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Philosophical Quotes

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Philosophical Quotes

“If I had to choose between the two ways of approaching the deity, I should prefer the existential relational way, to the abstract philosophical way. I think it is truer, or in any case, less misleading, to say that God is an old Jew with a white beard whom I love, than to say that God is the ground of being and meaning, or to say that God is a name denoting the ultimate mystery. I prefer the bold primitive colors of the Biblical way of describing God.”

IfsThinkingWayShouldTwoNamesWhiteCasesMysteryColorUltimatePhilosophicalJewAbstractPrimitiveBiblicalExistentialDeitiesBeardTwo WaysDescribingMislead
Author:Frank Moore Cross
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“I think that every educator, indeed every human being, is concerned with what is true and what is not; what experiences to cherish and which ones to avoid; and how best to relate to other human beings. We differ in how conscious we are of these questions; how reflective we are about our own stances; whether we are aware of how these human virtues are threatened by critiques (philosophical, cultural) and by technologies (chiefly the digital media). A good educator should help us all to navigate our way in this tangled web of virtues.”

ThinkingWayShouldHumansHelpingHuman BeingsTechnologyVirtueMediaConsciousConcernedPhilosophicalRelateDigitalCherishThreatenedCritiqueEducatorStanceNavigateTangledDigital MediaTangled Webs
Author:Howard Gardner
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“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”

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Book:The Portable Nietzsche
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“You can forgive people who do not follow you through a philosophical disquisition; but to find your wife laughing when you had tears in your eyes, or staring when you were in a fit of laughter, would go some way towards a dissolution of the marriage.”

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Book:Memories, Portraits, Essays and Records (Annotated Edition)
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“No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literacy or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race.”

WayShouldHumansMayCharacterGovernmentFormPoliticalValuesReligiousRacePrinciplesDemocracyEconomicCreationAdventureExpressionDutyDevelopmentCitizensLimitsPhilosophicalDetermineDoctrineArtisticHuman RaceAestheticLiteracyHistoricValidityArtistic ExpressionArtistic Creation
Author:Richard P. Feynman
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“Life's a freaking mess. In fact, I'm going to tell Sarah we need to start a new philosophical movement: messessentialism instead of existentialism: For those who revel in the essential mess that is life. Because Gram's right, there's not one truth ever, just a bunch of stories, all going on at once, in our heads, in our hearts, all getting in the way of each other. It's all a beautiful calamitous mess. It's like the day Mr. James took us into the woods and cried triumphantly, "That's it! That's it!" to the dizzying cacophony of soloing instruments trying to make music together. That is it.”

WayNeedsTryingHeartFactsStoriesTogetherBeautifulMovementEssentialsPhilosophicalInstrumentsWoodsBunchMessExistentialismCriedCacophony
Author:Jandy Nelson
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“I want to find a way of speaking to fellow human beings that will be cool rather than heated, philosophical rather than polemical, that will bring enlightenment rather than seeking to divide us into the righteous and the sinners, the saved and the damned, the sheep and the goats.”

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Book:The Lives of Animals: The Lives of Animals [Princeton Classics]
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“The question of love is one that cannot be evaded. Whether or not you claim to be interested in it from the moment you are alive you are bound to be concerned with love because love is not just something that happens to you: It is a certain special way of being alive. Love is in fact an intensification of life a completeness a fullness a wholeness of life.”

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Author:Thomas Merton
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“In mysticism, knowledge cannot be separated from a certain way of life which becomes its living manifestation. To acquire mystical knowledge means to undergo a transformation; one could even say that the knowledge is the transformation. Scientific knowledge, on the other hand, can often stay abstract and theoretical. Thus most of today’s physicists do not seem to realize the philosophical, cultural and spiritual implications of their theories.”

WayMeanHandsSeemsTodaySpiritualCertainRealizingTheoryTransformationPhilosophicalManifestationAbstractAcquireMysticismMysticalPhysicistTheoreticalImplicationsScientific Knowledge
Author:Lois McMaster Bujold
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“Science is a human activity, and the best way to understand it is to understand the individual human beings who practise it. Science is an art form and not a philosophical method. The great advances in science usually result from new tools rather than from new doctrines. ... Every time we introduce a new tool, it always leads to new and unexpected discoveries, because Nature's imagination is richer than ours.”

