Motivational Quotes

Philosophers and philosophy

Philosophy may be dodged, eloquence cannot.

- Quinet, Edgar

Philosophers and philosophy Motivational Quotes

Best Quotes about Philosophers and philosophy

Philosophy is an elegant thing, if anyone modestly meddles with it; but if they are conversant with it more than is becoming, it corrupts them.

Plato

Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated about among men of thought.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

If He Tom Sawyer had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do and Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

Twain, Mark

Then, like an old-time orator impressively he rose; I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes.

Teasdale, Sara

Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

Philosophy always requires something more, requires the eternal, the true, in contrast to which even the fullest existence as such is but a happy moment.

Kierkegaard, S°ren

There is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher. Fontenelle says he would undertake to persuade the whole public of readers to believe that the sun was neither the cause of light or heat, if he could only get six philosophers on his side.

Goldsmith, Oliver

There is today-in a time when old beliefs are withering-a kind of philosophical hunger, a need to know who we are and how we got here. It is an on-going search, often unconscious, for a cosmic perspective for humanity.

Sagan, Carl Edward

The real discovery is the one which enables me to stop doing philosophy when I want to. -- The one that gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself into question.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

10.

Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.

Camus, Albert

11.

If he really thinks there is no distinction between vice and virtue, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.

Johnson, Samuel

12.

The pursuit of what is true and the practice of what is good are the two most important objects of philosophy.

Voltaire

13.

Every philosophy is tinged with the coloring of some secret imaginative background, which never emerges explicitly into its train of reasoning.

Whitehead, Alfred North

14.

In philosophy if you aren't moving at a snail's pace you aren't moving at all.

Murdoch, Iris

15.

It is one of the chief skills of the philosopher not to occupy himself with questions which do not concern him.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

16.

The ultimate triumph of philosophy would be to cast light upon the mysterious ways in which Providence moves to achieve the designs it has for man.

Sade, Marquis De

17.

The usual picture of Socrates is of an ugly little plebeian who inspired a handsome young nobleman to write long dialogues on large topics.

Rorty, Richard

18.

Reason, progress, unselfishness, a wide historical perspective, expansiveness, generosity, enlightened self-interest. I had heard it all my life, and it filled me with despair.

Tait, Katherine

19.

The philosophic spirit of inquiry may be traced to brute curiosity, and that to the habit of examining all things in search of food.

Reade, W. Winwood

20.

Englishmen are babes in philosophy and so prefer faction-fighting to the labor of its unfamiliar thought.

Yeats, William Butler

21.

If I wished to punish a province, I would have it governed by philosophers.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

22.

Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.

Cicero, Marcus T.

23.

Keep quiet and people will think you a philosopher.

24.

To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

Pascal, Blaise

25.

Philosophers call God the great unknown The great misknown is more like it!

Roux, Joseph

26.

A writer must always try to have a philosophy and he should also have a psychology and a philology and many other things. Without a philosophy and a psychology and all these various other things he is not really worthy of being called a writer. I agree with Kant and Schopenhauer and Plato and Spinoza and that is quite enough to be called a philosophy. But then of course a philosophy is not the same thing as a style.

Stein, Gertrude

27.

Perhaps it is of more value to infuriate philosophers than to go along with them.

Stevens, Wallace

28.

Tell me what gives a man or woman their greatest pleasure and I'll tell you their philosophy of life.

Carnegie, Dale

29.

The courage of the truth is the first condition of philosophic study.

Hegel, Georg

30.

I have tried too in my time to be a philosopher; but, I don't know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in.

Edwards, Oliver

31.

Philosophy is a bully that talks loud when the danger is at a distant; but, the moment she is pressed hard by an enemy, she is nowhere to be found and leaves the brunt of the battle to be fought by her steady, humble comrade, religion.

Colton, Charles Caleb

32.

Philosophy is the product of wonder.

Whitehead, Alfred North

33.

The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.

Marx, Karl

34.

Every philosophy is the philosophy of some stage of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

35.

There is no philosophy without the art of ignoring objections.

Maistre, Joseph De

36.

There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it.

Cicero, Marcus T.

37.

Philosophy does not regard pedigree, she received Plato not as a noble, but she made him one.

Seneca

38.

In the information age, you don't teach philosophy as they did after feudalism. You perform it. If Aristotle were alive today he'd have a talk show.

Leary, Timothy

39.

Philosophy may be dodged, eloquence cannot.

Quinet, Edgar

40.

Actual philosophers... are commanders and law-givers: they say thus it shall be!, it is they who determine the Wherefore and Whither of mankind, and they possess for this task the preliminary work of all the philosophical laborers, of all those who have subdued the past -- they reach for the future with creative hand, and everything that is or has been becomes for them a means, an instrument, a hammer. Their knowing is creating, their creating is a law giving, their will to truth is -- will to power. Are their such philosophers today? Have there been such philosophers? Must there not be such philosophers?

Nietzsche, Friedrich

41.

The profoundest thoughts of the philosophers have something trickle about them. A lot disappears in order for something to suddenly appear in the palm of the hand.

Canetti, Elias

42.

While wading through the whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible jargon of this work [Plato's Republic], I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this?

Jefferson, Thomas

43.

I have a simple philosophy. Fill what's empty. Empty what's full and scratch where it itches.

Longworth, Alice Roosevelt

44.

Take from the philosopher the pleasure of being heard and his desire for knowledge ceases.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

45.

Existentialism is about being a saint without God; being your own hero, without all the sanction and support of religion or society.

Brookner, Anita

46.

Truth in philosophy means that concept and external reality correspond.

Hegel, Georg

47.

Bad philosophers may have a certain influence; good philosophers, never.

Russell, Bertrand

48.

The most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men.

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

49.

Bishop Berkeley destroyed this world in one volume octavo; and nothing remained, after his time, but mind; which experienced a similar fate from the hand of Mr. Hume in 1737.

Smith, Sydney

50.

The philosopher proves that the philosopher exists. The poet merely enjoys existence.

Stevens, Wallace