PHILOSOPHY QUOTES V

quotations about philosophy

If your divines are not philosophers, your philosophy will neither be divine, nor able to divine.

JULIUS CHARLES HARE

Guesses at Truth

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I think that the task of philosophy is not to provide answers, but to show how the way we perceive a problem can be itself part of a problem.

SLAVOJ ZIZEK

lecture, "Year of Distraction"

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Philosophy that satisfies its own intention, and does not childishly skip behind its own history and the real one, has its lifeblood in the resistance against the common practices of today and what they serve, against the justification of what happens to be the case.

THEODOR W. ADORNO

Why Still Philosophy?

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To understand a philosopher requires a philosopher.

HORACE BUSHNELL

Sermons for the New Life


The business of philosophy is to circumnavigate human nature.

JULIUS CHARLES HARE

Guesses at Truth


Man is a philosopher in spite of himself.

JOHN GRIER HIBBEN

The Problems of Philosophy

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Sublime Philosophy!
Thou art the patriarch's ladder, reaching heaven;
And bright with beckoning angels--but alas!
We see thee, like the patriarch, but in dreams,
By the first step, dull slumbering on the earth.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

Richelieu

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Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!

DR. SEUSS

Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!

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The philosophical problems that can be solved from the armchair have already been solved.

JOSHUA GREENE

"Philosophers are using science and data points to test theories of morality", Quartz, March 28, 2016


Across the Night of Paganism, Philosophy flitted on, like the Lantern-fly of the Tropics, a Light to itself, and an Ornament, but alas! no more than an ornament, of the surrounding Darkness.

STEPHEN TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Aids to Reflection


Children are the only brave philosophers. And brave philosophers are, inevitably, children.

YEVGENY ZAMYATIN

We

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Philosophy does not exist. It is nothing but an hypostatized abstraction.

R. D. LAING

Reason and Violence

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A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.

LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN

Personal Recollections

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Adults complicate things. When faced with a complex or controversial problem, grownups have a tendency to gravitate toward the details and sometimes lose sight of the big picture. Conversely, ask most children about how to solve the same problem and you'll often receive a simple, straightforward solution. Sometimes oversimplified, it's true, but often far wiser than one would expect, considering the source. Out of the mouths of babes... I think some of the world's best philosophers are able to hold onto this child's way of perceiving the things around them. Peeling away the layers surrounding an issue, finding the central kernel of truth and picking it out for the world to see and understand.

SHEA WINTERBERGER

"Living & Growing: We can all learn from children's books", Juneau Empire, April 10, 2016


It has been said that he is a fool who works for philosophy instead of making philosophy work for him; but a man cannot give to the world even a little of a true philosophy without reaping sevenfold himself.

ELSA BARKER

Letters from a Living Dead Man

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Philosophy is common sense with big words.

JAMES MADISON

attributed, Quote Junkie Presidents Edition

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

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

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Should philosophers be expected to change the world? Such an expectation seems to me extravagant. Marx himself didn't change the world: he reinterpreted it, then other people changed it.

J. M. COETZEE

interview, Contemporary Literature, Autumn 1992

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Since the prolonged study of human philosophy -- which God has made empty and foolish, as the Apostle says, when that study lacks the flavouring of divine wisdom and the light of revealed truth -- sometimes leads to error rather than to the discovery of the truth, we ordain and rule by this salutary constitution, in order to suppress all occasions of falling into error with respect to the matters referred to above, that from this time onwards none of those in sacred orders, whether religious or seculars or others so committed, when they follow courses in universities or other public institutions, may devote themselves to the study of philosophy or poetry for longer than five years after the study of grammar and dialectic, without their giving some time to the study of theology or pontifical law. Once these five years are past, if someone wishes to sweat over such studies, he may do so only if at the same time, or in some other way, he actively devotes himself to theology or the sacred canons; so that the Lord's priests may find the means, in these holy and useful occupations, for cleansing and healing the infected sources of philosophy and poetry.

POPE LEO X

Papal bull condemning every proposition contrary to the truth of the enlightened Christian faith, Apostolici Regiminis, December 19, 1513

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Philosophers are both effects and causes: effects of their social circumstances and of the politics and institutions of their time; causes (if they are fortunate) of beliefs which mould the politics and institutions of later ages.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

History of Western Philosophy

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