Philosophy Quotes

The Perennial Philosophy is expressed most succinctly in the Sanskrit formula, tat tvam asi ('That art thou'); the Atman, or immanent eternal Self, is one with Brahman, the Absolute Principle of all existence; and the last end of every human being, is to discover the fact for himself, to find out who he really is.

Aldous Huxley

I have been accused of a habit of changing my opinions. I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions. What physicist who was already active in 1900 would dream of boasting that his opinions had not changed during the last half century? In science men change their opinions when new knowledge becomes available; but philosophy in the minds of many is assimilated rather to theology than to science. The kind of philosophy that I value and have endeavoured to pursue is scientific, in the sense that there is some definite knowledge to be obtained and that new discoveries can make the admission of former error inevitable to any candid mind. For what I have said, whether early or late, I do not claim the kind of truth which theologians claim for their creeds. I claim only, at best, that the opinion expressed was a sensible one to hold at the time when it was expressed. I should be much surprised if subsequent research did not show that it needed to be modified. I hope, therefore, that whoever uses this dictionary will not suppose the remarks which it quotes to be intended as pontifical pronouncements, but only as the best I could do at the time towards the promotion of clear and accurate thinking. Clarity, above all, has been my aim.

Bertrand Russell

The Revolution introduced me to art, and in turn, art introduced me to the Revolution!

Albert Einstein

In philosophy class I think we finally decided that 'good' is an infinitely recursive term - it can't be defined except in terms of itself. Good is good because it's better than bad, though why it's better to be good than bad depends on how you define good, and on and on.

Orson Scott Card

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Carl Sagan

It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe.To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I'd been happy, and that I was happy still. For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration.

Albert Camus

What a silly thing love is!' said the student as he walked away. 'It is not half as useful as logic, for it does not prove anything, and it is always telling one of things that are not going to happen, and making one believe things that are not true. In fact, it is quite unpractical, and, as in this age to be practical is everything, I shall go back to philosophy and study metaphysics.' So he returned to his room and pulled out a great dusty book, and began to read.

Oscar Wilde

We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork.

Terry Pratchett

In Plato's opinion, man was made for philosophy; in Bacon's opinion, philosophy was made for man.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

There is today-in a time when old beliefs are withering-a kind of philosophical hunger, a need to know who we are and how we got here. It is an on-going search, often unconscious, for a cosmic perspective for humanity.

Carl Sagan

The ultimate triumph of philosophy would be to cast light upon the mysterious ways in which Providence moves to achieve the designs it has for man.

Marquis de Sade

To philosophize is only another way of being afraid and leads hardly anywhere but to cowardly make-believe.

LouisFerdinand Celine

Anyway -- because we are readers, we don't have to wait for some communications executive to decide what we should think about next -- and how we should think about it. We can fill our heads with anything from aardvarks to zucchinis -- at any time of night or day.

Kurt Vonnegut

In every ancient religious and sacred text, faith is a verb; a thing to be demonstrated. It is in modern days that we have diluted faith from an act to a philosophy.

Steve Maraboli

Mankind flung its advance agents ever outward, ever outward. Eventually it flung them out into space, into the colorless, tasteless, weightless sea of outwardness without end. It flung them like stones.

Kurt Vonnegut

One has to take a somewhat bold and dangerous line with this existence: especially as, whatever happens, we are bound to lose it.

Friedrich Nietzsche

You say, it's dark. And in truth, I did place a cloud before your sun. But do you not see how the edges of the cloud are already glowing and turning light.

Friedrich Nietzsche

The philosopher must station themselves in the middle.

Johann von Goethe

There is no philosophy without the art of ignoring objections.

Joseph De Maistre

The intelligentsia ...was kept busy embroidering white stitches on the philosophical and ecclesiastical vestments of the bourgeoisie - that old and filthy fabric besmeared with the blood of toiling masses.

Maxim Gorky