Famous Quotes & Sayings

William Shatner

I want to discover a truth for myself that is really true. Whether it's a piece of scientific knowledge, or a philosophical truth.

William James

There is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine, because the evil facts which it refuses positively to account for are a genuine portion of reality; and they may after all be the best key to life's significance, and possibly the only openers of our eyes to the deepest levels of truth.

William James

Time itself comes in drops.

William James

Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. Intellect, will, taste, and passion co-operate just as they do in practical affairs; and lucky it is if the passion be not something as petty as a love of personal conquest over the philosopher across the way.

William James

The absolute things, the last things, the overlapping things, are the truly philosophic concerns; all superior minds feel seriously about them, and the mind with the shortest views is simply the mind of the more shallow man.

William James

Our faith is faith in someone else's faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case.

William James

In the dim background of mind we know what we ought to be doing but somehow we cannot start.

William James

To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.

William James

The essence of genius is to know what to overlook.

William James

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

William James

In business for yourself, not by yourself.

Willard Van Orman Quine

We must not leap to the fatalistic conclusion that we are stuck with the conceptual scheme that we grew up in. We can change it, bit by bit, plank by plank, though meanwhile there is nothing to carry us along but the evolving conceptual scheme itself. The philosopher's task was well compared by Neurath to that of a mariner who must rebuild his ship on the open sea.

Saint Augustine

Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.

Saint Augustine

Don't you believe that there is in man a deep so profound as to be hidden even to him in whom it is?

Saint Augustine

There is no possible source of evil except good.

Saint Augustine

And I entered and beheld with the eye of my soul... the Light Unchangeable... He that knows the Truth, knows what that Light is; and he that knows It, knows Eternity.

Saint Augustine

No eulogy is due to him who simply does his duty and nothing more.

Saint Augustine

To seek the highest good is to live well.

Saint Augustine

If we did not have rational souls, we would not be able to believe.

Saint Augustine

Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee.

Saint Augustine

We are too weak to discover the truth by reason alone

Saint Augustine

God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.

Saint Augustine

Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt.

Saint Augustine

The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.

Saint Augustine

This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfections.

Saint Augustine

To abstain from sin when one can no longer sin is to be forsaken by sin, not to forsake it.

Saint Augustine

Punishment is justice for the unjust.

Saint Augustine

We cannot pass our guardian angel's bounds, resigned or sullen, he will hear our sighs.

Saint Augustine

God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.

Zhuangzi

The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?

Yoko Ono

It is sad that the air is the only thing we share. No matter how close we get to each other, there is always air between us.

Zelda Fitzgerald

Most people hew the battlements of life from compromise, erecting their impregnable keeps from judicious submissions, fabricating their philosophical drawbridges from emotional retractions and scalding marauders in the boiling oil of sour grapes.