Philosophy quotes
5.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside philosophy — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"A man is always a teller of tales, he lives surrounded by his stories and the stories of others, he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live his life as if he were recounting it."
"It is therefore senseless to think of complaining since nothing foreign has decided what we feel, what we live, or what we are."
"Be good, and you will be lonesome, be lonesome and you will be free. Live a lie and you will live to regret it, that's what living is to me."
"In coming to that agreement, my party had a clear philosophy throughout. In Northern Ireland, we should have institutions that respected the differences of the people and that gave no victory to either side."
"America does not concern itself now with Impressionism. We own no involved philosophy. The psyche of the land is to be found in its movement. It is to be felt as a dramatic force of energy and vitality. We move; we do not stand still. We have not yet arrived at the stock-taking stage."
"Honor your seeing...digest your seeing...otherw ise it becomes just another thing you file away in the mind's department of philosophy...yo u're here for much more than knowledge...you are here for Self-discovery."
"The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks."
"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand."
"The sole remaining task for philosophy is the analysis of language."
"To be ignorant and simple now-not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground-would be to throw down our weapons and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered."
"Walking and talking are two very great pleasures, but it is a mistake to combine them. Our own noise blots out the sounds and silences of the outdoor world; and talking leads almost inevitably to smoking, and then farewell to nature as far as one of our senses is concerned. The only friend to walk with is one who so exactly shares your taste for each mood of the countryside that a glance, a halt, or at most a nudge, is enough to assure us that the pleasure is shared."
"These are the times, the times of our own, these are the shapes the world we formed."
"I don't subscribe to relativism, whether it's in political philosophy, foreign policy or in life."
"As long as I draw breath and am able, I won't give up practicing philosophy."
"So one time when I was working in this motel one of the toilets leaked and I had to replace the flapper ball. Here's what it said on the package; I kept it till I knew it by heart: 'Please Note. Parts are included for all installations, but no installation requires all of the parts.' That's kind of my philosophy about men. I don't think there's an installation out there that could use all my parts."
"Philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes."
"When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments. Here was a machine of precision and balance for the convenience of man. And (unlike subsequent inventions for man's convenience) the more he used it, the fitter his body became. Here, for once, was a product of man's brain that was entirely beneficial to those who used it, and of no harm or irritation to others. Progress should have stopped when man invented the bicycle."
"The triumph of the philosophy of Atheism is to free man from the nightmare of gods; it means the dissolution of the phantoms of the beyond."
"Desire is the very essence of man"
"Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them."
