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Philosophy Quotes

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Philosophy Quotes

“May and June. Soft syllables, gentle names for the two best months in the garden year: cool, misty mornings gently burned away with a warming spring sun, followed by breezy afternoons and chilly nights. The discussion of philosophy is over; it's time for work to begin.”

YearsMayTwoPhilosophyNightNamesMorningSunMonthsSpringGardenGentleDiscussionOver ItAfternoonBurnedJuneSyllablesMistySpring PoemsChillyBreezyMisty Mornings
Book:Peter Loewer's Month by Month Garden Almanac for Indoor & Outdoor Gardening
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“To derive two or three general Principles of Motion from Phænomena, and afterwards to tell us how the Properties and Actions of all corporeal Things follow from those manifest Principles, would be a very great step in Philosophy.”

TwoPhilosophyWould BeActionScienceThreeStepsPrinciplesPropertyPhenomenonManifest
Book:Opticks: A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of Light
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“There are two threats to reason, the opinion that one knows the truth about the most important things and the opinion that there is no truth about them. Both of these opinions are fatal to philosophy; the first asserts that the quest for truth is unnecessary, while the second asserts that it is impossible. The Socratic knowledge of ignorance, which I take to be the beginning point of all philosophy, defines the sensible middle ground between two extremes.”

KnowsFirstsTwoImportantReasonPhilosophyOpinionImpossibleMiddleIgnoranceTruth IsImportant ThingsThreatExtremesSensibleQuestsUnnecessaryMiddle GroundTwo ExtremesSocratic
Author:Allan Bloom
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“Men are constantly attracted and deluded by two opposite charms: the charm of competence which is engendered by mathematics and everything akin to mathematics, and the charm of humble awe, which is engendered by meditation on the human soul and its experiences. Philosophy is characterized by the gentle, if firm, refusal to succumb to either charm.”

IfsMenHumansTwoSoulPhilosophyMeditationOppositesMathematicsHumbleFirmGentleCharmAweCompetenceHuman SoulRefusalDeludedTwo Opposites
Book:An Introduction to Political Philosophy: Ten Essays
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“Subjective reason ... is inclined to abandon the fight with religion by setting up two different brackets, one for science and philosophy, and one for institutionalized mythology, thus recognizing both of them. For the philosophy of objective reason there is no such way out. Since it hold to the concept of objective truth, it must take a positive or a negative stand with regard to the content of established religion.”

WayTwoDifferentReasonPhilosophyFightingConceptsNegativeRegardMythologySettingObjectivesSettingsAbandonRecognizingSubjectiveBracketsObjective TruthScience And Philosophy
Book:Eclipse of Reason
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“Under the old social philosophy which had governed the Middle Ages, temporal, and therefore all economic, activities were referred to an eternal standard. The production of wealth, it distribution and exchange were regulated with a view to securing the Christian life of Christian men. In two points especially was this felt: First in securing the independence of the family, which can only be done by the wide distribution of property, in others words the prevention of the growth of a proletariat; secondly, in the close connection between wealth and public function.”

MenFirstsTwoDonePhilosophyAgeChristianPoliticsSocialFeltGrowthWealthViewsEconomyEconomicMiddleActivityEternalStandardsConnectionsFunctionIndependencePropertyProductionsWideChristian LifeLiberalismDistributionMiddle AgesPreventionProletariat
Author:Hilaire Belloc
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“The real or supposed rights of man are of two kinds, active and passive; the right in certain cases to do as we list; and the right we possess to the forbearance or assistance of other men. The first of these a just philosophy will probably induce us universally to explode.”

MenFirstsKindTwoRealPhilosophyCertainCasesRightsAtheismPositive AtheismActiveListsPassiveAssistanceForbearance
Book:Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness
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“After upwards of two thousand years Epicurus has been exonerated from the reproach that the doctrines of his philosophy recommended the pleasures of sensuality and voluptuousness as the chief good. Calumny may rest on genius a considerable part of a world's duration; what then is the value of fame?”

WorldYearsMayHas BeensTwoPhilosophyValuesPleasureGeniusThousandFameDoctrineSensualityChiefsThousand YearsReproachDurationCalumny
Book:Aphorisms and Reflections: A Miscellany of Thought and Opinion
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“The blind spot for the in the Southern Progressive Movement - as for that matter in the national [progressive] movement - was the Negro, for the whole movement in the South coincided paradoxically with the crest of the wave of racism. Still more important to the association of the two movements was the fact that their leaders were often identical. In fact, the typical Progressive reformer rode to power in the South on a disenfranchising or white-supremacy movement.”

