Philosophy Quotes
904 quotes
Philosophy
Deep thoughts from history's greatest thinkers about life and existence
904 Quotes
Nature is not mute; it is man who is deaf
— Lecture: Light of the Third Millennium, 1998
Belief is a wound that knowledge must heal, but never entirely closes
— The Trouble with Being Born (1973)
At times the world seems more like a prison than a dwelling, and we must not allow the walls to become invisible
— Book: 'Gravity and Grace'
The more passions and desires one has, the more ways one has of being happy
— Villette, 1853
We are hut-dwellers building cathedrals in thought
— Paraphrase condensing metaphors from 'Culture and Value'
Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost
— Sand and Foam (1926)
Where the mind dares not look, meaning often takes root
— The Courage to Be (1952)
Every passion of the soul has its mode of expression, some by the eyes, others by the face and still more through the actions themselves
— The Passions of the Soul, Article 16
Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world
— Studies in Pessimism
He who has a why to live can bear almost any how
— Twilight of the Idols, Maxims and Arrows, 12
No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible
— Unkempt Thoughts (Myśli nieuczesane)
All proofs ultimately rest on faith in the mind's workings
— Process and Reality, Part II
It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it
— On the Shortness of Life
The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly
— Letter to Leo Baeck (1953)
The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose
— Possible Worlds and Other Essays (1927)
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt
— The Triumph of Stupidity (essay, 1933)
The mind is furnished with ideas by experience alone
— An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Chapter I
The world is my representation
— The World as Will and Representation (1818)
The greatest wealth is to live content with little
— The Republic
No human being, when you understand his desires, is worthless. He may be foolish, he may be vicious, he may be mean, but he is not worthless
— Philosophy and Language (1954)
Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives, and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time
— / Letters on England (Letter 1)
He who would move the world should first move himself
— Attributed, reported in Plutarch, Moralia
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 (1883–1885)
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood
— Attributed in various addresses and writings
Freedom is the consciousness of necessity
— Lectures on the Philosophy of History
There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing
— Attributed, though exact source debated
The bird of reason builds its nest in the labyrinth of doubt, each twig borrowed from uncertainty
— Journals (various entries)
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
— Metaphysics, Book VIII, Part 6
Every advance in civilization has been denounced as unnatural while it was recent
— The Conquest of Happiness, 1930
What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly
— . Attributed, Taoist tradition
We are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several, and the majority of our controversies come from that
— Meditations, Book IV, 17
The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education
— Various (widely attributed)
To teach how to live with uncertainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy can do
— The History of Western Philosophy (1945)
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science
— Cosmic Religion and Other Opinions and Aphorisms, 1931
He who is not a good servant will not be a good master
— Dialogues, variously attributed
On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom
— Essays, Book III, Chapter XIII
He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster
— Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146
To read is to dream another’s dream through the waking mind
— Meditations on Quixote
The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness
— Short drive, 1943
The tree of knowledge grows not in straight lines, but in the spirals of wonder and doubt
— Gravity and Grace (1947, posthumous)
To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others
— The Myth of Sisyphus
No man has any natural authority over his fellow men
— The Social Contract, Book I, Chapter 4
To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun
— Nature, Essay (1836)
The greatest happiness of the thinking man is to have fathomed the fathomable, and to quietly revere the unfathomable
— Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years
We carry within us the blueprint for a world that never was and might never be, yet it is the labor of thinking to draw its lines
— The Life of the Mind
There are no facts, only interpretations
— Nachlass, A. Will to Power, § 481
All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.
— Ethics, Part V, Proposition 42, Scholium
Suppose truth is a woman—what then?
— Beyond Good and Evil, Preface
The eye by which I see God is the same eye by which God sees me
— Sermons
The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues
— Discourse on the Method, Part I
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves
— Man's Search for Meaning
There is a solitude in poverty, but a solitude in riches which is perhaps the more profound
— Notebook IV, May 1942 – February 1951, Notebooks 1942-1951
Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel
— Guesses at Truth (1838)
A wise man’s mind is a theatre of possibilities, where the play of potential is endless and the final act never written
— The Principles of Psychology, Vol. 2
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall
— Analects, Book V
The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it
— Sesame and Lilies (1865), Lecture II
Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad
— Hyperion, Book II
Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool
— From the essay 'Self-Reliance'
Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there
— The Passionate State of Mind, aphorism 32
The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk
— Preface to 'Philosophy of Right' (1820)
All human things are a preparation, not for an end, but for an endless beginning
— Either/Or (1843)
The spirit becomes free only when it ceases to be a support for workaday purposes
— Phenomenology of Spirit
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man
— Fragment 41
The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth
— The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
The abyss is not an obstacle but an invitation; the one who gazes long enough may discover wings
— Gravity and Grace
Wisdom begins in wonder, but it finds its dwelling in patience
— Creative Fidelity (1940)
Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men
— Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius)
A wise man walks into the future with bare feet, for certainty makes the ground sharp and dreams soften the road
— Unattributed in works, characteristic of Kazantzakis’ style and insights
Our duty is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation
— The Phenomenon of Man (1955)
The truth is not always the same as the majority decision
— From an essay in 'Situations II'
Man is the measure of all things—of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not.
— As quoted in Plato's Theaetetus
You must build the road while walking upon it
— Prison Notebooks
Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to save it
— The Social Contract, Book II, Chapter 5
There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words
— Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man
Life is the sum of all your choices
— Interview in: The Observer (Paris, 1957)
The stars themselves, silent as they seem, have a language and a story for those who have the patience to listen
— Gravity and Grace (1947)
Every act of perception is to some degree an act of creation
— Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away
— How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later (1978 essay)
The questions that can be asked are infinite, but the answers that satisfy are always finite
— Philosophy of Existence, 1938
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about
— The Essential Rumi (Coleman Barks translation)
What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality
— From 'Moralia', Essay 'On Tranquility of Mind'
Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all
— Aphorisms (Sudelbücher)
The map is not the territory.
