Best Philosophic Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

Source: Aids to reflection, in the formation of a manly character ... illustrated by select passages ... especially from Archbishop Leighton ... First American, from the first London edition ... Together with a preliminary essay, and additional notes, by James Marsh

“The new tinge to modern minds is a vehement and passionate interest in the relation of general principles to irreducible and stubborn facts. All the world over and at all times there have been practical men, absorbed in 'irreducible and stubborn facts'; all the world over and at all times there have been men of philosophic temperament, who have been absorbed in the weaving of general principles. It is this union of passionate interest in the detailed facts with equal devotion to abstract generalisation which forms the novelty of our present society.”

“I think that one should view with philosophic admiration the strange paths of the libido and should investigate the purposes of its circuitous ways.”

Thinking Way Should Purpose Views Path Strange Admiration Philosophic Libido

Book:Psychology of the Unconscious

Source: Psychology of the Unconscious

“Any philosophic explanation of Quality is going to be both false and true precisely because it is a philosophic explanation. The process of philosophic explanation is an analytic process, a process of breaking something down into subjects and predicates. What I mean (and everybody else means) by the word 'quality' cannot be broken down into subjects and predicates. This is not because Quality is so mysterious but because Quality is so simple, immediate and direct.”

Mean Process Simple Quality Subjects Broken Direct Mysterious Explanation Analytics Philosophic Broken Down Zen Motorcycle Maintenance

Author:Robert M. Pirsig

“Any person of any philosophic persuasion who sits on a hot stove will verify without any intellectual argument whatsoever that he is in an undeniably low-quality situation: that the value of his predicament is negative. This low quality is not just a vague, woolly-headed, crypto-religious, metaphysical abstraction. It is an experience. It is not a judgment about an experience. It is not a description of experience. The value itself is an experience. As such it is completely predictable. It is verifiable by anyone who cares to do so.”

“The breakdown of Plato's philosophy is made apparent in the fact that he could not trust to gradual improvements in education to bring about a better society which should then improve education, and so on indefinitely. Correct education could not come into existence until an ideal state existed, and after that education would be devoted simply to its conservation. For the existence of this state he was obliged to trust to some happy accident by which philosophic wisdom should happen to coincide with possession of ruling power in the state.”

Should Made States Philosophy Facts Happens Would Be Existence Ideals Possession Accidents Improvement Devoted Conservation Plato Ruling Obliged Breakdown Philosophic Plato S Happy Accidents

Author:John Dewey

“Nothing is more vain than to seek to unite men by a philosophic minimum.”

Men Vain Minimum Philosophic

Book:Integral humanism; temporal and spiritual problems of a new Christendom

Source: Integral humanism; temporal and spiritual problems of a new Christendom

“The Irish are a philosophic as well as a practical race. Their first and strongest impulse is to make the best of a bad situation to put a better face on evil than it normally wears.”

Firsts Wells Faces Evil Race Situation Practicals Impulse Strongest Philosophic Bad Situations

Book:The Financier

Source: The Financier

“Philo of Alexandria introduced in the first century what has been described as the 'Hellenizing of the Old Testament,' or the allegorical method of exegesis. By this, as Erdmann observes, the Bible narrative was found to contain a deeper, and particularly an allegorical interpretation, in addition to its literal interpretation; this was not conscious disingenuousness but a natural mode of amalgamating the Greek philosophic with the Hebraic doctrines.”

Firsts Has Beens Found Natural Century Conscious Method Deeper Doctrine Narrative Greek Interpretation Testament Literal Old Testament Philosophic Alexandria Exegesis

Author:Philo

“At the classical origins of philosophic thought, the transcending concepts remained committed to the prevailing separation between intellectual and manual labor to the established society of enslavement. ... Those who bore the brunt of the untrue reality and who, therefore, seemed to be most in need of attaining its subversion were not the concern of philosophy. It abstracted from them and continued to abstract from them.”

Needs Philosophy Reality Intellectual Concepts Concern Labor Committed Separation Abstract Bores Manuals Untrue Prevailing Enslavement Transcending Philosophic Subversion Manual Labor

Author:Herbert Marcuse

“The philosopher ... subjects experience to his critical judgment, and this contains a value judgment namely, that freedom from toil is preferable to toil, and an intelligent life is preferable to a stupid life. It so happened that philosophy was born with these values. Scientific thought had to break this union of value judgment and analysis, for it became increasingly clear that the philosophic values did not guide the organisation of society.”

