Philosopher Quotations | Page 5

It's usually best not to ask philosophers anything, precisely because they have the habit of what in the Persian language is called sanud: the profitless consideration of unsettling yet inconsequential things.

The ancient Greeks, poets, authors and philosophers all puzzled over the question but nobody really knows what love is - including me. Longing for another person is an exciting mental experience.

I fear that, in the end, the famous debate among materialists, idealists, and dualists amounts to a merely verbal dispute that is more a matter for the linguist than for the speculative philosopher

Philosophy is everybody's business.

What we philosophers can do is just correct the questions.

The philosopher who would fain extinguish his passions resembles the chemist who would like to let his furnace go out.

Woman's nudity is wiser than the philosopher's teachings.

Kings and philosophers defecate, and so do ladies.

It has generally been assumed that of two opposing systems of philosophy, e.g., realism and idealism, one only can be true and one must be false; and so philosophers have been hopelessly divided on the question, which is the true one.

I also dreamt about finally meeting the leftist Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek. He is a great role model for me.

To become a philosopher, start by walking very slowly.

A philosopher once asked, "Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?" Pointless, really..."Do the stars gaze back?" Now that's a question.

Being a physicist, not a philosopher, I have devised an entirely new theory of consciousness, allowing one to numerically calculate the level of consciounsess of humans and even animals.

All are sure in their days except the most wise ... He is the wisest philosopher who holds his theory with some doubt.

An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher.

All of the ideas are simple and had peoples' minds been directed that way the method would have flourished perhaps a century earlier.

As a bio-philosopher - as someone who draws upon the scriptures of nature, recognizing that we are the product of the process of evolution, and in a sense, we have become the process itself - through the emergence and evolution of our consciousness, our awareness, our capacity to imagine and to anticipate the future and to choose from amongst alternatives.

The philosophers likewise assume that in Nature there is nothing in vain, so that everything that is not the product of human industry serves a certain purpose, which may be known or unknown to us.

The scholar without good breeding is a pedant; the philosopher, a cynic.

When you make music you are acting as a philosopher. You can either do that consciously or you can do it unconsciously, but you're doing it.

Dostoevsky is such a bad writer it is hard to take him seriously as a novelist, though he is a wonderful philosopher.

And as every state of a simple substance is a natural consequence of its preceding state, so that the present state of it is big with the future.

If someone asks, ‘But what in the end is a philosopher?’ I would say ‘A philosopher is a human being who fights in theory.’

When we come to understand architecture as the essential nature of all harmonious structure we will see that it is the architecture of music that inspired Bach and Beethoven, the architecture of painting that is inspiring Picasso as it inspired Velasquez, that it is the architecture of life itself that is the inspiration of the great poets and philosophers.

Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men.

Earnsha was not to be civilized with a wish, and my young lady was no philosopher, and no paragon of patience; but both their minds tending to the same point - one loving and desiring to esteem, and the other loving and desiring to be esteemed - they contrived in the end to reach it.

What is a good definition? For the philosopher or the scientist, it is a definition which applies to all the objects to be defined, and applies only to them; it is that which satisfies the rules of logic. But in education it is not that; it is one that can be understood by the pupils.

Socrates: So even our walks are dangerous here. But you seem to have avoided the most dangerous thing of all. Bertha: What's that? Socrates: Philosophy. Bertha: Oh, we have philosophers here. Socrates: Where are they? Bertha: In the philosophy department. Socrates: Philosophy is not department. Bertha: Well, we have philosophers. Socrates: Are they dangerous? Bertha: Of course not. Socrates: Then they are not true philosophers.

Philosophers are people who know less and less about more and more, until they know nothing about everything. Scientists are people who know more and more about less and less, until they know everything about nothing.

Symbols and emblems were everywhere. Buildings and pictures were designed to be read like books. Everything stood for something else; if you had the right dictionary, you could read Nature itself. It was hardly surprising to find philosophers using the symbolism of their time to interpret knowledge that came from a mysterious source.

... the only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder...

Know that the philosopher has power over the stars, and not the stars over him.

Welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers.

It is as absurd to expect members of philosophy departments to be philosophers as it is to expect members of art departments to be artists.

If your divines are not philosophers, your philosophy will neither be divine, nor able to divine.

The man of science, the artist, the philosopher are attached to their nations as much as the day-laborer and the merchant.

In fact, of course, I hold that propositions that contemporary philosophers would properly count as 'empirical' can be necessary and be known to be such.

All the things an artist must be: poet, explorer of nature, philosopher!

Since ancient times, philosophers have maintained that to strive too hard for one's own happiness is self-defeating.

Herbert Spencer is little read now. Philosophers do not regard him as a major thinker. Social Darwinism has long been in disrepute.

Are you a philosopher? Where's your sponge?

We're philosophers. We think, therefore we am.

In the words of the philosopher Sceptum, the founder of my profession: am I going to get paid for this?

I could be wrong. Not being certain is what being a philosopher is all about.