— Science and Sanity (1933)
The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one’s own
— Shadows on the Rock (1931)
Simplicity is an exact medium between too little and too much
— Philebus
Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality
— Am I an Atheist or an Agnostic? (1947)
Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself
— Existentialism Is a Humanism (1946)
The world is not simply given to us; it must be read as one reads a difficult text
— Phenomenology of Perception
No road is too long for him who advances slowly and does not hurry, and no attainment is beyond reach for him who perseveres with patience
— The Characters, Chapter XI (1688)
Man is the dialogue between what he hopes and what he dares
— Themes from Philosophy of Existence (1938), paraphrased summation
The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook
— The Principles of Psychology (1890)
He who has overcome his fears will truly be free
— Nicomachean Ethics
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be
— Seeker's Mask
No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness
— Problemata, Book XXX
There are more things likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality
— Letters to Lucilius, Letter XIII
All men's gains are the fruit of venturing
— Fragment 22B47
Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do
— Attributed, various writings and correspondence
Who is content with a little light may never see the stars
— Cultural Remains
What then is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know
— Confessions, Book XI
The wise man is he who knows the relative value of things
— The Principles of Psychology (1890)
Man is the measure of all things—of the things which are, that they are, and of the things which are not, that they are not
— Quoted in Plato's Theaetetus, 152a
One can acquire everything in solitude—except character
— On Love
The highest courage is to dare to appear to be what one is
— Either/Or, Volume II, "The Balance Between the Aesthetic and the Ethical"
Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems
— Discourse on the Method (1637)
It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true
— Sceptical Essays (1928), 'On the Value of Scepticism'
The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments
— The Gay Science, section 191
To find yourself, think for yourself
— Attributed in dialogues by Plato (exact dialogue uncertain)
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it
— Meditations, Book IV
We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar
— From 'The Principles of Psychology' (1890), Chapter 4
To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion all in one
— Modern Painters, Vol. 3 (1856)
The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless
— Émile, or On Education (1762)
To be is to be related
— Process and Reality
The difficulty is not so great to die for a friend, as to find a friend worth dying for
— Attributed; commonly credited to Homer though precise origin debated
No man's mind is so well furnished as his own experience
— Essais, Book II, Chapter 12
The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues
— Discourse on Method, Part VI
To climb the mountains of understanding, we must first learn to love the valleys of ignorance
— Philosophy of Existence
He who learns must walk in the shadow of his own questions, allowing them to lead him where certainty will not go
— Philosophy of Existence (1938)
The greater part of the world's troubles are due to questions of grammar
— Essays, Book I, Chapter 9
Language is the house of Being
— / Letter on Humanism
No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life
— Untimely Meditations
He who does not doubt does not investigate, and he who does not investigate cannot see
— De umbris idearum
All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle
— Essays: Second Series, 'Experience'
The path of reason is lit by torches each traveler must relight for themselves
— All Men Are Mortal (1946)
What we know is a drop, what we do not know is an ocean
— Reported remark to Joseph Spence (1727)
There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart
— Hard Times, Book I, Chapter XV (1854)
The greatest difficulties lie where we do not look for them
— On the Suffering of the World (Parerga and Paralipomena)
I can control my passions and emotions if I can understand their nature
— Ethics, Part V
The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be
— Reported in Xenophon's Memorabilia
The greatest part of what we know is the smallest part of what we ignore
— Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697)
You cannot step into the same river twice, for other waters are ever flowing on to you
— Quoted by Plato in Cratylus, fragment 41
To attain knowledge, one must study; but to attain wisdom, one must observe
— Parade magazine column
Every pain endured is a stone added to the temple of experience
— Sand and Foam, 1926 (aphorisms)
To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise without being wise, for it is to think that we know what we do not know
— Apology, as recorded by Plato
To ask is to break the seal of habit
— Meditations on Quixote (1914)
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance—it is the illusion of knowledge
— The Discoverers
No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience
— An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Chapter I, Section 2
We are condemned to freedom
— Being and Nothingness
To attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd
— Don Quixote, Part II, Chapter 6 (paraphrased from original Spanish)
Even while they teach, men learn
— Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Letters to Lucilius)
Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life
— The Sense of Wonder (posthumous, 1965)
He who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave
— Essays, Book I, Chapter 19
What we call fate does not come into us from the outside, but emerges from us
— Letters to a Young Poet (1903-1908)
I am not what happens to me, I am what I choose to become
— Modern Man in Search of a Soul
No one is ever satisfied where he is
— Vatican Sayings, 5
He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart
— Agamemnon
Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills
— On the Freedom of the Will (Über die Freiheit des menschlichen Willens)
The wound is the place where the light enters you
— Unknown; widely attributed to Rumi's body of poetry
The obscurest epoch is today
— Either/Or
The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts
— Meditations, Book V
The entire field of knowledge is illuminated only by the faint glow at its edge, where we meet the unknown
— Philosophy of Existence (1938)
The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones
— Attributed in Analects (approximate translation)
It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world
— Metaphysics, Book XII
Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion
— Fragments (as cited by later authors, e.g., Aristotle)
The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper
— Attributed, various essays and speeches
To live alone one must be either a beast or a god
— Politics, Book I, Chapter 2
The spider conducts operations by instinct, but the bee by art and skill
— Ethics, Part IV, Proposition XLVII, Scholium
Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced
— Journals (various entries, 1840s)
One must imagine Sisyphus happy
— The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
A wise man learns more from his own questions than from the answers of others
— Rules for the Direction of the Mind
The greatest obstacle to pleasure is not pain; it is delusion
— Letter to Menoeceus
Reason is the lantern that cannot show us beyond the margins of its own flame
— The Sovereignty of Good
One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil
— Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part I, 'Of the Gift-Giving Virtue'
We are too weak to discover the truth by reason alone
— Discourse on Method, Part VI
Experience is the teacher of all things
— Commentarii de Bello Civili, Book II
The mind imposes order and makes the world intelligible, but it is nature that provides both the clay and the wheel
— Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled
— On Listening to Lectures, Moralia
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go
— The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1932)
He who is capable of love is also capable of salvation
— Works of Love
To perceive is to suffer
— Metaphysics, Book XII
There are years that ask questions and years that answer
— Their Eyes Were Watching God
To learn is to not only open new doors, but to find that rooms have changed behind you
— Phenomenology of Perception (1945)
There is no easy way from the earth to the stars
— Hercules Furens, line 437
A thought, to blossom into truth, must first risk the frosts of doubt
— Gravity and Grace
A gaze that ceases to seek is already blind
— Creative Fidelity (1940)
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers
— Locksley Hall, 1842
Our thoughts are the sculptors, and we are their clay
— Gravity and Grace (1947)
The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken
— The Idler, No. 97 (1760)
Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness
— Novel: 'Watt' (1953)
One must conquer, not the world, but oneself, for only then does one find a kingdom that cannot be taken away
— Discourses, Book IV
The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking
— What Is Called Thinking? (1954)
The greatest wealth is to live content with little
— Reported by Plato in 'Apology' and by Xenophon in 'Memorabilia'
The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life—knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live
— Nicomachean Ethics, Book III
There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course; even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness
— / Modern Man in Search of a Soul
Experience is the teacher of all things
— Commentarii de Bello Civili (Commentaries on the Civil War)
We are too weak to discover the truth by reason alone
— Meditations on First Philosophy
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious
— The World As I See It (essay)
One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star
— From 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' (Prologue, Section 5)
The unexamined life is not worth living
— Plato's Apology, 38a
No one casts a shadow so long that their mind escapes it
— Gravity and Grace (1947)
It is not by means of self-exaltation but of self-lowering that we succeed in seeing into the very roots of things
— The Concept of Anxiety
Every profound spirit needs a mask; even more, around every profound spirit a mask is continually growing
— Beyond Good and Evil, Section 40
All knowledge is but remembrance
— Meno, 81d
The earth has music for those who listen
— Attributed (often cited in philosophical essays, original work uncertain)
A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study
— Traditional proverb (exact primary source uncertain)
Each of us bears the imprint of a friend met along the way; in each the trace of each
— Gravity and Grace
Even the sharpest chisel cannot sculpt the shape of the wind, yet without wind the chisel is idle
— Tao Te Ching, interpreted from Chapter 11
He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened
— Tao Te Ching, Chapter 33
Mountains are climbed not so the world can see us, but so we can see the world
— Wellesley High School commencement address, 2012
The mind is its own exile, it can make deserts bloom or turn gardens into dust
— Enneads (circa 270 AD)
To be human is to be thrown into a world we did not choose, and to be tasked with making meaning there
— The Ethics of Ambiguity, 1947
All human evil comes from a single cause, man’s inability to sit still in a room
— Pensées, Section VIII, 139
The soul that has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere
— Essais (1580), Book I, Chapter 8
The road up and the road down are one and the same
— Fragment B60, collected fragments
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit
— Often attributed; first found in Will Durant's summary of Aristotle's ideas, The Story of Philosophy (1926)
Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought
— ,
To pursue clarity is to walk perpetually under gathering clouds, for each answer opens new horizons of obscurity
— Philosophy of Existence
Ideas are living things; they have their own evolution, their own ancestry, and their own descendants
— Lectures and essays (collected in The Power of Ideas, 1997)
The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend
— An Introduction to Metaphysics, 1903
Every perception is a gamble
— Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (1913)
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
— .
