Famous Quotes & Sayings

Robert Trout

The myth that the founding of American Republic was based on the philosophy of John Locke could only have been maintained, because the history of Leibniz's influence was suppressed.

Robert Trout

The American Revolution was, in fact, a battle against the philosophy of Locke and the English utilitarians.

Robert Trout

The myth that John Locke was the philosopher behind the American Republic, is easily refuted by examining how Locke's philosophy steered Thomas Jefferson, for example.

Robert Sheckley

Ethical and questions of philosophy interest me a great deal.

Satish Kumar

All the big problems of the world today are routed in the philosophy of separateness and dualism.

Satish Kumar

Before the scientific rationalism took hold of our minds and before we became succumbed to a materialistic worldview, the Western philosophy was holistic and relational, and even now there are many scientists in the West seeing things totally interconnected.

Sarah McLachlan

I've got to live my life the way I feel is right for me. Might not be right for you, but it's right for me.

Sandra Postel

Today's water institutions-the policies and laws, government agencies and planning and engineering practices that shape patterns of water use-are steeped in a supply-side management philosophy no longer appropriate to solving today's water problems.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The annals of the French Revolution prove that the knowledge of the few cannot counteract the ignorance of the many.... The light of philosophy, when it is confined to a small minority, points out the possessors as the victims rather than the illuminators of the multitude.

Wallace Stevens

The philosopher proves that the philosopher exists. The poet merely enjoys existence.

Wallace Stevens

Perhaps it is of more value to infuriate philosophers than to go along with them.

Wallace Stevens

To lose sensibility, to see what one sees, As if sight had not its own miraculous thrift, To hear only what one hears, one meaning alone, As if the paradise of meaning ceased To be paradise, it is this to be destitute.

William Howard Taft

The Society or Fraternity of Freemasons is more in the nature of a system of Philosophy or of moral and social virtues taught by symbols, allegories, and lectures based upon fundamental truths, the observance of which tends to promote stability of character, conservatism, morality and good citizenship.

Walter Jon Williams

Even if you only want to write science fiction, you should also read mysteries, poetry, mainstream literature, history, biography, philosophy, and science.

Walter Kaufmann

Philosophy means liberation from the - routine, soaring above the well known, seeing it in new perspectives, arousing wonder and the wish to fly.

Walter Kaufmann

The refusal to belong to any school of thought, the repudiation of the adequacy of any body of beliefs whatever, and especially of systems, and a marked dissatisfaction with traditional philosophy as superficial, academic, and remote from life-that is the heart of existentialism.

Voltaire

When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.

Voltaire

When he who hears does not know what he who speaks means, and when he who speaks does not know what he himself means, that is philosophy.

Voltaire

The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good are the two most important aims of philosophy.

Voltaire

I read these words which are the sum of all moral philosophy, and which cut short all the disputes of the casuists: When in doubt if an action is good or bad, refrain.

Voltaire

Why, since we are always complaining of our ills, are we constantly employed in redoubling them?

Voltaire

History should be written as philosophy.

Voltaire

The system of Descartes... seemed to give a plausible reason for all those phenomena; and this reason seemed more just, as it is simple and intelligible to all capacities. But in philosophy, a student ought to doubt of the things he fancies he understands too easily, as much as of those he does not understand.

Voltaire

Superstition sets the whole world in flames, but philosophy douses them.

Voltaire

The necessity of saying something, the embarrassment produced by the consciousness of having nothing to say, and the desire to exhibit ability, are three things sufficient to render even a great man ridiculous.

Voltaire

Pleasantry is never good on serious points, because it always regards subjects in that point of view in which it is not the purpose to consider them.

Voltaire

When one man speaks to another man who doesn't understand him, and when a man who's speaking no longer understands, it's metaphysics.

William Strunk, Jr.

In his Philosophy of Style, Herbert Spencer gives two sentences to illustrate how the vague and general can be turned into the vivid and particular: In proportion as the manners, customs, and amusements of a nation are cruel and barbarous, the regulations of its penal code will be severe. In proportion as men delight in battles, bullfights, and combats of gladiators, will they punish by hanging, burning, and the rack.

William Ralph Inge

The object of studying philosophy is to know one's own mind, not other peoples.

William Ralph Inge

In praising science, it does not follow that we must adopt the very poor philosophies which scientific men have constructed. In philosophy they have much more to learn than to teach.

William Ralph Inge

To become a popular religion, it is only necessary for a superstition to enslave a philosophy.

William Butler Yeats

Englishmen are babes in philosophy and so prefer faction-fighting to the labor of its unfamiliar thought.

William Butler Yeats

The night can sweat with terror as before We pieced our thoughts into philosophy, And planned to bring the world under a rule, Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.