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Philosophers Quotes

Browse 52 quotes about Philosophers.

Philosophers Quotes

“Modern life seems set up so that we can avoid loneliness at all costs, but maybe it's worthwhile to face it occasionally. The further we push aloneness away, the less are we able to cope with it, and the more terrifying it gets. Some philosophers believe that loneliness is the only true feeling there is. We live orphaned on a tiny rock in the immense vastness of space, with no hint of even the simplest form of life anywhere around us for billions upon billions of miles, alone beyond all imagining. We live locked in our own heads and can never entirely know the experience of another person. Even if we're surrounded by family and friends, we journey into death completely alone.”

DeathSpaceFamilyJourneyLonelinessFriendsExperienceBillionsMilesAloneFeelingWorthwhileLockedImmensePersonModern LifeAlonenessVastnessAvoidPhilosophersTerrifyingCopeSurroundedHeadsOccasionallyOrphaned
Book:The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
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“Socrates: Have you noticed on our journey how often the citizens of this new land remind each other it is a free country? Plato: I have, and think it odd they do this. Socrates: How so, Plato? Plato: It is like reminding a baker he is a baker, or a sculptor he is a sculptor. Socrates: You mean to say if someone is convinced of their trade, they have no need to be reminded. Plato: That is correct. Socrates: I agree. If these citizens were convinced of their freedom, they would not need reminders.”

PhilosophyWisdomChristianFreedomLibertyCitizensWords Of WisdomPhilosophicalCatholicThought ProvokingPlatoFreedom Of ThoughtFree CountrySocratesPhilosophersGadflyCatholic AuthorCivil Liberty
Book:Brushstrokes of a Gadfly
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“Some of the best things that have ever happened to us wouldn’t have happened to us, if it weren’t for some of the worst things that have ever happened to us.”

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Author:Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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“Between the pleasure of a kiss and of what a man and woman do in bed seems to me only a gradation. A kiss, for instance, is not to be minimized, or its value judged by anyone else. I wonder do these men grade their pleasure in terms of whether their actions produce a child or not, and do they consider them more pleasant if they do. It is a question of pleasure after all, and what's the use debating the pleasure of an ice cream cone versus a football gamme--or a Beethoven quartet versus the Mona Lisa. I'll leave that to the philosophers. But their attitude was that I must be somehow demented or blind (plus a kind of regret, I thought, at the fact that a fairly attractive woman is presumably unavailable to men). [...] The most important point I did not mention and was not thought of by anyone--that the rapport between two men or two women can be absolute and perfect, as it can never be between man and woman, and perhaps some people want just this, as others want that more shifting and uncertain thing that happens between men and women. It was said or at least implied yesterday that my present course would bring me to the depths of human vice and degeneration. Yes, I have sunk a good deal since they took you from me. It is true, if I were to go on like this and be spied upon, attacked, never possessing one person long enough so that knowledge of a person is a superficial thing--that is degeneration. Or to live against one's grain, that is degeneration by definition.”

PleasureAttitudeViceRapportDementedDegenerationPhilosophers
Book:The Price of Salt
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“Naive people tend to generalize people as—-good, bad, kind, or evil based on their actions. However, even the smartest person in the world is not the wisest or the most spiritual, in all matters. We are all flawed. Maybe, you didn’t know a few of these things about Einstein, but it puts the notion of perfection to rest. Perfection doesn’t exist in anyone. Nor, does a person’s mistakes make them less valuable to the world. 1. He divorced the mother of his children, which caused Mileva, his wife, to have a break down and be hospitalized. 2.He was a ladies man and was known to have had several affairs; infidelity was listed as a reason for his divorce. 3.He married his cousin. 4.He had an estranged relationship with his son. 5. He had his first child out of wedlock. 6. He urged the FDR to build the Atom bomb, which killed thousands of people. 7. He was Jewish, yet he made many arguments for the possibility of God. Yet, hypocritically he did not believe in the Jewish God or Christianity. He stated, “I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”

ReasonPhilosophyFactsWisdomTruthReligionHistoryGeniusEgoResearchExpectationsIntelligenceTheologyEducatedArroganceReasoningInvestigationBe ProudNaiveLameGod S PlanSelf RighteousCollege DegreeEinsteinStudyingCommonsensePhilosophersDebatesDo The Right ThingLife MissionCallingsWorthynessFabricated QuotesBe Not AshamedEinstein S LifeKnowing HistoryPeityUnfair High Standards
Author:Shannon L. Alder
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“If we had to earn our age by thinking for ourselves at least once a year, only a handful of people would reach adulthood.”

