34 Quotes Tagged: philosopher

As I listened to him describing the scene of the procurer seducing the young girl, I found myself torn between two conflicting emotions, between a powerful desire to laugh and an overwhelming surge of indignation. I was in agony. Again and again a roar of laughter prevented my rage bursting forth; again and again the rage rising in my heart became a roar of laughter. I was dumbfounded by such shrewdness and such depravity; by such soundness of ideas alternating with such falseness; by so general a perversity of feeling, so total a corruption, and so exceptional a candour. He saw how agitated I was. 'What's the matter?' he asked.

ME: Nothing.
HIM: I think you're upset.
ME: Indeed I am.
HIM: So what do you think I should do?
ME: Talk about something else. What a wretched fate, to have been born and to have fallen so low!
HIM: I agree. But don't let my state affect you too much. In opening my heart to you, it was not my intention to upset you. I've managed to save a little, while I was with those people. Remember I wanted for nothing, nothing whatsoever, and they also made me a small allowance for incidentals. [Here he began to strike himself on the forehead with his fist, bite his lips, and roll his eyes like a lunatic, then he said:] What's done is done. I've put a bit aside. Time's passed, so I'm that much to the good.
ME: You mean to the bad.
HIM: No, to the good. Live one day less, or have an ecu more, it's all the same. The important thing is to open your bowels easily, freely, enjoyably, copiously, every evening; 'o stercus pretiosum!' That's the grand outcome of life in every condition. At the final moment, we're all equally rich - Samuel Bernard who by dint of theft, pillage, and bankruptcy leaves twenty-seven millions in gold, and Rameau who'll leave nothing, Rameau for whom charity will provide the winding-sheet to wrap him in.

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.

You cannot open a book without learning something.

Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.

"To keep your marriage brimming,
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you're wrong, admit it;
Whenever you're right, shut up."

~Happy birthday Ogden Nash! (born 8.19.1902)

The condition and characteristic of an uninstructed person is this: he never expects from himself profit (advantage) nor harm, but from externals. The condition and characteristic of a philosopher is this: he expects all advantage and all harm from himself.

Thus the man who is responsive to artistic stimuli reacts to the reality of dreams as does the philosopher to the reality of existence; he observes closely, and he enjoys his observation: for it is out of these images that he interprets life, out of these processes that he trains himself for life.

To him [Faraday], as to all true philosophers, the main value of a fact was its position and suggestiveness in the general sequence of scientific truth.

"The task of the moral philosopher-thinker is to support and strengthen the voice of human conscience, to recognize what is good or what is bad for people, whether they are good or bad for society in a period of evolution. May be a "voice crying in the wilderness", but only if that voice remains lively and uncompromising, it is possible to transform the desert into fertile land."

how I longed to find an authority above the nations, a law above all states, capable of giving legal aid to an individual abused and rendered without rights by his state.

[Il ne manque cependant à l'oisiveté du sage qu'un meilleur nom, et que méditer, parler, lire, et être tranquille s'appelât travailler.]

There is, however, nothing wanting to the idleness of a philosopher but a better name, and that meditation, conversation, and reading should be called “work”.

Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.

I personally never expected anything of Obama, and wrote about it before the 2008 primaries. I thought it was smoke and mirrors [...] I don't usually admire Sarah Palin, but when she was making fun of this 'hopey changey' stuff, she was right, there was nothing there. And it was understood by the people who run the political system, and so it's no great secret that the US electoral system is mainly a public relations extravaganza...it's sort of a marketing affair.

At present, a good many men engaged in scientific pursuits, and who have signally failed in gaining recognition among their fellows, are endeavoring to make reputations among the churches by delivering weak and vapid lectures upon the 'harmony of Genesis and Geology.' Like all hypocrites, these men overstate the case to such a degree, and so turn and pervert facts and words that they succeed only in gaining the applause of other hypocrites like themselves. Among the great scientists they are regarded as generals regard sutlers who trade with both armies.

Surely the time must come when the wealth of the world will not be wasted in the propagation of ignorant creeds and miraculous mistakes. The time must come when churches and cathedrals will be dedicated to the use of man; when minister and priest will deem the discoveries of the living of more importance than the errors of the dead; when the truths of Nature will outrank the 'sacred' falsehoods of the past, and when a single fact will outweigh all the miracles of Holy Writ.

Who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind?

When every church becomes a school, every cathedral a university, every clergyman a teacher, and all their hearers brave and honest thinkers, then, and not until then, will the dream of poet, patriot, philanthropist and philosopher, become a real and blessed truth.

O Heavenly Children, do not forget that God is here, there and everywhere. The birds are his eyes and the air is his ears. And as you sleep, your heart and soul rest naked before him. He can drink from the rivers of your thoughts, and even feel the wetness of your tears.