Philosophy quotes

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.

It is as necessary for man to live in beauty rather than ugliness as it is necessary for him to have food for an aching belly or rest for a weary body.

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.

Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is.

It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.

The object of the superior man is truth.

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.

To do nothing is also a good remedy.

The way is long if one follows precepts, but short… if one follows patterns.

I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell – you see, I have friends in both places.

Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.

Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it – this is knowledge.

Basically, at the very bottom of life, which seduces us all, there is only absurdity, and more absurdity. And maybe that’s what gives us our joy for living, because the only thing that can defeat absurdity is lucidity.

I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.

Don’t despair, not even over the fact that you don’t despair.

Admiration is the daughter of ignorance.

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

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

No policy that does not rest upon some philosophical public opinion can be permanently maintained.

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

In order to exist, man must rebel, but rebellion must respect the limits that it discovers in itself – limits where minds meet, and in meeting, begin to exist.

It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.

There is no love of life without despair of life.

Upon the subjects of which I have treated, I have spoken as I have thought. I may be wrong in regard to any or all of them; but, holding it a sound maxim that it is better only sometimes to be right than at all times to be wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them.

To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world.

Before God we are all equally wise – and equally foolish.

Man wants to live, but it is useless to hope that this desire will dictate all his actions.

If you think only of evil, then you become pessimistic and hopeless like Freud. But if you think there is no evil, then you’re just one more deluded Pollyanna.

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.

What we need is a system of thought – you might even call it a religion – that can bind humans together. A system that would fit the Republic of Chad as well as the United States: a system that would supply our idealistic young people with something to believe in.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.

Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.

The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.

He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool.

At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.