Philosophy quotes
5.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think."
"Vision, in my view, is the cause of the greatest benefit to us, inasmuch as none of the accounts now given concerning the Universe would ever have been given if men had not seen the stars or the sun or the heavens. But as it is, the vision of day and night and of months and circling years has created the art of number and has given us not only the notion of Time but also means of research into the nature of the Universe. From these we have procured Philosophy in all its range, than which no greater boon ever has come or will come, by divine bestowal, unto the race of mortals."
"We have a pharmacy inside us that is absolutely exquisite. It makes the right medicine, for the precise time, for the right target organ—with no side effects."
"If you've got on the one hand death, dogmatism, domination, and on the other you've got desire in the face of death, dialogue in the face of dogmatism, democracy in the face of domination, then philosophy itself becomes a critical disposition of wrestling with desire in the face of death, wrestling with dialogue in the face of dogmatism, and wrestling with democracy, trying to keep alive a very fragile democratic experiment."
"There will be no major solution to the suffering of humanity until we reach some understanding of who we are, what the purpose of creation was, what happens after death. Until those questions are resolved we are caught."
"The human spirit is more powerful than any drug - and that is what needs to be nourished: with work, play, friendship, family. These are the things that matter."
"It's been a long time since I've stood on a stage in London. Was about 14 or 15 years ago, I was 60 years old, just a kid with a crazy dream. Since then I've taken a lot of Prozac, Paxil, Wellbutrin, Effexor, Ritalin, Focalin. I've also studied deeply in the philosophies and the religions, but cheerfulness kept breaking through."
"Philosophy which does not help to illuminate the process of the liberation of the oppressed should be rejected."
"Let that ethical philosophy therefore of free-will be far from a Christian mind."
"The spirit of philosophy is one of free inquiry. It suspects all authority. Its function is to trace the uncritical assumptions of human thought to their hiding places, and in this pursuit it may finally end in denial or a frank admission of the incapacity of pure reason to reach the ultimate reality."
"Better contraceptives will control population only if people will use them. A nuclear holocaust can be prevented only if the conditions under which nations make war can be changed. The environment will continue to deteriorate until pollution practices are abandoned. We need to make vast changes in human behavior."
"the power of philosophy floats through my head.. light like a feather, heavy as lead."
"We were just killing time, we were young and restless, and needed to unwind. There ain't nothing that lasts forever, forever."
"Politics is more difficult than physics."
"Identify the dominant philosophy of a society and you can predict its future."
"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."
"I consider promiscuity immoral. Not because sex is evil, but because sex is too good and too important."
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
"Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying."
"The soul is pure when it leaves the body and drags nothing bodily with it, by virtue of having no willing association with the body in life but avoiding it.......Practicing philosophy in the right way is a training to die easily."
