Quotes About Philosophy

Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny. It's the only one. It's based on thousands of years of human experience. There is nothing narrow about the conservative philosophy. It's a liberating philosophy. It is a magnificent philosophy. It is a philosophy for the ages, for all times.

In Philosophy, the contemplations of man do either penetrate unto God, or are circumferred to Nature, or are reflected and reverted upon himself. Out of which several inquiries there do arise three knowledges, Divine Philosophy, Natural Philosophy, and Human Philosophy or Humanity. For all things are marked and stamped with this triple character of the power of God, the difference of Nature and the use of Man.

My mother thought my inclinations would do well in Law, but I was too shy and deliberative - slowfooted - for that, so I determined to be an English and German high school teacher. In my first year of university I had one subject to "fill in" and chose philosophy against the advice of my counselor. My university teachers in English and German were totally uninspiring; philosophy was wonderful and my results showed it. I chose it and basically backed into a situation in which only a philosophy career seemed a viable option. I've never regretted it, but there was a lot of serendipity.

What one decides to do in crisis depends on one's philosophy of life, and that philosophy cannot be changed by an incident. If one hasn't any philosophy in crises, others make the decision.

In elaborating how "philosophy by showing" works, and in defending the idea that literature and music can contribute to philosophical "showing", I am also doing something more standardly philosophical. But I view most of the book as an interweaving of philosophy and literary criticism. If that entails a broadening of a standard idea of philosophy, it's a broadening I'd like to see happen.

One or another man, liberated or cursed, suddenly sees-but even this man sees rarely-that all we are is what we aren't, that we fool ourselves about what's true and are wrong about what we conclude is right. And this man, who in a flash sees the universe naked, creates a philosophy or dreams up a religion; and the philosophy spreads and the religion propagates, and those who believe in the philosophy begin to wear it as a suit they don't see, and those who believe in the religion put it on as a mask they soon forget.

I did not intend to be a writer. I first wanted to be a lawyer, like my father. Then I got bit by the bug of philosophy and wanted to be a philosophy professor. I went to graduate school and quickly discovered it was impossible for a woman in those days - this was the early fifties - to be a philosopher, so I gave that up.

Death is the real inspiring genius or Musagetes of philosophy, and for this reason Socrates defined philosophy as thanatou mélétè (preparation for death; Plato, Phaedo, 81a). Indeed, without death there would hardly have been any philosophizing.

Chinese were bornwith an accumulated wisdom, a natural sophistication, an intelligent naivete, and unless they were transplanted too young, these qualities ripened in them.... If ever I am homesick for China, now that I am home in my own country, it is when I discover here no philosophy. Our people have opinions and creeds and prejudices and ideas but as yet no philosophy.

I think that a visual artist's philosophy develops much more freely than a writer's or a thinker's philosophy. It is not so disciplined. The photographer works with both his eyes and his mind.

For myself, I am interested in science and in philosophy only because I want to learn something about the riddle of the world in which we live, and the riddle of man's knowledge of that world. And I believe that only a revival of interest in these riddles can save the sciences and philosophy from an obscurantist faith in the expert's special skill and in his personal knowledge and authority.

Religion and philosophy, philosophy and religion - they're two words which are both ... different. In spelling.

I never really wanted to have a Guru, I was more interested in Buddhist philosophy and meditation, and had a psychological background in college, but he had so much love. To be with him, there was nowhere else to be and nothing else to do. Nothing he taught, philosophy or meditation, are the things I went to India to look for, or was interested in, but he sort of jumped into my heart and then pulled, he pried it open.

Philosophy must never be divorced from action. Unless it is put into practice, philosophy is nothing more than an intellectual game.

Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of science without philosophy of science is blind.

My belief is that it is most important for an artist to develop an approach and philosophy about life - if he has developed this philosophy, he does not put paint on canvas, he puts himself on canvas.

In the mid-1960s, as hard to believe as it may be now, choosing to go into academic philosophy was not an imprudent career choice. There were lots of academic jobs in philosophy then.

A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.

Whoever does not philosophize for the sake of philosophy, but rather uses philosophy as a means, is a sophist.

As in Mathematicks, so in Natural Philosophy, the Investigation of difficult Things by the Method of Analysis, ought ever to precede the Method of Composition. This Analysis consists in making Experiments and Observations, and in drawing general Conclusions from them by Induction, and admitting of no Objections against the Conclusions, but such as are taken from Experiments, or other certain Truths. For Hypotheses are not to be regarded in experimental Philosophy.

