Famous Quotes & Sayings

Max Born

I have tried to read philosophers of all ages and have found many illuminating ideas but no steady progress toward deeper knowledge and understanding. Science, however, gives me the feeling of steady progress: I am convinced that theoretical physics is actual philosophy. It has revolutionized fundamental concepts, e.g., about space and time (relativity), about causality (quantum theory), and about substance and matter (atomistics), and it has taught us new methods of thinking (complementarity) which are applicable far beyond physics.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Theology recognizes the contingency of human existence only to derive it from a necessary being, that is, to remove it. Theology makes use of philosophical wonder only for the purpose of motivating an affirmation which ends it. Philosophy, on the other hand, arouses us to what is problematic in our own existence and in that of the world, to such a point that we shall never be cured of searching for a solution.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Even those who have desired to work out a completely positive philosophy have been philosophers only to the extent that, at the same time, they have refused the right to install themselves in absolute knowledge. They taught not this knowledge, but its becoming in us, not the absolute but, at most, our absolute relation to it, as Kierkegaard said. What makes a philosopher is the movement which leads back without ceasing from knowledge to ignorance, from ignorance to knowledge, and a kind of rest in this movement.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Thinking which displaces, or otherwise defines, the sacred has been called atheistic, and that philosophy which does not place it here or there, like a thing, but at the joining of things and words, will always be exposed to this reproach without ever being touched by it.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

The philosopher will ask himself ... if the criticism we are now suggesting is not the philosophy which presses to the limit that criticism of false gods which Christianity has introduced into our history.

Marina Warner

I always have done work on mythic relations since I started writing. I really want to be a novelist, or at least a writer of imaginative work... I do try to make my critical studies imaginative and try to write them in ways that are more like literature than philosophy, but I have disappointed myself because I am still so wedded to criticism.

Marilynne Robinson

Oddly enough, my favorite genre is not fiction. I'm attracted by primary sources that are relevant to historical questions of interest to me, by famous old books on philosophy or theology that I want to see with my own eyes, by essays on contemporary science, by the literatures of antiquity.

Maria Montessori

We cannot create observers by saying 'observe,' but by giving them the power and the means for this observation and these means are procured through education of the senses.

Edward Carpenter

When he was twenty-three or twenty-four my father began to learn German and read philosophy in his spare hours, which did not look as though he were destined to remain long on board ship!

Edward Boyden

You can imagine over very long timescales, perhaps far beyond the multi-decade time scale, we might be able to ask very deep questions about why we feel the way we feel about things, or why we think of ourselves in certain ways - questions that have been in the realm of psychology and philosophy but have been very difficult to get a firm mechanistic laws-of-physics grasp on.

Edward Albee

Sometimes it's necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly.

Edie Brickell

Philosophy is talk on a cereal box.

Eckhart Tolle

The stream of thinking has enormous momentum that can easily drag you along with it. Every thought pretends that it matters so much.

Eckhart Tolle

When your consciousness is directed outward, mind and world arise. When it is directed inward, it realises its own Source and returns home into the Unmanifested.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

The Darwinian movement has made no difference to mankind, except that, instead of talking unphilosophically about philosophy, they now talk unscientifically about science.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

The modern habit of saying "This is my opinion, but I may be wrong" is entirely irrational. If I say that it may be wrong, I say that is not my opinion. The modern habit of saying "Every man has a different philosophy; this is my philosophy and it suits me" – the habit of saying this is mere weak-mindedness. A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.

Jonathan Krohn

I'd like to do policy and I'd like to do philosophy, I'd like to be able to get into the depth, into the meat of the argument - that's the kind of stuff I want to do.

Jonathan Lethem

I'm not a sociologist, and the novel has often concerned itself with sociology. It's one of the generating forces that's made fiction interesting to people. But that's not my concern. I'm interested in psychology. And also certain philosophical questions about the world.

Jonathan Frakes

One of my philosophies as a director is to listen to other people's great ideas because they'll help make you better.

Jonathan Ive

When our tools are broken, we feel broken. And when somebody fixes one, we feel a tiny bit more whole.

Jonathan Ive

That's an interesting thing about an object. One object speaks volumes about the company that produced it and its values and priorities.

Jonathan Ive

So much of what we try to do is get to a point where the solution seems inevitable: you know, you think "of course it's that way, why would it be any other way?" It looks so obvious, but that sense of inevitability in the solution is really hard to achieve.

Jonathan Ive

Design is a word that's come to mean so much that it's also a word that has come to mean nothing.

Jonathan Ive

I figured out some basic stuff: that form and colour defines your perception of the nature of an object, whether or not it is intended to.

Jonathan Ive

Apple's Jony Ive describes his "fanatical" approach to design in new interview

Jonathan Ive

Very often design is the most immediate way of defining what products become in people's minds.

Jonathan Ive

Our goal is to try to bring a calm and simplicity to what are incredibly complex problems so that you're not aware really of the solution.

Jonathan Ive

Simplicity is not the absence of clutter, that's a consequence of simplicity. Simplicity is somehow essentially describing the purpose and place of an object and product. The absence of clutter is just a clutter-free product. That's not simple.

Jonathan Ive

You have to deeply understand the essence of a product in order to be able to get rid of the parts that are not essential.

Jonathan Ive

It's very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better.

Jonathan Haidt

If you are in passionate love and want to celebrate your passion, read poetry. If your ardor has calmed and you want to understand your evolving relationship, read psychology. But if you have just ended a relationship and would like to believe you are better off without love, read philosophy.

Jonathan Franzen

Brooklyn was like Philadelphia made better by its proximity to Manhattan.

Jonas Salk

What is … important is that we — number one: Learn to live with each other. Number two: try to bring out the best in each other. The best from the best, and the best from those who, perhaps, might not have the same endowment. And so this bespeaks an entirely different philosophy — a different way of life — a different kind of relationship — where the object is not to put down the other, but to raise up the other.