Quotes on Philosophy

Philosophy just puts everything before us, and neither explains nor deduces anything.-Since everything lies open to view there is nothing to explain

Be careful, lest in casting out your demon you exorcise the best thing in you.

When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.

Bad philosophers may have a certain influence; good philosophers, never.

Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul.

It is a great advantage for a system of philosophy to be substantially true.

We are here speaking in open disapproval of that false system of philosophy, not so long ago introduced, by which, because of an extended and unbridled desire of novelty, truth is not sought where it truly resides, and, with a disregard for the holy and apostolic traditions, other vain, futile, uncertain doctrines, not approved by the Church are accepted as true, on which very vain men mistakenly think that truth itself is supported and sustained.

All life is a movement in relationship. There is no living thing on earth which is not related to something or other.

An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. "Can they be brought together?" This is a practical question. We must get down to it. "I despise intelligence" really means: "I cannot bear my doubts.

There is no God. But it does not matter. Man is enough.

Contemporary moral philosophy has found an original way of being boring, which is by not discussing moral issues at all.

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

The Gospel is not a theory; the Gospel is not a philosophy or an idea; the Gospel is not a way of thinking or feeling. The Gospel is an event in history.

Look at the great tradition of Western political philosophy. Those people were all immersed in revolutionary movements. Most weren't career academics - often, they were too radical to be accepted in the academy. Rousseau's books were banned. Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill couldn't hold academic positions because they were atheists.

It has been the error of the schools to teach astronomy, and all the other sciences, and subjects of natural philosophy, as accomplishments only; whereas they should be taught theologically, or with reference to the Being who is the author of them: for all the principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles: he can only discover them; and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.

I have loved to the point of madness; That which is called madness, That which to me, Is the only sensible way to love.

Yoga philosophy teaches that real man is not his body, but that the immortal I, of which each human being is conscious to some degree according to his mental evolution, is not the body but merely occupies and uses the body as an instrument.

Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement.

Imagine a life-form whose brainpower is to ours as ours is to a chimpanzee’s. To such a species, our highest mental achievements would be trivial. Their toddlers, instead of learning their ABCs on Sesame Street, would learn multivariable calculus on Boolean Boulevard. Our most complex theorems, our deepest philosophies, the cherished works of our most creative artists, would be projects their schoolkids bring home for Mom and Dad to display on the refrigerator door.

Can there be in our age any peace that is not honorable, any war that is not dishonorable?

Why is it that all men who are outstanding in philosophy, poetry or the arts are melancholic?