Philosopher Quotes - Page 23

• We are not to give credit to the many, who say that none ought to be educated but the free; but rather to the philosophers, who say that the well-educated alone are free.

  Epictetus

  Learning, Giving, Credit

  Epictetus (1807). “The Works of Epictetus: Consisting of His Discourses, in Four Books, Preserved by Arrian ; The Enchiridion, and Fragments”, p.154

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• What difference is there, do you think, between those in Plato's cave who can only marvel at the shadows and images of various objects, provided they are content and don't know what they miss, and the philosopher who has emerged from the cave and sees the real things?

  Desiderius Erasmus

  Missing You, Plato, Real

  Desiderius Erasmus (1986). “Literary and Educational Writings: Panegyricus and Philippum Austriaeducem. Moriae encomium. Dialogus Julius exclusus e coelis. Institutio principis christiani. Querela pacis”

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• Jacques Derrida is a very important thinker and philosopher who has made serious contributions to both philosophy and literary criticism. Roland Barthes is the one I feel most affinity for, and Michel Foucault, well, his writing influenced my novel, 'Middlesex.'

  Jeffrey Eugenides

  Philosophy, Writing, Criticism

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• Linguistic philosophers continue to argue that probably music is not a language, that is in the philosophical debate. Another point of view is to say that music is a very profound language.

  Robert Fripp

  Philosophical, Views, Profound

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• When a philosopher says something that is true then it is trivial. When he says something that is not trivial then it is false.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Truth, Corny, Programming

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  You philosophers are lucky men. You write on paper and paper is patient. Unfortunate Empress that I am, I write on the susceptible skins of living beings.

  Catherine the Great

  Writing, Power, Men

  Letter to Denis Diderot. "The Affairs of Women: A Modern Miscellany". Book by Colin Bingham, 1969.

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• The truth has never been of any real value to any human being - it is a symbol for mathematicians and philosophers to pursue. In human relations kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.

  Graham Greene

  Truth, Honesty, Kindness

  Graham Greene (1960). “The Heart of The Matter”

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• The great Jewish scientists and philosophers of the last few generations - Spinoza, Einstein, Freud, Robert Oppenheimer and others - were natives of Europe and America.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Europe And America, Generations, Lasts

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• If we do discover a complete theory, it should be in time understandable in broad principle by everyone. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people be able to take part in the discussion of why we and the universe exist.

  Stephen Hawking

  People, Able, Principles

  Stephen W. Hawking (1990). “A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes”, Bantam

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• Philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science. Particularly physics.

  Stephen Hawking

  Development, Physics, Modern

  "Stephen Hawking tells Google ‘philosophy is dead’". Google Zeitgeist Conference, www.telegraph.co.uk. May 17, 2011.

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• Truth in philosophy means that concept and external reality correspond.

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Mean

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1958). “Philosophy of right”

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• To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.

  William James

  Hate, Real, Thinking

  William James (1993). “The Selected Letters of William James”, Anchor

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• To decide to become a philosopher seemed as foolish to me as to decide to become a poet.

  Karl Jaspers

  Stupid, Poet, Foolish

  "Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre". Book by Walter Kaufmann, 1956.

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• Even philosophers will praise war as ennobling mankind, forgetting the Greek who said: 'War is bad in that it begets more evil than it kills.'

  Immanuel Kant

  Peace, War, Evil

  Carl Joachim Friedrich, Immanuel Kant (1969). “Inevitable peace”, Greenwood Pub Group

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• I will admit, like Socrates and Aristotle and Plato and some other philosophers, that there are instances where the death penalty would seem appropriate.

  Jack Kevorkian

  Plato, Death Penalty, Penalties

  "Years of Minutes"‎ by Andy Rooney, (p. 332), 2004.

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• God created man in His own image, says the Bible; philosophers reverse the process: they create God in theirs.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Men, Process, Reverse

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• Do not imagine that what we have said of the insufficiency of our understanding and of its limited extent is an assertion founded only on the Bible: for philosophers likewise assert the same, and perfectly understand it,- without having regard to any religion or opinion.

  Maimonides

  Understanding, Opinion, Imagine

  Moses Maimonides (2016). “Guide for the perplexed”, p.283, Moses Maimonides

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• All this is applicable to the intellectual faculties of man. There is a considerable difference between one person and another as regards these faculties, as is well known to philosophers.

  Maimonides

  Men, Differences, Intellectual

  Moses Maimonides, Aeterna Press (1948). “The Guide for the Perplexed”, p.123, Aeterna Press

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• The theory of social contracts extends as far back as Plato. However, it was the great 18th century social philosophers John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau who brought the concept of a social contract between citizens and governments sharply into political thinking, paving the way for popular democracy and constitutional republicanism.

  Simon Mainwaring

  Thinking, Government, Political

  "What #OccupyWallStreet Must Ask of Corporations and Themselves" by Simon Mainwaring, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 12, 2011.

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• There is no philosophy without the art of ignoring objections.

  Joseph de Maistre

  Art, Philosophy, Objections

  Joseph de Maistre (2017). “The Generative Principle of Political Constitutions: Studies on Sovereignty, Religion and Enlightenment”, p.232, Routledge

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• For centuries many of the world's distinguished philosophers have assaulted Christianity as being irrational, superstitious and absurd.

  Josh McDowell

  World, Good Christian, Christianity

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• No matter what Aristotle and the Philosophers say, nothing is equal to tobacco; it's the passion of the well-bred, and he who lives without tobacco lives a life not worth living.

  Moliere

  Passion, Literature, Matter

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• I'm really clear about what my life mission is now. There's no more depression or lethargy, and I feel like I've returned to the athlete I once was. I'm integrating all the parts of me - jock, musician, writer, poet, philosopher - and becoming stronger as a result.

  Alanis Morissette

  Athlete, Stronger, Jocks

  "Alanis Morissette's new outlook on health". www.cnn.com. November 13, 2009.

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• In philosophy if you aren't moving at a snail's pace you aren't moving at all.

  Iris Murdoch

  Philosophy, Moving, Pace

  Iris Murdoch (1999). “Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature”, p.500, Penguin

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• All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Tasks, Hierarchy, Problem

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