Philosopher Quotes

Another important historical factor is the fact that this already very simple religion was further simplified and purified by the early philosophers of ancient China. Our first great philosopher was a founder of naturalism; and our second great philosopher was an agnostic.

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.

A philosopher once said, 'Half of good philosophy is good grammar.'

He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.

The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, seek simplicity and distrust it.

What difference is there, do you think, between those in Plato's cave who can only marvel at the shadows and images of various objects, provided they are content and don't know what they miss, and the philosopher who has emerged from the cave and sees the real things?

The picture which the philosopher draws of the world is surely not one in which every stroke is necessitated by pure logic.

I am not a philosopher.

If I became a philosopher, if I have so keenly sought this fame for which I'm still waiting, it's all been to seduce women basically.

Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.

It is one of the chief skills of the philosopher not to occupy himself with questions which do not concern him.

The impulse of the journalist is to be novel, yet to relate his curiosities to the urgencies of the moment; the philosopher seeks what he conceives to be true, regardless of the moment.

There is nothing so strange and so unbelievable that it has not been said by one philosopher or another.

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 maintain that many an inventor, many a diplomat, many a financier is a sounder philosopher than all those who practice the dull craft of experimental psychology.

Why is it the philosopher who is expected to be easier and not some scientist who is even more inaccessible?

I fear that, in the end, the famous debate among materialists, idealists, and dualists amounts to a merely verbal dispute that is more a matter for the linguist than for the speculative philosopher.

The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.

Like the philosopher, the author views his task as one of establishing a clear connection between life and history, and of making the past bear fruit for the present and future.

Versatility of education can be found in our best poetry, but the depth of mankind should be found in the philosopher.

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote that when you look into the darkness of the abyss the abyss looks into you. Probably no other line or thought more inspires or informs my work.

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

To make the moral achievement implicit in science a source of strength to civilization, the scientist will have to have the cooperation also of the philosopher and the religious teacher.

A great philosopher has stated that the worst evil of poverty is, that it makes folks ridiculous; by which, I hope, he only means that, as in the above case, it places them in incongruous positions.

There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.

A woman finds the natural lay of the land almost unconsciously; and not feeling it incumbent on her to be guide and philosopher to any successor, she takes little pains to mark the route by which she is making her ascent.

The fact is, every thinker, every philosopher, the moment he is forced to abandon his one-sided intellectual occupation by practical necessity, immediately returns to the general point of view of mankind.

All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.

The theologian considers sin mainly as an offence against God; the moral philosopher as contrary to reasonableness.