Source: One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society

“The chief requisite for the making of a good chicken pie is chicken; no amount of culinary legerdemain can make up for the lack of chicken. In the same way, the chief requisite for the history of science is intimate scientific knowledge; no amount of philosophic legerdemain can make up for its absence.”

Way Amount Absence Chiefs Intimate Culinary Chickens Pie Philosophic History Of Science Scientific Knowledge

Book:The Teaching of the History of Science

Source: The Teaching of the History of Science

“The history of science should not be an instrument to defend any kind of social or philosophic theory; it should be used only for its own purpose, to illustrate impartially the working of reason against unreason, the gradual unfolding of truth, in all its forms, whether pleasant or unpleasant, useful of useless, welcome or unwelcome.”

Should Kind Reason Form Used Purpose Social Theory Instruments Welcome Useless Pleasant Unfolding Philosophic History Of Science Unwelcome

Book:Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece

Source: Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece

“Recognition of the modes of existence of technical objects must be the result of philosophic consideration; what philosophy has to achieve in this respect is analogous to what the abolition of slavery achieved in affirming the worth of the individual human being.”

Humans Philosophy Individual Human Beings Results Existence Achieve Objects Slavery Recognition Consideration Abolition Affirming Philosophic Abolition Of Slavery

Author:Gilbert Simondon

“The adjective "political" in "political philosophy" designates not so much the subject matter as a manner of treatment; from this point of view, I say, "political philosophy" means primarily not the philosophic study of politics, but the political, or popular, treatment of philosophy, or the political introduction to philosophy the attempt to lead qualified citizens, or rather their qualified sons, from the political life to the philosophic life.”

Mean Matter Philosophy Political Views Study Subjects Son Citizens Point Of View Treatment Qualified Introduction Political Philosophy Subject Matter Adjectives Political Life Philosophic

Author:Leo Strauss

“But there are still many who continue to marvel at the wisdom of God in so planning the universe that big rivers run by great towns, and that death comes at the end of life instead of in the middle of it. Divest pleas ... of their semi-philosophic jargon, reduce his illustrations to homely similes, and he is marvelling at the wisdom of God who so planned things that the two extremities of a piece of wood should come at the ends instead of in the middle.”

Should Stills Two Ends Bigs Running Universe Pieces Atheism Middle Rivers Towns Woods Planning Simile Illustration End Of Life Jargon Philosophic Extremity Homely

Author:Chapman Cohen

“Consequently, the first thing to be done in any search after philosophic principles is to travel over the special sciences with a view to extracting from them such information as is relevant to our purpose.”

Firsts Done Purpose Views Principles Atheism Special Information Relevant Philosophic

Author:Hugh Elliot

“Paul Brunton's Notebooks are a veritable treasure-trove of philosophic-spiritual wisdom.”

Spiritual Treasure Spiritual Wisdom Notebook Philosophic

Author:Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

“Once one is caught up into the material world not one person in ten thousand finds the time to form literary taste, to examine the validity of philosophic concepts for himself, or to form what, for lack of a better phrase, I might call the wise and tragic sense of life.”

Source: Collected Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works

“If you study Japanese art you see a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophic and intelligent, who spends his time how? In studying the distance between the earth and the moon? No. In studying the policy of Bismarck? No. He studies a single blade of grass. But this blade of grass leads him to draw every plant and then the seasons, the wide aspects of the countryside, then animals, then the human figure. So he passes his life, and life is too short to do the whole.”

“I needn't tell you that success and failure prove nothing - the whole thing is a lottery. It's pleasant to succeed; but for a philosophic mind it oughtn't to be very upsetting to fail.”

Mind Whole Failing Succeed Prove Upset Pleasant Success And Failure Lottery Philosophic

Book:Flaubert-Sand: The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert & George Sand

Source: Flaubert-Sand: The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert & George Sand

“Science, like art, religion, political theory, or psychoanalysis - is work that holds out the promise of philosophic understanding, excites in us the belief that we can 'make sense of it all.”

Art Science Political Belief Understanding Theory Promise Make Sense Psychoanalysis Philosophic Political Theory

Book:Women in Science: Then and Now

Source: Women in Science: Then and Now

“But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan and philosophic world to those evidences which were presented by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses? During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, daemons were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the church.”

Source: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“Atheism ... in its philosophic aspect refuses allegiance not merely to a definite concept of God, but it refuses all servitude to the God idea, and opposes the theistic principle as such. Gods in their individual function are not half as pernicious as the principle of theism which represents the belief in a supernatural, or even omnipotent, power to rule the earth and man upon it. It is the absolutism of theism, its pernicious influence upon humanity, its paralyzing effect upon thought and action, which Atheism is fighting with all its power.”