One could say that what differentiates ancient from modern philosophy is the fact that, in ancient philosophy, it was not only Chrysippus or Epicurus who, just because they had developed a philosophical discourse, were considered philosophers. Rather, every person who lived according to the precepts of Chrysippus or Epicurus was every bit as much a philosopher as they.

In Hindu philosophy the whole creation is regarded as the Vishnu Lila, the play of Vishnu. Lila means dance or play. Also in Hindu philosophy, they call the world illusion; and in Latin the root of the word illusion is ludere, to play.

But if science may be said to be blind without philosophy, it is true also that philosophy is virtually empty without science.

Everybody should have a chance to rise. That's our philosophy in Ohio and that's my philosophy for America.

I started philosophy looking for answers. But along the way I came to prize exploring the questions. Progress in philosophy consists, I think, in a clearer delineation of the conceptual options, not in reaching determinate conclusions.

Science...has become identified with a philosophy known as materialism or scientific naturalism. This philosophy insists that nature is all there is, or at least the only thing about which we can have any knowledge. It follows that nature had to do its own creating, and that the means of creation must have included any role for God.

You do just have to go back to moral philosophy and you've got to say, okay, there is greed, people do want more and more, but then what restrains them and what restrained them in the past was a view of life in which one's satisfaction wasn't the most important thing, that you just, you needed enough and you could say, "Enough is enough." Maybe religion will get you there, maybe just classic moral philosophy, but you have to have some of that, or else you're always on the gravy train.

I do think that philosophy and science are very different intellectual enterprises, but that does not mean that when we get knowledge from philosophy it is a different kind of knowledge.

I do not presume that I have found the best philosophy, I know that I understand the true philosophy.

Extreme liberalism is not a political philosophy. It is a mental disorder.

Philosophy would do well to desist from issuing any further injunctions about the need to re-establish the meaningfulness of existence, the purposefulness of life, or mend the shattered concord between man and nature. It should strive to be more than a sop to the pathetic twinge of human self-esteem. Nihilism is not an existential quandary but a speculative opportunity.

Natural history is a matter of observation; it is a harvest which you gather when and where you find it growing. Birds and squirrels and flowers are not always in season, but philosophy we have always with us. It is a crop which we can grow and reap at all times and in all places and it has its own value and brings its own satisfaction.

The most sublime efforts of philosophy can extend no farther than feebly to point out the desire, the hope, or, at most, the probability, of a future state, there is nothing, except a divine revelation, that can ascertain the existence, and describe the condition of the invisible country which is destined to receive the souls of men after their separation from the body.

We have had enough, once and for all, of Hedonism--the gloomy philosophy which says that Pleasure is the only good.

I'm not on the court anymore, so no use looking for my philosophy. If somebody's waiting for that, they can wait for another justice.

At the very moment when someone is beginning to take philosophy seriously, the whole world believes the opposite.

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.

Science, philosophy and religion are bound to converge as they draw nearer to the whole.

Being a victim is more palatable than having to recognize the intrinsic contradictions of one's own governing philosophy.

The few existing writings against Kantian philosophy are the most important documents in the case history of sound common sense.

Human beings do not carry civilization in their genes. All that we do carry in our genes are certain capacities- the capacity to learn to walk upright, to use our brains, to speak, to relate to our fellow men, to construct and use tools, to explore the universe, and to express that exploration in religion, in art, in science, in philosophy.

The way to stop feeling guilty is to read stuff - I'm not saying my book, but works by Bertrand Russell or Oscar Wilde, people who weren't losers but who didn't believe in the work ethic, and argued this thing about guilt or wrote philosophy about idleness.

Plato's philosophy is a dignified preface to future religion.

The true Philosophy, known and practised by Solomon, is the basis on which Masonry is founded.

To become a popular religion, it is only necessary for a superstition to enslave a philosophy.

It'll be the Internet and piracy that will kill film. There's a philosophy that the Internet should be free, but the reality is that piracy will destroy the film industry and film as an art form because it's expensive to make a movie. Maybe you'll have funky little independent movies, and it'll go back and then start up again some other way.

Violence is the gold standard, the reserve that guarantees order. In actuality, it is better than a gold standard, because violence has universal value. Violence transcends the quirks of philosophy, religion, technology, and culture. () It's time to quit worrying and learn to love the battle axe. History teaches us that if we don't, someone else will.

UFO's attitude toward the subject is very similar to mine. It's not an advocacy; its philosophy is more I want to believe this, but I want it proved.