Philosopher Quotations | Page 2

What must be the nature of the world... if human beings are able to introduce changes into it?

The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, seek simplicity and distrust it.

The chain of wedlock is so heavy that it takes two to carry it - and sometimes three.

If knowledge and foresight are too penetrating and deep, unify them with ease and sincerity.

Society is the union of men and not the men themselves.

This is why 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 actuality of all of material Nature is therefore kept out of action and that of all corporeality along with it, including the actuality of my body, the body of the cognizing subject.

The picture which the philosopher draws of the world is surely not one in which every stroke is necessitated by pure logic.

The world's philosophers and theologians searched for answers to the same mysteries.

A person is born with feelings of envy and hate. If he gives way to them, they will lead him to violence and crime, and any sense of loyalty and good faith will be abandoned.

There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude... we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have ourselves.

In all three cases, and for most human beings, the problem of suffering poses no difficult problem at all: one has a world picture in which suffering has its place, a world picture that takes suffering into account.

Anyway, there is a lot of really interesting work going on in the neuroscience and psychology of consciousness, and I would love to see philosophers become more closely involved with this.

One can only become a philosopher, but not be one. As one believes he is a philosopher, he stops being one.

Although born in a prosperous realm, we did not believe that its boundaries should limit our knowledge, and that the lore of the East should alone enlighten us.

Something similar is still true of the courses followed by manifold intuitions which together make up the unity of one continuous consciousness of one and the same object.

A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.

The eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears.

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig. I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

Prudence is but experience, which equal time, equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto.

I once tried thinking for an entire day, but I found it less valuable than one moment of study.

For they, the philosophers, were considered teachers of right living, which is far more excellent, since to speak well belongs only to a few, but to live well belongs to all.

To decide to become a philosopher seemed as foolish to me as to decide to become a poet.

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.

Human nature refers to what is in people but which they cannot study or work at achieving.

I want to be remembered as a poet, a peacemaker, and a philosopher who played.

He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious.

When a man sees something desirable, he must reflect on the fact that with time it could come to involve what is detestable. When he sees something that is beneficial, he should reflect that sooner or later it, too, could come to involve harm.

The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.

Sacrifices are concerned with the feelings of devotion and longing.

Oil wealth has been a curse on us, made us weak and docile.

You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.

When philosophers try to be politicians they generally cease to be philosophers.

How can sincerity be a condition of friendship? A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing.

The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

Mencius said that human nature is good. I disagree with that.

The world has not been in existence from eternity nor could it have been according to the present dispensation and ordering of things.

Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.

A person is born with a liking for profit.

It means that, in fact, it's - whether fascist is the right word I don't know - more of a plutocracy than anything resembling a democracy; it has become a nation controlled by a very small, very wealthy elite.

What honour have we got left, when nobody is listening to us?

Thus, anybody who follows this nature and gives way its states will be led into quarrels and conflicts, and go against the conventions and rules of society, and will end up a criminal.

The Law is one aspect of a much more concrete and encompassing relation than the relation between commanding and obeying that characterizes the imperative.

Let men decide firmly what they will not do, and they will be free to do vigorously what they ought to do.

Poets are the sense, philosophers the intelligence of humanity.

Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

The rigid cause themselves to be broken; the pliable cause themselves to be bound.

The philosophers Camus and Sartre raise the question whether or not a man can condemn himself.

I would rather excel in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and possessions.

Human nature is such that people are born with a love of profit If they follow these inclinations, they will struggle and snatch from each other, and inclinations to defer or yield will die.

When people lack teachers, their tendencies are not corrected; when they do not have ritual and moral principles, then their lawlessness is not controlled.

There's a victory, and defeat; the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself.

The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white. Neither need you do anything but be yourself.

Those whose character is mean and vicious will rouse others to animosity against them.

Why should we use the Dollar even when we trade among ourselves?

For centuries many of the world's distinguished philosophers have assaulted Christianity as being irrational, superstitious and absurd.

The coming of honor or disgrace must be a reflection of one's inner power.

He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.

The German philosopher Walter Benjamin had the curious notion that we could change the past. For most of us, the past is fixed while the future is open.

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

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.

There is always time to add a word, never to withdraw one.

There are successful scholars, public-spirited scholars, upright scholars, cautious scholars, and those who are merely petty men.

Music is a fantastic peacekeeper of the world, it is integral to harmony, and it is a required fundamental of human emotion.

Even sleepers are workers and collaborators in what goes on in the Universe.

If the blood humor is too strong and robust, calm it with balance and harmony.

Since the nature of people is bad, to become corrected they must be taught by teachers and to be orderly they must acquire ritual and moral principles.

The philosopher ought never to try to avoid the duty of making up his mind.

If the quickness of the mind and the fluency of the tongue are too punctilious and sharp, moderate them in your activity and rest.

The behavior of men to the lower animals, and their behavior to each other, bear a constant relationship.

Now it is human nature to want to eat to ones fill when hungry, to want to warm up when cold, to want to rest when tired. These all are a part of people's emotional nature.

Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.

I hear, I know. I see, I remember. I do, I understand.

It's always amazed me how little attention philosophers, psychologists, or anyone else actually has paid to humor.

Theories of love are found in the works of scientists, philosophers, and theologians.

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.

Be content to act, and leave the talking to others.

He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.

Freedom is the right to live as we wish.

The opportunity to secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.

When you are laboring for others let it be with the same zeal as if it were for yourself.

Wise men make more opportunities than they find.

No man is so perfect, so necessary to his friends, as to give them no cause to miss him less.

They that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.

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

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

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

Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.

The best philosophers were not academics, but had another job, so their philosophy was not corrupted by careerism.

A slave has but one master; an ambitious man has as many masters as there are people who may be useful in bettering his position.

If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.

The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.

Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.

There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.

To see the right and not to do it is cowardice.

I don't see myself as a philosopher. That's awfully boring.

For the wise man looks into space and he knows there is no limited dimensions.

They tend to be pretty abstract ones then, like doing what will have the best consequences; obviously you wouldn't specify what consequences are best, they may be different in some circumstances, so at a lower, more specific level, you may well get differences.