To endure is to find meaning not in the absence of struggle, but in the weaving of struggle into the fabric of one's days
— Gravity and Grace
Only in the darkness can you see the stars
— Sermon: Keep Moving from This Mountain (1965)
A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence
— 'An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding', Section X
He who seeks the infinite must learn to cope with the finite
— On the Relation of the Plastic Arts to Nature, 1807
I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned
— Reported statement, various lectures
He who is brave is free
— Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium
The resistance to a new idea increases by the square of its importance
— The Impact of Science on Society (1952)
The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing
— Letter to d’Alembert, 1763
Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems
— Discourses, Book II, Chapter 16
What is called thinking is the peculiar way in which we are touched by that which concerns us most deeply
— What Is Called Thinking? (1954)
The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free
— Ethics, Part V, Proposition 25, Scholium
Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think
— Dhammapada, Verse 1
The chain of reasoning can stretch only so far before it returns to doubt, its silent beginning
— Gravity and Grace
The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation
— An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, Chapter I, Section IV
Life must be sculpted as artists sculpt marble: not with an impatience to finish, but with a reverence for what emerges in the slow revelation of form
— Gravity and Grace
When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago
— Book: 'Beyond Good and Evil' (1886)
The mind is ever ingenious in making itself the prisoner of its own experience
— Scepticism and Animal Faith (1923)
We suffer more often in imagination than in reality
— Letters to Lucilius, Letter XIII
If you wish to be a reader, read; if a writer, write
— Discourses, Book II
The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them
— Speech at the California Institute of Technology, 1931 (commonly paraphrased)
Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does
— L'Existentialisme est un humanisme, 1946 lecture
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite
— Sceptical Essays, 1928
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom
— The Concept of Anxiety, 1844
One does not complain about water because it is wet, nor about life because it is incomprehensible
— All Men Are Mortal (1946)
Whatever has a beginning also has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well
— A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life
The owl of Minerva begins its flight only at dusk
— Preface to Philosophy of Right
The highest good is like water, which benefits all things and contends with none
— Tao Te Ching, Chapter 8
There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees
— Les Misérables
A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at
— The Soul of Man under Socialism (1891)
Man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born
— The Brothers Karamazov, Book V, Chapter 5 (The Grand Inquisitor)
To live is to think
— Tusculan Disputations, Book V
What is rational is actual and what is actual is rational
— Preface to 'Elements of the Philosophy of Right' (1820)
You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself
— Letter to Benedetto Castelli (1610s)
One must have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star
— Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Nothing has more strength than dire necessity
— Helen, line 288
It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of truth
— An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book IV, Chapter VII
The stars are fireflies pinned to the vault of heaven by philosophers wondering about darkness
— Heretics (1905)
To know how to wonder is the first step of reason
— Speech at the University of Lille, 1854
Let your mind dwell amid the vastness, let justice be the measure of your actions, let beauty be your guide
— Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu), 4th Century BCE
The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat
— / Attributed in The Analects (exact passage debated)
To see a World in a Grain of Sand and a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand and Eternity in an hour
— Auguries of Innocence
Man is never so authentically himself as when he is at play
— Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man, Letter XV
Hope is a waking dream
— Rhetoric, Book II
Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism
— Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1961)
No finite point has meaning without an infinite reference point
— Being and Nothingness
The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven
— Paradise Lost, Book I
Life oscillates like a pendulum, back and forth between pain and boredom
— The World as Will and Representation (1818)
The bird of dawn is not bound by the cage of yesterday's logic
— Possible paraphrase from journals; aphoristic style reflects his thought
One cannot think crooked and walk straight
— Attributed; appears in various philosophical discussions
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth
— Meditations, Book VI
To do is to be; to be is to do; do be do be do
— Popularized in philosophical discussions and humorous context (attribution debated)
What is to give light must endure burning
— Man's Search for Meaning
Every present moment is governed by the necessity of the past and the freedom of the future
— The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947)
It is only through the act of doubting that we arrive at certainty
— Meditations on First Philosophy, Second Meditation
All interpretation is colored by the interpreter's own presuppositions
— Truth and Method
To doubt everything, or, to believe everything, are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection
— La Science et l'Hypothèse (Science and Hypothesis), 1902
To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself
— The Concept of Dread (1844)
To attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd
— Don Quixote, Part II
If you want to make a man happy, do not add to his riches but take away from his desires
— Vatican Sayings, #25
Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity
— Confessions, Book VIII
The purpose of our lives is to be happy
— The Art of Happiness, 1998
There are eyes to see with, and eyes to see through
— Essais
The greater part of our troubles arise from the eagerness with which we seek happiness, and the emptiness of the means by which we pursue it
— Essais (1580)
We are unknown to ourselves, we men of knowledge—and with good reason
— On the Genealogy of Morality, Preface
Only he who risks the abyss will discover whether he has wings
— Fear and Trembling
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains
— The Social Contract, Book I, Chapter 1
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted
— Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking (1963)
We are not retreating—we are advancing in another direction
— Attributed in various reports from WWII
Life has meaning only in the struggle. Triumph or defeat is in the hands of the gods. So let us celebrate the struggle itself
— Seneca, Letters to Lucilius; commonly referenced by others
The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us
— Letters on the English, 1733
All phenomena are best understood by their causes, but the understanding ends in marveling at existence itself
— Ethics, Part I
To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are
— The Passionate State of Mind (1954)
The highest form of human intelligence is to observe yourself without judgment
— Talks and Dialogues, Saanen, 1966
Even a fool, when he holds his tongue, is counted wise
— Tao Te Ching (translated), though phrasing varies by version
If we take man as he is, we make him worse, but if we take him as he should be, we make him capable of becoming what he can be
— Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
He who wishes to be rich in a day will be hanged in a year
— Notebooks
To attain knowledge, add things every day; to attain wisdom, subtract things every day
— Tao Te Ching, Chapter 48
When you look into infinity, you realize that there are more important things than what people do all day
— Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part I
We do not ask the mountain’s permission to climb; we climb, and the mountain answers in silence
— Gravity and Grace (not verbatim, but reflective of her themes)
The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action
— Human Nature and Conduct (1922)
Between the conception and the creation falls the shadow
— The Hollow Men
The more one judges, the less one loves
— Physiology of Marriage, Second Part
It is not enough to possess a good mind; it must be applied
— Discourse on the Method, Part I
To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly
— Creative Evolution (1907)
The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds
— The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936), Preface to the French Edition
A free man thinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life
— Ethics, Part IV, Proposition LXVII, Scholium
Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood
— Beyond Good and Evil, 289
There is nothing permanent except change
— Fragments, DK B41
The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself
— Cosmos, Episode 1: The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean (1980)
He who thinks great thoughts, often makes great errors
— Introduction to Metaphysics (1935)
The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion
— The Myth of Sisyphus
The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions
— Lecture, The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858)
Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself
— Culture and Value (1980), manuscript ca. 1931
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering
— Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-85)
Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world
— Studies in Pessimism
The animals you eat are not the ones you see, the ones you call by name and feed with your hands
— The Lives of Animals, 1999
The eyes of others are our prisons; their thoughts our cages
— The Waves
I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong
— Attributed in various talks and essays
Every man is born as many men, and dies as a single one
— Heraclitus Seminar (lecture)
The highest form of wisdom is kindness
— Talmudic proverb, tractate Berakhot
The wind does not break a tree that bends
— Attributed, ancient Greece (context uncertain)
A wise man seeks to discover within himself what others look for outside themselves
— Book VII, Part A (Mengzi)
Spirit is at war with itself; it has to overcome itself as its most formidable obstacle
— The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807)
The eye by which I see God is the same eye by which God sees me
— Sermon No.12
Restless is the mind that measures existence with rulers forged from its own shifting shadow
— The Life Divine
Do not chase after the world; let it come to you and reveal its secrets in the measure you are ready to receive
— Gravity and Grace (collection of essays)
To live without hope is to cease to live
— Notes from Underground, Part II, Chapter II
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent
— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Proposition 7
Do not allow yourselves to be deceived: Great Minds are Skeptical
— Human, All Too Human (1878)
To study philosophy is to learn to die serenely and to live bravely
— Essais, Book I
Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind
— / The Marble Faun (chapter context)
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes
— In Search of Lost Time
The mind is like a craftsman who must invent his own tools and learn to wield them in darkness
— Gravity and Grace (1947)
The questions that can be asked are infinite, but the answers that satisfy are always finite
— The Trouble with Being Born
The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it
— Discourses on Livy, Book III
There are things which seem incredible to most men who have not studied mathematics
— Metaphysics, Book I, 983a15
The face is the living presence; it is expression before it is anything else
— Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority
What we see depends mainly on what we look for
— The Use of Life (1894)
Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is
— The Rebel (L’Homme révolté), 1951
We are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several, and the majority of our controversies come from that
— Meditations, Book XII
Let us accept truth, even when it surprises us and alters our views
— The Life of Reason
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads
— Walden, Chapter 17: Spring
Justice is the constant and perpetual will to allot to every man his due
— The Metaphysics of Morals
The mind is like a parachute—it works only when it is open
— Interview, 1978
The mind’s deepest wisdom often appears first as paradox, like thunder that announces but does not explain the coming storm
— Parerga and Paralipomena
You cannot step into the same river even once
— Fragment 41 (Diels-Kranz numbering); source: multiple ancient citations
What is now proved was once only imagined
— The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
To question is to grow; certainty is the stillness of thought
— Gravity and Grace
There is an old illusion—it is called good and evil
— Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 108
What is true is too simple, it becomes a problem only because we attempt to elaborate it
— Stray Birds, Section 12
The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision
— Guide for the Perplexed
All serious daring starts from within
— One Writer's Beginnings (1984)
Distrust those in whom the urge to punish is strong
— On the Genealogy of Morals
Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question
— Quoted in discussions of Bohr’s approach to quantum theory
Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question
— As quoted in 'Niels Bohr's Times', by Abraham Pais, 1991
When the water of a lake is still, you can see your face; when your mind is still, the truth shows itself
— Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu), Section: Essentials of the Dao
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation
— Attributed; often cited as summarizing Plato’s values regarding human nature
It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world
— Metaphysics, Book XII
The path to wisdom is paved with questions that refuse to yield simple answers
— The Ethics of Ambiguity
To be is to do, but to do is not yet to understand
— The Ethics of Ambiguity
To read is to dream another’s dream through the waking mind
— Paraphrase of themes in "What Is Called Thinking?" (1954)
If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past
— Ethics, Part V
He who does not enjoy solitude will not love freedom, for it is only when one is alone that one is really free
— The World as Will and Representation, Vol. I
What is not surrounded by uncertainty cannot be the truth
— Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979)
There is a crack in everything; that's how the light gets in
— Anthem (song lyrics, 1992)
He who has a why to live can bear almost any how
— Twilight of the Idols
The sky is not less blue because the blind man does not see it
— Reflections on the Philosophy of the Right, marginalia
Clarity is the kindness of thought
— Gravity and Grace
Suppose truth is a woman—what then?
— Beyond Good and Evil, Preface
To doubt everything, or to believe everything, are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection
— La Science et l’Hypothèse (Science and Hypothesis)
We are asleep—our life is a dream. But we wake up, sometimes, just enough to know that we are dreaming
— Culture and Value (1977)
To ridicule philosophy is really to philosophize
— Pensées, Section 4
The heart rebels against the mind’s arithmetic; it counts without numbers and spends without measure
— Pensées (fragmented reflections)
One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star
— Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part One, On Reading and Writing
We ought to act with reason, not from fear; for he who does nothing but fear is already a slave
— Discourses, Book III
The wound of reason is that it cannot rest; its home is perpetual questioning, its refuge only partial answers
— Gravity and Grace (1947)
The chain of habit coils itself around the heart like a serpent, fastening into itself, and yet, while it seems to kill, it saves
— The Voyage Out, Ch. 1
To doubt is to dream that truth is asleep
— Gravity and Grace
I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong
— Attributed, various sources
Doubt is the origin of wisdom
— Principles of Philosophy, Part I
The mind grows by self-revelation; in thinking, a man reveals himself to himself
— Abinger Harvest (1926)
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts
— Meditations, Book II
The stars are fireflies pinned to the vault of heaven by philosophers wondering about darkness
— Attributed, context uncertain
Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind
— Critique of Pure Reason, A51/B75
What we are looking for is what is looking
— .
Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right
— Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. 2, "Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life"
To live is to be slowly born
— Citadelle (published posthumously, 1948)
The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities
— Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 1887
Custom is the great guide of human life
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section V, Part I
The true method of knowledge is experiment
— Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 5
All certainty is merely a resting place; at best, an island in the ocean of doubt
— Being and Time
A great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude
— Essays: First Series, Self-Reliance (1841)
He who is brave is free
— Letters to Lucilius, Letter 37
The only thing I know is that I know nothing
— Reported in Plato's Apology
A question remains alive far longer than its answer
— Mix of notebooks and essays, paraphrasing Valéry’s meditations on inquiry
Dreams are the seedlings of realities
— As a Man Thinketh, 1903
The only cure for vanity is laughter, and the only fault that is laughable is vanity
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic
He who is afraid to ask is ashamed of learning
— Quoted by Kierkegaard in his journals
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering
— Twilight of the Idols
He who would taste of the infinite must learn to swallow the bitter cup of the finite every day
— Gravity and Grace
The actual is limited, the possible is immense
— The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics (La Pensée et le Mouvant, 1934)
A wise man, when asked how he had learned so much about everything, replied, By never being ashamed or afraid to ask questions about anything of which I was ignorant
— The Examiner, 1886
The world is neither to be despised nor worshipped, but understood; and in understanding, one finds neither a prison nor a paradise, but a place to dwell
— The Ethics of Ambiguity
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities
— Questions sur les miracles, 1765
Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is
— The Rebel (L’Homme révolté), 1951
A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken magnificently
— De Doctrina Christiana, Book IV, Chapter 22
History is philosophy teaching by examples
— History of the Peloponnesian War, Book I
To inquire into the self is to open a door without handle or key, and to find that there was never a door at all
— Talks, various lectures (20th century)
The true method of knowledge is experiment
— Annotations to Bacon's Essays, marginalia (ca. 1798)
To judge what is possible, we must try the impossible
— Thoughts on Death and Immortality
The animals you eat are not the ones you see, the ones you call by name and feed with your hands
— The Animal That Therefore I Am
