Philosopher Quotes - Page 31

• Sleep is a state in which a great part of every life is passed. No animal has yet been discovered, whose existence is not varied with intervals of insensibility; and some late philosophers have extended the empire of sleep over the vegetable world.

  Samuel Johnson

  Sleep, Animal, Vegetables

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is no philosopher in the world so great but he believes a million things on the faith of other people and accepts a great many more truths than he demonstrates.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Truth, Believe, People

  Alexis De Tocqueville (2013). “Democracy in America -”, p.17, Read Books Ltd

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• After all that corrupt poets, and more corrupt philosophers, have told us of the blandishments of pleasure, and of its tendency to soften the temper and humanize the affections, it is certain, that nothing hardens the heart like excessive and unbounded luxury; and he who refuses the fewest gratifications to his own voluptuousness, will generally be found the least susceptible of tenderness for the wants of others.

  Hannah More

  Heart, Luxury, Temptation

  Hannah More (1818). “Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great, to General Society: An Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World. Remarks on the Speech of M. Dupont. And Tracts Written During the Riots of 1817”, p.9

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Moralists and philosophers have adjudged those who throw temptation in the way of the erring, equally guilty with those who are thereby led into evil

  Mark Twain

  Evil, Temptation, Erring

  17 Copy quote

• The great critic … must be a philosopher, for from philosophy he will learn serenity, impartiality, and the transitoriness of human things.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Philosophy, Serenity, Critics

  W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In Radical Optimism, Beatrice Bruteau sets forth a deep and shining vision of spirituality, one that guides the reader into the contemplative life and the very root of our being. Dr. Bruteau is a philosopher of great measure whose work should be required reading for all who seek the deepest truth about themselves.

  Sue Monk Kidd

  Reading, Roots, Contemplative Life

  4 Copy quote

• There’s a real question as to what beauty is and why it’s important to us. Many pseudo-philosophers try to answer these questions and tell us they’re not really answerable. I draw on art and literature, and music in particular, because music is a wonderful example of something that’s in this world but not of this world. Great works of music speak to us from another realm even though they speak to us in ordinary physical sounds.

  Roger Scruton

  Art, Real, Trying

  23 Copy quote

• Philosophers have a long tradition of marrying stupid women, from Socrates on. They think it clever.

  Simon Gray

  Clever, Stupid, Thinking

  Simon Gray (1986). “Plays, one”, Drama

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• A few modern philosopher's assert that an individual's intelligence is a fixed quantity, a quantity which cannot be increased. We must protest and react against this brutal pessimism.... With practice, training, and above all, method, we manage to increase our attention, our memory, our judgment and literally to become more intelligent than we were before.

  Alfred Binet

  Memories, Intelligent, Practice

  31 Copy quote

• That is the first thing to learn - not to seek. When you seek you are really only window-shopping. The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality, or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosophers or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself and that is why you must know yourself. Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self. To understand yourself is the beginning of wisdom.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Lying, Book, Ignorance

  "Freedom From The Known". Book by Jiddu Krishnamurti, 1969.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Indeed, the distribution of wealth is too important an issue to be left to economists, sociologists, historians, and philosophers.

  Thomas Piketty

  Issues, Important, Distribution Of Wealth

  Thomas Piketty (2014). “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”, p.2, Harvard University Press

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• The basic drive behind real philosophy is curiosity about the world, not interest in the writings of philosophers.

  Bryan Magee

  Philosophy, Real, Writing

  "Confessions of a Philosopher: A Personal Journey Through Western Philosophy from Plato to Popper". Book by Bryan Magee, 1997.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• A great philosopher has stated that the worst evil of poverty is, that it makes folks ridiculous; by which, I hope, he only means that, as in the above case, it places them in incongruous positions.

  James Payn

  Mean, Evil, Poverty

  James Payn (1882). “Sammlung”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The philosophers of the Middle Ages demonstrated both that the Earth did not exist and also that it was flat. Today they are still arguing about whether the world exists, but they no longer dispute about whether it is flat.

