Philosophy

Quotes & Thinkers in Philosophy

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"Spinoza is the noblest and most lovable of the great philosophers. Intellectually, some others have surpassed him, but ethically he is supreme."

"I would not know what the spirit of a philosopher might wish more to be than a good dancer."

"As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles."

463 quotes

🇺🇸Thomas Jefferson

Politics

"The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them."

"At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst."

"Is it reasonable to assume a purposiveness in all the parts of nature and to deny it to the whole?"

163 quotes

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Philosophy

Idealism

1770–1831

"It strikes everyone in beginning to form an acquaintance with the treasures of Indian literature, that a land so rich in intellectual products and those of the profoundest order of thought...""

92 quotes

🇦🇹Ludwig Wittgenstein

Philosophy

analytic philosophy

1845–1925

"What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts."

"The day of your birth is one day’s advance towards the grave."

""The only real, dignified, human doctrine is the greatest good of all, and this can only be achieved by uttermost self-sacrifice.""

"Retire into thyself. The rational principle which rules has this nature, that it is content with itself when it does what is just, and so secures tranquility."

310 quotes

🇺🇸Ralph Waldo Emerson

Literature

Western philosophy

1803–1882

"He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses."

"The unexamined life is not worth living."

"You become what you give your attention to."

"Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal."

"The impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race."

"This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge, keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal, and do well."

"The life of man in a state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

"Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."

"I have just noticed in the 2nd edition of The Times that the Prussian Second Chamber has finally done something worthwhile. We shall soon have revolution."

230 quotes

🇫🇷Albert Camus

Literature

continental philosophy

1913–1960

"A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened."

"The superior man has neither anxiety nor fear. When internal examination discovers nothing wrong, what is there to be anxious about, what is there to fear?"

"The conclusion [of the essay 'Of the Protestant Succession'] shows me a Whig, but a very sceptical one."

"“New friends, however, will not be the same.” No, nor will you yourself remain the same; you change with every day and every hour."

156 quotes

🇬🇧Alfred North Whitehead

Philosophy

1861–1947

"Familiar things happen, and mankind does not bother about them. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious."

"The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries."

"I say a murder is abstract. You pull the trigger and after that you do not understand anything that happens."

"If I had loved any one sufficiently to make confiding my griefs a necessity, I should not have been in the condition."

"The king has sent me some of his dirty linen to wash; I will wash yours another time."

"In war, numbers alone confer no advantage. Do not advance relying on sheer military power."

"Names and attributes must be accommodated to the essence of things, and not the essence to the names, since things come first and names afterwards."

"The source of every Crime, is some defect of the Understanding; or some error in Reasoning; or some sudden force of the Passions."

86 quotes

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Philosophy

Enlightenment

1946–2014

"Narcissus, or The Self-Admirer: A Comedy"

60 quotes

🇩🇪Friedrich Hölderlin

Philosophy

Idealism

1770–1843

"Wer das Tiefste gedacht, liebt das Lebendigste."

"Chance seldom interferes with the wise man; his greatest and highest interests have been, are, and will be, directed by reason throughout his whole life. ."

"You can take away a man's gods, but only to give him others in return."

121 quotes

🏛️Democritus

Philosophy

"The brave man is not only he who overcomes the enemy, but he who is stronger than pleasures. Some men are masters of cities, but are enslaved to women."

"One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, and compassion"

"The Seven Books on the Art of War" at the Marxists Internet Archive"

"Don’t hold yourselves cheap, seeing that the creator of all things and of you estimates your value so high, so dear, that he pours out for you every day the most precious blood of his only-begotten Son."

121 quotes

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