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Philosophy Quotes

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Philosophy Quotes

“While you're playing cards with a regular guy or having a bite to eat with him, he seems a peaceable, good-humoured and not entirely dense person. But just begin a conversation with him about something inedible, politics or science, for instance, and he ends up in a deadend or starts in on such an obtuse and base philosophy that you can only wave your hand and leave.”

Persons Ends Philosophy Hands Seems Guy Conversation Wave Cards Instance Bites Dense Playing Cards

Author:Anton Chekhov

“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

“Speculative Philosophy is the endeavour to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted. By this notion of 'interpretation' I mean that everything of which we are conscious, as enjoyed, perceived, willed, or thought, shall have the character of a particular instance of the general scheme.”

Mean Ideas Philosophy Character Term Particular Elements Conscious Notion Instance Enjoyed Logical Interpretation Schemes Endeavour

Author:Charles Hartshorne

“I have heard a good story of Charles Fox. When his house was on fire, he found all efforts to save it useless, and, being a good draughtsman, he went up to the next hill to make a drawing of the fire,--the best instance of philosophy I ever heard of.”

Philosophy Stories Next Found House Effort Fire Heard Drawing Instance Hills Useless Foxes Good Story Resignation

Author:Robert Southey

“African tradition deals with life as an experience to be lived. In many respects, it is much like the Eastern philosophies in that we see ourselves as a part of a life force; we are joined, for instance, to the air, to the earth. We are part of the whole-life process. We live in accordance with, in a kind of correspondence with the rest of the world as a whole. And therefore living becomes an experience, rather than a problem, no matter how bad or how painful it may be.”

World Kind May Matter Philosophy Whole Problem Earth Force Process Deals Air Tradition Painful Whole Life Instance Oneness Eastern Correspondence Eastern Philosophy

Book:Conversations with Audre Lorde

Source: Conversations with Audre Lorde

“[Shahrazad] had perused the books, annals and legends of preceding Kings, and the stories, examples and instances of by gone men and things; indeed it was said that she had collected a thousand books of histories relating to antique races and departed rulers. She had perused the works of the poets and knew them by heart; she had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts and accomplishments; and she was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, well read and well bred.”

Source: One Thousand and One Nights - Complete Arabian Nights Collection (Delphi Classics)

“It is worth asking who decides what's an "obsession" and where it differs from meditation or the kind of deep dwelling on a subject we see in philosophy or the work of Robert Wilson, for instance?”

Kind Philosophy Meditation Subjects Asking Obsession Instance Dwelling Wilson

Author:Laura Mullen

“I don't think Kant's theory looks bad to people except insofar as they have misunderstood it (for instance, as heartless and ironheaded, or as committed to an absurd metaphysical conception of freedom that violates Kant's own philosophy).”

People Thinking Looks Philosophy Theory Committed Absurd Instance Conception Metaphysical Misunderstood Heartless

Author:Allen W. Wood