ReasonPhilosophyHumorAgeFunnyIndividualGrowthSocietyCrazyChildhoodHumourHard WorkDevelopmentJokesAdultsLogicMadnessMadMajorityIndividualityPhilosopherCriticalInsaneInsanityMaturitySatireMatureConformityThinkerSanityChildOriginalitySheepAphorismSaneThinkConformJokeToilCritical ThinkingAphorismsGrowUnreasonableImmatureChildlikeCrazinessAdultNonconformityIllogicalImmaturityOriginalDevelopAphoristThinkersAphoristsIndependent ThinkingThink For YourselfHerd MentalityMinorityStandardOriginal ThoughtPhilosophersChildishEarnHerdSheepleThinking For YourselfIndependent ThinkersOriginal ThinkerAge Is Nothing But A NumberIndependent ThinkerMonkey BananaMr Follow FollowOriginal ThinkersReach AdulthoodSilver Plater
Author:Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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“They say instant communication is not communication at all but merely a frantic, trivial, nerve-wracking bombardment of clichés, threats, fads, fashions, gibberish and advertising. However, who has not hung on a scripture, a quote, a statement, only to stumble upon the key phrase that brought all things to a turning point? The greatest sermons and speeches were pieced together by illuminating thoughts that powered men to surpass their own commonness. It is the sparkling magic of letters forming words, and those words colliding with passion, that makes statements into wisdom.”

WisdomQuotesPassionCommonTechnologyPositive ThinkingCommunicationLettersConnectionsWordsStatementsWritersWriting QuotesRevelationSimplificationWriting CraftThinkersPhilosophersScribesPunchInstant CommunicationEmotional ConnectionsTo The PointSummation Of ThoughtBits Of WisdomBrevity In EmotionSermons Summarized
Author:Shannon L. Alder
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“There is ONE difference between a successful and unsuccessful people. There is ONE difference between happy and unhappy people. There is ONE difference between wise and unwise people. There is ONE difference between achievers and non-achievers. And that ONE difference is the BEHAVIOUR of an individual. It is neither your education nor your wealth or social status but your BEHAVIOUR that decides your happiness, success and wisdom. Mind your behaviour and it will take care of everything else.”

LifeInspirational QuotesLife LessonsLife QuotesInspirational LifeLife PhilosophyPhilosophicalInspirational AttitudePhilosophy Of LifePhilosophy QuotesPhilosophersSanjeev Himachali
Author:Sanjeev Himachali
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“Some teachers only teach us and go but some teachers teach us and they leave indelible footprints which continue to teach us forever! Great teachers live and leave distinctive footprints. Great teachers, though they go, their footprints forever live in our minds and inspire the body and the soul in a distinctive way !”

Life And LivingThoughtDiscipleshipBest TeacherThinkersTeaching QuotesPhilosphyGreat ThinkersPhilosophersThinkers Of Our TimeGreat TeachersMy Teacher
Author:Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
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“With great passion, observe every details of the sacred journey.”

WisdomInspirationPassionNatureAttentionFateJourneyAdventureWise WordsTravelAmbitionSacredEnthusiasmUpliftingLailah Gifty Akita AffirmationsTime TravelEducational PhilosophyWishesDream BigListenPurposeful LivingSelf EducationPilgrimageMediationSeeking GodInspiring WordsInspired SoulVoyageObservePhilosophersSeeking FateSelf SeekingBeautiful ThoughtsGreat MindObservations On LifeListening To Inner SelfGreat SoulCareful LifeSpiritual RebirthDream Do Come True
Book:Think Great: Be Great!
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“Government of the world begins in us. It's not the sincere who govern the world, but neither is it the insincere; it's those who create in themselves a real sincerity by artificial and automatic means. This sincerity is what makes them strong, and it outshines the less false sincerity of others. To be adept at deluding oneself is the first prerequisite for a statesman. Only poets and philosophers see the world as it really is, for only to them is it given to live without illusions. To see clearly is to not act.”

