Top 1200 French Philosopher Quotes & Sayings - Page 10

Therefore, even the lover of myth is a philosopher; for myth is composed of wonder.

From the philosopher Catulus, never to be dismissive of a friend's accusation, even if it seems unreasonable, but to make every effort to restore the relationship to its normal condition.

To the chefs who pioneered the nouvelle cuisine in France, the ancienne cuisine they were rebelling against looked timeless, primordial, old as the hills. But the cookbook record proves that the haute cuisine codified early in this century by Escoffier barely goes back to Napoleon's time. Before that, French food is not recognizable as French to modern eyes. Europe's menu before 1700 was completely different from its menu after 1800, when national cuisines arose along with modern nations and national cultures.

[Benjamin] Franklin may be a great philosopher, [John Adams] told his diary in 1779, but "as a Legislator in America he has done very little."

If what charms you is nothing but abstract principles, sit down and turn them over quietly in your mind: but never dub yourself a Philosopher.

As a philosopher, you define constraints for any good theory explaining what you are interested in, then you go out and search for help in other disciplines.

There is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher.

There is no English equivalent for the French word flâneur. Cassell's dictionary defines flâneur as a stroller, saunterer, drifter but none of these terms seems quite accurate. There is no English equivalent for the term, just as there is no Anglo-Saxon counterpart of that essentially Gallic individual, the deliberately aimless pedestrian, unencumbered by any obligation or sense of urgency, who, being French and therefore frugal, wastes nothing, including his time which he spends with the leisurely discrimination of a gourmet, savoring the multiple flavors of his city.

It is not meant that the artist, in arriving at truth, must follow the way of the scientist, or, in stating it, the way of the philosopher.

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.

I would like to be a philosopher in ancient Athens and a poet in ancient China.

On every hand we observe a truly wise practice, in education, in morals, and in the arts of life, the embodied wisdom of many an ancient philosopher.

A philosopher who says, 'There are no truths, only interpretations,' risks the retort: 'Is that true, or only an interpretation?'

As a doctor I had no choice. As a philosopher I had too many.

Plato used to say to Xenocrates the philosopher, who was rough and morose, "Good Xenocrates, sacrifice to the Graces.

Some great poet or philosopher once said that " he who goes to nature for comfort must go to her empty handed " , and I think he was right.

According to the management expert Peter F. Drucker, the term "entrepreneur" (from the French, meaning "one who takes into hand") was introduced two centuries ago by the French economist Jean-Baptiste Say to characterize a special economic actor-not someone who simply opens a business, but someone who "shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield." The twentieth-century growth economist Joseph A. Schumpeter characterized the entrepreneur as the source of the "creative destruction" necessary for major economic advances.

A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it.

Work is the open sesame of every portal, the great equalizer in the world, the true philosopher's stone which transmutes all the base metal of humanity into gold.

Scholars have long known that fishing eventually turns men into philosophers. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to buy decent tackle on a philosopher's salary.

For this feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy.

The great man of science, unless he is also a philosopher, ... deserves the title of genius as little as the man of action.

The most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men.

Last night I dreamed I went to hillbilly heaven and you know who greeted me at the gate? The ole cowboy-philosopher himself, Will Rogers.

I have always a sacred veneration for anyone I observe to be a little out of repair in his person, as supposing him either a poet or a philosopher.

A modern philosopher who has never once suspected himself of being a charlatan must be such a shallow mind that his work is probably not worth reading.

I will not die, it's the world that will end." paraphrase of unknown philosopher

Without at all invalidating what we have just said, we believe that a perpetual remembrance of the tomb is proper for the living. On this point, the priest and the philosopher agree: We must die.

It's hard for me to imagine a philosopher disconnected from the world, indifferent to the cares of his country, unmoved by poverty, unemployment: I am a committed citizen.

In fact, philosophy is universal in scope. No man can live without a world view; therefore, there is no man who is not a philosopher.

A thirsty ambition for truth and virtue, and a frenzy to conquer all lies and vices which are not recognized as such nor desire to be; herein consists the heroic spirit of the philosopher.

The teacher who allows his scholars the freedom of the city of books is at liberty to be their guide, philosopher and friend; and is no longer the mere instrument of forcible intellectual feeding.

Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep/ Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind.

A philosopher of imposing stature doesn't think in a vacuum. Even his most abstract ideas are, to some extent, conditioned by what is or is not known in the time when he lives.

Being a physicist, not a philosopher, I have devised an entirely new theory of consciousness, allowing one to numerically calculate the level of consciounsess of humans and even animals.

Most influential of all is the philosopher Stanley Cavell, and a younger generation of philosophers who have attempted to follow his pioneering work in thinking about literature philosophically.

A philosopher once said, 'Half of good philosophy is good grammar.'

What we should in fact do, is stop allowing philosophers to reflect 'on' things. The philosopher creates, he doesn't reflect.

A heathen philosopher once asked a Christian, 'Where is God'? The Christian answered, 'Let me first ask you, Where is He not?'

Before Booker T. Washington, we have small business owners but we do not have a philosopher of black entrepreneurship, and that's what Washington was.

My film is actually very critical of the level of French we're using back home. To have an immigrant from an ancient French colony come and do that is a little critical of our education system back home. Balzac is definitely over their heads. It's meant to be funny also because it would be also probably too much for kids in France, but kids in France would know who Balzac is. But, back home at that age, I guarantee you they don't know who he is.

What does a philosopher demand of himself, first and last? To overcome his time in himself, to become "timeless.

A philosopher may deplore the eternal discords of the human race, but he will confess, that the desire of spoil is a more rational provocation than the vanity of conquest.

Abraham Lincoln was not philosopher, exactly. But he did have a strong mind, which sought generalizations as well as particulars. He had a terrific memory.

I worry that we don't currently have a democracy in the United States. Instead we have what [political philosopher] Sheldon Wolin has recently labeled a sort of inverted totalitarianism.

When the philosopher's argument becomes tedious, complicated, and opaque, it is usually a sign that he is attempting to prove as true to the intellect what is plainly false to common sense.

It's very strange: if you're a philosopher or musician or an artist, people automatically believe you can see the future. Even if they don't like you, they accept your vision as an individual.

If I had my way there would be a philosopher sitting round the table on every committee and in every boardroom.

Thanos is an amoral philosopher. He's not the Devil - although he does sometimes have the Devil standing next to him.

The Christian on his knees sees more than the philosopher on tiptoe. God sends no one away empty except those who are full of themselves.

I am not primarily an entrepreneurial businessman. I'm primarily a playboy philosopher.

The philosopher whose dealings are with divine order himself acquires the characteristics of order and divinity.

The unambitious sluggard pretends that the eminence is not worth attaining, declines altogether the struggle, and calls himself a philosopher. I say he is a poor-spirited coward.

The pipe draws wisdom from the lips of the philosopher, and shuts up the mouth of the foolish; it generates a style of conversation, contemplative, thoughtful, benevolent, and unaffected.

Great novelists are philosopher novelists - that is, the contrary of thesis-writers.

A philosopher might find the general work unsophisticated, and scientists are often bemused by esoteric talk of zombies, supervenience, and possible worlds.

The Second World War had a precipitating effect in that it discredited the empires, as well as bankrupting them. Not only could you no longer, if you were a colonial subject of France in Africa, look to France as a model of power and influence and civility after what had happened in the war. Nor could the French any longer afford to run their empire. And nor could the British, although they were not discredited in the way that the French were.

I could be wrong. Not being certain is what being a philosopher is all about.

All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.

Versatility of education can be found in our best poetry, but the depth of mankind should be found in the philosopher.