Home / Topics / Philosophical Quotes

Philosophical Quotes

Browse 2604 quotes about Philosophical.

Philosophical Quotes

“Accordingly, the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities. The tragic plot must not be composed of irrational parts.”

Should Possibility Poet Philosophical Mathematical Tragic Plot Irrational Impossibility Improbable Probable Cause

Author:Aristotle

“Part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists and zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.”

Source: Motivating Thoughts of Steve Jobs

“Poetry is a bad medium for philosophy. Everything in the philosophical poem has to satisfy irreconcilable requirements: for instance, the last demand that we should make of philosophy (that it be interesting) is the first we make of a poem; the philosophical poet has an elevated and methodical, but forlorn and absurd air as he works away at his flying tank, his sewing-machine that also plays the piano.”

Should Firsts Philosophy Play Lasts Interesting Air Poet Demand Machines Philosophical Flying Absurd Mediums Instance Piano Poetry Is Requirements Tanks Sewing Forlorn Methodical

Author:Randall Jarrell

“This seems to me a philosophical question, and therefore irrelevant, question. A poet's destiny is to love.”

Seems Destiny Poet Philosophical Irrelevant Philosophical Questions

Author:Robert Graves

“The poet presents the imagination with images from life and human characters and situations, sets them all in motion and leaves itto the beholder to let these images take his thoughts as far as his mental powers will permit. This is why he is able to engage men of the most differing capabilities, indeed fools and sages together. The philosopher, on the other hand, presents not life itself but the finished thoughts which he has abstracted from it and then demands that the reader should think precisely as, and precisely as far as, he himself thinks. That is why his public is so small.”

“And truly Philosophy is but sophisticated poetry. Whence do those ancient writers derive all their authority but from the poets?”

Philosophy Poetry Poet Authority Philosophical Ancient Sophisticated

Book:The Essays

Source: The Essays

“What verse is for the poet, dialectical thinking is for the philosopher. He grasps for it in order to get hold of his own enchantment, in order to perpetuate it.”

Thinking Poetry Order Poet Philosophical Philosopher Thoughtful Verses Enchantment

Book:Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks

Source: Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks

“Poetry contains philosophy as the soul contains reason.”

Soul Reason Philosophy Poetry Poet Philosophical

Author:Victor Hugo

“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

“Poetry is essentially the antithesis of Metaphysics: Metaphysics purge the mind of the senses and cultivate the disembodiment of the spiritual; Poetry is all passionate and feeling and animates the inanimate; Metaphysics are most perfect when concerned with universals; Poetry, when most concerned with particulars.”

Mind Feelings Spiritual Poetry Perfect Poet Concerned Philosophical Passionate Senses Poetry Is Metaphysics Antithesis

Author:Samuel Beckett

“The spirit of poetry combines the profundity of the philosopher and the child's delight in bright pictures.”

Children Spirit Poetry Poet Philosophical Philosopher Delight Profundity

Author:Franz Grillparzer

“The whole history of modern poetry is a continuous commentary on the short text of philosophy: every art should become science, and every science should become art; poetry and philosophy should be united.”

Should Art Philosophy Whole Poetry United Modern Poet Philosophical Poetry Is Commentary Modern Poetry

Author:Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

“Without poetry, religion becomes obscure, false, and malignant; without philosophy, licentious in all wantonness, and lascivious to the point of self-castration.”

Self Philosophy Poetry Religion Poet Philosophical Obscure Castration

Author:Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

“If one believes philosophers, then what we call religion is only a deliberately popularized or an instinctively artless philosophy. Poets seem to consider religion rather as a variation of poetry which by misjudging its proper beautiful game takes itself too seriously and one-sidedly. Philosophy, however, admits and recognizes that it can begin and complete itself only with religion. Poetry seeks only to strive for the infinite and despises worldly utility and culture, which are the true antitheses of religion. Eternal peace among artists is thus not far away.”

“Poetry and philosophy are, according to how you take them, different spheres, different forms, or factors of religion. Try to really combine both, and you will have nothing but religion.”

Trying Different Philosophy Form Poetry Religion Poet Philosophical Factors Spheres

Author:Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

“Where philosophy ends, poetry must commence. There should not be a common point of view, a natural manner of thinking which standsin contrast to art and liberal education, or mere living; that is, one should not conceive of a realm of crudeness beyond the boundaries of education. Every conscious link of an organism should not perceive its limits without a feeling for its unity in relation to the whole. For example, philosophy should not only be contrasted to non-philosophy, but also to poetry.”

“With respect to ingenious subconsciousness, I think, philosophers might well rival poets.”

Thinking Wells Might Poet Philosophical Philosopher Rivals Ingenious

Author:Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

“Where politics is concerned, I think poets have to be pragmatists, philosophical pragmatists.”

Thinking Poet Concerned Philosophical Pragmatists

Author:Robert Hass

“Language, the machine of the poet, is best fitted for his purpose in its rudest state. Nations, like individuals, first perceive, and then abstract. They advance from particular images to general terms. Hence the vocabulary of an enlightened society is philosophical, that of a half-civilized people is poetical.”

People Firsts States Purpose Individual Language Nations Term Half Particular Poet Machines Philosophical Perceive Abstract Enlightened Civilized Vocabulary Enlightened Society

Author:Thomas B. Macaulay

“The being who, for most men, is the source of the most lively, and even, be it said, to the shame of philosophical delights, the most lasting joys; the being towards or for whom all their efforts tend for whom and by whom fortunes are made and lost; for whom, but especially by whom, artists and poets compose their most delicate jewels; from whom flow the most enervating pleasures and the most enriching sufferings - woman, in a word, is not, for the artist in general... only the female of the human species. She is rather a divinity, a star.”

“Andy Brown is one of our most interesting and exciting younger poets. With its love of ideas and language, his work demonstrates that there need be no barriers in poetry; that the philosophical, the lyrical and the playful can be combined in work of assured and generous vision.”

Needs Ideas Language Interesting Vision Poet Exciting Philosophical Generous Brown Barriers Assured Most Interesting Lyrical

Author:John Burnside

“The child and the poet know that Reality is what does not need to be realistic.”

Knows Needs Children Doe Reality Poet Philosophical Realistic

Author:Vicki Lewis Thompson

“Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.”

Life Wisdom Poetry Wise Poet Philosophical Great Poetry Poetry By Famous Poets

Author:Plato

“Mere poets are sottish as mere drunkards are, who live in a continual mist, without seeing or judging anything clearly. A man should be learned in several sciences, and should have a reasonable, philosophical and in some measure a mathematical head, to be a complete and excellent poet.”

Men Should Learning Seeing Poet Judging Should Have Philosophical Mathematics Mere Math Mathematical Excellent Reasonable Mist Drunkards

Book:The Works of John Dryden: Poetical works

Source: The Works of John Dryden: Poetical works