GovernmentClaritySincerityPoetsPoliticiansSelf DelusionDelusionsPhilosophers
Book:The Book of Disquiet
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“Da hans Soldater udi det Aar 1637 havde fanget et Fruentimmer af en stor og rar Skiønhed, bragte de hende som et kostbart Bytte til deres Anfører. Turenne havde da ikkun 26 Aar, og derfore ikke kunde være følesløs; men han stillede sig an, som han ikke begreeb, hvad Krigs-Folkene derved meenede, rosede derfor deres Skikkelighed, at de havde villet beskytte samme Dame mod andre deres Brødres Vold. Han lod derpaa strax hente hendes Huusbond, udi hvis Hænder han overleverede hende med disse Ord:See! der er eders Husfrue, hvis Ære mine skikkelige Soldater have reddet.”

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Book:Epistler
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“For the philosopher, language, thought, and passion are the same. Ideas are personal to a philosopher; they express their human passion and articulate their novel ideas in language. Ideas are more than mere concepts, trifles that the philosophical mind toys with. Ideas provide both the structure and inner vitality that holds great thinkers’ conceptual structure together.”

IdeasPhilosophyLanguageThoughtsPhilosophy QuotesWritersWriting LifeWriting QuotesThoughts On LifeIdealistPhilosophical MusingsIdeas QuotesPhilosophers
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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“Hmmm!” directed to Fai. “Is there such thing as an answer, Fai?” he asked, though by his tone, Wolfdon could tell he knew the answer to that, if it were possible. “I would not know, Godric,” Fai replied, a bit more solemn than Godric and Cheng. “For knowing thus, the question would be answered, but without, there is neither subjectivity nor objectivity, just truth from above lisped through our uncouth tongues. Truth, there is. Answers, I cannot say.”

TruthAnswersRiddlePhilosophersFaiGodric
Book:Aizai the Forgotten
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“She had devoted time to improving her reading and was now more than proficient. The shelf she'd first cleared with Bianca overflowed with tales of King Arthur and his knights, Ovid's poetry, plays by Sophocles, Aristotle and Aeschylus, Apuleius, names she loved repeating in her mind because the mere sound of them conjured the drama, pageantry, passion, transformations and suffering of their heroes and heroines. One of her favorite writers was Geoffrey Chaucer-- his poems of pilgrims exchanging stories as they traveled to a shrine in Canterbury were both heart aching and often sidesplittingly funny. Admittedly, one of the reasons she loved Chaucer was because she could read him for herself. It was the same reason she picked up Shakespeare over and over, and the works of Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle upon Tyne. They all wrote in English. Regarded as quite the eccentric, the duchess was a woman of learning who, like Rosamund, was self-taught. Her autobiography, A True Relation of my Birth, Breeding and Life, a gift from Mr. Henderson, gave Rosamund a model to emulate. Here was a woman who dared to consider not only philosophy, science, astronomy and romance, but to write about her reflections and discoveries in insightful ways. Defying her critics, she determined that women were men's intellectual equal, possessed of as quick a wit and as many subtleties if only given the means to express themselves-- in other words, access to education.”

ReadingBooksWritersAutobiographyIdealistPhilosophersChaucerCavendish
Book:The Chocolate Maker's Wife
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“Thus identified with astronomy, in proclaiming truths supposed to be hostile to Scripture, Geology has been denounced as the enemy of religion. The twin sisters of terrestrial and celestial physics have thus been joint-heirs of intolerance and persecution—unresisting victims in the crusade which ignorance and fanaticism are ever waging against science. When great truths are driven to make an appeal to reason, knowledge becomes criminal, and philosophers martyrs. Truth, however, like all moral powers, can neither be checked nor extinguished. When compressed, it but reacts the more. It crushes where it cannot expand—it burns where it is not allowed to shine. Human when originally divulged, it becomes divine when finally established. At first, the breath of a rage—at last it is the edict of a god. Endowed with such vital energy, astronomical truth has cut its way through the thick darkness of superstitious times, and, cheered by its conquests, Geology will find the same open path when it has triumphed over the less formidable obstacles of a civilized age.”