StillsTwoImportantMatterPhilosophyWholeFactsPoliticalWhiteLeaderMovementRacismBlindSouthWaveSpotsClassicProgressiveSouthernAssociationTypicalWhite SupremacyPolitical PhilosophyIdenticalSupremacyReformersBlind SpotsProgressive Movement
Author:C. Vann Woodward
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“The strategy of semantic ascent is that it carries the discussion into a domain where both parties are better agreed on the objects (viz., words) and on the main terms connecting them. Words, or their inscriptions, unlike points, miles, classes and the rest, are tangible objects of the size so popular in the marketplace, where men of unlike conceptual schemes communicate at their best. The strategy is one of ascending to a common part of two fundamentally disparate conceptual schemes, the better to discuss the disparate foundations. No wonder it helps in philosophy.”

MenTwoPhilosophyHelpingLanguageTermPartyCommonWonderClassObjectsPhilosophicalFoundationStrategySizeCommunicateMilesDiscussionCarrieSchemesConnectingDomainMarketplaceTangibleAscentInscriptionsAscending
Author:Willard Van Orman Quine
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“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.”

MindHumansMeanTwoWarEndsPhilosophySpiritSufferingTurnsBeliefNationsCivilizationMachinesBetrayalMonstersGhostJustifyDogmaButtonsHuman SpiritDeliberateDilemmaAssertionObedientDeafnessEnds Justify The Means
Book:The Ascent of Man
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“I early learned that there were two natures in me. This caused me a great deal of trouble, till I worked out a philosophy of life and struck a compromise between the flesh and the spirit. Too great an ascendancy of either was to be abnormal, and since normality is almost a fetish of mine, I finally succeeded in balancing both natures. Ordinarily they are at equilibrium; yet as frequently as one is permitted to run rampant, so is the other. I have small regard for an utter brute or for an utter saint.”

TwoPhilosophyRunningSpiritDealsTroubleMinesLife PhilosophyRegardSaintFleshCompromiseBrutesEquilibriumAbnormalNormalityFetishAscendancy
Author:Jack London
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“The registering of doubts hath two excellent uses: the one, that it saveth philosophy from errors and falsehoods; when that which is not fully appearing is not collected into assertion, whereby error might draw error, but reserved in doubt: the other, that the entry of doubts are as so many suckers or sponges to draw use of knowledge; insomuch as that which, if doubts had not preceded, a man should never have advised, but passed it over without note, by the suggestion and solicitation of doubts, is made to be attended and applied.”

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Author:Francis Bacon
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“A love of neighbor manifests itself in the tolerance not only of opinions of others but, what is more important, of the essence and uniqueness of others, when we subscribe to that religious philosophy of life that insists that God has made each man and woman an individual sacred personality endowed with a specific temperament, created with differing needs, hungers, dreams. This is a variegated, pluralistic world where no two stars are the same and every snowflake has its own distinctive pattern. God apparently did not want a regimented world of sameness.”

MenWorldWantNeedsMadeTwoImportantPhilosophyDreamIndividualStarsReligiousOpinionLife PhilosophyPersonalityMen And WomenEssenceSacredHungerPatternsNeighborToleranceUniquenessTemperamentDistinctiveSamenessSnowflakeReligious Philosophy
Author:Joshua L. Liebman
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“Doing good with other people's money has two basic flaws. In the first place, you never spend anybody else's money as carefully as you spend your own. So a large fraction of that money is inevitably wasted. In the second place, and equally important, you cannot do good with other people's money unless you first get the money away from them. So that force - sending a policeman to take the money from somebody's pocket - is fundamentally at the basis of the philosophy of the welfare state.”

PeopleFirstsTwoImportantStatesPhilosophyForceBasesWelfarePocketsFlawsPolicemenDoing GoodFractionsWelfare StateSecond Place
Book:Tax limitation, inflation and the role of government
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“Libertarianism is neither of the left nor of the right. It is unique. It is sui generis. It is apart from left and right. The left right political spectrum simply has no room for libertarianism. Think of an equilateral triangle, with libertarianism at one corner, the left at a second corner and the right at the third corner. We are equally distant from both of those misbegotten political economic philosophies. No, better yet, think in terms of an isosceles triangle, with us at the top and the two of them at the bottom, indicating they have more in common with each other than with us.”

ThinkingTwoPhilosophyPoliticalLeftTermRoomsCommonEconomicUniqueThirdsBottomCornersLibertarianismSpectrumTrianglesLeft And RightPolitical Spectrum
Author:Walter Block
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“...the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. This philosophy fitted on to my early adult life, when I saw the improbable, the implausible, often the "impossible," come true.”

