Famous Quotes & Sayings

Benjamin Graham

The Reservoir plan is an engineering mechanism applied to the field of economics, and in its essence it has nothing to do with democracy or any other political philosophy.

Bruce Cockburn

In between effect and cause and just beyond the range of normal sight, this glittering joker was dancing in the dragon's jaws.

Brian Ferneyhough

I would not say that I was, these days, a 'student' of philosophy, although in my youth I was quite deeply involved with certain aspects of the British pragmatists.

Aravind Adiga

Let animals live like animals; let humans live like humans. That's my whole philosophy in a sentence.

Archibald MacLeish

Man can live his truth, his deepest truth, but cannot speak it.

Antisthenes

The advantages of philosophy? That I am able to hold converse with myself.

Barbara Johnson

Your face is a billboard advertising your philosophy of life!

Barbara Jordan

We must exchange the philosophy of excuse - what I am is beyond my control for the philosophy of responsibility.

Barbara Kingsolver

So one time when I was working in this motel one of the toilets leaked and I had to replace the flapper ball. Here's what it said on the package; I kept it till I knew it by heart: 'Please Note. Parts are included for all installations, but no installation requires all of the parts.' That's kind of my philosophy about men. I don't think there's an installation out there that could use all my parts.

Babe Didrikson Zaharias

My philosophy? Practice, practice, practice and win.

Bailey Chase

Everybody has their own approach. I don't adhere to any one philosophy. I learn a lot from life and people - watching and other people watching.

Baruch Spinoza

Philosophy has no end in view save truth; faith looks for nothing but obedience and piety.

Baruch Spinoza

I do not presume that I have found the best philosophy, I know that I understand the true philosophy.

Baruch Spinoza

Desire is the very essence of man

Aulus Gellius

I see the beard and cloak, but I don't yet see a philosopher. -Video barbam et pallium; philosophum nondum video

Augustine Birrell

History is a pageant and not a philosophy.

Auguste Comte

The word right should be excluded from political language, as the word cause from the language of philosophy.

Auguste Comte

Men are not allowed to think freely about chemistry and biology: why should they be allowed to think freely about political philosophy?

Auguste Comte

Monotheism occupies so large a space in the view of modern minds, that it is scarcely possible to form a just estimate of the preceding phases of the theological philosophy.

Arthur Koestler

As modern physics started with the Newtonian revolution, so modern philosophy starts with what one might call the Cartesian Catastrophe. The catastrophe consisted in the splitting up of the world into the realms of matter and mind, and the identification of 'mind' with conscious thinking. The result of this identification was the shallow rationalism of l' esprit Cartesien, and an impoverishment of psychology which it took three centuries to remedy even in part.

Arthur Koestler

I profoundly admire Aldous Huxley, both for his philosophy and uncompromising sincerity. But I disagree with his advocacy of 'the chemical opening of doors into the Other World', and with his belief that drugs can procure 'what Catholic theologians call a gratuitous grace'. Chemically induced hallucinations, delusions and raptures may be frightening or wonderfully gratifying; in either case they are in the nature of confidence tricks played on one's own nervous system.

Art Linkletter

My philosophy is to do the best you can for somebody. Help. It's not just what do you for yourself. It's how you treat people decently. The golden rule. There isn't big anything better than the golden rule. It's in every major religion in one language or another.

Ayelet Waldman

Those of us whose parenting style can be described as "a series of reflexes, instincts, and minute-by-minute adjustments," as Julie of A Little Pregnant puts it, rather than as a philosophy, are less invested in our own practices. What we do is often less a matter of conviction than one of convenience. What we need to remember is that there is no need to apologize for that, even in the face of the most red-faced outrage.

Charles Fort

I conceive of nothing, in religion, science or philosophy, that is more than the proper thing to wear, for a while.

Edward Abbey

In metaphysics, the notion that earth and all that's on it is a mental construct is the product of people who spend their lives inside rooms. It is an indoor philosophy.

Edward Abbey

Every man has two vocations: his own and philosophy.

Edward Abbey

Nothing could be more reckless than to base one's moral philosophy on the latest pronouncements of science.

Edward Abbey

Why can't we simply borrow what is useful to us from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, especially Zen, as we borrow from Christianity, science, American Indian traditions and world literature in general, including philosophy, and let the rest go hang? Borrow what we need but rely principally upon our own senses, common sense and daily living experience.

Edward Abbey

An economic system which can only expand or expire must be false to all that is human.

Edward Abbey

Under the desert sun, in the dogmatic clarity, the fables of theology and the myths of classical philosophy dissolve like mist. The air is clean, the rock cuts cruelly into flesh; shatter the rock and the odor of flint rises to your nostrils, bitter and sharp. Whirlwinds dance across the salt flats, a pillar of dust by day; the thornbush breaks into flame at night. What does it mean? It means nothing. It is as it is and has no need for meaning. The desert lies beneath and soars beyond any possible human qualification. Therefore, sublime.

Aristotle

For even they who compose treatises of medicine or natural philosophy in verse are denominated Poets: yet Homer and Empedocles have nothing in common except their metre; the former, therefore, justly merits the name of the Poet; while the other should rather be called a Physiologist than a Poet.

Aristotle

The life of theoretical philosophy is the best and happiest a man can lead. Few men are capable of it and then only intermittently. For the rest there is a second-best way of life, that of moral virtue and practical wisdom.

Aristotle

But also philosophy is not about perceptible substances they, you see, are prone to destruction.