ReasonTruthScienceReligionKnowledgeIgnoranceCivilizationPhysicsAstronomyScriptureTriumphIntolerancePersecutionConquestScience And ReligionFanaticismSuperstitionGeologyCriminalScience Vs ReligionPhilosophersMartyrs
Book:More Worlds Than One: The Creed of the Philosopher and the Hope of the Christian
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“Nothing can illustrate these observations more forcibly, than a recollection of the happy conjuncture of times and circumstances, under which our Republic assumed its rank among the Nations; The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epoch when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period, the researches of the human mind, after social happiness, have been carried to a great extent, the Treasures of knowledge, acquired by the labours of Philosophers, Sages and Legislatures, through a long succession of years, are laid open for our use, and their collected wisdom may be happily applied in the Establishment of our forms of Government; the free cultivation of Letters, the unbounded extension of Commerce, the progressive refinement of Manners, the growing liberality of sentiment... have had a meliorating influence on mankind and increased the blessings of Society. At this auspicious period, the United States came into existence as a Nation, and if their Citizens should not be completely free and happy, the fault will be entirely their own. [Circular to the States, 8 June 1783 - Writings 26:484--89]”

MindUseGovernmentAmericaHappinessKnowledgeRightsMankindIgnoranceResearchFoundationFoundingSuperstitionPhilosophersGeorge WashingtonSagesFounding Father
Book:Writings
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“Awe-inspiring God. Amazing God. Awesome God. Almighty God.”

GodInspirational QuotesJoyReligionHopeBeliefMusicChristianityWise WordsWisdom QuotesWorshipPraiseFaith QuotesPhilosophy Of LifeInspiring QuotesChristian QuotesReligious FaithPositive Thinking QuotesGod S GraceUplifting QuotesBelieversChristianity FaithThankful HeartGratefulness QuotesSovereignty Of GodAwesome QuotesPhilosophersThanksgiving QuotesGrateful SoulPraying QuotesGods SovereigntyAmazing QuotesThank You NotesEncouraging And Empowering Girls
Book:Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind
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“The ancient philosophers always had their doubts about democracy. Plato feared the "false and braggart words" of the demagogue, and suspected democracy might be nothing more than a staging point on the road to tyranny. Early American advocates of republican government also recognized the challenge that a corrupt leader could pose to democracy, and thought hard about creating the institutions that would resist one. The Constitutional Convention of 1787 created the electoral college as a means of ensuring that a man with what Alexander Hamilton called "talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity" could never become president of the United States.”

AmericaDemocracyTyrannyPlatoPresidentsPhilosophersDemagoguesAlexander Hamilton
Book:Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
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“It is well known that geometry presupposes not only the concept of space but also the first fundamental notions for constructions in space as given in advance. It only gives nominal definitions for them, while the essential means of determining them appear in the form of axioms. The relationship of these presumptions is left in the dark; one sees neither whether and in how far their connection is necessary, nor a priori whether it is possible. From Euclid to Legendre, to name the most renowned of modern writers on geometry, this darkness has been lifted neither by the mathematicians nor the philosophers who have laboured upon it.”

ScienceRelationshipsSpaceDarknessScientistMathematicsDefinitionsMathematicianGeometryAxiomsRenownEuclidPhilosophersLegendreAdrian Marie Legendre
Author:Bernhard Riemann
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“According to Daniel Dennett and many other philosophers, free will and determinism are compatible. Despite my agreement with this view, I must admit that my way of coming to the same conclusion may be slightly different, contain different motivations, and come from a different perspective. Therefore, this topic deserves further clarification; although findings may be the same, they may be so for different reasons. Even if they would be the same for the same reasons, they might be based not only on different approaches to the same problem but also on a different perspective in viewing the world—understanding the world, the concept of the world, its potential, and its appearance to us.”

