Philosopher Quotes - Page 27

• Philosophers are in the habit of setting themselves before life and experience.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Philosophy, Habit, Settings

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2012). “Human, All-Too-Human: Parts One and Two”, p.23, Courier Corporation

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• To live alone one must be a beast or a god, says Aristotle. Leaving out the third case: one must be both - a philosopher.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Crazy, Mad, Leaving

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.290, Penguin

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• My instinct as a philosopher is that we are effectively approaching a multicentric world, which means we need to ask new, and for the traditional left, unpleasant questions.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Mean, Intuition, Needs

  Interview with Sean O'Hagan, www.theguardian.com. June 26, 2010.

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• Since Pawlow [Pavlov] and his pupils have succeeded in causing the secretion of saliva in the dog by means of optic and acoustic signals, it no longer seems strange to us that what the philosopher terms an 'idea' is a process which can cause chemical changes in the body.

  Jacques Loeb

  Dog, Mean, Ideas

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• There is no statement so absurd that no philosopher will make it.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Science, Absurd, Statements

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• The whole Mediterranean, the sculpture, the palm, the gold beads, the bearded heroes, the wine, the ideas, the ships, the moonlight, the winged gorgons, the bronze men, the philosophers - all of it seems to rise in the sour, pungent taste of these black olives between the teeth. A taste older than meat, older than wine. A taste as old as cold water.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Hero, Wine, Men

  Lawrence Durrell (1978). “Prospero's cell: a guide to the landscape and manners of the island of Corcyra”, Viking Pr

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• Those who never philosophized until they met with disappointments, have mostly become disappointed philosophers

  Arthur Helps

  Disappointment, Mets, Disappointed

  Sir Arthur Helps (1883). “Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd”

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• Your remarks upon chemical notation with the variety of systems which have arisen, &c., &c., had almost stirred me up to regret publicly that such hindrances to the progress of science should exist. I cannot help thinking it a most unfortunate thing that men who as experimentalists & philosophers are the most fitted to advance the general cause of science & knowledge should by promulgation of their own theoretical views under the form of nomenclature, notation, or scale, actually retard its progress.

  Michael Faraday

  Regret, Science, Men

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• I have never seen the Philosopher's Stone that turns lead into Gold, but I have known the pursuit of it turn a Man's Gold into Lead.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Knowledge, Science, Men

  Benjamin Franklin (2008). “The Way to Wealth and Poor Richard's Almanac”, p.24, Nayika Publishing

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• To test a perfect theory with imperfect instruments did not impress the Greek philosophers as a valid way to gain knowledge.

  Isaac Asimov

  Knowledge, Science, Perfect

  Isaac Asimov (1968). “The Intelligent Man's Guide to the Physical Sciences”

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• I believe that even a smattering of such findings in modern science and mathematics is far more compelling and exciting than most of the doctrines of pseudoscience, whose practitioners were condemned as early as the fifth century B.C. by the Ionian philosopher Heraclitus as “nigh -walkers, magicians, priests of Bacchus, priestesses of the wine-vat, mystery-mongers.” But science is more intricate and subtle, reveals a much richer imiverse, and powerfully evokes our sense of wonder.

  Carl Sagan

  Wine, Science, Night

  "Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science".

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• To mix science up with philosophy is only to produce a philosophy that has lost all its ideal value and a science that has lost all its practical value. It is for my private physician to tell me whether this or that food will kill me. It is for my private philosopher to tell me whether I ought to be killed.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Death, Philosophy, Science

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• The philosopher of science is not much interested in the thought processes which lead to scientific discoveries; he looks for a logical analysis of the completed theory, including the establishing its validity. That is, he is not interested in the context of discovery, but in the context of justification.

  Hans Reichenbach

  Philosophy, Science, Discovery

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• To turn Karl [Popper]'s view on its head, it is precisely the abandonment of critical discourse that marks the transition of science. Once a field has made the transition, critical discourse recurs only at moments of crisis when the bases of the field are again in jeopardy. Only when they must choose between competing theories do scientists behave like philosophers.

  Thomas Kuhn

  Science, Views, Criticism

  Thomas S. Kuhn (2011). “The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change”, p.273, University of Chicago Press

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• Philosophers and theologians have yet to learn that a physical fact is as sacred as a moral principle. Our own nature demands from us this double allegiance.

  Louis Agassiz

  Science, Principles, Demand

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• Very few of us can now place ourselves in the mental condition in which even such philosophers as the great Descartes were involved in the days before Newton had announced the true laws of the motion of bodies.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Science, Law, Mind

  James Clerk Maxwell (2006). “Five of Maxwell's Papers: Easyread Comfort Edition”, p.40, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• It can happen to but few philosophers, and but at distant intervals, to snatch a science, like Dalton, from the chaos of indefinite combination, and binding it in the chains of number, to exalt it to rank amongst the exact. Triumphs like these are necessarily 'few and far between.'

  Charles Babbage

  Science, Discovery, Numbers

  Charles Babbage (1970). “Reflections on the Decline of Science in England: And on Some of Its Causes”, Augustus m Kelley Pubs

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• Oh, most magnificent and noble Nature!
  Have I not worshipped thee with such a love
  As never mortal man before displayed?
  Adored thee in thy majesty of visible creation,
  And searched into thy hidden and mysterious ways
  As Poet, as Philosopher, as Sage?

  Humphry Davy

  Science, Men, Mysterious Ways

  Sir Humphry Davy, John DAVY (M.D., F.R.S.) (1858). “Fragmentary Remains, Literary and Scientific, of Sir Humphry Davy, Bart. ... With a sketch of his life, and selections from his correspondence. Edited by his brother John Davy”, p.14

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• The Grand Duke [of Tuscany] ...after observing the Medicaean plants several times with me ... has now invited me to attach myself to him with the annual salary of one thousand florins, and with the title of Philosopher and Principal Mathematicial to His Highness; without the duties of office to perform, but with the most complete leisure; so that I can complete my Treatises.

  Galileo Galilei

  Science, Office, Dukes

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• When philosophers try to be politicians they generally cease to be philosophers.

  Walter Lippmann

  Trying, Politician, Cease

  Walter Lippmann (1914). “A Preface to Politics”

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• There is no record in human history of a happy philosopher: they exist only in romantic legend.

  H. L. Mencken

  History, Records

  "Mencken Chrestomathy".

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• The profoundest thoughts of the philosophers have something trickle about them. A lot disappears in order for something to suddenly appear in the palm of the hand.

  Elias Canetti

  Philosophical, Hands, Order

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• The philosophers must station themselves in the middle.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Middle, Stations

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• The origins of disputes between philosophers is, that one class of them have undertaken to raise man by displaying his greatness, and the other to debase him by showing his miseries.

  Blaise Pascal

  Greatness, Men, Class

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• It has been said by a distinguished philosopher that England is "usually the last to enter into the general movement of the European mind." The author of the remark probably meant to assert that a man or a system may have become famous on the continent, while we are almost ignorant of the name of the man and the claims of his system. Perhaps, however, a wider range might be given to the assertion. An exploded theory or a disadvantageous practice, like a rebel or a patriot in distress, seeks refuge on our shores to spend its last days in comfort if not in splendour.

  Isaac Todhunter

  Science, Men, Practice

  Isaac Todhunter (1873). “The Conflict of Studies and Other Essays on Subjects Connected with Education”, p.136, London : Macmillan

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