Philosopher Quotes

Weakness ever sympathizes with vice, because vice is a weakness which assumes the mask of strength. Madness holds reason in horror, and on all subjects it delights in the exaggerations of falsehood. The cause of all bewitchments, the poison of all philtres, the power of all sorcerers are there.

The time has gone by when the intelligent public needs to be reminded of the practical utility of science, or of the fact that the investigation of any problem, however apparently remote from everyday life, may be fraught with the most valuable consequences.

All things in the world of Nature are not controlled by Fate for the soul has a principle of its own.

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

Every indication of wisdom, taken from the effect, is equally an indication of power to execute what wisdom planned.

According to Luther everyone judges everyone. This is because there's an intense desire to be judging. Then those of us on the masochistic side of things want to be judged. Thus we publish. We teach. We learn. We beg to be judged and decimated.

Learning and enjoyment are the secret to a fulfilled life. Learning without enjoyment wears you down, enjoyment without learning dulls you.

Richard David Precht

Cultivate truth, good faith, experience, cleverness, sociability, and industry.

Pittacus of Mytilene

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.

Statistical techniques are tools of thought, and not substitutes for thought.

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

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

This swallowing up of life in nothingness, this obliteration of life by nothingness is what the emotion of malice ultimately desires. The eternal conflict between love and malice is the eternal contest between life and death. And this contest is what the complex vision reveals, as it moves from darkness to darkness.

John Cowper Powys

Great are the stars, and man is of no account of them.

All natural phenomena, without exception, from the motions of the celestial bodies to the growth of plants and the consciousness of men.... Are ultimately to be reduced to atomic mechanics.

I want to make clear only that words are not the things spoken about, and that there is no such thing as an object in absolute isolation.

Alfred Korzybski

Nature responds only to questions posed in mathematical language, because nature is the domain of measure and order.

Alexandre Koyré

As you discover your daily good, and believe in it, and think about it, expect it to continue.

Listen, then. I say justice is nothing other than what is advantageous for the stronger.

He who is the ruler of men takes non-action as his way and considers impartiality as his treasure. He sits upon the throne of non-action and rides upon the perfection of his officials.

Music is the medium for expressing emotion. Music kindles love and infuses hope. It has countless voices and instruments. Music is in the hearts of all men and women

Swami Sivananda

The evolution of science is not a movement in an intellectual vacuum; rather it is both an expression and a driving force of the historical process.

Ludwig von Bertalanffy

Modern experimentation is often like driving an automobile. The details and theory of the instruments being used in the experiment are not known to the experimenter except in a very general way. (...) Experimenters are taught in an explicit way, often, how to write up reports of their experiments. But the tradition here is like sports reporting. Only the results of the experiment are reported in any serious detail. The procedures are not.

The concept of 'tonality' signifies the unified relationship of chords to a central tonic and hence comprises two different assumptions: first, the existence of unifying factors, and second, the existence of, or at least the hypothetical ability to reconstruct, a tonal center.

A scientist should not cheat or falsify data or quote out of context or do any other thing that is intellectually dishonest. Of course, as always, some individuals fail; but science as a whole disapproves of such action. Indeed, when transgressors are detected, they are usually expelled from the community.