Famous Quotes & Sayings

C. S. Lewis

No philosophical theory which I have yet come across is a radical improvement on the words of Genesis, that 'In the beginning God made Heaven and Earth'.

Al Gore

Earlier in this century, the Heisenberg Principle established that the very act of observing a natural phenomenon can change what is being observed. Although the initial theory was limited in practice to special cases in subatomic physics, the philosophical implications were and are staggering.

Alanis Morissette

I know that I'm deeply, spiritually, profoundly philosophical and I also know that I'm about the flakiest person you're gonna meet.

Blaise Pascal

No religion except ours has taught that man is born in sin; none of the philosophical sects has admitted it; none therefore has spoken the truth

Blaise Pascal

Vanity is so anchored in the heart of man that a soldier, a soldier's servant, a cook, a porter brags and wishes to have his admirers. Even philosophers wish for them. Those who write against vanity want to have the glory of having written well; and those who read it desire the glory of having read it. I who write this have perhaps this desire, and perhaps those who will read it.

Ayn Rand

Capitalism and altruism are incompatible; they are philosophical opposites; they cannot co-exist in the same man or in the same society.

Bertrand Russell

We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power.

Bertrand Russell

It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.

Benjamin Disraeli

My objection to Liberalism is this that it is the introduction into the practical business of life of the highest kind namely, politics of philosophical ideas instead of political principles.

Edward Zwick

However much I may like to talk about or be interested in a more philosophical or moral agenda, [film] is, ultimately, about narrative. And it's about telling stories that are engaging and dramatic.

Baruch Spinoza

The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.

Baruch Spinoza

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

Baruch Spinoza

Self-complacency is pleasure accompanied by the idea of oneself as cause.

Baruch Spinoza

None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.

Baruch Spinoza

He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason.

Baruch Spinoza

Pride is pleasure arising from a man's thinking too highly of himself.

Baruch Spinoza

God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things.

Baruch Spinoza

I can control my passions and emotions if I can understand their nature

Baruch Spinoza

Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.

Baruch Spinoza

Ambition is the immoderate desire for power.

Baruch Spinoza

If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.

Baruch Spinoza

If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.

Democritus

The brave man is he who overcomes not only his enemies but his pleasures

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.

Eleanor Roosevelt

it is harder to be philosophical when you are young.

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

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

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.