Philosophy Quotes

Keep me away from the wisdom that does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.

Kahlil Gibran

Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there.

Sydney Harris

Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils but present evils triumph over it.

La Rochefoucauld

There are now - A - Days professors of philosophy but not philosophers.

Henry David Thoreau

The agenda of the roadblock is the philosophy of the stop sign.

George W. Bush, Speech (2005)

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

Margaret Thatche

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

Ayn Rand

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.

John Adams

Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself.

H. L. Mencken

Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils; but present evils triumph over it.

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

I have gained this by philosophy that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.

Aristotle

History is philosophy teaching by example, and also warning its two eyes are geography and chronology.

James A. Garfield

What is the first business of one who practices philosophy? To get rid of self - Conceit. For it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows.

Epictetus, Discourses

To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

Yann Martel, Life of Pi

On the whole, age comes more gently to those who have some doorway into an abstract world - Art, or philosophy, or learning - Regions where the years are scarcely noticed and the young and old can meet in a pale truthful light.

Freya Stark

Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation, all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not but superstition dismounts all these, and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men... the master of superstition is the people and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reverse order.

Francis Bacon

I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.

Aristotle, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.

John W. Gardne

We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy.

Henry David Thoreau

A great philosophy is not one that passes final judgments and establishes ultimate truth. It is one that causes uneasiness and starts commotion.

Charles Peguy

What is the first business of one who practices philosophy To get rid of self - Conceit. For it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows.

Epictetus

We must exchange the philosophy of excuse - - what I am is beyond my control - - For the philosophy of responsibility.

Barbara Charline Jordan

Having a personal philosophy is like having a pet marmoset, because it may be very attractive when you acquire it, but there may be situations when it will not come in handy at all.

Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Grimm Grotto

Philosophy is a game with objectives and no rules. Mathematics is a game with rules and no objectives.

Anonymous

Real misanthropes are not found in solitude, but in the real world since it is experience of life, and not philosophy, which produces real hatred of mankind.

Giacomo Leopardi