Philosopher Quotes

• To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Love, Life, Trust

  Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.9, Courier Corporation

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• The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways: the point, however, is to change it.

  Karl Marx

  Change, Courage, Peace

  Theses on Feuerbach no. 11 (written 1845). This is the epitaph on Marx's tombstone in Highgate Cemetery, London.

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• The philosopher is not a citizen of any community of ideas, that is what makes him a philosopher.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Ideas, Community, Citizens

  Ludwig Wittgenstein (1967). “Zettel”, p.83, Univ of California Press

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• Five hundred years before Christ was born, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus told his students that "everything changes except the law of change". He said: "You cannot step in the same river twice." The river changes every second; and so does the man who stepped in it. Life is a ceaseless change. The only certainty is today. Why mar the beauty of living today by trying to solve the problems of a future that is shrouded in ceaseless change and uncertainty-a future that no one can possibly foretell?

  Dale Carnegie

  Men, Years, Law

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• I thought of the words of the Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne. "If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.

  Josh Lanyon

  Valentines Day, Renaissance, Valentine's Day

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• Thus the man who is responsive to artistic stimuli reacts to the reality of dreams as does the philosopher to the reality of existence; he observes closely, and he enjoys his observation: for it is out of these images that he interprets life, out of these processes that he trains himself for life.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Dream, Reality, Men

  "The Birth of Tragedy". Book by Friedrich Nietzsche, "Preface to Richard Wagner" (p. 13), 1872.

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• No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Time, Men, Profound

  Biographia Literaria ch. 15 (1817)

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• The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is generally understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Powerful, Freedom, Ideas

  General Theory of Employment (1936; 1947 ed.) ch. 24

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• To the natural philosopher, there is no natural object unimportant or trifling. From the least of Nature's works he may learn the greatest lessons.

  John Herschel

  Nature, Lessons, May

  Sir John Frederick William Herschel, William Whewell, George Henry Lewes, Hermann von Helmholz, James Clerk Maxwell (1996). “The Origins of Modern Philosophy of Science, 1830-1914: Preliminary discourse on the study of natural philosophy”

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• These 'philosophers', etc., seem unaware, to give a specific example, that by teaching and preaching 'identity', which is empirically non-existent in this actual world, they are neurologically training future generations in the pathological identifications found in the 'mentally' ill or maladjusted.

  Alfred Korzybski

  Self Esteem, Teaching, Giving

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• they go and set up free-will with the heathen philosophers and say that a man's free will is the cause why God chooseth and not another, contrary to all scriptures.

  William Tyndale

  Men, Causes, Scripture

  William Tyndale (1850). “An Answer to Sir Thomas More's Dialogue: The Supper of the Lord After the True Meaning of John VI. and 1 Cor. XI. And Wm. Tracy's Testament Expounded”, p.191

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• No sceptical philosopher can ask any questions that may not equally be asked by a tired child on a hot afternoon.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Children, Tired, Hot

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• Saints cannot arise where there have been no warriors, nor philosophers where a prying beast does not remain hidden in the depths.

  George Santayana

  Philosophy, Warrior, Depth

  George Santayana, Martin A. Coleman (2009). “The Essential Santayana: Selected Writings”, p.424, Indiana University Press

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• Certainly the philosopher of 'possible worlds' must take care that his technical apparatus not push him to ask questions whose meaningfulness is not supported by our original intuitions of possibility that gave the apparatus its point.

  Saul Kripke

  Intuition, World, Care

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  Don't give to anyone the power to put you down. Haters are losers pretending to be winners.

  Paulo Coelho

  Inspirational, Hater, Wisdom

  FaceBook post by Paulo Coelho from Oct 04, 2011

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• While we are postponing, life speeds by.

  Seneca the Younger

  Inspirational, Life, Wisdom

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• Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Love, Fear, Philosophy

  Saint Thomas (Aquinas) (1971). “Saint Thomas Aquinas”

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• A philosopher once asked, "Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?" Pointless, really..."Do the stars gaze back?" Now that's a question.

  Neil Gaiman

  Stars, Stardust, Star Gazing

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• The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

  Socrates

  Wise, Wisdom, Philosophy

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• Some philosophers can't bear to say simple things, like "Suppose a dog bites a man." They feel obliged instead to say, "Suppose a dog d bites a man m at time t," thereby demonstrating their unshakable commitment to logical rigor, even though they don't go on to manipulate any formulae involving d, m, and t.

  Daniel Dennett

  Dog, Commitment, Simple

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• You're not very good at being contemplative," Milo said. "You always sound like some bad caricature of a philosopher, like those fortune cookies with 'Confucius say' or the Nietzsche guy from Mystery Men that's always saying 'when you walk on the ground, the ground walks on you.

  Amanda Hocking

  Men, Guy, Fortune Cookie

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• Life is too short to be wasted in finding answers. Enjoy the questions.

  Paulo Coelho

  Inspirational, Life, Wisdom

  FaceBook post by Paulo Coelho from Apr 25, 2012

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  If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.

  Plato

  Government, Political, Politics

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• To heal our wounds, we need courage to face them.

  Paulo Coelho

  Inspirational, Courage, Pain

  FaceBook post by Paulo Coelho from Aug 29, 2011

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• love make us poets, and the approach of death should make us philosophers.

  George Santayana

  Love, Death, Poet

  George Santayana (2012). “The Sense of Beauty”, p.146, Courier Corporation

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