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Philosophy Quotes

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Philosophy Quotes

“Civilization is the process of reducing the infinite to the finite.”

Art Philosophy Process History Civilization Infinite Finite Reducing

Book:The Essential Holmes: Selections from the Letters, Speeches, Judicial Opinions, and Other Writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Source: The Essential Holmes: Selections from the Letters, Speeches, Judicial Opinions, and Other Writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“Comfort is the only thing our civilization can give us.”

Giving Art Philosophy History Comfort Civilization

Book:The Wit and Humor of Oscar Wilde

Source: The Wit and Humor of Oscar Wilde

“People who think of themselves as tough-minded and realistic, among them influential political leaders and businessmen as well as go-getters and hustlers of smaller caliber, tend to take it for granted that human nature is selfish and that life is a struggle in which only the fittest may survive. According to this philosophy, the basic law by which man must live, in spite of his surface veneer of civilization, is the law of the jungle. The "fittest" are those who can bring to the struggle superior force, superior cunning, and superior ruthlessness.”

“All "if" statements about the past are as dubious as prophecies of the future are. It seems fairly plausible that if Alexander or Ghengis Khan had never been born, some other individual would have filled his place and executed the design of the Hellenic or Mongolic expansion; but the Alexanders of philosophy and religion, of science and art, seem less expendable; their impact seems less determined by economic challenges and social pressures; and they seem to have a much wider range of possibilities to influence the direction, shape and texture of civilizations.”

“India is a civilization where the principle and philosophy of sacrifice is ingrained as part of our upbringing.”

Philosophy Principles Sacrifice Civilization India Upbringing

Author:Narendra Modi

“The greatest threat to mankind and civilization is the spread of the totalitarian philosophy. Its best ally is not the devotion of its followers but the confusion of its enemies. To fight it, we must understand it.”

Philosophy Fighting Enemy Mankind Civilization Threat Spread Devotion Confusion Followers Allies Eternal Vigilance

Author:Ayn Rand

“Civilization is paralysis.”

Art Philosophy History Civilization Paralysis

Author:Paul Gauguin

“Does the thoughtful man suppose that...the present experiment in civilization is the last world we will see?”

Men World Doe Art Philosophy Lasts History Civilization Experiments Thoughtful

Author:George Santayana

“The crimes of extreme civilization are certainly more atrocious than those of extreme barbarism.”

Art Philosophy History Crime Civilization Extremes Barbarism

Author:Jules Amedee Barbey d'Aurevilly

“The philosophy of love and peace strangely overlooked who was in possession of the guns. There had been love and peace for some time on the continent of Africa because for all this time black men had been captivated by the doctrines of Christianity. It took them centuries to realize its contradictions. ... perhaps there was no greater crime as yet than all the lies Western civilization had told in the name of Jesus Christ.”

“I wanted to get the most broad foundation for a lifelong education that I could find, and that was studying Latin and the classics. Meaning Roman and Greek history and philosophy and ancient civilizations.”

Philosophy Wanted Study Civilization Foundation Ancient Greek Latin Broads Lifelong Ancient Civilizations

Author:Tim Blake Nelson

“A history of civilization shares the presumptuousness of every philosophical enterprise: it offers the ridiculous spectacle of a fragment expounding the whole. Like philosophy, such a venture has no rational excuse, and is at best but a brave stupidity; but let us hope that, like philosophy, it will always lure some rash spirits into its fatal depths.”

Philosophy Whole Spirit Share Civilization Offers Philosophical Brave Depth Excuse Stupidity Ridiculous Rational Enterprise Venture Fragments Lure

Book:Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilization

Source: Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilization

“To travel is to discover that everybody is wrong. The philosophies, the civilizations which seem, at a distance, so superior to those current at home, all prove on a close inspection to be in their own way just as hopelessly imperfect.”

Way Philosophy Home Seems Civilization Prove Distance Currents Superiors Imperfect Inspection

Book:Complete Essays: 1926-1929

Source: Complete Essays: 1926-1929

“The result of civilization, at the Sandwich Islands and elsewhere, is found productive to the civilizers, destructive to the civilizees. It is said to be compensation--a very philosophical word; but it appears to be very much on the principle of the old game, "You lose, I win": good philosophy for the winner.”

“There are two parts to the human dilemma. One is the belief that the end justifies the means. That push-button philosophy, that deliberate deafness to suffering, has become the monster in the war machine. The other is the betrayal of the human spirit: the assertion of dogma that closes the mind, and turns a nation, a civilization, into a regiment of ghosts--obedient ghosts or tortured ghosts.”

Source: The Ascent of Man

“The arts and sciences, in general, during the three or four last centuries, have had a regular course of progressive improvement. The inventions in mechanic arts, the discoveries in natural philosophy, navigation and commerce, and the advancement of civilization and humanity, have occasioned changes in the condition of the world and the human character which would have astonished the most refined nations of antiquity. A continuation of similar exertions is everyday rendering Europe more and more like one community, or single family.”

Source: The Works of John Adams Vol. 4: Novanglus, Thoughts on Government, Defence of the Constitution I

“The more ignorant men are, the more convinced are they that their little parish and their little chapel is an apex to which civilization and philosophy has painfully struggled up the pyramid of time from a desert of savagery.”

Men Littles Philosophy Civilization Convinced Ignorant Desert Pyramids Savagery Chapel Parish Apex

Book:The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more

Source: The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more

“There's something about the style of living in the country that they feel, "This is what represents me." So style is about the philosophy of how we create our civilization.”

Feels Country Philosophy Style Civilization Living In The Country

Author:David Bowie

“And again, we're kind of trying to be in that place, that's just so absurd and irreverent and hysterical and it's something that at our company we're kind of, we're so irreverent about everything, we're sort of irreverent about the establishment, we're irreverent about civilization, we're irreverent about philosophy, we're irreverent about religion.”

Trying Kind Philosophy Company Civilization Absurd Establishment Hysterical Irreverent

Author:Brian Henson

“The fact is that philosophy has been a decisive source of inspiration in all the great crises that Europe has faced. It has been so in the time that preceded the fall of the Roman Empire, when Augustine of Hippo delineated the features of a new spiritual civilization; in the age of religious wars, when Descartes and Hobbes established the principles of modern science and politics; and at the turn of the French Revolution, interpreted by Kant and Hegel as an event destined to change the history of the world.”