ShouldMindFirstsStillsTwoIdeasPhilosophyAbleAbilitySawsImpossibleExamplePositive ThinkingAdultsTestsFunctionRateDeterminedPositive AttitudeHopelessHopelessnessImprobableKeep A Positive AttitudePositive Mind
Author:F. Scott Fitzgerald
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“One way of saying that is that there is an objective reality beyond our mind. A way to think of this in a philosophic sense is to look between the two great extremes: the idealist philosophy that says mind and consciousness is the only thing and that matter is simply an illusion, or a Maya, the product of mind; and the other extreme, a strict materialist determinism, which says that mind and consciousness is a secondary phenomenon of the collision of matter.”

ThinkingWayMindLooksTwoMatterPhilosophyRealityConsciousnessProductsIllusionExtremesObjectivesOne WayPhenomenonStrictIdealistDeterminismCollisionPhilosophicObjective Reality
Author:Edgar Mitchell
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“I would say we had two goals when doing this CD. The first goal is to introduce people who have never seen the show before to the best comics that are on the show. And goal number two is to introduce people that they never heard of before and give you a bit more flavor of what the show is actually like. And those goals are very much in line with the philosophy of the show from the very beginning. It's the very best people who are out there.”

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Author:Scott Aukerman
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“There are actually two separate issues here. The first is whether (as ancient philosophers and Nietzsche assume) only the privileged elite can live a worthwhile life. The second is whether it's possible to fulfill the roles of both serious artist and upstanding citizen. It seems to me that philosophy can dissect both questions, by delineating clearly the anatomy of the good life and the structural conditions of the roles.”

FirstsTwoPhilosophySeemsArtistRolesIssuesConditionsSeriousCitizensAssumingAncientPhilosopherGood LifeWorthwhileElitesPrivilegedAnatomy
Author:Philip Kitcher
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“I decided to do philosophy at university, with a view to becoming a professional philosopher. Being a rather unstable character, at some points I had doubts about becoming a professional philosopher, but the example of two of my teachers, Ezequiel de Olaso and Juan Rodriguez Larreta, made me confirm my original decision.”

MadeTwoPhilosophyCharacterDecisionViewsDoubtTeacherExampleBecomingDecidedOriginalsUniversityPhilosopherUnstableJuan
Author:Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra
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“After two years of undergraduate study, it was clear that I was bored by the regime of problem-solving required by the Cambridge mathematical tripos. A very sensitive mathematics don recommended that I talk to the historian of astronomy, Michael Hoskin, and the conversation led me to enroll in the History and Philosophy of Science for my final undergraduate year.”

YearsTwoPhilosophyProblemStudyClearConversationMathematicsFinalsAstronomyMathematicalBoredSensitiveTwo YearsHistorianRegimesProblem SolvingPhilosophy Of ScienceCambridgeUndergraduate
Author:Philip Kitcher
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“A little exposure to the philosophy of many Eastern spiritual traditions - including yoga - could easily lead you to conclude that if you aspire to achieve goals in the material world you cannot fulfill yourself spiritually, or vice versa. However, since all of us, at some level, long for fulfillment in all aspects of our life, it is essential to understand that these two aims are not mutually exclusive.”

IfsWorldLittlesLongTwoPhilosophySpiritualGoalLevelsOur LivesAchieveMaterialsEssentialsYogaAspectTraditionAimIncludingVicesFulfillmentAspireEasternExposureExclusiveVice VersaMaterial WorldAchieving Goals
Author:Rod Stryker
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“The Cabal is of two kinds, theoretical and practical, with the practical Cabala, which is engaged in the construction of talismans and amulets, we have nothing to do. The theoretical is divided into the lineal and dogmatic. The dogmatic is nothing more than the summary of the metaphysical doctrine taught by the Cabalist doctors. It is, in other words, the system of the Jewish philosophy.”

KindTwoPhilosophyTaughtDoctorsJewPracticalsDoctrineEngagedDividedConstructionMetaphysicalTheoreticalDogmaticSummaryTalismansCabalAmulets
Author:Albert Mackey
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“I never thought Greek philosophy could make a damn bit of sense to me. And most of it didn't, but those words just seemed right. 'Love is composed of a single soul, inhabiting two bodies.'" He took her by the shoulders drawing her close. "It rang true for me, in a way nothing else did. Whatever soul I had, Katie, I think I placed it in your keeping twenty years ago. And now, it's as if...every time we kiss, you give a little piece of it back.”

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Author:Tessa Dare
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