Philosopher Quotes - Page 18

The words of that philosopher who offers no therapy for human suffering are empty and vain.

What is it to be a philosopher? Is it not to be prepared against events?

Earnsha was not to be civilized with a wish, and my young lady was no philosopher, and no paragon of patience; but both their minds tending to the same point - one loving and desiring to esteem, and the other loving and desiring to be esteemed - they contrived in the end to reach it.

Philosophers write for professors; thinkers for writers.

What a pity that 'nothingness' has been devalued by an abuse of it made by philosophers unworthy of it!

The upshot is that most philosophers of biology now hold that biological properties supervene on physical properties (where supervenience is taken to include some kind of "in virtue of" relation), and that fitness and other biological properties are not identical with physical properties.

Philosophers of biology generally recognize that evolutionary fitness (roughly, an organism's ability to survive and reproduce in its environment) is multiply realizable.

He who esteems trifles for themselves is a trifler; he who esteems them for the conclusions to be drawn from them, or the advantage to which they can be put, is a philosopher.

In our corrupted state, common weaknesses and defects contribute more towards the reconciling us to one another than all the precepts of the philosophers and divines.

I never went into aesthetics. Aesthetics is what philosophers have to say about art, and a lot of them take an analytics position and raise the question, "What is an art object?" As soon as you fall into that trap, an artist is going to come along and say, "That isn't art - it's something else." That's a hopeless gig.

You beat the liver out of a goose to get a pâté; you pound the muscles of a man's cardia to get a philosopher.

Human affairs are so obscure and various that nothing can be clearly known. This was the sound conclusion of the Academic sceptics, who were the least surly of philosophers.

The impulse of the journalist is to be novel, yet to relate his curiosities to the urgencies of the moment; the philosopher seeks what he conceives to be true, regardless of the moment.

Philosophers are often actively disinterested in what happens between the cup and the lips (after all, that's "non-ideal theory").

Philosophers are smart, analytical, and skeptical. For these reasons they are relatively unbiased.

Great philosophers become immortal - they make undeniable impacts on culture.

To be a philosopher, just reverse everything you have ever been told...and have a sense of humor doing it.

A philosopher's a lover of wisdom.

Aristotle wore many rings and expensive clothes. ... Plato found this off-putting and unsuited for a philosopher.

Philosophers are only men in armor after all.

I have to say that some philosophers such as the late Bernard Williams, and I would include myself in this group, would say that tranquillity is overrated as the goal of life.

Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars. I will not forget thy word. Amen.

Philosophers.-We are full of things which take us out of ourselves.

I could never teach people to be philosophers - and if I did, you could never make a gardener out of them.

Morally, a philosopher who uses his professional competence for anything except a disinterested search for truth is guilty of a kind of treachery.