such a love As never mortal man before displayed? Adored thee in thy majesty of visible creation, And searched into thy hidden and mysterious ways As Poet, as Philosopher, as Sage?”

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Book:Fragmentary Remains, Literary and Scientific, of Sir Humphry Davy, Bart. ... With a sketch of his life, and selections from his correspondence. Edited by his brother John Davy
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“The Grand Duke [of Tuscany] ...after observing the Medicaean plants several times with me ... has now invited me to attach myself to him with the annual salary of one thousand florins, and with the title of Philosopher and Principal Mathematicial to His Highness; without the duties of office to perform, but with the most complete leisure; so that I can complete my Treatises.”

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Author:Galileo Galilei
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“Actual philosophers... are commanders and law-givers: they say "thus it shall be!", it is they who determine the Wherefore and Whither of mankind, and they possess for this task the preliminary work of all the philosophical laborers, of all those who have subdued the past - they reach for the future with creative hand, and everything that is or has been becomes for them a means, an instrument, a hammer.”

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Book:Beyond good and evil: prelude to a philosophy of the future
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“The pipe draws wisdom from the lips of the philosopher, and shuts up the mouth of the foolish; it generates a style of conversation, contemplative, thoughtful, benevolent, and unaffected.”

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Book:The Book of Snobs: And, Sketches and Travels in London ; [Character Sketches]
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“When it was first said that the sun stood still and world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei [the voice of the people is the voice of God], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science.”

PeopleKnowsWorldFirstsSaidStillsEyeVoiceCommonSunAtheismMankindSpeciesRoundsPhilosopherPositive AtheismDoctrineCommon SenseTrustedNatural SelectionAgnosticismOld SayingVoice Of GodOrigin Of SpeciesVox Populi
Author:Charles Darwin
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“One man has discovered that by running there is no need to meditate, just by running meditation happens. He must be absolutely body oriented. Nobody has ever thought that by running meditation is possible - but I know, I used to love running myself. It happens. If you go on running, if you run fast, thinking stops, because thinking cannot possibly continue when you are running very fast. For thinking an easy chair is needed, that's why we call thinkers armchair philosophers; they sit and relax in a chair, the body completely relaxed, then the whole energy moves into the mind.”

IfsThinkingKnowsMenNeedsMindWholeBodyHappensRunningMovingUsedEnergyEasyMeditationGoes OnNeededPhilosopherRelaxChairsOne ManThinkerRelaxedUsed To LoveArmchairs
Author:Rajneesh
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“Recent breakthroughs in science show we have just the capacities we need to face our planet's challenges. We're "soft-wired" for cooperation, empathy, fairness, along with a deep need to "make a dent," as social philosopher Erich Fromm put it. My hunch is that one reason depression is a global pandemic is that the dominant mental map denies so many of us expression of these deep needs and capacities.”

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Author:Frances Moore Lappé
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“The great paradox of determinism and free will, which has held the attention of the wisest of philosophers and psychologists for generations, can be phrased in more biological terms as follows: If our genes are inherited, and our environment is a train of physical events set in motion before we were born, how can there be a truly independent agent within the brain? The agent itself is created by the interaction of the genes and the environment. It would appear that our freedom is only a self delusion.”

IfsSelfTermBornAttentionBrainEnvironmentGenerationsEventsEvolutionIndependentTrainPhilosopherAgentsDelusionParadoxFree WillGenesInteractionOur EnvironmentPsychologistWisestDeterminismSelf Delusion
Author:E. O. Wilson
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“Socrates dies with honor, surrounded by his disciples listening to the most tender words -the easiest death that one could wish to die. Jesus dies in pain, dishonor, mockery, the object of universal cursing - the most horrible death that one could fear. At the receipt of the cup of poison, Socrates blesses him who could not give it to him without tears; Jesus, while suffering the sharpest pains, prays for His most bitter enemies. If Socrates lived and died like a philosopher, Jesus lived and died like a god.”

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Author:Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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“I do not think a philosopher who would apply himself so earnestly to the explaining the ultimate principles of the soul, would show himself a great master in the very science of human nature, which he pretends to explain, or very knowing in what is naturally satisfactory to the mind of man.”

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Book:A Treatise of Human Nature: Top Philosophy Collections
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“Others of them employ outward marks ... They style themselves Gnostics. They also possess images, some of them painted and others formed from different kinds of material. They maintain that a likeness of Christ was made by Pilate at that time when Jesus lived among them. They crown these images, and set them up along with the images of the philosophers of the world, such as Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, and the rest. They have also other modes of honoring these images just like the Gentiles.”

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Author:Irenaeus of Lyons
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“The scientist, by the very nature of his commitment, creates more and more questions, never fewer. Indeed the measure of our intellectual maturity, one philosopher suggests, is our capacity to feel less and less satisfied with our answers to better problems.”

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Book:Becoming: Basic Considerations for a Psychology of Personality
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