Quotes and text excerpts about "philosophy"

“ The first rule of philosophy is, Know thyself; and the further one advances, the lower opinion one should have of himself, the more one should realize what there remains to be learned. But you make philosophy into a kind of fencing, and consider a man a philosopher if he can warp the truth by subtle distinctions and talk himself out of any opinion; in so doing you incur hatred and bring contempt upon learning, for people imagine that your extraordinary manners are the natural fruits of education. ”

“ Philosophy is the most frivolous and shallow of employments in a country where it dares not penetrate into the institutions which surround it. When reflection durst not attempt to amend or soften the lot of mankind, it becomes unmanly and puerile. ”

“ Philosophy is inevitably superscientific. Man is a material fact of nature, but his life is a phenomenon which transcends the material levels of nature in that it exhibits the control attributes of mind and the creative qualities of spirit. ”

“ Philosophy is a scientific interest which constantly seeks to grow with life so as to function in adequately relating life to the environing world and thereby enabling us to achieve our highest good, our fullest living. A philosophy is needed and is developed by every one. It alone is never sufficient to enable us to run a machine or to fully manage any of the details of conduct. ”

“ Philosophy is the pursuit of absolute truth, or of the absolutely real, that is, of the true and real as they exist for all intelligence; and this pursuit is conducted under the direction of the universal faculty in man, or, in other words, is conducted under the direction of necessary thinking. ”

“ Philosophy is sometimes identified with the sum of sciences: sometimes with their complete unification. Philosophy, says a modern, is knowledge completely unified. It is of course to some extent a question of words in what sense a term is to be defined. And no one will dispute that the scientific element is in point of form the most conspicuous aspect of philosophy. Yet if we look at the historical use of the term, one or two considerations suggest themselves. Philosophy, said an ancient, is the knowledge of things human and divine. ”

“ Philosophy is an activity, not a science, but this activity, of course, is at work in every single science continually, because before the sciences can discover the truth or falsity of a proposition they have to get at the meaning first. ”

“ Philosophy, or rather its object, the divine order of the Universe, is the intellectual guide which the religious sentiment needs; while exploring the real relations of the finite, it obtains a constantly improving and self-correcting measure of the perfect law of the Gospel of Love and Liberty, and a means of carrying into effect the spiritualism of revealed religion. ”

“ Philosophy, fair maid of ever youthful face and wisely old heart, is the fairy godmother in this unique tale of adventuring minds and hearts. Its scene is laid in Freiburg, where the American girl who tells the story in the first person, is pursuing the study of philosophy mainly with the intent to find out all she can about how we know and why we wish to know and whence come and how are governed the motives that control action and the laws that control thought. ”

“ For philosophy is founded upon reason. It is the effort to comprehend, to understand, to grasp the reality of things intellectually. Therefore it cannot admit anything higher than reason. To exalt intuition, ecstasy, or rapture, above thought--this is death to philosophy. Philosophy in making such an admission, lets out its own life-blood, which is thought. In Neo-Platonism, therefore, ancient philosophy commits suicide. This is the end. The place of philosophy is taken henceforth by religion. Christianity triumphs, and sweeps away all independent thought from its path. ”

“ What philosophy is. By Philosophy is understood the knowledge acquired by reasoning, from the manner of the generation of any thing, to the properties: or from the properties, to some possible way of generation of the same; to the end to be able to produce, as far as matter, and human force permit, such effects, as human life requireth. ”

“ Moral Philosophy is the knowledge of precepts of all honest manners which reason acknowledgeth to belong and appertain to man's nature, as the things in which we differ from beasts. It is also necessary for the comely government of man's life. ”

“ Introduction Philosophy is the science of estimating values. The superiority of any state or substance over another is determined by philosophy. By assigning a position of primary importance to what remains when all that is secondary has been removed, philosophy thus becomes the true index of priority or emphasis in the realm of speculative thought. The mission of philosophy a priori is to establish the relation of manifested things to their invisible ultimate cause or nature. ”

