Philosopher Quotes

It is only a world embodying the principle of relativity, in the form which the doctrine entails, that can be said to exhibit the character of mind, with its exclusion of disconnected fragments and relations.

Richard Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane

What then is the content of the concept of God common to all monotheistic religions? What remains, it seems, is only the emotional content: the highest enthusiasm and respect, humility and submissiveness

Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz

Riches are a cause of evil, not because, of themselves, they do any evil, but because they goad men on so that they are ready to do evil.

As any sin passes through its stages from temptation, to toleration, to approval, its name is first euphemized, then avoided, then forgotten. A colleague tells me that some of his fellow legal scholars call child molestation "intergenerational intimacy": that's euphemism. A good-hearted editor tried to talk me out of using the term "sodomy": that's avoidance. My students don't know the word "fornication" at all: that's forgetfulness.

J. Budziszewski

In the practice of any craft, we are less concerned with the quantity of the product than with its quality, and less concerned with the product than with the artisan.

Lanza del Vasto

Any individual can be, in time, what he earnestly desires to be, if he but sets his face steadfastly in the direction of that one thing, and bring all his powers to bear upon its attainment.

John Herman Randall Jr.

Whatever fate may be in store for philosophy, her history can hardly fail to present a twofold interest ; for philosophical ideas are symptoms of the direction in which the spiritual development of the age is tending, and they are attempts to solve the great problems which have their root in the theoretical and practical relations in which man stands to the Universe of which he is a part.

Harald Høffding

For the institutions of the European Union are at present incomplete. A European Senate is badly needed to complete them. By creating an upper chamber in the European parliament, a new bridge could be built between national political classes, which retain democratic legitimacy, and the decision-making process in Brussels. Such a Senate should be recruited by indirect election from exisiting national parliaments.

Larry Siedentop

He best honors God who makes his intellect as like God as possible.

Quintus Sextius

To solve a problem it is necessary to think. It is necessary to think even to decide what facts to collect.

Robert Maynard Hutchins

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

A collection of errors does not make a truth: quality cannot stem from quantity – a value is not a weight. The reasons of the majority cannot be taken as good reasons.

Alain de Benoist

I am so far from thinking the maxims of Confucius and Jesus Christ to differ, that I think the plain and simple maxims of the former, will help to illustrate the more obscure ones of the latter, accommodated to the then way of speaking.

The strength which potent Nature brings To reins which guide the world along...

What sort of personality does one need to have, as a twenty-first-century mechanic, to tolerate the layers of electronic bullshit that get piled on top of machines?

Matthew Crawford

Hope provides comfort, and hope does not always require probability.

The human community and individual people are more likely to hurt or undernourish children they think of as 'bodies' to be used. Cultures and people are more likely to raise children to be mere economic interns rather than fully developed humans if they see children as 'bodies' to be forced into certain economic and social molds.

That which makes you want more money is the same as that which makes the plant grow; it is life seeking fuller expression.

Wallace Wattles

A poem might begin for me from a rhythmical phrase without words but with an an emotional / tonal pitch or colour which will announce itself.Other times I' ll just become obsessed by something..hoping that eventually it will speak to me in English.

The moral and religious teachings of no bible reach a higher altitude than the intelligence and mental development of the age and country which produced it.

Factual assertions and fundamental principles are...merely parts of theories: they are given within the framework of a theory; they are chosen and valid within this framework; and subsequently they are dependent upon it. This holds for all empirical sciences—for the natural sciences as well as those pertaining to history.

All forms of yoga involve occult assumptions, even hatha yoga, which is often presented as a merely physical discipline.

Douglas Groothuis

Why in the case of the ear, is there withdrawal and turning inward, a making resonant, but in the case of the eye, there is manifestation and display, a making evident?

What is the most effective, practical way of raising the wealth of nations? What causes wealth? I have come to think that the dream of democratic socialism is inferior to the dream of democratic capitalism, and that the latter's superiority in actual practice is undeniable.

What philosophy worthy of the name has truly been able to avoid the link between poem and theorem?