Source: Mother Earth Bulletin

“Imagine, capitalist America also divides the anarchists into two categories, philosophic and criminal. The first are accepted in highest circles; one of them is even high in the councils of the Wilson Administration. The second category, to which we have the honor of belonging, is persecuted and often imprisoned. Yours also seems to be a distinction without a difference. Don't you think so?”

“I sing, not arms and the hero, but the philosophic man: he who seeks in contemplation to discover the inner will of the world, ininvention to discover the means of fulfilling that will, and in action to do that will by the so-discovered means.”

Men World Mean Action Arms Hero Philosophical Contemplation Fulfilling Philosophic

Book:The Collected Plays of George Bernard Shaw (Illustrated): Including Renowned Titles like Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, The Inca Of Perusalem, Macbeth Skit, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion

Source: The Collected Plays of George Bernard Shaw (Illustrated): Including Renowned Titles like Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, The Inca Of Perusalem, Macbeth Skit, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion

“Modern Americans travel light, with little philosophic baggage other than a fervent belief in their right to the pursuit of happiness.”

Littles Light Belief Modern Pursuit Pursuit Of Happiness Baggage Fervent Philosophic Travel Light

Book:The pursuit of happiness, and other sobering thoughts

Source: The pursuit of happiness, and other sobering thoughts

“The absolute things, the last things, the overlapping things, are the truly philosophic concerns; all superior minds feel seriously about them, and the mind with the shortest views is simply the mind of the more shallow man.”

Men Feels Mind Lasts Views Concern Absolutes Philosophical Superiors Shallow Philosophic Overlapping

Book:William James: Essays and Lectures

Source: William James: Essays and Lectures

“I know that there are many persons to whom it seems derogatory to link a body of philosophic ideas to the social life and cultureof their epoch. They seem to accept a dogma of immaculate conception of philosophical systems.”

Knows Persons Ideas Body Seems Social Accepting Philosophical Links Conception Dogma Social Life Epoch Philosophic Immaculate Derogatory Immaculate Conception

Book:The Essential Dewey: Pragmatism, education, democracy

Source: The Essential Dewey: Pragmatism, education, democracy

“I should venture to assert that the most pervasive fallacy of philosophic thinking goes back to neglect of context.”

Thinking Should Neglect Venture Fallacy Philosophic Of Context

Book:The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925 - 1953: 1931-1932, Essays, Reviews, and Miscellany

Source: The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925 - 1953: 1931-1932, Essays, Reviews, and Miscellany

“The philosophic mind inclines always to an elaborate life--the life of Goethe or of Leonardo da Vinci; but the life of the poet isintense--the life of Blake or of Dante--taking into its centre the life that surrounds it and flinging it abroad again amid planetary music.”

Mind Poetry Poet Philosophical Surround Centre Blake Incline Philosophic Leonardo

Book:The Complete Works of James Joyce: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Poetry, Essays & Letters: Ulysses, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Finnegan’s Wake, Dubliners, The Cat and the Devil, Exiles, Chamber Music, Pomes Penyeach, Stephen Hero, Giacomo Joyce, Critical Writings & more

Source: The Complete Works of James Joyce: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Poetry, Essays & Letters: Ulysses, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Finnegan’s Wake, Dubliners, The Cat and the Devil, Exiles, Chamber Music, Pomes Penyeach, Stephen Hero, Giacomo Joyce, Critical Writings & more

“In recognizing that words have power to define and to compel, the semanticists are actually testifying to the philosophic quality of language which is the source of their vexation. In an attempt to get rid of that quality, they are looking for some neutral means which will be a nonconductor of the current called "emotion" and its concomitant of evaluation.”

Mean Language Emotion Quality Source Currents Recognizing Evaluation Philosophic Vexation Testifying

Book:Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition

Source: Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition

“The mysteries of Nature and of humanity are not lessened, but increased, by the discoveries of philosophic skill.”

Humanity Mystery Skills Discovery Philosophic Mystery Of Nature

Book:Essays, Critical and Miscellaneous: Critical and miscellaneous writings

Source: Essays, Critical and Miscellaneous: Critical and miscellaneous writings

“To reflect the entire spectrum, the dynamics of the adventure novel must be invested with a philosophic synthesis of one kind or another.”

Inspirational Kind Art Literature Novel Adventure Spectrum Dynamics Synthesis Philosophic

Author:Yevgeny Zamyatin

“What we need in literature today are vast philosophic horizons... we need the most ultimate, the most fearsome, the most fearless "Why?" and "What next?".”