“ But then learning what Philosophy is—especially that most fundamental part of Philosophy which is called Metaphysics—is like learning to swim: you never discover how to do it until you find yourself considerably out of your depth. You must strike out boldly, and at last you discover what you are after. I shall presuppose that in a general way you do all know that Philosophy is an enquiry into the ultimate nature of the Universe at large, as opposed to the discussion of those particular aspects or departments of it which are dealt with by the special Sciences. ”

“ Human weakness makes poetry, philosophy, and history imperfect in execution, though they aspire to absolute beauty and truth; human weakness suggested the novel, which is imperfect in design, written as an amusement and relief, in despair of sounding the universe. A novel is in its nature and as a matter of necessity an artistic failure; it pretends to nothing higher; but under the slack laws which govern its composition, multitudes of fine and suggestive characters, incidents, and sayings may be smuggled into it, contrary to all the usages and rules of civilized literature. ”

“ Humanity replies: "I remember it."
Philosophy as perfect science. The so-called natural sciences, and their limits.
The world of what has happened, of the concrete, of historical fact, is the world called real, natural, including in this definition both the reality called physical and that called spiritual and human. All this world is intuition; historical intuition, if it be shown as it realistically is; imaginary or artistic intuition in the narrow sense, if presented in the aspect of the possible, that is to say, of the imaginable. ”

“ The trouble is that youth makes its demands, and our philosophy has nothing in principle against those demands, whether they are good or whether they are loathsome. One who knows that life is aimless and death inevitable is not interested in the struggle against nature or the conception of sin: whether you struggle or whether you don't, you will die and rot just the same. . . . Secondly, my friends, our philosophy instils even into very young people what is called reasonableness. The predominance of reason over the heart is simply overwhelming amongst us. ”

“ Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings to man the consciousness of himself; which maintains that God, the State, and society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since they can be fulfilled only through man's subordination. Anarchism is therefore the teacher of the unity of life; not merely in nature, but in man. There is no conflict between the individual and the social instincts, any more than there is between the heart and the lungs: the one the receptacle of a precious life essence, the other the repository of the element that keeps the essence pure and strong. ”

“ If I am to take any one's advice upon the right philosophy to choose, I insist upon his knowing what they all say; every one else I disqualify; I will not trust him while there is one philosophy he is unacquainted with; that one may possibly be the best of all. If some one were to produce a handsome man, and state that he was the handsomest of mankind, we should not accept that, unless we knew he had seen all men; very likely his man is handsome, but whether the handsomest, he has no means of knowing without seeing all. ”

“ For science is the knowledge of the things by their causes, and philosophy is the knowledge of hidden causes. To deny the causes altogether is a thing which is unintelligible to human reason. It is to deny the Creator, not seen by us. ”

“ The sense of beauty has a more important place in life than aesthetic theory has ever taken in philosophy. The plastic arts, with poetry and music, are the most conspicuous monuments of this human interest, because they appeal only to contemplation, and yet have attracted to their service, in all civilized ages, an amount of effort, genius, and honour, little inferior to that given to industry, war, or religion. The fine arts, however, where aesthetic feeling appears almost pure, are by no means the only sphere in which men show their susceptibility to beauty. ”

“ The influence of the imagination on the conduct of life is one of the most important points in moral philosophy. It were easy, by an induction of facts, to prove that the imagination directs almost all the passions, and mixes with almost every circumstance of action or pleasure. Let any man, even of the coldest head and soberest industry, analyse the idea of what he calls his interest; he will find that it consists chiefly of certain degrees of decency, beauty, and order, variously combined into one system, the idol which he seeks to enjoy by labour, hazard, and self-denial. ”

“ The truth, in order that we may subject our conduct to it and determine our spiritual attitude towards life and the universe comformably with it?
Philosophy is a product of the humanity of each philosopher, and each philosopher is a man of flesh and bone who addresses himself to other men of flesh and bone like himself. And, let him do what he will, he philosophizes not with the reason only, but with the will, with the feelings, with the flesh and with the bones, with the whole soul and the whole body. It is the man that philosophizes. ”

“ No man is born wise; but wisdom and virtue require a tutor, though we can easily learn to be vicious without a master. It is philosophy that gives us a veneration for God, a charity for our neighbor, that teaches us our duty to Heaven, and exhorts us to an agreement one with another; it unmasks things that are terrible to us, assuages our lusts, refutes our errors, restrains our luxury, reproves our avarice, and works strangely upon tender natures. ”

