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Reflection Quotes

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Reflection Quotes

“There is a saying that no man has tasted the full flavour of life until he has known poverty, love and war. The justness of this reflection commends it to the lover of condensed philosophy. The three conditions embrace about all there is in life worth knowing. A surface thinker might deem that wealth should be added to the list. Not so. When a poor man finds a long-hidden quarter-dollar that has slipped through a rip into his vest lining, he sounds the pleasure of life with a deeper plummet than any millionaire can hope to cast.”

“Neither an enlightened philosophy, nor all the political wisdom of Rome, nor even the faith and virtue of the Christians availed against the incorrigible tradition of antiquity. Something was wanted, beyond all the gifts of reflection and experience - a faculty of self government and self control, developed like its language in the fibre of a nation, and growing with its growth.”

“Life is more than thought: what a man feels, and what his senses awaken in him, are more indispensable to his life's fullness than subsequent reflection on their significance. Both Stirner and Nietzsche have elaborated Faust's opening speech in which he bemoans his wasted years in academia: this speech is Goethe's own impeachment of Kant and Hegel . Philosophy proceeds always under the risk of making a fetish of thinking.”

“Philosophy, like science, consists of theories or insights arrived at as a result of systemic reflection or reasoning in regard to the data of experience. It involves, therefore, the analysis of experience and the synthesis of the results of analysis into a comprehensive or unitary conception. Philosophy seeks a totality and harmony of reasoned insight into the nature and meaning of all the principal aspects of reality.”

“In youth it is the outward aspect of things that most engages us; while in age, thought or reflection is the predominating qualityof the mind. Hence, youth is the time for poetry, and age is more inclined to philosophy. In practical affairs it is the same: a man shapes his resolutions in youth more by the impression that the outward world makes upon him; whereas, when he is old, it is thought that determines his actions.”

“There is, indeed a more mitigated scepticism or academical philosophy, which may be both durable and useful, and which may, in part, be the result of this Pyrrhonism, or excessive scepticism, when its undistinguished doubts are corrected by common sense and reflection.”

“Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation. There is in the living act of perception always something that glimmers and twinkles and will not be caught, and for which reflection comes too late.”

“In the end, we learn about the most basic philosophical questions - like "How to live?" - from a broad mixture of sources, including literature and philosophy, history and anthropology. These sources can guide our reflections on our own experiences, as we explore and reconsider. Mann contributed to such explorations in a distinctive way, and I hope my book brings that out.”

“Philosophy is not a body of knowledge to impart to someone, that's why reading philosophy books isn't always the best way of learning philosophy. Philosophy is really more the process of rational engagement, rational reflection with a diversity of views and ideas and opinions and trying to sort of reason your way through to a more reflective position. I think if you look at it that way, philosophizing is to some extent some small way a part of almost everyone's lives although they don't recognize it as such and a lot of people are embarrassed about it.”

“Michael Jackson is an extremely productive ethnographer, a serious reader of phenomenological and existential philosophy, and a remarkable writer at a level that one rarely sees in anthropology. Lifeworlds, unsurprisingly, is no exception. The several essays included here fit into an impressive whole that set out a compelling case for a type of ethnography of which Jackson is one of the masters. The writing is strong and the critical reflections impressive. This book defines an approach to anthropology that is resonant enough to challenge the leading models of our time.”

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

“Many scientists think that philosophy has no place, so for me it's a sad time because the role of reflection, contemplation, meditation, self-inquiry, insight, intuition, imagination, creativity, free will, is in a way not given any importance, which is the domain of philosophers.”

“Your body is an absolute mirror of your mind. As you worry, your body shows it. As you love, your body shows it. As you are overwhelmed, your body shows it. As you are angry your body shows it. Every cell of your body is being allowed or resisted by the way you feel. 'My physical state is a direct reflection of how I feel', instead of 'How I feel is a direct reflection of my physical state'.”

“YOU ARE JUST You are not just for the right or left, but for what is right over the wrong. You are not just rich or poor, but always wealthy in the mind and heart. You are not perfect, but flawed. You are flawed, but you are just. You may just be conscious human, but you are also a magnificent reflection of God.”

“Doubt as sin. — Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming, even the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature — is sin! And notice that all this means that the foundation of belief and all reflection on its origin is likewise excluded as sinful. What is wanted are blindness and intoxication and an eternal song over the waves in which reason has drowned.”

“It reminds me of sitting window seat on a plane. I look out and onto the ground and I see everyone’s little houses. They’ve got their own perfect square of land, with a roof of their own, with a tree of their own, their own fence. There’s something so artificial to it when you zoom out. Our own tree in the front yard may be large, but they aren’t rooted in a true forest. Their house could be painted gold, but the street isn’t. Everything we have is just enough for our eyes to see. I feel like we’re meant for more. More than decorations. Sometimes, even though I know it’s not possible, I feel like everyone deserves their own forest.”

“They may throw sticks, stones, or bricks, but nothing they do will hurt you. You are protected by God. He is forever got you covered and the enemy is defeated. Their hatred towards you is a reflection of the evilness on their inside which is slowly destroying them. A person like that must deal with the matters of their heart.”

“I write letters because I want to convey to someone the stories of these people, but also because I want to let someone know that a day had existed for me as well. Letters, in other words, are like journal entries to me. The only difference is that the day does not stay with me, but is sent to someone else. Journals are monopolized, but letters are shared. Journals are kept by one person alone, but letters are kept by two or more people.”