Quotes on Philosophy

Since religion is a primitive form of philosophy — an attempt to offer a comprehensive view of reality — many of its myths are distorted, dramatized allegories based on some element of truth, some actual, if profoundly elusive, aspect of man's existence.

Observe, record, tabulate, communicate. Use your five senses. Learn to see, learn to hear, learn to feel, learn to smell, and know that by practice alone you can become expert.

We are not called to proclaim philosophy and metaphysics, but the simple gospel. Man's fall, his need of a new birth, forgiveness through atonement, and salvation as the result of faith, these are our battle-ax and weapons of war.

Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings to man the consciousness of himself; which maintains that God, the State, and society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since they can be fulfilled only through man's subordination.

The thinker makes a great mistake when he asks after cause and effect. They both together make up the indivisible phenomenon.

Philosophy makes progress not by becoming more rigorous but by becoming more imaginative.

We must reason in natural philosophy not from what we hope, or even expect, but from what we perceive.

Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.

As a result of my philosophy, I wasn't even upset about Hitler. I was willing to go to war to knock him off, but I didn't hate him. I hated what he was doing.

I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, then that this universall Frame, is without a Minde. And therefore, God never wrought Miracle, to convince Atheisme, because his Ordinary Works Convince it. It is true, that a little Philosophy inclineth Mans Minde to Atheisme; But depth in Philosophy, bringeth Mens Mindes about to Religion.

The test of all beliefs is their practical effect in life. If it be true that optimism compels the world forward, and pessimism retards it, then it is dangerous to propagate a pessimistic philosophy.

My driving philosophy about making music is that you can reduce it all down to one note if that note is played with the right kind of sincerity.

When I was 18 and not sure whether I wanted to be an actor, I realised that a playwright has no voice without an actor. That's my reason for acting: to get that character as right as possible for my writer. And I have never changed my philosophy.

Cooking is a philosophy; it's not a recipe.

Isn’t it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do “practice”?

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

The flame that burns Twice as bright burns half as long.

It is one of the consolations of philosophy that the benefit of showing how to dispense with a concept does not hinge on dispensing with it.

I believe that the time given to refutation in philosophy is usually time lost. Of the many attacks directed by many thinkers against each other, what now remains? Nothing, or assuredly very little. That which counts and endures is the modicum of positive truth which each contributes. The true statement is, of itself, able to displace the erroneous idea, and becomes, without our having taken the trouble of refuting anyone, the best of refutations.

My pitching philosophy is simple - keep the ball way from the bat.

There are metaphysical problems, problems of human existence, that philosophy has never known how to grasp in all their concreteness and that only the novel can seize.