The universe is not more strange than we imagine; it is more strange than we can imagine
— Lecture: Mysticism and Logic (1914)
To live without philosophizing is in truth the same as keeping the eyes closed without attempting to open them
— Principles of Philosophy, Preface
Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself
— Existentialism Is a Humanism
Every light is cast upon some darkness, but without darkness the light would have no form
— Gravity and Grace
Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism
— Self-Reliance (1841)
The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled
— On Listening to Lectures
The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk
— Preface to 'Philosophy of Right'
He who reflects confers a benefit on himself; he who reads confers a benefit on others
— Essays, Book III, Chapter XIII
Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell
— The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder
— Theaetetus
Every man is born as many men, and dies as a single one
— Contributions to Philosophy (Beiträge zur Philosophie)
The lantern of reason may illuminate the road, but it cannot show us what awaits beyond the next bend
— Philosophy of Existence
The mind is ever shuttling between what was and what shall be, and never, for one instant, rests on what is
— Parerga and Paralipomena
He who desires to philosophize must first be bewildered
— Kitab al-Nafs (Book of the Soul)
The one truth is that nothing is self-caused, but everything is in a network of causes, and that even chance is woven into necessity
— The Gay Science, Book V
He who would move the world should first move himself
— Attributed by Diogenes Laertius (Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers)
In every act of seeing, there is risk; we do not see only with our eyes, but with all that we are
— Phenomenology of Perception
Through others we become ourselves
— Mind in Society (1930s)
We do not see things as they are; we see them as we are
— The Seduction of the Minotaur, 1961
The mind is like a skilled hand that shapes both shadow and light, rarely noticing which it holds until the work is finished
— Gravity and Grace
All is through others; we become ourselves only through the love, the trust, the admiration of others, and through the ideals which are the blossoms of their love
— The Tragic Sense of Life (1913)
The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules. It’s people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages
— Wall art installation, Bristol, various interviews
He who desires to philosophize must first be bewildered
— Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy
What is now proved was once only imagined
— The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
In every silence, thought carves new worlds out of the unknown
— Claros del bosque
We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want
— Tao Te Ching, Chapter 11
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together
— Traditional proverb, widespread (no specific source)
One cannot think crooked and walk straight
— A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis, 1968
Nothing is more difficult than simplicity; the simplest gesture requires the whole weight of one's being
— Poetry, Language, Thought
Every man is born as many men, and dies as a single one
— Attributed, context disputed
The sun is new each day
— /Fragments/
No man ever rises so high as when he knows not whither he is going
— Letter to Sir William Spring (September 17, 1643)
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit
— Attributed in Nicomachean Ethics (routine paraphrase)
You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible
— Letter to Alexei Suvorin, October 1888
All men are disturbed, not by things, but by the interpretation they place upon things
— Discourses, Book I
To will freely, one must be conscious not only of the will itself, but also of the causes that determine it
— Ethics, Part II, Proposition XXXV, note
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes
— In Search of Lost Time, Volume V
What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence
— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 7
To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance
— An Ideal Husband (1895)
The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness
— Essays, Book III, Chapter 12
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for
— Letter to Menoeceus
He who is untrue to his own cause cannot command the respect of others
— On Liberty, Chapter II
The mind is its own universe and contains within itself all the darkness and light that will ever be discovered
— Enneads, Book VI
Every boundary is both a limit and an invitation to step beyond it
— Book: 'Totality and Infinity'
Time is the moving image of eternity
— Timaeus
When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you
— Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146
Man is fully responsible for his nature and his choices
— Existentialism Is a Humanism
Our lives are woven from stories we tell ourselves and others, and the fabric is never seamless
— Book: 'The Sovereignty of Good'
He attains all his desires, as far as mortal man may, whose desires are in accord with reason
— Ethics, Part IV, Proposition XXXV, Proof
The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths
— The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture XVIII
Truth is like fire; to tell the truth means to glow and burn
— Views from the Real World
The life of man in every part has need of harmony and rhythm
— Republic, Book III
To be wrong is nothing, unless you remember it afterward
— Analects, Book XV
There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true
— The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard
The harmony of the world is made manifest in Form and Number, and the heart and soul and all the poetry of Natural Philosophy are embodied in the concept of mathematical beauty
— On Growth and Form (1917)
He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men
— Lectures on Ethics
The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free
— Ethics, Part V, Proposition 25, Scholium
There is a crack in everything; that's how the light gets in
— Song: Anthem (from the album 'The Future')
Every society is three meals away from chaos
— Attributed to interviews, c. 1970s
There is nothing so strange and so unbelievable that it has not been said by one philosopher or another
— Le Discours de la Méthode (1637)
There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night
— The Myth of Sisyphus
The mind is everything; what you think you become
— Traditional Buddhist teaching
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool
— Caltech Commencement Address, 1974
We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the way in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us
— Human, All Too Human (1878)
To be a human being among humans is to be forever unfinished, always a work in progress
— Book: 'The Human Condition'
Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting
— All the Pretty Horses, 1992
Stones in the road? I save every single one, and one day I’ll build a castle
— from a private notebook (ascribed posthumously)
The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness
— Quoted in 'Saroyan: A Biography' by Lawrence Lee (1983)
We build concepts in the longing for shelter, but are always exiled in the storm of meaning
— Totality and Infinity (1961)
Every man's memory is his private literature
— Texts and Pretexts, 1932
One’s mind, stretched by paradox, never shrinks back to certainty
— Reconstruction in Philosophy
Where questions are asked, life takes on depth, and answers become its echo
— Creative Fidelity
The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don't know anything about
— Paraphrased Socratic paradox; the spirit of his dialogues in Plato
The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing
— Fragment 201 (as paraphrased by later authors)
The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul
— The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man (1933)
He who binds to himself a joy does the winged life destroy; He who kisses the joy as it flies lives in eternity’s sunrise
— From 'Songs of Innocence and Experience'
We wake, if ever at all, to mystery
— Experience, Essays: Second Series
The spider's web is a cunning labyrinth, and every fly it captures grows the knowledge of its architect
— Opus Postumum (Notes)
The soul, like the body, accepts by practice whatever habit one wishes it to contract
— Xenophon, Memorabilia (attributed to Socrates)
To err is human, but to persist in error is diabolical
— Sermones, 164, 14
Every word is a bias or an inclination
— Lectures on General Linguistics (1916)
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there
— The Essential Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)
The soul sits at the center of a world and radiates out in all directions, but the shape of the world is also the shape of the soul
— Enneads, IV.3.9
Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems
— Discourse on the Method, Part II
Being cannot be exhausted by any one name or description, for each reveals only a single face of the mystery
— Identity and Difference (1957)
All is for the best, in the best of all possible worlds
— Essays on Theodicy, Section 1
The mind is furnished with ideas by experience alone
— An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Chapter I
The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearance, pass, repass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations
— A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part IV, Section VI
All significant truths are private truths. As soon as you let them in the door, they become lies
— The Family Reunion (1939)
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities
— Questions sur les Miracles, 1765
All great things must first wear terrifying and monstrous masks in order to inscribe themselves on the hearts of humanity
— Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 40
The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself
— Essays, Book I, Chapter 39
Man seeks certainty, but all he finds is paradox
