Philosophy quotes
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"One of the more pretentious political self-descriptions is 'Libertarian.' People think it puts them above the fray. It sounds fashionable, and to the uninitiated, faintly dangerous. Actually, it's just one more bullshit political philosophy."
"Having nothing to do, I am correcting the Paris edition of Bach; not only the engraver's mistakes, but also the mistakes hallowed by those who are supposed to understand Bach (I have no pretensions to understand better, but I do think that sometimes I can guess)."
"You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure."
"I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine. (12 May 1780)"
"For an answer which cannot be expressed the question too cannot be expressed. The riddle does not exist. If a question can be put at all, then it can also be answered."
"What is your aim in philosophy? To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle."
"Poorly paid labor is inefficient labor, the world over."
"I always had a philosophy which I got from my father. He used to say, 'Listen. God gave to you the gift to play football. This is your gift from God. If you take care of your health, if you are in good shape all the time, with your gift from God no one will stop you, but you must be prepared.'"
"...for the object of education is to teach us to love beauty."
"The whole life of the philosopher is a preparation for death."
"If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's stone."
"No philosophy, my son; it is of no use to an emperor."
"And indeed nothing but the most determined scepticism, along with a great degree of indolence, can justify this aversion to metaphysics. For if truth be at all within the reach of human capacity, it is certain it must lie very deep and abstruse: and to hope we shall arrive at it without pains, while the greatest geniuses have failed with the utmost pains, must certainly be esteemed sufficiently vain and presumptuous. I pretend to no such advantage in the philosophy I am going to unfold, and would esteem it a strong presumption against it, were it so very easy and obvious."
"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer."
"To learn is not to know; there are the learners and the learned. Memory makes the one, philosophy the others."
"Philosophy can make people sick."
"I comfortably can say that I am a Republican and I always will be a Republican because the Republican party is a big tent and there was not always things that I agreed with or they didn't agree with me many times. But the fact of the matter is that's the philosophy, and everything that I've heard is exactly the same."
"Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake."
"In solitude we have our dreams to ourselves, and in company we agree to dream in concert."
"My philosophy is to "kill the monster while it's little." The best time to handle a "negative" emotion is when you first begin to feel it. It's much more difficult to interrupt an emotional pattern once it's full-blown."
