Philosopher Quotes - Page 32

• And now, my friend, I am going to expose to you all my weaknesses. All men, I believe, are under a necessity of paying tribute at some time or other to Love, and it is vain to strive to avoid it. I was a philosopher, yet this tyrant of the mind triumphed over all my wisdom; his darts were of greater force than all my reasonings, and with a sweet constraint he led me wherever he pleased.

  Peter Abelard

  Sweet, Believe, Men

  Peter Abelard, Héloïse (2017). “Letters of Abelard and Heloise”, p.40, Litres

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• The ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus taught his students that what happens to them is not as important as what they believe happens to them. In this engaging and provocative book, Eldon Taylor provides his readers with specific ways in which their beliefs can lead to success or failure in their life undertakings. Each chapter provides nuggets of wisdom as well as road maps for guiding them toward greater self-understanding, balance, responsibility, and compassion.

  Stanley Krippner

  Book, Believe, Responsibility

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• Indian monks were the first to choose the garden as the proper setting for their lives, which were devoted to the
  contemplation of the divine; but with a prophetic eye we may see that the garden will often be dedicated in a
  like manner: at a later time Greek philosophers, and monks in early Christian days, will retire into their
  gardens for united, yet silent, contemplation.

  Marie-Luise Gothein

  Life, Christian, Time

  Marie-Luise Gothein, Walter P Wright (1979). “History of Garden Art: Originally published in two volumes”, p.29, Gardenvisit.com

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• To us it seems incredible that the Greek philosophers should have scanned so deeply into right and wrong and yet never noticed the immorality of slavery. Perhaps 3000 years from now it will seem equally incredible that we do not notice the immorality of our own oppression of animals.

  Brigid Brophy

  Equality, Animal, Should Have

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• Osho is one of India's greatest mystics.... I see him as one of the world's great teachers, thinkers, philosophers and guides of our times. I have enormous respect for his world vision and the kind of International Communities he is building. I have always felt his influence in my life.

  Kabir Bedi

  Teacher, Community, Vision

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• To change man, the audience by which he judges himself must be changed. A man is defined by his audience: by the people, institutions, authors, magazines, movie heroes, philosophers by whom he pictures himself being cheered and booed. Major psychological disturbances, 'identity crises', are caused when an individual begins to change the audience for whom he plays: from parents to peers; from peers to the works of Albert Camus; from the Bible to Hugh Hefner.

  Luke Rhinehart

  Hero, Men, Play

  Luke Rhinehart (1998). “Dice Man”, p.93, The Overlook Press

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• It appears that the solution of the problem of time and space is reserved to philosophers who, like Leibniz, are mathematicians, or to mathematicians who, like Einstein, are philosophers.

  Hans Reichenbach

  Science, Space, Problem

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• If true happiness depended on the thoughts of man, then all philosophers and deep thinkers would be filled to overflowing with it.

  Sadhu Sundar Singh

  Men, Would Be, True Happiness

  Sadhu Sundar Singh (2013). “At The Master's Feet”, p.45, Simon and Schuster

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• Kings were wont to honour philosophers, but if I had such I would honour them as angels that should have such piety in them that they would not seek where they are the second to be the first, and where the third to be the second and so forth.

  Elizabeth I

  Kings, Angel, Should Have

  Elizabeth I (2002). “Elizabeth I: Collected Works”, p.96, University of Chicago Press

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• The theories of the major philosophers of the 18th century secular enlightenment were biblical and theological in spite of themselves.

  M. H. Abrams

  Biblical, Enlightenment, Century

  "Honored literary scholar M.H. Abrams continues his labors (of love)". Interview with Linda Grace-Kobas, news.cornell.edu. June 11, 1999.

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• In stark contrast with the views of the Greek philosophers and with those of the rest of western intellectuals to the present day, Chinese Taoist thought always defended individual liberty and laissez-faire while attacking the systematic and coercive use of violence typical of government.

  Jesus Huerta de Soto

  Government, Views, Greek

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• A cleric who loses his faith abandons his calling; a philosopher who loses his redefines his subject.

  Ernest Gellner

  Calling, Abandon, Subjects

  Ernest Gellner (1959). “Words and Things: A Critical Account of Linguistic Philosophy and a Study in Ideology”

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• It has generally been assumed that of two opposing systems of philosophy, e.g., realism and idealism, one only can be true and one must be false; and so philosophers have been hopelessly divided on the question, which is the true one.