— The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947)
All that we see is but a shadow cast by that which we do not see
— Strength to Love
We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because it is easier to overlook than to look at it
— The Gulag Archipelago (1973)
To be is to be valued
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Part I
To doubt everything, or, to believe everything, are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection
— Science and Hypothesis (1902)
No man ever achieved superlative wisdom by accident; he must climb by choice the tree whose roots are in shadow and whose branches grope at the sun
— Enneads
There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide
— The Myth of Sisyphus, opening section
He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior
— Analects (location disputed)
We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning
— Simulacra and Simulation, Chapter 1
To arrive at the simplest truth requires years of contemplation
— Memoirs, as noted by Augustus De Morgan
He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command
— The Prince, Chapter XIV
To live without hope is to cease to live
— Notes from Underground (1864)
He who seeks truth must, of necessity, be at least once in his life the enemy of his own people
— Human, All Too Human (1878)
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance
— The Wisdom of Insecurity (1951)
Our normal waking consciousness is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different
— The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays
— Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing (1847)
The soul is a garden in which every thought is a seed and every act is the bloom
— Enneads
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so
— Hamlet, Act II, Scene II
To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle
— In Front of Your Nose (essay), 1946
What you are, that you are unaware of; what you are aware of, that you are not
— I Am That
There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy
— Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part I
He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men
— Lectures on Ethics
The harmony of the soul is like a well-tuned lyre; discord within breeds confusion without
— Phaedo
The soul’s progress is often disguised as wandering, for wisdom rarely travels by direct roads
— Journals
The mind’s eye sees not itself, but by reflection, by some other things
— Phaedrus 133c (attributed via Socrates)
The dreams of reason produce monsters
— Caprichos, Plate 43 (El sueño de la razón produce monstruos)
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril
— The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
Between faith and knowledge lies doubt, not as an enemy but as a silent companion on the road to truth
— The Courage to Be, 1952
The possible's slow fuse is lit by the imagination
— Poem 1286 (c.1873-1874)
Happiness depends upon ourselves
— Nicomachean Ethics, Book I
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy
— Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5
All great truths begin as blasphemies
— Annajanska, 1919
To suffer without complaint is the only lesson we have to learn in this life
— Man's Search for Meaning
To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself
— The Concept of Dread
Man is a knot into which relationships are tied
— Flight to Arras (1942)
We must cultivate our garden
— Candide, final chapter
We awake in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them
— The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard (1927)
To dare to speak out what I myself believe, has cost me already too much that is dear to man
— Letter 28 to Henry Oldenburg, 1665
We are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several, and the majority of our controversies come from that
— Meditations Book XII
The mind is not a compass—the winds of habit can turn it where they will
— Notebooks (Cahiers, 1933–1942)
A man’s true delight is to do the things he was made for
— Meditations, Book VIII
It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question
— Fragments of a Journal
We are patrons at the banquet of appearances, always hungry for reality's elusive flavor
— The World as Will and Representation (1818)
No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life, no one but you yourself alone
— Untimely Meditations, Schopenhauer as Educator (1874)
We do not describe the world we see; we see the world we can describe
— Literary and Philosophical Essays, 1955
What is demanded of man is not, as some thinkers teach, to endure the meaninglessness of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness
— The Doctor and the Soul, Part Two
Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood
— Beyond Good and Evil (1886)
The mind is not satisfied with knowing; it must also know why and how it knows
— The Dehumanization of Art and Other Essays on Art, Culture, and Literature (1925)
Great intellects are skeptical
— Human, All Too Human, Aphorism 630
Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind
— Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Introduction
The mind that is anxious about future events is miserable
— Letters to Lucilius, Letter V
The human condition is such that we always look outward for answers, forgetting that the light we seek shines inward
— Gravity and Grace
Whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities
— The Problems of Philosophy (1912)
To find truth, one must once in a lifetime be willing to put everything in doubt
— Principles of Philosophy, Preface
The mind is like a skilled painter, transforming the blank canvas of existence into scenes of meaning by its own secret design
— Enneads, Book V
The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness
— Interview in The New York Journal-American (1961)
A man's worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions
— Meditations, Book VI
Whoever despises himself still respects himself as one who despises
— Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 78
Every present moment is governed by the necessity of the past and the freedom of the future
— The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947)
Every certainty is a door locked against the wind; sometimes, to understand, we must open it to uncertainty and let the world in
— Philosophy of Existence
He who shuns the arena of life fears not defeat, but the mirror it would hold to his own emptiness
— Notebooks
All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone
— Pensées, Section VIII, 139
Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives, and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time
— Philosophical Dictionary (1764)
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)
The greatest achievements of the human mind are generally received with distrust
— Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how
— Twilight of the Idols, Maxims and Arrows, 12
That man is wisest who, like Socrates, realizes that his wisdom is worthless
— Apology
The wise man does at once what the fool does finally
— Discourses on Livy, Book III
Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done
— Major Barbara (1905)
Reason, it is true, is ever alert, and is the most indefatigable of all our faculties
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section I
Every philosophy is the philosophy of some stage of life
— Athenaeum Fragments, Fragment 44 (1798)
All men by nature desire to know
— Metaphysics, Book I
It is only in the leap from the lion’s mouth that the fish learns the shape of water
— Gravity and Grace (1947)
A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer
— Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living
The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation
— A Fragment on Government, 1776
To live is to not think oneself wise, but ever in search of wisdom in the company of doubts
— Essays, Book I, Chapter XXVII
I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library
— Poema de los Dones (Poem of the Gifts)
Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe
— Philosophical Dictionary
That man is wisest who, like Socrates, realizes that his wisdom is worthless
— Apology, 23b
Let each step be an answer to the darkness rather than a flight from it
— Philosophy, Vol. 1: The Way to Wisdom
The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests
— Discourses
All is flux, nothing stays still
— Fragments, DK22B91
We live in exile within the boundaries of the familiar
— Gravity and Grace (1947)
To think is to say no
— Propos sur les pouvoirs
We inhabit a world best approached as an enigma, to be understood by loving it as it resists comprehension
— Gravity and Grace
Every idea is an incitement
— Gitlow v. New York (1925), Supreme Court opinion
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response
— Man's Search for Meaning (often attributed from his lectures)
Every man is born an original, but sadly, most men die copies
— Attributed (historically referenced in various speeches)
The mind is like a perpetually wound clock; it moves without rest, marking not just hours but the silent questions between them
— Gravity and Grace (1947)
The web of reason is stretched across the abyss, woven from threads that tremble at the wind of every doubt
— Phenomenology of Spirit (Preface)
To perceive is to suffer
— Metaphysics, Book XII, 7
He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that
— On Liberty (1859)
I had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith
— Critique of Pure Reason, Preface to the Second Edition
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing
— Attributed, from various speeches and letters (actual phrasing debated)
One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil
— Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part I
To ask the proper question is half of knowing
— Metaphysics (paraphrased from original meaning)
One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star
— Thus Spoke Zarathustra
It is only in the leap from the lion’s mouth that the fish learns the shape of water
— Gravity and Grace
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation
