My Favorite Philosophical Quotes
The following is a small collection of some of my favorite
philosophical quotes. These are one I've chosen not because I
agree with the ideas suggested (although that is certainly true
in some cases), but because they are likely to stimulate some
serious though if they are pondered a bit.
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being
self-evident. - Arthur Schopenhauer
The only secure knowledge is that I exist. - Rene Descartes
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is
a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that
grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language,
even the phrase each other doesn't make any sense. - Rumi
- We should have a great fewer disputes in the world if
words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only,
and not for things themselves. - John Locke
- Listening to your own mind gives you "good reasons"
why you should be fearful over unexpected events is just like
being friends with someone who thinks it's funny to find new
ways to hurt you! - Guy Finley
- Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard
it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and
rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it
is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything
merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe
in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything
agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of
one and all, then accept it and live up to it. - Buddha
- The most useful tools are often the most dangerous as
well. This is certainly true of the words we use, which help
point us towards the truth and perhaps just as often, away from
it. - Steve Gillman
- Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but
realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we
shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we
deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What
seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy
and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden
one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such. - Henry
Miller
- As a scientist, I am hostile to fundamentalist religion
because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise. It teaches
us not to change our minds, and not to want to know exciting
things that are available to be known. It subverts science and
saps the intellect. - Richard Dawkins
- Consider a man riding a bicycle. Whoever he is, we can
say three things about him. We know he got on the bicycle and
started to move. We know that at some point he will stop and
get off. Most important of all, we know that if, at any point
between the beginning and the end of his journey he stops moving
and does not get off the bicycle, he will fall off it. That is
a metaphor for the journey through life of any living thing,
and I think of any society of living things. - William Golding
There is no such thing as a necessary evil. If it is truly
evil it isn't necessary. If it is truly necessary it can't be
evil. - Steve Gillman
The stream of thinking has enormous momentum that can easily
drag you along with it. Every thought pretends that it matters
so much. - Eckhart Tolle
Rational people don't wait for science to prove things.
Should we have stopped breathing until the value of oxygen was
proven? Stopped eating until the digestive process was explained?
Experience comes before science. - Steve Gillman
We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we
know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge
can give us so much power. - Bertrand Russell
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples;
no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart
is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. - Dalai Lama
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