Examined Life Quotes

• The unexamined life is not worth living.

  Socrates

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  In Plato 'Apology' 38a

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• I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.

  Socrates

  Funny, Spiritual, Intelligent

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• It takes tremendous discipline, takes tremendous courage, to think for yourself, to examine yourself.

  Cornel West

  Thinking, Discipline, Think For Yourself

  Source: genius.com

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• It takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your own soul than it does for a soldier to fight on the battlefield.

  Cornel West

  Fighting, Dark, Soul

  "Cornel West: Truth". Interview with Astra Taylor, killingthebuddha.com. November 15, 2009.

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• The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being.

  Plato

  Philosophy, Life Is, Life Worth Living

  Apology, 38a (translated by H Tredennick).

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• It is not living that matters, but living rightly.

  Socrates

  Life, Matter, Treatment

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• The examined life is no picnic.

  Robert Fulghum

  Picnics, Life Is, Self-examination

  Robert Fulghum (2004). “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things”, p.10, Ballantine Books

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• The examined life is the only life worth living.

  Socrates

  Motivational, Life Is, Life Worth Living

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• Living simply is not about living in poverty or self-inflicted deprivation. It's about living an examined life where one has determined what is truly important and enough … and then just let go of all the rest.

  Duane Elgin

  Letting Go, Self, Important

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• The condition of truth is to allow suffering to speak - that gives it an existential emphasis.

  Cornel West

  Giving, Suffering, Speak

  Source: genius.com

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• Rousseau had it backwards. We are NOT born free. We are born in the chains of the random and the reflexive, and are ignorant and unreasonable by simple nature. We must learn to be free, to organize the random and detect the reflexive, to acquire the knowledge of particulars and the powers of reason. The examined life is impossible if we cannot examine, order, classify, define, distinguish, always in minute particulars.

  Richard Mitchell

  Wisdom, Simple, Order

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• The place of the arts in the classroom is essential in encouraging invention, ambition, and an understanding of the importance and pleasures of living an examined life.

  Barbara Kruger

  Art, Ambition, Understanding

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• The examined life has always been pretty well confined to a privileged class.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  Class, Wells, Confined

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• Emerson, I am trying to live, as you said we must, the examined life. But there are days I wish there was less in my head to examine, not to speak of the busy heart.

  Mary Oliver

  Heart, Wish, Trying

  Mary Oliver (2008). “Red Bird: Poems”, p.39, Beacon Press

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• Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. But the over-examined life makes you wish you were dead. Given the alternative, I'd rather be living.

  Saul Bellow

  Wish, Alternatives, Life Is

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• Philosophers should be, as Seneca put it, 'lawyers for humanity'. Make what you think and feel count; the examined life has global dimensions.

  Martha C. Nussbaum

  Philosophy, Thinking, Humanity

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• Courage is the enabling virtue for any philosopher - for any human being, I think, in the end. Courage to think, courage to love, courage to hope.

  Cornel West

  Thinking, Enabling, Philosopher

  Source: genius.com

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• Socrates said, the unexamined life is not worth living. My dad said, Booty - mmm mmm.

  Christopher Titus

  Dad, Booty, Life Is

  "Titus" (TV Series), www.imdb.com. 2000-2002.

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• It's the desire to study the human condition, the desire for collaboration, to learn and absorb, and to lead a well-examined life.

  Nicole Kidman

  Desire, Collaboration, Study

  FaceBook post by Nicole Kidman from Jan 11, 2017

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• I have a sneaking suspicion that leading an examined life and being really tan aren't consistent with one another.

  Dov Davidoff

  Being Real, Consistent, Suspicion

  FaceBook post by Dov Davidoff from Jun 16, 2012

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• Contemporary philosophy illustrates Hegel's dictum that philosophy is its own time apprehended in thought, for in our age philosophy yields to the objectifying technical impulse and loses its ancient task of pursuing the Socratic ideal of the wisdom of the examined life.

  Donald Phillip Verene

  Philosophy, Yield, Age

  "Philosophy and the Return to Self-Knowledge". Book by Donald Phillip Verene, 1997.

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• Also, after Examined Life was finished I found myself thinking about the way creative opportunities and distribution channels were shifting. Should I be showing my films in theaters or just think about getting them out online? There were other issues, too.

  Astra Taylor

  Thinking, Opportunity, Issues

  Source: therumpus.net

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• Yeah, leading an examined life, I always say, is a pain in the ass. It adds an element of complexity to business that most businessmen don't want to hear about. They just want to call a fabric manufacturer, and say, "Hey, give us 10,000 yards of shirting."

  Yvon Chouinard

  Business, Pain, Giving

  "The TH Interview: Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia". Interview with Jacob Gordon, www.treehugger.com. February 7, 2008.

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• In a speech, the columnist Charles Krauthammer.... offered a new version of Socrates' famous saying, "The unexamined life is not worth living." In our age of bottomless self-love and obsession with our own feelings, Krauthammer suggested, "The too-examined life is not worth living either.

  John Leo

  Self, Feelings, Age

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• ...it's always been difficult for us to lead an examined life as a corporation. I've always felt like a company has the responsibility to not wait for the government to tell it what to do, or to wait for the consumer to tell it what to do, but as soon as it finds out it's doing something wrong, stop doing it.

  Yvon Chouinard

  Business, Responsibility, Government

  "The TH Interview: Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia (Part One)". Interview with Jacob Gordon, www.treehugger.com. February 7, 2008.

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