— Commonly attributed, reflects themes from Laws and Republic
What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning
— Four Quartets: Little Gidding (1942)
Our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strengths
— Mere Christianity (1952)
The birds that peck at the window do not know the story of the glass
— Gravity and Grace (1947)
Only through the cracks in certainty does the light of understanding enter
— Philosophy, Book 1
To do is to be; to be is to do; do be do be do
— Anecdotal / Attributed; see various lectures and writings
The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms
— Attributed in Plato’s dialogues
The greatest ideas are those that are simplest
— Attributed, reflecting on Ockham's Razor principle
The more a man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large
— Analects, Book XII
To doubt is to think with a deeper courage, for certainty is the resting place of fools
— Essais (various)
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance
— Poetics
We are like sailors who must rebuild their ship on the open sea, never able to start afresh from the bottom
— Analogy from 'Protocol Sentences' (1932)
To live without appeal is perhaps the secret of the gods
— The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
Between the idea and the reality falls the shadow
— The Hollow Men
The labyrinth of the world is best navigated by those content to make their own map
— Denktagebuch (Thought Diary)
Philosophy lets no one off; it asks us to give an account of ourselves where there is no shelter from our words and actions
— Giving an Account of Oneself (2005)
He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures
— Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part II
The story of a life is not a life, it is only a story
— All Said and Done
The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness
— John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals (1938)
He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men
— Lectures on Ethics
The difference between a wise man and a fool is that the wise man knows he can be a fool
— 'The Sentiment of Rationality,' The Will to Believe (1897)
The snare of authority is the greatest of snares, and judgment the most stubborn of chains
— Gravity and Grace
The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you
— Reported in discussions, attributed by Heisenberg to dialogue with Wolfgang Pauli (Exact origin: 'Physics and Beyond', 1971)
Men are disturbed not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things
— Enchiridion, Section 5
To live without hope is to cease to live
— Notes from Underground
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
— Politics, Book I
To perceive is to suffer
— Metaphysics, Book XII
Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does
— L'Existentialisme est un humanisme (Existentialism Is a Humanism), 1946
He who would move the world should first move himself
— Attributed by Diogenes Laërtius
One’s mind, stretched by paradox, never shrinks back to certainty
— Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics
Habits are the invisible architecture of our lives; we shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us
— Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
The mind acts only when it is troubled
— How We Think (1910)
The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled
— On Listening to Lectures
There is nothing so practical as a good theory
— Field Theory in Social Science (1940s)
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be
— Mother Night (1961)
We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world
— Dhammapada, Verse 1
The mind is furnished with ideas by experience alone
— An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II
The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are
— Letter to Fanny Bowring Morris, 1959
The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled
— Moralia, On Listening to Lectures
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe
— Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 251
A wise man seeks to discover within himself what others look for outside themselves
— Pensées, fragment 553 (Brunschvicg edition)
You do not truly see the world if you only see it as it appears
— Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
To think with the heart and to feel with the mind is not to change the instruments, but to augment the harmony of life
— The Tragic Sense of Life (1912)
Only the educated are free
— Discourses
Even the clearest mind is but a small lantern in a boundless night
— Gravity and Grace
Every limitation is an opportunity for creativity
— Journals, 1843–44 (Pap. IV A 112)
That which is dreamed can never be lost, can never be undreamed
— The Tragic Sense of Life
To doubt is to think with a deeper courage, for certainty is the resting place of fools
— Essais (1580), Book II
The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best—and therefore never scrutinize or question
— Bully for Brontosaurus (1991)
One’s life acquires value through acts freely chosen, not by the accident of circumstance
— The Ethics of Ambiguity, Part II
Happiness is the highest good and the end at which all our activities ultimately aim
— Nicomachean Ethics, Book I
You do not destroy a thought by killing a thinker
— Critique of Dialectical Reason
All our dignity consists, then, in thought. By thought we must elevate ourselves, not by space and time, which we cannot fill
— Pensées, Section VI
The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you
— Quoted in 'Physics and Beyond' (1971)
We taste and feel and see the truth, we do not reason ourselves into it
— The Sentiment of Rationality
No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence
— Romola, Chapter 63
The lantern of reason may illuminate the road, but it cannot show us what awaits beyond the next bend
— Philosophical Investigations (interpretative paraphrase of his style)
The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them
— As cited in 'The New Quotable Einstein', edited by Alice Calaprice
Every man is born as many men, and dies as a single one
— Attributed, paraphrased from Being and Time (1927); exact phrasing debated
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer
— L'Été (Essays), 1954
A wise man is sharp in discernment but gentle in judgment
— Kitab al-Shifa (The Book of Healing), Ethics section
Every acquisition of accommodation becomes an acquisition of power
— The Principles of Psychology
To be is to be perceived
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Section 3
Time is the moving image of eternity
— Timaeus, 37d
The highest courage is to dare to appear to be what one is
— Either/Or
A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic
— /Anecdotal, various attributions/
We are architects of our own fate, the builders of the edifice of character
— The Principles of Psychology (1890), various lectures and essays
Life is a preparation for the future; and the best preparation for the future is to live as if there were none
— Letter to his son Eduard (1930)
Eternity is in love with the productions of time
— The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-1793), "Proverbs of Hell"
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived—this is to have succeeded
— Essay: Success (often attributed, but found in multiple anthologies)
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world
— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Proposition 5.6
The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts
— Meditations, Book V, 16
The world has no room for cowards
— Pulvis et Umbra, 1888 (essay)
Wonder is the beginning of wisdom
— As recounted by Plato in Theaetetus
In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule
— Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 156
There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not said it
— De Divinatione, Book II, Section 119
He who is outside his door has the hardest part of his journey behind him
— Either/Or, Preface (Kierkegaard quotes the proverb)
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience
— Le Phénomène Humain (The Phenomenon of Man), 1955
Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind
— The Marble Faun, 1860
The way up and the way down are one and the same
— Fragments
The things which we love tell us what we are
— Summa Theologica
There is no wealth like knowledge, and no poverty like ignorance
— Attributed in Nahj al-Balagha (Peak of Eloquence)
The greatest remedy for anger is delay
— On Anger (De Ira), Book III
The mind acts only when it is troubled
— Gravity and Grace (1947)
The mind’s first step to self-awareness must be through the body
— The Sense of Beauty (1896)
The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing
— Pensées, Section IV, 277
The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free
— Ethics, Part V
Not what we experience, but how we experience, is what matters
— Twilight of the Idols, Maxims and Arrows, 12
You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore
— Often attributed to Gide; reflects his existential and philosophical contemplations
Character is fate
— Fragment 119
Every man who has something to say and does not say it is cowed by something which he does not respect
— Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies
We are only ever the answer to a question we rarely have the courage to ask
— The Coming Community (1990)
The harmony of the world is made manifest in Form and Number
Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought
— Attributed in Bashō’s travel diaries and haiku prefaces
He who understands the limits of his own mind knows the beginning of wisdom
— Pensées (fragment 115)
You do not see the world as it is. You see it as you are
— The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1, 1931-1934
The dreams of reason produce monsters
— Caprichos, Plate 43: El sueño de la razón produce monstruos
The greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting it
— Letter to Menoeceus
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there
— Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi
The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking
— What Is Called Thinking?
