Philosopher Quotations

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.

If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.

Invincibility lies in the defence; the possibility of victory in the attack.

Let him that would move the world first move himself.

It is pure illusion to think that an opinion that passes down from century to century, from generation to generation, may not be entirely false.

If what the heart approves conforms to proper patterns, then even if one's desires are many, what harm would they be to good order?

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.

After learning the language and culture of the Chinese people, these Jesuits began to establish contacts with the young intellectuals of the country.

Camus believed in dialogue and diplomacy, and enlisted his work as a philosopher to the need to find nonviolent solutions, whereas Sartre called for violent conflicts and justified terror.

The scientists often have more unfettered imaginations than current philosophers do. Relativity theory came as a complete surprise to philosophers, and so did quantum mechanics, and so did other things.

Whether the gentleman is capable or not, he is loved all the same; conversely the petty man is loathed all the same.

There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice.

As a philosopher, I'm not obliged to explore every unknown wilderness.

We don't love qualities; we love a person; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as their qualities.

Whether religion is man-made is a question for philosophers or theologians. But the forms are man-made. They are a human response to something. As a historian of religions, I am interested in those expressions.

In antiquity the sage kings recognized that men's nature is bad and that their tendencies were not being corrected and their lawlessness controlled.

Weak minds exaggerate too much the wrong done to the Africans.

All there is to thinking is seeing something noticeable, which makes you see something you weren't noticing, which makes you see something that isn't even visible.

Let us hold our discussion together in our own persons, making trial of the truth and of ourselves.

Society exists for the benefit of its members, not the members for the benefit of society.

The easiest way to be cheated is to believe yourself to be more cunning than others.

If the king loves music, there is little wrong in the land.

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

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

There is not less wit nor less invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought.

I once tried standing up on my toes to see far out in the distance, but I found that I could see much farther by climbing to a high place.

Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.

Testimony should be a philosophical problem and not limited to legal or historical contexts where it refers to the account of a witness who reports what he has seen.

In fact history does not belong to us; but we belong to it.

It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong.

Intuition does not in itself amount to knowledge, yet cannot be disregarded by philosophers and psychologists.

I am aware that a philosopher's ideas are not subject to the judgment of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavour to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God.

We do not so much need the help of our friends as the confidence of their help in need.

In order to properly understand the big picture, everyone should fear becoming mentally clouded and obsessed with one small section of truth.

Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.

Short of genius a rich man cannot even imagine poverty.

I cannot know anything of which there is and can be only one.

The sun too penetrates into privies, but is not polluted by them.

The ultimate reason of things must lie in a necessary substance, in which the differentiation of the changes only exists eminently as in their source; and this is what we call God.

The true science and study of man is man.

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

If the impulse to daring and bravery is too fierce and violent, stay it with guidance and instruction.

For this is our most perfect duty and yet least known to us by nature: Whatever we conceive or will should be joined with the good of our neighbor.

There is no philosophy without the art of ignoring objections.

The person attempting to travel two roads at once will get nowhere.

I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.

The impulse of the journalist is to be novel, yet to relate his curiosities to the urgencies of the moment; the philosopher seeks what he conceives to be true, regardless of the moment.

There are also two kinds of truths: truth of reasoning and truths of fact. Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible; those of fact are contingent and their opposite is possible.

A person is born with desires of the eyes and ears, and a liking for beautiful sights and sounds. If he gives way to them, they will lead him to immorality and lack of restriction, and any ritual principles and propriety will be abandoned.

But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.

It follows from what we have just said, that the natural changes of monads come from an internal principle, since an external cause would be unable to influence their inner being.

Einstein's results again turned the tables and now very few philosophers or scientists still think that scientific knowledge is, or can be, proven knowledge.

The theologian considers sin mainly as an offence against God; the moral philosopher as contrary to reasonableness.

Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit.

I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise.

Our Prophet was a radical too- he fought against the injustices of his community and challenged the feudal order of his society, so they called him a radical. So what? We should be proud of that!

I maintain also that substances, whether material or immaterial, cannot be conceived in their bare essence without any activity, activity being of the essence of substance in general.

Truth is the object of philosophy, but not always of philosophers.

God created man in His own image, says the Bible; philosophers reverse the process: they create God in theirs.

The method of exposition which philosophers have adopted leads many to suppose that they are simply inquiries, that they have no interest in the conclusions at which they arrive, and that their primary concern is to follow their premises to their logical conclusions.

I'm not a minister, I'm not a philosopher, I'm not a politician, I'm in another category.

There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.

Cherish that which is within you, and shut off that which is without; for much knowledge is a curse.

The petty man is eager to make boasts, yet desires that others should believe in him. He enthusiastically engages in deception, yet wants others to have affection for him. He conducts himself like an animal, yet wants others to think well of him.

The text is a limited field of possible constructions.

Dogs and philosophers do the greatest good and get the fewest rewards.

Prayer holds together the shattered fragments of the creation. It makes history possible.

Because Islam in its original form was tough and hard, not weak and pliable.

The theories of the major philosophers of the 18th century secular enlightenment were biblical and theological in spite of themselves.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

Only as an individual can man become a philosopher.

I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?

Therefore, a person should first be changed by a teacher's instructions, and guided by principles of ritual. Only then can he observe the rules of courtesy and humility, obey the conventions and rules of society, and achieve order.

You have to study a great deal to know a little.

God, if there is a God, take my soul, if I have a soul.

Since at least the Middle Ages, philosophers and philologists have dreamed of curing natural languages of their flaws by constructing entirely new idioms according to orderly, logical principles.

Thus, that one can find no place to walk through the breadth of the earth is not because the earth is not tranquil but because the danger to every step of the traveler lies generally with words.

Power ought to serve as a check to power.

At the lowest cognitive level, they are processes of experiencing, or, to speak more generally, processes of intuiting that grasp the object in the original.

Do not imagine that what we have said of the insufficiency of our understanding and of its limited extent is an assertion founded only on the Bible: for philosophers likewise assert the same, and perfectly understand it,- without having regard to any religion or opinion.

Women make us poets, children make us philosophers.

In the state of nature profit is the measure of right.

If the gentleman has ability, he is magnanimous, generous, tolerant, and straightforward, through which he opens the way to instruct others.

In bodies moved, the motion is received, increased, diminished, or lost, according to the relations of the quantity of matter and velocity; each diversity is uniformity, each change is constancy.

The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.

In this connection, faith and experience teach us many truths by means of the short-cut of authority and by the proofs of very pleasant and agreeable feelings.

It can have its effect only through the intervention of God, inasmuch as in the ideas of God a monad rightly demands that God, in regulating the rest from the beginning of things, should have regard to itself.

Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can?

The deterioration of a government begins almost always by the decay of its principles.

As to the evil which results from a censorship, it is impossible to measure it, for it is impossible to tell where it ends.

Why is it the philosopher who is expected to be easier and not some scientist who is even more inaccessible?

When you concentrate on agriculture and industry and are frugal in expenditures, Heaven cannot impoverish your state.

The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but rather, "Can they suffer?

When a philosopher says something that is true then it is trivial. When he says something that is not trivial then it is false.

Finally there are simple ideas of which no definition can be given; there are also axioms or postulates, or in a word primary principles, which cannot be proved and have no need of proof.

Truth uttered before its time is always dangerous.

There is nothing so strange and so unbelievable that it has not been said by one philosopher or another.

There are three methods to gaining wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is limitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest.

Human nature is evil, and goodness is caused by intentional activity.

Labor is the fabled magician's wand, the philosophers stone, and the cap of good fortune.