  Morris Raphael Cohen

  Philosophy, Two, Hopeless

  The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 7, p. 407, 1910.

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• From what deep springs of character our personal philosophies issue, we cannot be sure. In philosophers themselves we seem always able to notice some deep internal correspondence between the man and his philosophy. Are our philosophies, then, merely the inevitable outcome of the body of fate and personal circumstance that is thrust upon each of us? Or are these beliefs the means by which we freely create ourselves as the persons we become? Here, at the very outset, the question of freedom already hovers in the background.

  William Barrett

  Philosophy, Spring, Character

  William Barrett (1978). “The illusion of technique: a search for meaning in a technological civilization”, Anchor Books

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• At first sight nothing seems more obvious than that everything has a beginning and an end, and that everything can be subdivided into smaller parts. Nevertheless, for entirely speculative reasons the philosophers of Antiquity, especially the Stoics, concluded this concept to be quite unnecessary. The prodigious development of physics has now reached the same conclusion as those philosophers, Empedocles and Democritus in particular, who lived around 500 B.C.E. and for whom even ancient man had a lively admiration.

  Svante Arrhenius

  Men, Sight, Firsts

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• How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many
  proud monarchs groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many
  magistrates liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against the
  Christians; so many sages philosophers blushing in red-hot fires with their
  deluded pupils; so many tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their
  own sufferings; so many dancers tripping more nimbly from anguish then
  ever before from applause.

  Tertullian

  Christian, Expression, Flames

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• The picture which the philosopher draws of the world is surely not one in which every stroke is necessitated by pure logic.

  Morris Raphael Cohen

  World, Logic, Strokes

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• Early morning, the orange sun is slowly rising, shining forth in empty luminous clarity. The mind and the sky are one, the sun is rising in the vast space of primordial awareness, and there is just this. Yasutani Roshi once said, speaking of satori, that it was the most precious realization in the world, because all the great philosophers had tried to understand ultimate reality but had failed to do so, yet with satori or awakening all of your deepest questions are finally answered: it's just this.

  Ken Wilber

  Morning, Reality, Sky

  Ken Wilber (2000). “One Taste”, p.105, Shambhala Publications

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• Is it astonishing that, like children trying to catch smoke by closing their hands, philosophers so often see the object they would grasp fly before them?

  Henri Bergson

  Children, Hands, Trying

  Henri Bergson (1949). “An Introduction to Metaphysics”, p.45, Hackett Publishing

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• 'In his celebrated book, 'On Liberty', the English philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that silencing an opinion is "a peculiar evil." If the opinion is right, we are robbed of the "opportunity of exchanging error for truth"; and if it's wrong, we are deprived of a deeper understanding of the truth in its "collision with error." If we know only our own side of the argument, we hardly know even that: it becomes stale, soon learned by rote, untested, a pallid and lifeless truth.'

  Carl Sagan

  Truth, Book, Opportunity

  Carl Sagan (2011). “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.550, Ballantine Books

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• The principle of laissez-faire may be safely trusted to in some things but in many more it is wholly inapplicable; and to appeal to it on all occasions savors more of the policy of a parrot than of a statesman or a philosopher.

  John Ramsay McCulloch

  Principles, May, Libertarian

  "The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain". Book by Roderick Floud, Volume 1. p. 363, 2014.

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• The third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa — not often coupled with each other, but the two people I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is, you're going to make choices; you're going to challenge; you're going to say, 'Why not?'; you're going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before.

  Anita Dunn

  Mother, Simple, Two

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• Two of my favorite political philosophers, Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa, not often coupled with each other, but the two people that I turn to most.

  Anita Dunn

  Mother, Two, People

  "'Special Report' Panel on White House Fox Bashing and Afghanistan Elections". "Special Report" with Bret Baier, www.foxnews.com. October 20, 2009.

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• There are more riddles in a stone than in a philosopher's head

  Damon Knight

  Stones, Riddle

  Damon Knight (1961). “Far Out: 13 Science Fiction Stories”

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• My understanding – of course, I’m not a philosopher or a scientist – of an aspect of Goethe’s theory of color is that he felt that color came out of tension between light and dark. I think that is very appropriate when you think about the kind of color that I shoot.

  Alex Webb

  Dark, Thinking, Light

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