WayHumansArtPhilosophyFormScienceIndividualUnderstandingNatureImaginationHuman BeingsResultsActivityDiscoveryToolsAccountsPhilosophicalMethodBest WayDoctrineUnexpectedIntroducingHuman ActivityPractiseAdvances In Science
Author:Freeman Dyson
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“The traditional disputes of philosophers are, for the most part, as unwarranted as they are unfruitful. The surest way to end them is to establish beyond question what should be the purpose and method of a philosophical enquiry. And this is by no means so difficult a task as the history of philosophy would lead one to suppose. For if there are any questions which science leaves it to philosophy to answer, a straightforward process of elimination must lead to their discovery.”

IfsWayShouldMeanEndsPhilosophyTruthSciencePurposeProcessDifficultAnswersDiscoveryTasksLogicPhilosophicalMethodPhilosopherTraditionalDisputesStraightforwardEliminationEnquiry
Author:A.J. Ayer
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“People habituate themselves to let things pass through their minds, as one may speak, rather than to think of them. Thus by use they become satisfied merely with seeing what is said, without going any further. Review and attention, and even forming a judgment, becomes fatigue; and to lay anything before them that requires it, is putting them quite out of their way.”

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Book:The Works of Joseph Butler ... To which is Prefixed, a Life of the Author
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“We have embarked globally on a path of unsustainable development. Our lifestyles, the way we produce goods and services, are all part of a system that is completely unsustainable. I see solutions to climate change leading to a much larger philosophical shift in the way human society develops. We need a new matrix to define what human progress is.”

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Author:Rajendra K. Pachauri
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“Letting a maximum number of views be heard regularly is not just a nice philosophical notion. It is the best way any society has yet discovered to detect maladjustments quickly, to correct injustices, and to discover new ways to meet our continuing stream of novel problems that rise in a changing environment.”

WayProblemJusticeViewsNumbersNovelEnvironmentNiceHeardSocietyEthicsPhilosophicalNotionInjusticeBest WayStreamsFairnessContinuingNew WaysMaximumChanging EnvironmentMaximum Number
Author:Ben Bagdikian
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“Art is the way to the absolute and to the essence of human life. The aim of art is not the one-sided promotion of spirit, soul and senses, but the opening of all human capacities – thought, feeling, will – to the life rhythm of the world of nature. So will the voiceless voice be heard and the self be brought into harmony with it.”

WorldWayHumansArtSoulSelfFeelingsSpiritVoiceHeardArt IsCapacityEssenceAbsolutesHarmonyPhilosophicalAimSensesOpeningRhythmHuman LifePromotionOne SidedVoicelessHuman Capacity
Book:Tao of Jeet Kune Do
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“I wanted to pack a lot into the lyric, but not go beyond its bounds. Some have written that I wanted to expand what the lyric could do. I just want the hugeness of experience-which includes philosophical discursiveness-to move at a rate of speed that kept it (because all within one unity of experience) emotional. Also, often, questions became the way the poems propelled themselves forward It brings the reader in as a listener to a confession[.] A poem is a private story, after all, no matter how apparently public. The reader is always overhearing a confession.”

WayWantMatterStoriesWantedMovingWrittenEmotionalReaderPhilosophicalUnityRateBoundsSpeedConfessionPacksListenersOverhearing
Author:Jorie Graham
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“Philosophical argument, trying to get someone to believe something whether he wants to believe it or not, is not, I have held, a nice way to behave towards someone; also it does not fit the original motivation for studying or entering philosophy. That motivation is puzzlement, curiousity, a desire to understand, not a desire to produce uniformity of belief. Most people do not want to become thought-police. The philosophical goal of explanation rather than proof not only is morally better, it is more in accord with one's philosophical motivation.”

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Book:Philosophical Explanations
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“When it comes to the origin of life there are only two possibilities: creation or spontaneous generation. There is no third way. Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical grounds; therefore, we choose to believe the impossible: that life arose spontaneously by chance!”

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Author:George Wald
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“In my own version of the idea of 'what art wants,' the end and fulfillment of the history of art is the philosophical understanding of what art is, an understanding that is achieved in the way that understanding in each of our lives is achieved, namely, from the mistakes we make, the false paths we follow, the false images we have come to abandon until we learn wherein our limits consist, and then how to live within those limits.”

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Author:Arthur Danto
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“I feel like the Internet needs to be disarmed in some way. There needs to be a philosophical undermining of the Internet. We take it too seriously and too literally. For a reference we go to Wikipedia, which is full of inaccuracies and misinformation. It's kind of beautiful - it's all the product of imagination; it's not reality at all.”

WayNeedsFeelsKindRealityBeautifulImaginationProductsInternetPhilosophicalMisinformationWikipediaUndermining
Author:Sufjan Stevens
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