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~It is true, that a little
philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth
men's minds about to religion.
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-Francis Bacon
The Essayes or Counsels, Civill and
Morall, 1625
"Of Atheism"
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~PHILOSOPHY, n. A route
of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
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-Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary, 1906
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All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his
delusions is called a philosopher.
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-Ambrose Bierce
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I am one of the people who love the why of
things.
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-Catherine II of Russia
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*Philosophy is like waking
up in a strange, dark room. At first, you question your thoughts and attempt
to gain a sense of yourself and your situation. You don't know where you
are, and sometimes, even how you got there. As you search, you begin to
discover your surroundings. Occasionally, you may touch upon an object that
you can identify immediately. But more often, you must feel around it,
listen to it, and test it, before you can decide what it is and its
usefulness to you. Once in a while , you will discover a tool, a lamp, for
instance, and once you discover its meaning and use, this tool will allow
you to see more clearly the other objects in the room. As you discover more
about your environment, you build upon the objects you've uncovered. Your
knowledge and awareness grow at ever faster rates until, ultimately, you
grasp the meaning of the room. Then what do you do? You leave it. But you
have not really left the room at all. You have only made it bigger.
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-Michael Conover
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Philosophy does not always give me what I
want, which are the answers. But it has never failed to give me what I
need, which are the questions.
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-Michael Conover
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~People seem not to see
that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their
character.
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-Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Conduct of Life, 1860
Ch. VI, "Worship"
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. . . this we do affirm-that if truth is
sought in every division of Philosophy, we must, before all else, possess
trustworthy principles and methods for the discernment of truth. Now the
Logical branch is that which includes the theory of criteria and of proofs;
so it is with this that we ought to make our beginnings.
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-Sextus Empiricus
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In a philosophical dispute, he gains most who
is defeated, since he learns most.
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-Epicurus
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Ignorant men raise questions that wise men
answered a thousand years ago.
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-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The optimist sees the glass as half-full:
The pessimist sees the glass as half-empty.
The opportunist is the one who drank the water,
Fulfilling the cynics prediction of him stealing the water.
The idealist is the one who's certain there's more to be found,
While I, the realist, get stuck washing the damn glass.
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-Robert J. Hanson
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Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume
Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel,
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.
There's nothing Nietszche couldn't teach ya
'Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed.
John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away--
Half a crate of whiskey every day.
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle.
Hobbes was fond of his dram,
And René Descartes was a drunken fart.
'I drink, therefore I am.'
Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed,
A lovely little thinker,
But a bugger when he's pissed.
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-Eric Idle
"The Philosopher's Song"
[Audio available at
The University of Waterloo]
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*Philosophy is meaningful
only as it provides an understanding of reality on which to regulate one's
life.
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-David Kalupahana
Buddhist Philosophy: A Historical
Analysis, 1976
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Philosophy consists very largely of one
philosopher arguing that all other philosophers are jackasses. He usually
proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one
himself.
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-Henry Louis Mencken
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The person lives most beautifully who does
not reflect upon existence.
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-Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
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*What, he said, is not
Evenus a philosopher?
Yes, I suppose so, replied Simmias.
Then Evenus will wish to die, he said, and so will every man who is worthy
of having any part in this study. But he will not lay violent hands on
himself; for that, they say, is wrong.
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-The character Phaedo quoting Socrates, in Plato's
Phaedo
61c
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*In order to live, man must
act; in order to act, he must make choices; in order to make choices, he must
define a code of values; in order to define a code of values, he must know
what he is and where he is---i.e. he must know his own nature
(including his means of knowledge) and the nature of the universe in which
he acts---i.e., he needs metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, which means:
philosophy.
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-Ayn Rand
The Romantic Manifesto, 1971
"Philosophy and Sense of Life", 1966
Originally appeared in The Objectivist, February, 1966
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*Those who cry the loudest
about their disillusionment, about the failure of virtue, the futility or
reason, the impotence of logic--are those who have achieved the full, exact,
logical result of the ideas they preached.
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-Dr. Hugh Akston, a hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A Is A, Ch. II, "The Utopia of Greed"
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*A philosophic system is
an integrated view of existence.
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-Ayn Rand
Philosophy: Who Needs It?, 1982
"Philosophy: Who Needs It?", 1974
Leonard Peikoff, ed.
Originally presented as an address to the graduating class of West Point on
March 6, 1974
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*If you feel nothing but
boredom when reading the virtually unintelligible theories of some
philosophers, you have my deepest sympathy. But if you brush them aside,
saying: "Why should I study that stuff when I know it's nonsense?"---
you are mistaken. It is nonsense, but you don't know it---not
so long as you go on accepting all their conclusions, all the vicious catch
phrases generated by those philosophers. And not so long as you are unable
to refute them.
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-Ayn Rand
Philosophy: Who Needs It?, 1982
"Philosophy: Who Needs It?", 1974
Leonard Peikoff, ed.
Originally presented as an address to the graduating class of West Point
on March 6, 1974
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*And there is the
philosophy of Existentialism---which discards the politeness of
rationalization, takes Kant straight, and proclaims the supremacy of
emotions in an unknowable, incomprehensible, inexplicable, nauseating
non-world.
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-Ayn Rand
Philosophy: Who Needs It?, 1982
"Philosophical Detection", 1974
Leonard Peikoff, ed.
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*[If a man considers the
connection between philosophy and reality], [h]e might discover that true
philosophy is derived from reality, and that our actions must be governed
by abstract philosophical principles whenever we act as human beings and
expect to achieve any rational goal. Or where does he think philosophy
comes from---and how does he propose to act in practical reality without
conception of whether he is acting on the right or wrong principle?. . .
Does he conduct chemical research by ignoring or directly opposing
the laws of nature? If a philosophy is inapplicable to reality, it is
simply not a philosophy.
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-Ayn Rand
Private correspondence to Ruth Alexander (a conservative writer), October
22, 1943
Letters of Ayn Rand, 1995
Chapter 2, "We The Living to The Fountainhead (1937-1943)"
Michael S. Berliner, ed.
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Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and
future evils; but present evils triumph over it.
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-François, duc de La Rochefoucald
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Organic life, we are told, has developed
gradually from the protozoon to the philosopher, and this development, we
are assured, is indubitably an advance. Unfortunately it is the philosopher,
not the protozoan, who gives us this assurance.
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-Bertrand Russell
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Where intellectuals have played a role in
history, it has not been so much by whispering words of advice into the
ears of political overlords as by contributing to the vast and powerful
currents of conceptions and misconceptions that sweep human action
along.
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-Thomas Sowell
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The discovery of what is true, and the
practice of that which is good, are the two most important objects of
philosophy.
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-Voltaire (François Marie Arouet)
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A map of the world that does not include
Utopia is not worth glancing at.
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-Oscar Wilde
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*Children are the only
bold philosophers.
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- D-503, the hero in Yevgeny Zamyatin's
We, 1920-1921
Thirtieth Entry
Mirra Ginsburg, trans., 1972
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