Top 15 Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet Quotes

The instructor... does not profess to teach philosophy, but to philosophise.

[I]nstruction is only instruction as it enables us to teach ourselves.

[U]niversities... have gradually allowed to fall into disuse the powerful means which they possess of rousing the pupil to exertion, and have been too often content to act as mere oral instruments of information...

Strictly speaking, every one must educate himself.

[T]he paramount end of liberal study is the development of the student’s mind, and... knowledge is principally useful as a mean of determining the faculties to that exercise, through which this development is accomplished... the main duty of a Professor to consist not simply in communicating information, but in doing this in such a manner... that the information he conveys may be the occasion of awakening his pupils to a vigorous and varied exertion of their faculties.

On this ground I would rest one of the pre-eminent utilities of mental philosophy. That it comprehends all the sublimest objects of our theoretical and moral interest; that every (natural) conclusion concerning God, the soul, the present worth and the future destiny of man, is exclusively deduced from the philosophy of mind, will be at once admitted.

Scotus... declares that a man’s knowledge is measured by the amount of his mental activity...

The intellect," says Aquinas, "commences in operation, and in operation it ends...

The intellect," says Aristotle... "is perfected, not by knowledge but by activity..." and... "The arts and sciences are powers, but every power exists only for the sake of action; the end of philosophy... is not knowledge, but the energy conversant about knowledge.

Plato defines man "the hunter of truth," "for science is a chase, and in a chase the pursuit is always of greater value than the game."

[I]n the very term Philosophy... the man who first declared that he was not a... possessor, but a... seeker of truth, at once enounced the true end of human speculation, and embodied it in a significant name.

The past does not interest, the present does not satisfy, the future alone is the object which engages us.

In life," as the great Pascal observes, "we always believe that we are seeking repose, while, in reality, all that we ever seek is agitation.

[T]he sciences always studied with keenest interest are those in a state of progress and uncertainty: absolute certainty and absolute completion would be the paralysis of any study; and the last worst calamity that could befall man... would be that full and final possession of speculative truth, which he now vainly anticipates as the consummation of his intellectual happiness.

"Sordet cognita veritas" is a shrewd aphorism of Seneca. A truth, once known, falls into comparative insignificance.