"Philosophy bakes no bread"
Read quote
3 likes
Philosophy quotes
Philosophy
5.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Topics related to Philosophy
Browse quotes that often appear alongside philosophy — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Philosophy quotes (page 79 of 266)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"While the dogmatist is harmful, the sceptic is useless ...; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or of ignorance. Knowledge is not so precise a concept as is commonly thought. Instead of saying 'I know this', we ought to say 'I more or less know something more or less like this'. ... Knowledge in practical affairs has not the certainty or the precision of arithmetic."
Read quote
3 likes
"For the learning of every virtue there is an appropriate discipline, and for the learning of suspended judgment the best discipline is philosophy."
Read quote
3 likes
"On the one hand, philosophy is to keep us thinking about things that we may come to know, and on the other hand to keep us modestly aware of how much that seems like knowledge isn't knowledge"
Read quote
3 likes
"Those who advocate common usage in philosophy sometimes speak in a manner that suggests the mystique of the 'common man.'"
Read quote
3 likes
"The doctrine (of) maintaining that the language of daily life, with words used in their ordinary meanings, suffices for philosophy . . . I find myself totally unable to accept . . . . Because it makes almost inevitable the perpetuation amongst philosophers of the muddle-headedness they have taken over from common sense."
Read quote
3 likes
"Philosophy is an unusually ingenious attempt to think fallaciously."
Read quote
3 likes
"Ever since men became capable of free speculation, their actions, in innumerable important respects, have depended upon their theories as to the world and human life, as to what is good and what is evil. This is true in the present day as at any former time. To understand an age or a nation, we must understand its philosophy, and to understand its philosophy we must ourselves be in some degree philosophers. There is here a reciprocal causation: the circumstances of men s lives do much to determine their philosophy, but, conversely, their philosophy does much to determine their circumstances."
Read quote
3 likes
"Bad philosophers may have a certain influence; good philosophers, never."
Read quote
3 likes
"There will still be things that machines cannot do. They will not produce great art or great literature or great philosophy; they will not be able to discover the secret springs of happiness in the human heart; they will know nothing of love and friendship."
Read quote
3 likes
"As I grew up I became increasingly interested in philosophy, or which [his family] profoundly disapproved. Everytime the subject came up they repeated with unfailing regularity, "What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind." After some fifty or sixty repititions, this remark ceased to amuse me."
Read quote
3 likes
"Philosophy is that part of science which at present people chose to have opinions about, but which they have no knowledge about. Therefore every advance in knowledge robs philosophy of some problems which formerly it had ...and will belong to science."
Read quote
3 likes
"If a philosophy is to bring happiness it should be inspired by kindly feelings. Marx pretended that he wanted the happiness of the proletariat; what he really wanted was the unhappiness of the bourgeois."
Read quote
3 likes
"In the first place a philosophical proposition must be general. It must not deal specially with things on the surface of the earth, or within the solar system, or with any other portion of space and time. . . . This brings us to a second characteristic of philosophical propositions, namely that they must be a priori. A philosophical proposition must be such as can neither be proved nor disproved by empirical evidence. . . . Philosophy, if what has been said is correct, becomes indistinguishable from logic as that word has now come to be used."
Read quote
3 likes
"To create a healthy philosophy you should renounce metaphysics but be a good mathematician."
Read quote
3 likes
"Through the greatness of the universe, which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good."
Read quote
3 likes
"With subjectivity in philosophy, anarchism in politics goes hand in hand. Already during Luther's lifetime, unwelcome and unacknowledged disciples had developed the doctrine of Anabaptism, which for a time dominated the city of Munster. The Anabaptists repudiated all law since they held that good men will be guided at every moment by the Holy Spirit, who can not be bound by formulas. From this premise they arrive at communism and sexual promiscuity; they were therefore exterminated after a heroic resistance."
Read quote
3 likes
"Philosophy seems to me on the whole a rather hopeless business."
Read quote
3 likes
"There is nothing in art, in philosophy, or in politics to match the fervor of mutual cooperation among discordant bands of fanatics."
Read quote
3 likes
"True eloquence makes light of eloquence, true morality makes light of morality; that is to say, the morality of the judgment, which has no rules, makes light of the morality of the intellect.... To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher."
Read quote
3 likes