Famous Quotes & Sayings

Denis Diderot

Passions destroy more prejudices than philosophy does.

Denis Diderot

The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.

Denis Diderot

What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step towards truth.

Denis Diderot

Philosophy is as far separated from impiety as religion is from fanaticism.

Denis Diderot

The philosopher forms his principles on an infinity of particular observations...He does not confuse truth with plausibility...he takes for truth what is true, for false what is false, for doubtful what is doubtful, and probable what is probable...The philosophical spirit is thus a spirit of observation and accuracy.

Denis Diderot

Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.

Dean Wareham

They didn't teach Nietzsche in the philosophy department at Harvard; philosophy there was strictly analytical stuff and the poetic ramblings of Nietzsche did not belong. And see - you are teaching it in a literature class - so they must have been right.

Dikembe Mutombo

I believe in the Democratic party, and their philosophy and what they stand for - for the poor people.

Elbert Hubbard

I have no perfect panacea for human ills. And even if I had I would not attempt to present a system of philosophy between the soup and fish.

Elbert Hubbard

Philosophy rests on a proposition that whatever is is right. Preaching begins by assuming that whatever is is wrong.

Eleanor Roosevelt

it is harder to be philosophical when you are young.

Eduardo Galeano

The Church says: the body is a sin. Science says: the body is a machine. Advertising says: The body is a business. The Body says: I am a fiesta.

Edward Abbey

In metaphysics, the notion that earth and all that's on it is a mental construct is the product of people who spend their lives inside rooms. It is an indoor philosophy.

Edward Abbey

Every man has two vocations: his own and philosophy.

Edward Abbey

Nothing could be more reckless than to base one's moral philosophy on the latest pronouncements of science.

Edward Abbey

Why can't we simply borrow what is useful to us from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, especially Zen, as we borrow from Christianity, science, American Indian traditions and world literature in general, including philosophy, and let the rest go hang? Borrow what we need but rely principally upon our own senses, common sense and daily living experience.

Edward Abbey

An economic system which can only expand or expire must be false to all that is human.

Edward Abbey

Under the desert sun, in the dogmatic clarity, the fables of theology and the myths of classical philosophy dissolve like mist. The air is clean, the rock cuts cruelly into flesh; shatter the rock and the odor of flint rises to your nostrils, bitter and sharp. Whirlwinds dance across the salt flats, a pillar of dust by day; the thornbush breaks into flame at night. What does it mean? It means nothing. It is as it is and has no need for meaning. The desert lies beneath and soars beyond any possible human qualification. Therefore, sublime.

Aristotle

For even they who compose treatises of medicine or natural philosophy in verse are denominated Poets: yet Homer and Empedocles have nothing in common except their metre; the former, therefore, justly merits the name of the Poet; while the other should rather be called a Physiologist than a Poet.

Aristotle

The life of theoretical philosophy is the best and happiest a man can lead. Few men are capable of it and then only intermittently. For the rest there is a second-best way of life, that of moral virtue and practical wisdom.

Aristotle

But also philosophy is not about perceptible substances they, you see, are prone to destruction.

Aristotle

For this reason poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history.

Aristotle

A man who examines each subject from a philosophical standpoint cannot neglect them: he has to omit nothing, and state the truth about each topic.

Aristotle

I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy,

Aristotle

for we are inquiring not in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good, since otherwise our inquiry would have been of no use

Aristotle

Happiness is the highest good

Aristotle

Since the branch of philosophy on which we are at present engaged differs from the others in not being a subject of merely intellectual interest — I mean we are not concerned to know what goodness essentially is, but how we are to become good men, for this alone gives the study its practical value — we must apply our minds to the solution of the problems of conduct.

Aristotle

Philosophy can make people sick.

Aristotle

Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures.

Aristotle

Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so.

Aristotle

The secret to humor is surprise.

Aristotle

For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize.... And a man who is puzzled and wonders thinks himself ignorant ...; therefore since they philosophized in order to escape from ignorance, evidently they were pursuing science in order to know, and not for any utilitarian end.

Aristotle

No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.