“ Man is an animal naturally inclined to obey and to take things quietly; insurrection is too expensive an affair to be indulged in by way of recreation; and there is no truth in the philosophy of history more certain than that whenever the multitude of the ruled rebel against their rulers, the original fault—I do not say the whole blame, for as things go on from bad to worse there may be blame and blunders on both sides—but the original fault and germinative cause of discontent and revolt unquestionably lies with the rulers. ”

“ Our aesthetics have hitherto been women s aesthetics, inasmuch as they have only formulated the experiences of what is beautiful, from the point of view of the receivers in art. In the whole of philosophy hitherto the artist has been lacking . . . i.e. as we have already suggested, a necessary fault: for the artist who would begin to under stand himself would therewith begin to mistake himself he must not look backwards, he must not look at all; he must give. It is an honor for an artist to have no critical faculty; if he can criticize he is mediocre, he is modern. ”

“ In this world there are so many of these common, coarse people, who have no picturesque sentimental wretchedness! It is so needful we should remember their existence, else we may happen to leave them quite out of our religion and philosophy, and frame lofty theories which only fit a world of extremes. Therefore let Art always remind us of them; therefore let us always have men ready to give the loving pains of a life to the faithful representing of commonplace things—men who see beauty in these commonplace things, and delight in showing how kindly the light of heaven falls on them. ”

“ Love is indeed universally all that earnest desire for the possession of happiness and that which is good; the greatest and the subtlest love, and which inhabits the heart of every living being; but those who seek this object through the acquirement of wealth, or the exercise of the gymnastic arts, or philosophy, are not said to love, nor are called lovers; one species alone is called love, and those alone are said to be lovers, and to love, who seek the attainment of the universal desire through one species of love, which is peculiarly distinguished by the name belonging to the whole. ”

“ There is only one way to make a man out of a child; to teach him that happiness is a by-product of achievement; that pleasure is an accompaniment of labor; that the foundation of self-respect is drudgery well done; that there is no power in any system of philosophy, any view of the world, no view of the world, which can release him from the unchanging necessity of personal struggle, personal consecration, personal holiness in human life. ”

“ Science is the enemy of fear and credulity. It invites investigation, challenges the reason, stimulates inquiry, and welcomes the unbeliever. It seeks to give food and shelter, and raiment, education and liberty to the human race. It welcomes every fact and every truth. It has furnished a foundation for morals, a philosophy for the guidance of man. From all books it selects the good, and from all theories, the true. It seeks to civilize the human race by the cultivation of the intellect and' heart. ”

“ Philosophers are ridiculous when they take to politics, and I dare say that politicians are equally ridiculous when they take to philosophy: “Every man,” as Euripides says, “is fondest of that in which he is best.” ”

“ We have machines for education. Instruction, that mysterious communing of Wisdom and Ignorance, is no longer an indefinable, tentative process, requiring a study of individual aptitude, and a perpetual variation of means and methods to attain the same end; but a secure, universal, straightforward business to be conducted in the gross, by proper mechanism, with such intellect as comes to hand. . . . Philosophy, Science, Art, Literature, all depend on machinery. No Newton, by silent meditation, now discovers the system of the world by the falling of an apple ”

“ For a man who is in a condition to enjoy pleasures, I believe that health makes itself felt by something more active than ease, or indolence, as a good disposition of the soul demands something more animated than will permit a state of tranquillity. We are all living in the midst of an infinity of good and evil things, with senses capable of being agreeably affected by the former and injured by the latter. Without so much philosophy, a little reason will enable us to enjoy the good as deliciously as possible and accommodate ourselves to the evil as patiently as we can. ”

“ I have known many evils, but I have never known the worst of all, which, as it seems to me, are those which are comprehended in the inexhaustible varieties of ennui: spleen, chagrin, vapours, blue devils, time-killing, discontent, misanthropy, and all their interminable train of fretfulness, querulousness, suspicions, jealousies, and fears, which have alike infected society, and the literature of society; and which would make an arctic ocean of the human mind, if the more humane pursuits of philosophy and science did not keep alive the better feelings and more valuable energies of our nature. ”