  Vilhjalmur Stefansson

  Age, World, Earth

  Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1927). “The Standardization of Error”, New York : W.W. Norton

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• In this land of unlimited opportunity, a place where, to paraphrase Woody Allen, any man or woman can realize greatness as a patient or as a doctor, we have only one commercial American filmmaker who consistently speaks with his own voice. That is Woody Allen, gag writer, musician, humorist, philosopher, playwright, stand-up comic, film star, film writer and film director.

  Vincent Canby

  Stars, Opportunity, Greatness

  The New York Times, July 17, 1983.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The duty of a philosopher is clear. He must take every pain to ascertain the truth; and, having arrived at a conclusion, he should noise it abroad far and wide, utterly regardless of what opinions he shocks.

  Henry Thomas Buckle

  Pain, Noise, Opinion

  Henry Thomas Buckle (1861). “History of civilization in England”, p.476

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Everyone now agrees that a physics lacking all connection with mathematics ... would only be an historical amusement, fitter for entertaining the idle than for occupying the mind of a philosopher.

  Franz Karl Achard

  Historical, Mind, Connections

  4 Copy quote

• As [Gershom] Scholem explains, this [Shabbetaian] doctrine is connected to the idea that 'the elect are fundamentally different from the crowd and not to be judged by its standards. Standing under a new spiritual law and representing as it were a new kind of reality, they are beyond good and evil'. Strauss's philosopher-prophet is a secularized version of the same conceit.

  Shadia Drury

  Spiritual, Reality, Law

  6 Copy quote

• The revolutionary spirit is mighty convenient in this, that it frees one from all scruples as regards ideas. Its hard absolute optimism is repulsive to my mind by the menace of fanaticism and intolerance it contains. No doubt one should smile at these things; but, imperfect Esthete, I am no better Philosopher. All claim to special righteousness awakens in me that scorn and anger from which a philosophical mind should be free.

  Joseph Conrad

  Philosophical, Ideas, Optimism

  Joseph Conrad (2015). “A Personal Record”, p.9, Booklassic

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• The mathematic, then, is an art. As such it has its styles and style periods. It is not, as the layman and the philosopher (who is in this matter a layman too) imagine, substantially unalterable, but subject like every art to unnoticed changes form epoch to epoch. The development of the great arts ought never to be treated without an (assuredly not unprofitable) side-glance at contemporary mathematics.

  Oswald Spengler

  Art, Math, Imagination

  Oswald Spengler, Charles Francis Atkinson (1950). “Form and actuality”

  43 Copy quote

  Show source

• Today, it is not only that our kings do not know mathematics, but our philosophers do not know mathematics and - to go a step further - our mathematicians do not know mathematics.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Kings, Math, Today

  8 Copy quote

• The true lover of learning then must his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth.... He whose desires are drawn toward knowledge in every form will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul, and will hardly feel bodily pleasures I mean, if he be a true philosopher and not a sham one ... Then how can he who has the magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all times and all existence, think much of human life He cannot. Or can such a one account death fearful No indeed.

  Plato

  Life, Lying, Mean

  12 Copy quote

• I became a virtuoso of deceit. It wasn't pleasure I was after, it was knowledge. I consulted the strictest moralists to learn how to appear, philosophers to find out what to think and novelists to see what I could get away with.

  Christopher Hampton

  Lying, Thinking, Deception

  "Dangerous Liaisons". www.imdb.com. 1988.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Country is both the Philosopher's Garden and his Library, in which he Reads and Contemplates the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God.

  William Penn

  Wisdom, Country, Garden

  Benjamin Franklin, William Penn (2012). “Franklin's Way to Wealth and Penn's Maxims”, p.42, Courier Corporation

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Consistency is a virtue for trains: what we want from a philosopher is insights, whether he comes by them consistently or not.

  Stephen Vizinczey

  Consistency, Want, Virtue

  Stephen Vizinczey (1988). “Truth and Lies in Literature: Essays and Reviews”, p.83, University of Chicago Press

  9 Copy quote

  Show source