19th-century Philosopher Quotes

Being happy is a great science. If you are not happy, do not be confused. Happiness is hard to achieve.

Yes, gentlemen, give me the map of any country, its configuration, its climate, its waters, its winds, and the whole of its physical geography; give me its natural productions, its flora, its zoology, &c., and I pledge myself to tell you, a priori, what will be the quality of man in history:-not accidentally, but necessarily; not at any particular epoch, but in all; in short, -what idea he is called to represent.

We are scientific people and we want our students to feel the enthusiasm and promise of the scientific method. We want them to feel the moral quality of exact technique, as exact as the subject matter permits. We want them to feel that science is a spiritual experience.

William Ernest Hocking

There is, I think, nothing in the world more futile than the attempt to find out how a task should be done when one has not yet decided what the task is.

Alexander Meiklejohn

Better to be a beggar in freedom than to be forced into compromises against my conscience.

Dietrich von Hildebrand

God does not work by only one method, paint in only one color, play in only one key, nor does he make only one star shine onto the earth...

Eberhard Arnold

The certainty which science aims to bring about is not a psychologic feeling about a given proposition but a logical ground on which its claim to truth can be founded.

Morris Raphael Cohen

The press is a sort of wild animal in our midst — restless, gigantic, always seeking new ways to use its strength.... The sovereign press for the most part acknowledges accountability to no one except its owners and publishers.

Zechariah Chafee

That the world is not governed as is frequently expressed, but that the changes and motions of matter obey a necessity inherent in it, which admits of no exception, cannot be denied by any person who is but superficially acquainted with the natural sciences.

Ludwig Büchner

Our Lord's miracles were all essential parts of His one consistent life. They were wrought as evidences not only of His power, but of His mercy. They were throughout moral in their character, and spiritual in the ends contemplated by them. They were in fact embodiments of His whole character, exemplars of His whole teaching, emblems of His whole mission.

Scholars may quote Plato in studies, but the hearts of millions shall quote the Bible at their daily toil, and draw strength from its inspiration, as the meadows draw it from the brook.

Moncure D. Conway

We can only choose between two kinds of life, the active and the contemplative.

Étienne Gilson

Had the God of the Quran been the Lord of all creatures, and been Merciful and kind to all, he would never have commanded the Mohammedans to slaughter men of other faiths, and animals, etc. If he is Merciful, will he show mercy even to the sinners? If the answer be given in the affirmative, it cannot be true, because further on it is said in the Quran "Put infidels to sword," in other words, he that does not believe in the Quran and the Prophet Mohammad is an infidel (he should, therefore, be put to death). (Since the Quran sanctions such cruelty to non-Mohammedans and innocent creatures such as cows) it can never be the Word of God.

Dayanand Saraswati

To remember simplified pictures is better than to forget accurate figures.

A healthy appetite for righteousness, kept in due control by good manners, is an excellent thing; but to hunger and thirst after it is often merely a symptom of spiritual diabetes.

Now, when we say of any occurrence that it is 'physical', we mean thereby that it is potentially describable in physical terms. (Otherwise the expression would be wholly meaningless.) So it is perfectly correct, to state that, in every happening with which our sensory nerves are associated, we find, after we have abstracted therefrom every known or imaginable physical component, certain categorically nonphysical residue.

John William Dunne

Sexuality throws no light upon love, but only through love can we learn to understand sexuality.

Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

Surely death acquires a new and deeper significance when we regard it no longer as a single and unexplained break in an unending life, but as a part of the continuously recurring rhythm of progress-as inevitable, as natural and benevolent as sleep.

J. M. E. McTaggart

Evil does not approach us as pride any more, but on the contrary as slumber, lassitude, concealment of the "I." … It may make us so quickly contented, that any definitive fire will die down. The venomous, breathtaking frigid mist seems able … to harden hearts and fill them with envy, obduracy and resentment, with bloody scorn for the divine image and light, with all the causes of the only true original sin, which is not wanting to be like God.

Children like to work, and are always eager to imitate the work of adults.

Georgi Plekhanov

Hitherto, it must be admitted that American Negroes have been a race more in name than in fact, or to be exact, more in sentiment than in experience. The chief bond between them has been that of a common condition rather than a common consciousness; a problem in common rather than a life in common.

Alain LeRoy Locke

When brought to the proletariat from the capitalist class, science is invariably adapted to suit capitalist interests. What the proletariat needs is a scientific understanding of its own position in society. That kind of science a worker cannot obtain in the officially and socially approved manner. The proletarian himself must develop his own theory. For this reason he must be completely self-taught.

Its women are lovely and stubborn, its men angry and ingenious. Is there a land anywhere like southern Illinois?

The secret of all true persuasion is to induce the person to persuade himself.

Harry Allen Overstreet

I said that an observed fact only becomes a scientific fact when all the observers are in unanimous agreement.

Pierre Lecomte du Noüy