Philosophy Quotes
65 quotes
Philosophy
Deep thoughts from history's greatest thinkers about life and existence
65 Quotes
Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world
— Studies in Pessimism
Man is always prey to his truths. Once he has admitted them, he cannot free himself from them
— The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
What is rational is actual and what is actual is rational
— Preface to Philosophy of Right, 1820
There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers
— Pragmatism, Lecture II
To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly
— Creative Evolution
The greatest wealth is to live content with little
— Recorded by Plato, various dialogues
The mind is furnished with ideas by experience alone
— An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)
To know what people really think, pay regard to what they do, rather than what they say
— Correspondence (attributed, early 17th century)
He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying
— Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 'On the Gift-Giving Virtue'
The life of man in every part has need of harmony and rhythm
— Laws, Book II
A single islet of certainty, surrounded by a vast sea of uncertainty
— The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947)
One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star
— Thus Spoke Zarathustra
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man
— .Fragment DK22B41
If I am I because you are you, and you are you because I am I, then I am not I and you are not you
— Sayings attributed in Hasidic tradition
Even while being forgotten by the world, truth continues to exist
— Gravity and Grace
The only thing one can be guilty of is giving in to one's fears
— Being and Nothingness (1943)
What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality
— The Republic, Book X (paraphrase of Socratic notion)
The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action
— Human Nature and Conduct (1922)
To live without hope is to cease to live
— Demons (also known as The Devils or The Possessed)
To perceive is to suffer
— Metaphysics, Book XII
We do not describe the world we see; we see the world we can describe
— Literature and Existentialism (1948)
It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well
— Discourse on the Method (Part I)
We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are
— Paraphrase of Kantian epistemology; see Critique of Pure Reason
Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself
— Culture and Value, 1938
Nature has no principles; she makes no distinction between good and evil
— The Red Lily (Le Lys Rouge), 1894
The unexamined life is not worth living
— Plato's Apology
Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings—always darker, emptier, and simpler
— Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 179
It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live
— Meditations, Book 12
All things are subject to interpretation; whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth
— Nachlass: The Will to Power (notebook entries)
To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily; not to dare is to lose oneself
— The Concept of Dread (1844)
Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does
— Existentialism Is a Humanism, 1946 public lecture
The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing
— Letter to d'Alembert, 1765
To regard every human being as a means to some other end is to degrade him to a thing
— Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785)
There are no facts, only interpretations
— Notebooks, 1886–1887 (Posthumous Fragments)
The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk
— Preface to Philosophy of Right, 1820
The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking
— What Is Called Thinking? (1954)
To attain truth, one must relinquish certainty
— The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947)
Liberty consists in doing what one desires
— On Liberty, Chapter 1
To be is to be perceived
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, 1710
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few
— Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (1970)
I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong
— Attributed; found in various writings and lectures
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation
— possibly attributed in various dialogues, exact source debated
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world
— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)
All that is in dispute is how life is to be understood, not what life is
— Culture and Value (posthumous, 1977)
He who is brave is free
— Letters to Lucilius, Letter 37
The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook
— The Principles of Psychology, 1890
He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth
— Conversations with Eckermann, 1829
The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of
— Pensées, Fragment 277
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom
— Man's Search for Meaning (1946)
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit
— The Story of Philosophy (1926)
The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken
— Letter to John Taylor (1761)
The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts
— Meditations, Book 5
What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence
— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Proposition 7
He who thinks great thoughts, often makes great errors
— Introduction to Metaphysics
The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation
— An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination
— Critique of Pure Reason
He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men
— Lectures on Ethics (1775–1780)
The ascent to the good is arduous but it is the only life worth living
— Enneads, Book I
Nothing endures but change
— Fragment 12, collected in early Greek philosophical works
To do is to be
— Often ascribed in paraphrased form, derived from the spirit of 'Critique of Pure Reason'
Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love
— Felix Holt, the Radical (1866)
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd
— Letter to Frederick II, 1767
We are too weak to discover the truth by reason alone
— Confessions, Book VI
I must find a truth that is true for me; a truth for which I can live and die
— Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments (1846)
The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues
— Discourse on the Method (Part I)