Famous Quotes & Sayings

Thomas Paine

It is a faculty of the human mind to become what it contemplates, and to act in unison with its object.

Thomas Paine

The mere man of pleasure is miserable in old age, and the mere drudge in business is but little better, whereas, natural philosophy, mathematical and mechanical science, are a continual source of tranquil pleasure, and in spite of the gloomy dogmas of priests and of superstition, the study of these things is the true theology; it teaches man to know and admire the Creator, for the principles of science are in the creation, and are unchangeable and of divine origin.

Thomas Paine

Whatever has a tendency to promote the civil intercourse of nations by an exchange of benefits is a subject as worthy of philosophy as of politics.

Thomas Paine

That which is now called natural philosophy, embracing the whole circle of science, of which astronomy occupies the chief place, is the study of the works of God, and of the power and wisdom of God in his works, and is the true theology.

Thomas Huxley

In truth, the laboratory is the forecourt of the temple of philosophy, and whoso has not offered sacrifices and undergone purification there has little chance of admission into the sanctuary.

Thomas Huxley

The sceptics end in the infidelity which asserts the problem to be insoluble, or in the atheism which denies the existence of any orderly progress and governance of things: the men of genius propound solutions which grow into systems of Theology or of Philosophy, or veiled in musical language which suggests more than it asserts, take the shape of the Poetry of an epoch.

Thomas Huxley

The quarrels of theologians and philosophers have not been about religion, but about philosophy; and philosophers not unfrequently seem to entertain the same feeling toward theologians that sportsmen cherish toward poachers.

Thomas Huxley

My fundamental axiom of speculative philosophy is that materialism and spiritualism are opposite poles of the same absurdity-the absurdity of imagining that we know anything about either spirit or matter.

Thomas Huxley

Every philosophical thinker hails it [The Origin of Species] as a veritable Whitworth gun in the armoury of liberalism.

Thomas E. Mann

Science never makes an advance until philosophy authorizes it to do so.

Timothy Leary

In the information age, you don't teach philosophy as they did after feudalism. You perform it. If Aristotle were alive today he'd have a talk show.

Timothy Leary

And a new philosophy emerged called quantum physics, which suggest that the individual’s function is to inform and be informed. You really exist only when you’re in a field sharing and exchanging information. You create the realities you inhabit.

Thomas S. Monson

Avoid the philosophy and excuse that yesterday's luxuries have become today's necessities. They aren't necessities unless we ourselves make them such. . . . It is essential for us to live within our means.

Thomas S. Monson

This is my philosophy on all life, not just when it comes to love. All the best things are terrifying, but that's why they're the best things. Nothing worth having comes easy. You have to be afraid to want it, afraid to lose it, afraid to try. If you feel that, then you know you're on to a winner.

Thomas Sowell

Despite a voluminous and often fervent literature on "income distribution," the cold fact is that most income is not distributed: It is earned.

Thomas Sowell

Economics is a study of cause-and-effect relationships in an economy. It's purpose is to discern the consequences of various ways of allocating resources which have alternative uses. It has nothing to say about philosophy or values, anymore than it has to say about music or literature.

Thomas Reid

We find sects and parties in most branches of science; and disputes which are carried on from age to age, without being brought to an issue. Sophistry has been more effectually excluded from mathematics and natural philosophy than from other sciences. In mathematics it had no place from the beginning; mathematicians having had the wisdom to define accurately the terms they use, and to lay down, as axioms, the first principles on which their reasoning is grounded. Accordingly, we find no parties among mathematicians, and hardly any disputes.

Thomas Reid

A philosopher is, no doubt, entitled to examine even those distinctions that are to be found in the structure of all languages... in that case, such a distinction may be imputed to a vulgar error, which ought to be corrected in philosophy.

Thomas Reid

Every theory in philosophy, which is built on pure conjecture, is an elephant; and every theory that is supported partly by fact, and partly by conjecture, is like Nebuchadnezzar's image, whose feet were partly of iron, and partly of clay.

Robert McKee

Aristotle said time is a measure of change, and this movie is about changing in time, through time, while remaining the same person. That's a philosophical paradox and a moral dilemma. But 'Casablanca' says it's possible. You can have both. That's what it means. And that's my wish for you: that you would have both.

Robert McNamara

Engagement is the conscious inhabitation of your body and mind. Practice is happening when your open awareness is moving with, in and through your embodied activity. Intrinsic to practice is your conscious participation with your life. Engagement is the conduction of your free and open awareness through your activities, whatever they may be.

Sarah Dessen

D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Austin... and you. I'll be there soon.

Sarah Dessen

I looked at the sweatshirt again. "'You swim' is a philosophy?" He shrugged. "Better than 'you sink', right?

Sandra Day O'Connor

I'm not on the court anymore, so no use looking for my philosophy. If somebody's waiting for that, they can wait for another justice.

Roseanne Barr

Judaism is one of the last of the world's matrilineal philosophies. Matriarchies are always the cultures that patriarchy attacks and decimates, because they don't spend all their money on the military like patriarchy does. They are easy prey.

Roseanne Barr

Eat as much as you'd like. My philosophy has always been that all women desire to be as fat as myself but just have a great fear of doing so. Because they think they won't get any men, but you will. You'll get more men, and better men.

Ronnie Montrose

My philosophy is, honestly never collected anything that I don't play. I know a lot of people that collect guitars, but for me, I want instruments that I play. And if I don't play them, I don't' want to have them sitting in a closet collecting dust.

Roger Scruton

In 1970s Britain, conservative philosophy was the preoccupation of a few half-mad recluses.

Roger Scruton

The problems of philosophy and the systems designed to solve them are formulated in terms which tend to refer, not to the realm of actuality, but to the realms of possibility and necessity: to what might be and what must be, rather than to what is.

Roger Scruton

A philosophy that begins in doubt assails what no-one believes, and invites us to nothing believable

Roger Ebert

Fight Club is a thrill ride masquerading as philosophy - the kind of ride where some people puke and others can't wait to get on again.

Roger Ebert

An honest bookstore would post the following sign above its 'self-help' section: 'For true self-help, please visit our philosophy, literature, history and science sections, find yourself a good book, read it, and think about it.

Roger Ebert

Jacques Tati is the great philosophical tinkerer of comedy, taking meticulous care to arrange his films so that they unfold in a series of revelations and effortless delights.