Free WillDejan StojanovicDeterminismPhilosophersLaplaceDaniel Dennet
Book:ABSOLUTE
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“Richard Feynman had to say this about energy in his 1961 lecture: “There is a fact, or if you wish, a law, governing all natural phenomena that are known to date. There is no known exception to this law – it is exact so far as we know. The law is called the conservation of energy. It states that there is a certain quantity, which we call energy that does not change in manifold changes which nature undergoes. That is a most abstract idea, because it is a mathematical principle; it says that there is a numerical quantity which does not change when something happens. It is not a description of a mechanism, or anything concrete; it is just a strange fact that we can calculate some number and when we finish watching nature go through her tricks and calculate the number again, it is the same.” All significant philosophers and scientists throughout history were in their own right, right if we consider the context, time, and place, the point from which they observed the world by the means available to them. If we understand this context, we know how much harder it was for them to decipher the world previously unknown, except as an experience without fundamental and deeper understanding. In this sense, all these philosophers and scientists were, in a way, “right,” even when they were “not” right. Correctness or wrongness of their ideas and opinions shall be measured more by how they helped our understanding and ideas developed directly from their thoughts. Even if they were in some way wrong, great ideas helped our ideas develop and allowed the formation and formulations of great ideas that will follow. Quality and potential of insights and ideas are more important than strict correctness without any potential. Progress in human history would not be possible without following the traces of long-bygone giants (as Newton understood them). We can hardly produce any new important question that ancient Greek philosophers did not pose. The whole idea of Western philosophy, as it is, would not be possible without the ancient Greeks. This statement holds even when we talk about the modern era’s greatest philosophers, starting with Descartes and culminating in the works of the great German philosophers Leibnitz, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, the Dutch Spinoza, and others. Almost all central questions or problems treated by these philosophers were already postulated, discussed, or touched, directly or indirectly, by the great ancient philosophers who paved the way for the others.”

MatterMassDejan StojanovicAbsoluteUniversal MindMotionPhilosophers
Book:ABSOLUTE
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“The phaenomena afforded by trades, are a part of the history of nature, and therefore may both challenge the naturalist's curiosity and add to his knowledge, Nor will it suffice to justify learned men in the neglect and contempt of this part of natural history, that the men, from whom it must be learned, are illiterate mechanicks... is indeed childish, and too unworthy of a philosopher, to be worthy of an honest answer.”

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Author:Robert Boyle
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“Here is to all the brilliant minds that love deeply, for they write the stories that make us dream of true love. Here is to all the visionaries that create a miracle when others give up hope. Here is to all the artists, musicians, actors, singers, songwriters, dancers, screenwriters, philosophers, inventors and poetic hearts that create a perspective of heaven we can experience in this lifetime. But most of all, here is to the wild souls that the world calls broken, insane, abnormal, weird or different because they are the ones that renew our faith, by what they overcome and create, in a world that needs a sign that God doesn’t forget the least of us.”

LifeGodStoriesHappinessActorsHeavenBeautyLearningConfidenceAppreciationActressesSingersWritersSongwritersArtistsGiftsTalentsVisionariesTributeScreenwritersMentally IllDreamersMusiciansPhilosophersMental DisordersFilm MakingPlotsCreativesFilm DirectorDancersCreators Of DreamsRomance WritersRight BrainedWild Souls
Author:Shannon L. Alder
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“We all have problems. Or rather, everyone has at least one thing that they regard as a problem.”

InspirationalPhilosophyFeelingsProblemHumorInspirationMotivationalPainQuotesChallengesHurtAttitudeWorryInspireHumourPerspectiveAnxietyOvercomingStressRegardQuoteProfoundEndureInspiredPhilosopherComplainingImpressionWorriedMotiveThoughtfulSatireEnduranceThought ProvokingHardshipDeepMotivatedInsightfulFeelingProblemsAnxiousAphorismQuotationsStoicismMaximsSayingsChallengeTough TimesStressedAdagesProverbsAphorismsMake You ThinkAxiomsOvercomeWords To Live ByWorryingAdageProverbSatiricalSayingEpigramsStoicQuotationGnomeMaximEpigramGnomesProvoke ThoughtMade Me ThinkAxiomDictumDictumsComplainPerspectivesComplaintSelf InflictedPhilosophersImpressionsStoicsStressingDeemSelf Inflict
Author:Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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“Philosophers and scientists throughout the ages have been concerned with these questions. Still, the question is not only about posing the question but also about posing the right question and understanding the meaning of words and language. The right questions and good reasoning often lead to the correct answers, but we are dealing with how and when we establish the right concepts. Have we ever? How far are the concepts, beyond our words and language, from the intrinsic nature of what we try to describe and comprehend?”

WorldRealityTruthUniverseDejan StojanovicAbsoluteScientistsPhilosophers
Book:ABSOLUTE
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