86 Quotes About Philosophy

Lovely flowers are the smiles of God's goodness.

Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.

It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.

A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.

The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.

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'.

We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy. I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatever.

When a nation's young men are conservative, its funeral bell is already rung.

Poetry too is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudible.

Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.

Now I believe I can hear the philosophers protesting that it can only be misery to live in folly, illusion, deception and ignorance, but it isn't -it's human.

The most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men.

Reasoning is never, like poetry, judged from the outside at all.

Allegories are fine ornaments and good illustrations, but not proof.

A yawn is a silent shout.

Love, and do what you like.

Wherefore all theology, when separated from Christ, is not only vain and confused, but is also mad, deceitful, and spurious; for, though the philosophers sometimes utter excellent sayings, yet they have nothing but what is short-lived, and even mixed up with wicked and erroneous sentiments.

To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.

The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter.

Man's conquest of Nature turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be Nature's conquest of Man.

Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt.

Continuous eloquence wearies. Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm.

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.

The secularists, the humanists, the liberals--those who have no use for God--continue to do what they want to do, not realizing that their philosophy is flawed and will fail. One day it will be too late for many of them.

When we see a natural style, we are astonished and charmed; for we expected to see an author, and we find a person.

If we must not act save on a certainty, we ought not to act on religion, for it is not certain. But how many things we do on an uncertainty, sea voyages, battles!

Let it not be said that I have said nothing new. The arrangement of the material is new.

A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice.

Praise the sea, but keep on the land.

The nescience of the Agnostic philosophy is the proof from experience that to be carnally minded is Death.

Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.

When you invite a middle-aged moralist to address you, I suppose I must conclude that you have a taste for middle-aged moralizing.

We have had enough, once and for all, of Hedonism--the gloomy philosophy which says that Pleasure is the only good.

This moment contains all moments.

In the country of the blind the one eyed man is king.

All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.

One hour's sleep before midnight is worth three after.

Victories that are cheap are cheap. Those only are worth having which come as the result of hard fighting.

Often the cockloft is empty in those whom nature hath built many stories high.

Art can teach without at all ceasing to be art.

It does seem to me like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most necessary.

Sometimes I feel like the most liberal person among conservatives, and sometimes like the most conservative among liberals.

When men comfort themselves with philosophy, 'tis not because they have got two or three sentences, but because they have digested those sentences, and made them their own: philosophy is nothing but discretion.

In India an ox with blindfolded eyes goes round an oil-press all the day long. When his eyes are unbandaged in the evening he finds that he has been going round and round in a circle and that although he has succeeded in producing some oil he has gone no further. Although the philosophers have been at it for hundreds of years, they have not reached their goal. Now and then, after much labor they have produced a little oil, which they have left behind them, but it is not sufficient to meet the sore need of mankind.

Man, in his own wisdom, has developed a vast number of philosophies and theories seeking to explain one's thoughts, words, and actions. In doing so, man has pridefully sought to deny his own sinfulness and has confused any clear definition of God's standards of right and wrong.

How many denominate themselves Christians, though the Christianity they embrace is simply a kind of philosophy of life or of ethics, a few articles of truth, or some supernatural manifestations.

All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.

Only the skilled can judge the skillfulness, but that is not the same as judging the value of the result.

He that will keep a monkey should pay for the glasses he breaks.