Top 1200 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Philosophers - Page 2

The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the embracing of one of its beings.

The true basis of morality is utility; that is, the adaptation of our actions to the promotion of the general welfare and happiness; the endeavour so to rule our lives that we may serve and bless mankind.

If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.

We adore babies because they're so cute. And, of course, we are amused by jokes because they are funny. This is all backwards. It is. And Darwin shows us why.

In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.

There are also two kinds of truths: truth of reasoning and truths of fact. Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible; those of fact are contingent and their opposite is possible.

The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one.

Friends are the siblings God never gave us.

The people recognize themselves in their commodities; they find their soul in their automobile, hi-fi set, split-level home, kitchen equipment.

The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.

Science is the systematic classification of experience.

My mission is to kill time, and time's to kill me in its turn. How comfortable one is among murderers.

Love consists in giving without getting in return; in giving what is not owed, what is not due the other. That's why true love is never based, as associations for utility or pleasure are, on a fair exchange.

Every new concept first comes to the mind in a judgment.

Education is the movement from darkness to light.

The imagination is an innate gift, but it needs refinement and cultivation; this is what the humanities provide.

What if the way we perceive a problem is already part of the problem?

We're all human beings, in the end, despite our differences.

Growth begins when we begin to accept our own weakness.

From its brilliancy everything is illuminated.

Compromise to please others is not as good as integrity that annoys others. Rather than be praised without being good, it is better to be slandered without being bad.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

Time is the father of truth, its mother is our mind.

Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.

Modern technology has become a total phenomenon for civilization, the defining force of a new social order in which efficiency is no longer an option but a necessity imposed on all human activity.

Medicines are unusual commodities. Important drugs can save the lives and protect the health of millions. Their consumption can bring huge benefits, by helping patients to avoid infection and preventing serious damage to the economies of families, nations and even humanity at large.

If this work seems so threatening, this is because it isn't simply eccentric or strange, but competent, rigorously argued, and carrying conviction.

True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body; the two are ever united.

Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.

None are so empty as those who are full of themselves.

Nature is not something to be fought, conquered and changed according to any human whims. To some extent, of course, it has to be used. But what man should seek in regard to nature is not a complete domination but a modus vivendi - that is, a manner of living together, a coming to terms with something that was here before our time and will be here after it. The important corollary of this doctrine, it seems to me, is that man is not the lord of creation, with an omnipotent will, but a part of creation, with limitations, who ought to observe a decent humility in the face of the inscrutable.

Not only is the self entwined in society; it owes society its existence in the most literal sense.

The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual crime.

There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice.

All the choir of heaven and furniture of earth - in a word, all those bodies which compose the frame of the world - have not any subsistence without a mind.

Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy.

The mind is like the stomach. It is not how much you put into it that counts, but how much it digests.

The simplest way of understanding justice is giving people what they deserve. This idea goes back to Aristotle. The real difficulty begins with figuring out who deserves what and why.

The power of the lawyer is in the uncertainty of the law.

What are the relationships between power and knowledge? There are two bad, short answers: 1. Knowledge provides an instrument that those in power can wield for their own ends. 2. A new body of knowledge brings into being a new class of people or institutions that can exercise a new kind of power.

The only absolute truth is that there are no absolute truths.

Language is a social art.

There is only one thing in the world that is really valuable, it is to do good.

Each person is an enigma. You're a puzzle not only to yourself but also to everyone else, and the great mystery of our time is how we penetrate this puzzle.

Freedom is the recognition of necessity.

Utopia is a framework for utopias, a place where people are at liberty to join together voluntarily to pursue and attempt to realize their own vision of the good life in the ideal community but where no one can impose his own utopian vision upon others.

The arts objectify subjective reality, and subjectify outward experience of nature. Art education is the education of feeling, and a society that neglects it gives itself up to formless emotion. Bad art is corruption of feeling.

It's okay to make mistakes. Mistakes are our teachers - they help us to learn.

Bread for myself is a material question. Bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one.

The misery in war-torn Afghanistan is reminiscent of images from the Thirty Years' War.

God, if there is a God, take my soul, if I have a soul.

The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.

I have argued that philosophy doesn't begin in wonder or in the fact that things are, it begins in a realization that things are not what they might be. It begins with a sense of a lack, of something missing, and that provokes a series of questions.

When the risk of failure is too high, the right choice is to forbear.

Knowledge is no guarantee of good behavior, but ignorance is a virtual guarantee of bad behavior.

It is the mission of the twentieth century to elucidate the irrational.

No one in the final analysis really fails to become a Christian because of lack of arguments; he fails to become a Christian because he loves darkness rather than light and wants nothing to do with God.

Don’t depend too much on anyone in this world because even your own shadow leaves you when you are in darkness.