Philosopher Quotes - Page 9

A philosophy is characterized more by the formulation of its problem than by its solution of them.

My opinions about human nature are shared by many psychologists, linguists, and biologists, not to mention philosophers and scholars going back centuries.

When you can't smoke, if you stand and stare out of the window on your own, you're an antisocial, friendless idiot. If you stand and stare out of the window on your own with a cigarette, you're a philosopher.

God, of course, is the greatest philosopher of all.

Scientists disagree among themselves but they never fight over their disagreements. They argue about evidence or go out and seek new evidence. Much the same is true of philosophers, historians and literary critics.

It is good to renew one's wonder, said the philosopher. Space travel has again made children of us all.

The true philosopher and the true poet are one, and a beauty, which is truth, and a truth, which is beauty, is the aim of both.

And tell him it's quite true that the best of the philosophers are of no use to their fellows; but that he should blame, not the philosophers, but those who fail to make use of them.

Wonder [said Socrates] is very much the affection of a philosopher; for there is no other beginning of philosophy than this.

It is fear and terror that make all men brave, except the philosophers. Yet it is illogical to be brave through fear and cowardice.

Philosophers ought to aspire to know lots of different things and to forge useful synthetic perspectives.

Socrates: So even our walks are dangerous here. But you seem to have avoided the most dangerous thing of all. Bertha: What's that? Socrates: Philosophy. Bertha: Oh, we have philosophers here. Socrates: Where are they? Bertha: In the philosophy department. Socrates: Philosophy is not department. Bertha: Well, we have philosophers. Socrates: Are they dangerous? Bertha: Of course not. Socrates: Then they are not true philosophers.

Eventually I realized that for contemporary philosophers conceptual analysis per se was an end in itself. For some, it was somehow supposed to lead to the truth about these phenomena, not just to tidy things up a bit.

There is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher.

To a philosopher no circumstance, however trifling, is too minute.

Ask yourself whether you are happy', observed the philosopher John Stuart Mill, 'and you cease to be so.' At best, it would appear, happiness can only be glimpsed out of the corner of an eye, not stared at directly.

The philosopher who would fain extinguish his passions resembles the chemist who would like to let his furnace go out.

The philosopher ought never to try to avoid the duty of making up his mind.

The picture which the philosopher draws of the world is surely not one in which every stroke is necessitated by pure logic.

The method of exposition which philosophers have adopted leads many to suppose that they are simply inquiries, that they have no interest in the conclusions at which they arrive, and that their primary concern is to follow their premises to their logical conclusions.

In the very books in which philosophers bid us scorn fame, they inscribe their names.

It is one of the chief skills of the philosopher not to occupy himself with questions which do not concern him.

This sort of thing has got to be stopped. Bad philosophers are like slum landlords. It's my job to put them out of business.

The scholar without good breeding is a pedant; the philosopher, a cynic.

We should listen to both philosophers and scientists, because the philosophical contribution is different from the scientific contribution, and both of them are worthwhile.