Best philosophical & would-be Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“If God were to exist for the entire humanity, he would be profoundly vile, as he allows the existence of unfathomable sin, stupidity, madness, and misery for no reason than his own despicable enjoyment. God exists though, not for all humanity, but for a one chosen man - a philosopher - who is bound to answer the greatest philosophical question, the question about the nature of the questioner's existence, which progressively quenches the divine vanity.”

“I do think you have sort of a general philosophical approach that you want from a justice, and I think a strict constructionist would be probably the way I'd describe it.”

Thinking Way Want Would Be Justice Approach Philosophical Strict

Author:Rudy Giuliani

“However much the creationist leaders might hammer away at their scientific and philosophical points, they would be helpless and a laughing-stock if that were all they had. It is religion that recruits their squadrons. Tens of millions of Americans, who neither know nor understand the actual arguments for - of even against - evolution, march in the army of the night, their Bibles held high. And they are a strong and frightening force, impervious to, and immunized against, the feeble lance of mere reason.”

Ifs Knows Reason Might Would Be Night Strong Force Leader Millions Laughing Evolution Argument Army Philosophical Mere March Frightening Helpless Hammers Recruit Impervious Creationist

Author:Isaac Asimov

“Of all the senseless babble I have ever had occasion to read, the demonstrations of these philosophers who undertake to tell us all about the nature of God would be the worst, if they were not surpassed by the still greater absurdities of the philosophers who try to prove that there is no God.”

Ifs Trying Stills God Would Be Greater Worst Prove Philosophical Philosopher Occasions Absurdity Demonstration There Is No God

Author:Thomas Huxley

“People must have renounced, it seems to me, all natural intelligence to dare to advance that animals are but animated machines.... It appears to me, besides, that such people can never have observed with attention the character of animals, not to have distinguished among them the different voices of need, of suffering, of joy, of pain, of love, of anger, and of all their affections. It would be very strange that they should express so well what they could not feel.”

“When I came to New York, to Brooklyn, I met Alvin Ailey and Stanley Crouch and August Wilson. They were always putting things in a philosophical context. All the great jazz musicians did, too. There was always a sub-context to what they were saying about music even though they would be very down home and earthy. So I started to develop, in addition to my power and ability to simply hear, a way to place myself in a time.”

Way Home Would Be Ability New York Mets Musician Philosophical Jazz Jazz Music Brooklyn August Wilson Stanley Jazz Musician

Author:Wynton Marsalis

“It is one thing to say that science is only equipped to test for natural causes and cannot speak to any others. It is quite another to insist that science proves that no other causes could possibly exist. . . . There would be no experimental model for testing the statement: 'No supernatural cause for any natural phenomenon is possible.' It is therefore a philosophical presupposition and not a scientific finding.”

Would Be Speak Causes Natural One Thing Prove Findings Models Tests Philosophical Statements Phenomenon Testing Natural Phenomena

Author:Timothy Keller

“Those who would be employed in propagating the Gospel should be familiar with the doctrines he is to combat and the doctrines he is to teach, and acquire a complete knowledge both of the Sacred Scriptures and of these philosophical and mythological dogmas which form the souls of the Buddhist and Hindu Systems.”

Should Soul Would Be Form Teach Philosophical Sacred Scripture Doctrine Familiar Buddhist Acquire Combat Dogma Employed Sacred Scripture

Author:William Carey

“Science is a match that man has just got alight. He thought he was in a room - in moments of devotion, a temple - and that his light would be reflected from and display walls inscribed with wonderful secrets and pillars carved with philosophical systems wrought into harmony. It is a curious sensation, now that the preliminary splutter is over and the flame burns up clear, to see his hands and just a glimpse of himself and the patch he stands on visible, and around him, in place of all that human comfort and beauty he anticipated - darkness still.”

Source: The Island of Doctor Moreau

“A categorical imperative would be one which represented an action as objectively necessary in itself, without reference to any other purpose.”

Would Be Action Purpose Philosophical Imperatives Categorical Imperative

Book:Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals: with On a Supposed Right to Lie because of Philanthropic Concerns

Source: Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals: with On a Supposed Right to Lie because of Philanthropic Concerns

“A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.”

Reality Would Be Literature Interest Wise Ought Philosophical Rulers Keep The Faith

Author:Niccolo Machiavelli

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”

Life Would Be Mistake Music Teaching Philosophical Hard Times Loving Life Inspirational Music Without Music Music Life

Author:Friedrich Nietzsche

“First would be the literary side, then the spiritual and philosophical. The political side is required principally because of the necessity of the current Russian position.”

Firsts Would Be Spiritual Political Sides Position Philosophical Currents

Author:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.”

Ifs Men World Would Be Speak Silence Communication Capacity Philosophical Silent Silence Is

Author:Baruch Spinoza

“These dreams reminded me that, since I wished some day to become a writer, it was high time to decide what sort of books I was going to write. But as soon as I asked myself the question, and tried to discover some subject to which I could impart a philosophical significance of infinite value, my mind would stop like a clock, my consciousness would be faced with a blank, I would feel either that I was wholly devoid of talent or perhaps that some malady of the brain was hindering its development.”

Source: In Search of Lost Time, Volume I: Swann's Way (A Modern Library E-Book)

“To do as one would be done by, and to love one's neighbour as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality”

Done Would Be Morality Ideals Perfection Philosophical Oneself Neighbour Utilitarian

Book:Utilitarianism

Source: Utilitarianism

“We are so far from knowing all the forces of nature and their various modes of action that it would be unworthy of the philosopher to deny phenomena simply because they are inexplicable at the present state of our knowledge. The more difficult it is to acknowledge their existence, the greater the care with which we must study these phenomena.”

States Would Be Care Action Force Social Difficult Existence Knowing Study Greater Philosophical Philosopher Various Deny Acknowledge Unworthy Inexplicable Forces Of Nature

Author:Pierre-Simon Laplace

“Cautiousness in judgment is nowadays to be recommended to each and every one: if we gained only one incontestable truth every ten years from each of our philosophical writers the harvest we reaped would be sufficient.”

Ifs Years Would Be Ten Judgment Philosophical Sufficient Skepticism Harvest Skeptic Cautiousness

Author:Georg C. Lichtenberg

“They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.”

“Reality is contradictory. And it's paradoxical. If there's any one word -- if you had to pick one word to describe the nature of the universe -- I think that word would be paradox. That's true at the subatomic level, right through sociological, psychological, philosophical levels on up to cosmic levels.”

Ifs Thinking Reality Would Be Universe Levels Picks Philosophical Psychological Paradox Cosmic Contradictory One Word Paradoxical Sociological

Author:Tom Robbins

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”

“The message that 'love' will solve all of our problems is repeated incessantly in contemporary culture - like a philosophical tom tom. It would be closer to the truth to say that love is a contagious and virulent disease which leaves a victim in a state of near imbecility, paralysis, profound melancholia, and sometimes culminates in death.”

Love Sometimes States Problem Would Be Culture Love Is Disease Messages Philosophical Victim Profound Solve Contemporary Toms Contagious Paralysis Incessantly Imbecility

Author:Quentin Crisp

“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”

Source: The Works of Epictetus: Consisting of His Discourses in Four Books Preserved by Arrian, the Enchiridion, and Fragments

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Philosophical Quotes