Famous Quotes & Sayings

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.

Rumi

There's no need to travel anywhere. Journey within yourself.

Rumi

That which is false troubles the heart, but truth brings joyous tranquility.

Tom Robbins

I believe in political solutions to political problems. But man's primary problems aren't political; they're philosophical. Until humans can solve their philosophical problems, they're condemned to solve their political problems over and over and over again. It's a cruel, repetitious bore.

Tom Robbins

This may be said for the last quarter of the twentieth century: the truism that if we want a better world we will have to be better people came to be acknowledge, if not thoroughly understood, by a significantly large minority.

Tom Robbins

The illusion of the seventh veil was the illusion that you could get somebody else to do it for you. To think for you. To hang on your cross. The priest, the rabbi, the imam, the swami, the philosophical novelist were traffic cops, at best. They might direct you through a busy intersection, but they wouldn't follow you home and park your car.

Tom Robbins

Reality is contradictory. And it's paradoxical. If there's any one word -- if you had to pick one word to describe the nature of the universe -- I think that word would be paradox. That's true at the subatomic level, right through sociological, psychological, philosophical levels on up to cosmic levels.

Steve King

La Raza stands for 'The Race' - and they say so openly. They are a pro-Hispanic organization; I will call them a racist organization. They base their philosophy on race. They advocate for those minorities that fit within the category that they define as drives them. They are apologists for illegal immigrants - and we are funding them with your tax dollars in this administration through earmarks. It is outrageous. It's an in-your-face act on the part of this Congress.

Steve Hackett

Religion deals in certainties and philosophy deals more in un-answered questions.

When I got to Princeton I made a point of attending the Philosophy Club and listening to the lectures, but I didn't get involved in any discussions in those clubs. I guess after the first year, I dropped that.

I went to Princeton from Amherst, where I split my interests between mathematics and philosophy.

I had some hesitations about philosophy because, if you worked out a philosophical theory, it was hard to know whether you were going to be able to prove it or whether other theories had just as good a claim on belief.

Stephen Covey

The most effective way I know to begin with the end in mind is to develop a personal mission statement or philosophy or creed. It focused on what you want to be (character) and to do (contributions and achievements) and on the values or principles upon which being and doing are based.

Stephanie Cutter

My philosophy is if you're going to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for not a whole lot of money, why work for someone you're not gonna be loyal to?

Viktor E. Frankl

A sound philosophy of life, I think, may be the most valuable asset for a psychiatrist to have when he is treating a patient.

Susan Vreeland

You know, bicycling isn't just a matter of balance," I said. "it's a matter of faith. You can keep upright only by moving forward. You have to have your eyes on the goal, not the ground. I'm going to call that the Bicyclist's Philosophy of Life.

Tariq Ramadan

Because ethics is fundamentally about questioning the ends, the goals and aims of our actions, we must come back to the rules and ask why. So we must return to the philosophy of law, the raison d'etre and the point of what we're asked to do. It's not easy, it's very demanding and it needs intellectual courage.

Tariq Ramadan

There is the philosophy embedded in the culture we are living. It is quite clear for example that Arabs have a different culture than Malaysians.

Tariq Ramadan

Greek philosophy departs from the assumption that we can understand the world autonomously using our rational faculties. Islam is not saying this.

Tariq Ramadan

The philosophical connection between the Islamic world and the West is much closer than I thought. Doubt did not begin with Descartes. We have this construction today that the West and Islam are entirely separate worlds. This is wrong.

Stevie Wonder

Gods induction, life's construction, these instruct will save every living thing. Can't you see that life's connected?

Steven Pinker

I think students should know something about religion as a historical phenomenon, in the same way that they should know something about socialism and humanism and the other great ideas that have shaped political philosophies and therefore the course of human events.

Steven Pinker

As every student in Philosophy 101 learns, nothing can force me to believe that anyone except me is conscious. This power to deny that other people have feelings is not just an academic exercise but an all-too-common vice, as we see in the long history of human cruelty.