What's a philosopher?' said Brutha. Someone who's bright enough to find a job with no heavy lifting,' said a voice in his head.

As long as there have been men and they have lived, they have all felt this tragic ambiguity of their condition, but as long as there have been philosophers and they have thought, most of them have tried to mask it.

Legislators, priests, philosophers, writers, ans scientists have striven to show that the subordinate position of woman is willed in heaven and advantageous on earth.

How something important happens is the business of historians and newspapers, the effect it has is the business of philosophers and writers and especially poets.

What shocks the virtuous philosopher, delights the chameleon poet.

Philosophers say that nothing can be seen that is neither illuminated nor colored.

The highest philosophers, in explaining the mystery of this world, are obliged to call in the aid of another.

Philosophers of science have repeatedly demonstrated that more than one theoretical construction can always be placed upon a given collection of data.

I like the idea of being a postmodern moral philosopher - or perhaps a perverse moral philosopher.

One of the old philosophers says that it is the part of wisdom to sometimes seem a fool; but in our day there are too many ready-made ones to render this a desirable policy.

I have decided, it is fruitless. For I am no longer sure of anything concerning my existance. A philosopher is a dead poet and a dying theologian.

Don't become a philosopher before you become rich.

My opinions about human nature are shared by many psychologists, linguists, and biologists, not to mention philosophers and scholars going back centuries.

With respect to the doctrine of a future life, a North American Indian knows just as much as any ancient or modern philosopher.

Consistency is a virtue for trains: what we want from a philosopher is insights, whether he comes by them consistently or not.

Philosophers have argued for centuries about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but materialists have known all along that it depends on whether they are jitterbugging or dancing cheek to cheek.

Well, I see I am not designed to the finding out the Philosophers Stone, I have been so unlucky in my first attempts in chemistry.

It is my intent to beget a good understanding between the chymists and the mechanical philosophers who have hitherto been too little acquainted with one another's learning.

Scientists disagree among themselves but they never fight over their disagreements. They argue about evidence or go out and seek new evidence. Much the same is true of philosophers, historians and literary critics.

Being a professional philosopher is, I would say, feeling natural to think about small and great problems. It is the only pleasure.

The poets did not win; the philosophers surrendered.

Every philosophical thinker hails it [The Origin of Species] as a veritable Whitworth gun in the armoury of liberalism.

Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists.

A philosopher once said, 'It is necessary for the very existence of science that the same conditions always produce the same results.' Well, they don't!

We can't define anything precisely. If we attempt to, we get into the paralysis of thought that comes to philosophers... one saying to the other: you don't know what you are talking about! The second one says: what do you mean by talking? What do you mean by you? What do you mean by know?

Philosophers say a great deal about what is absolutely necessary for science, and it is always, so far as one can see, rather naive, and probably wrong.

All real philosophers have been artists in the realm of concepts.

Only fools and philosophers waste time on the unknowable.

A philosopher who says, 'There are no truths, only interpretations,' risks the retort: 'Is that true, or only an interpretation?'

The late philosopher Morris R. Cohen of CCNY was asked by a student in the metaphysics course, Professor Cohen, how do I know that I exist? The keen old prof replied, And who is asking?

Because the Western civilization is dominated by dualistic thinking, holistic scientists and philosophers don't get the recognition they deserve.

But of all nations in the world the English are perhaps the least a nation of pure philosophers.

Children are the only brave philosophers. And brave philosophers are, inevitably, children.

Take time for good books; time to absorb the thoughts of poets and philosophers, seers and prophets.

A true philosopher is beyond the reach of fortune.

Do not Christians and Heathens, Jews and Gentiles, poets and philosophers, unite in allowing the starry influences?

I am not a theologian or a philosopher. I am a story teller.

The great critic … must be a philosopher, for from philosophy he will learn serenity, impartiality, and the transitoriness of human things.

The unambitious sluggard pretends that the eminence is not worth attaining, declines altogether the struggle, and calls himself a philosopher. I say he is a poor-spirited coward.

I profess to learn and to teach anatomy not from books but from dissections, not from the tenets of Philosophers but from the fabric of Nature.

Of all the things which wisdom acquires to produce the blessedness of the complete life far the greatest is the possession of Friendship.

Of all things which wisdom provides to make life entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.

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

I will not die, it's the world that will end." paraphrase of unknown philosopher

Philosophers.-We are full of things which take us out of ourselves.

Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars. I will not forget thy word. Amen.

Therefore, even the lover of myth is a philosopher; for myth is composed of wonder.

It may be argued that peoples for whom philosophers legislate are always prosperous.

Life is a paradox. Every truth has its counterpart which contradicts it; and every philosopher supplies the logic his own undoing.

God is at home; it is we who have gone for a walk.

What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.

We, the unwilling,led by the unknowing,are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much,for so long,with so little,we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.

There is more hunger in the world for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.

It is better for you to be free of fear lying upon a pallet,than to have a golden couch and a rich table and be full of trouble.

It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.

It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us.