To live is to be slowly born
— Wind, Sand and Stars (1939)
There is no ghost in the machine, only echoes of questions not yet answered
— The Concept of Mind (1949)
Thought without learning is perilous; learning without thought is labor lost
— The Analects, Book II, Chapter 15
Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve
— The Art of Being (book)
The greatest part of human pain is unnecessary and self-inflicted, for it comes from our struggle to make things permanent that by their nature cannot be
— The First and Last Freedom
Every answer breeds its own questions, and every question leads us deeper into the labyrinth
— The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947)
A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions—as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all
— The Gay Science, Book V, Aphorism 41
The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different
— Themes and Variations (1950)
Every act of genuine thinking is a rebellion against the empire of habit
— The Life of the Mind
A bird does not sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song
— . Attributed proverb, widely circulated in philosophical literature
To perceive is to suffer
— Metaphysics, Book XII
We are like sailors who must rebuild their ship on the open sea, never able to start afresh from the bottom
— Protokollsätze, Erkenntnis (1932)
To live without hope is to cease to live
— Notes from Underground
The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception
— The Antichrist, Aphorism 55
It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable
— Letters to Lucilius, Letter 78
The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free
— Ethics, Part V
There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance
— As recalled by Diogenes Laërtius (Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers)
If I do not seek, I do not learn
— Gravity and Grace
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment
— Self-Reliance, Essay
When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser
— Anecdotal/attributed, reported by Diogenes Laërtius
Our concern ought not to be to have lived long as to have lived enough
— Letter 93, Letters to Lucilius
To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly
— Creative Evolution (1907)
The measure of a man is what he does with power
— Attributed to Plato, occasionally cited in various translations of 'The Republic', but original wording varies
We live in the best of all possible worlds
— Essays on Theodicy
He who seeks wisdom is already wise; he who thinks he has found it is a fool
— Often paraphrased from The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way (Mulamadhyamakakarika)
In wandering there is the promise of finding; in sitting still, the promise of being found
— Sand and Foam (1926)
If a triangle could speak, it would say... that God is eminently triangular, and a circle would say that the divine nature is eminently circular
— Ethics, Part I, Scholium to Proposition XV
The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms
— Quoted by Plato in Phaedrus (uncertain if the exact phrasing derives from the dialogues)
The chain of habit coils itself around the heart like a serpent, fastening into itself, and yet, while it seems to kill, it saves
— The Gay Science, Book III
No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path
— Dhammapada
Every action we take echoes in the corridors of time, even if the halls are empty and no ear listens
— The Human Condition
To doubt is uncomfortable, to be certain is ridiculous
— Attributed aphorism, cited in various correspondence (notably to Frederick the Great, June 1767)
The stars incline us, they do not bind us
— Essays, Book I, Chapter XIV
A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer
— Tao of Jeet Kune Do
Life must be understood backward. But it must be lived forward
— Journals
The only thing I know is that I know nothing
— As reported by Plato, various dialogues
The mind is its own universe and contains within itself all the darkness and light that will ever be discovered
— Elements of the Philosophy of Right
You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind
— Speech in Ahmedabad, 1917
Clarity is the kindness of thought
— Gravity and Grace (original French: La Pesanteur et la Grâce)
Even while they teach, men learn
— Letters to Lucilius, Letter VII
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings
— Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene II
To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible
— Attributed; context is Aquinas’s commentaries on faith and reason
Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills
— On the Freedom of the Will (1839)
What we see changes what we know. What we know changes what we see
— Insights from Piaget's research (paraphrased from collected works)
The mind is like the wind and knowledge is the sail. Without one the other is useless
— Traditional attribution, though exact textual source disputed
The desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it
— A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy
Freedom is secured not by the fulfillment of men's desires, but by the removal of desire
— Discourses, Book IV, Chapter 1
Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language
— Philosophical Investigations, Section 109
Every man is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody
— Notebooks (published posthumously)
The certainty of death and the uncertainty of the hour is a source of endless speculation and of deeper wisdom
— Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
The harmony between thought and action requires courage to err and wisdom to revise
— Philosophy of Existence (1938)
Time is a created thing. To say 'I don't have time,' is like saying 'I don't want to'
— Attributed, Daoist aphorism (paraphrase from Taoist teachings)
Our mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive
— The Power of Now (1997)
We do not see things as they are, but as we are ourselves
— The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end
— Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, Letter 76
We ought not to consider the multitude of things, but the weight of them
— Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter 1
Whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities
— The Problems of Philosophy, Chapter 15
Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers
— Attributed, specific source debated
Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them
— Enchiridion, Section 5
To learn is to change. Education is a process that changes the learner
— The Ultimate Athlete (1975)
To think with the heart and to feel with the mind is not to change the instruments, but to augment the harmony of life
— The Revolt of the Masses (1930)
The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself
— Essays, Book I, Chapter 39
The soul has illusions as the bird has wings: it is supported by them
— Les Misérables, Book III, Chapter VI
Silence is a fence around wisdom
— . Frequently cited in philosophical texts about the limits of speech, especially in relation to the ineffability of truth.
To learn is to not only open new doors, but to find that rooms have changed behind you
— Attributed, writings on education and knowledge
Man is always prey to his truths. Once he has admitted them, he cannot free himself from them
— The Myth of Sisyphus
To see the limits of language is to glimpse the mist at the edges of thought
— Philosophical Investigations (1953)
No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude
— The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol II
In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer
— Return to Tipasa, 1952
He who is cruel to living creatures cannot be a good man
— Emile, or On Education, Book IV
We must therefore, pursue the things that make for wisdom with more vigor than the things that make for wealth
— Discourses, Book II
The owl of wisdom builds its nest among ruins and yet sings before the dawn
— From the essay collection The Tragic Sense of Life (c. 1912), thematic paraphrase
A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?
— Letter to his friend Niels Bohr (1947)
The mind grows by what it feeds on
— Gold-Foil: Hammered from Popular Proverbs
The highest form of human intelligence is to observe yourself without judgment
— Freedom from the Known
The deepest questions are not solved by answers but by the way in which we learn to live with them
— Philosophy of Existence
Our minds are as much shaped by the questions we cannot answer as by those we ask
— Gravity and Grace
What a caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly
— Attributed in Taoist aphorisms and texts
To be even minded is the greatest virtue; wisdom is to speak the truth and act according to nature, while giving heed to what is due
— Fragment 112 (as recorded by later sources)
That which gives light must endure burning
— Man's Search for Meaning (1946)
We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us
— Reflections on the Art of Living
Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another
— Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (television series)
The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues
— Discourse on Method, Part I
The cosmos is neither hostile nor friendly toward us, but simply indifferent; it is up to us to give meaning
— possibly personal letters and essays, not a definitive published source
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite
— Sceptical Essays (1928)
The truth is rarely pure and never simple
— The Importance of Being Earnest, Act I
Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions
— A Treatise of Human Nature, Book II
To abstain from tracing upon the heart what the heart dislikes, is to keep oneself free
— Zhuangzi, Inner Chapters
Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems
— Discourses, Book I
We wander among symbols as travelers lost amid signposts written in a language we have yet to learn
— Philosophy in a New Key
To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often
— An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845)
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment
— Essays: First Series, Self-Reliance
We do not describe the world we see, we see the world we can describe
— Emile, or On Education (approximate context)
To choose is to invent; with each decision, we are the authors of ourselves and the architects of tomorrow
— Existentialism Is a Humanism (1946)
All judgments are comparisons, and even the act of thinking is measuring the invisible against the known
— Phenomenology of Perception (1945)
Man is born to live, not to prepare for life
— Doctor Zhivago (novel)
We suffer more often in imagination than in reality
— Letters to Lucilius, Letter XIII
The path to enlightenment is in the ceaseless labor of untangling the self from what it mistakes for itself
— Gravity and Grace (1947)
He who has anticipated the coming of troubles takes away their power when they arrive
— Essays, Book I, Chapter XIV
What can be shown, cannot be said
— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Proposition 4.1212
Certainty is the reef on which the ship of inquiry so often founders; the deeper waters require trust in unknowing
— The Mystery of Being
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge
— The Discoverers (1983)
That which is dreamed can never be lost, can never be undreamed
— The Sandman: Brief Lives
Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought
— Attributed; included in Zen and Japanese Culture by D. T. Suzuki
The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk
— Preface to Philosophy of Right
All things come out of the one, and the one out of all things
— Fragment 10 (various translations)
The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise
— .
The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original size
— Attributed, The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, 1858
What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence
— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Proposition 7
The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness
— Essais, Book I, Chapter 26
He who thinks great thoughts, often makes great errors
— An Introduction to Metaphysics (1953)
To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult of all
— Maxims and Reflections
It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting
— Enchiridion, Section 20
A thought, once awakened, does not again slumber
— Sartor Resartus (Book II, Chapter 3)
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons
— The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)
The sign of a mind at harmony is the ability to entertain a thought without accepting it
— Metaphysics (attributed paraphrase)
One cannot step twice into the same river, for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you
— Fragments, c. 5th century BCE; Diels-Kranz B91
Time is a moving image of eternity
— Timaeus
To be is to do, but what one does is not always what one is
— The Ethics of Ambiguity
From the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made
— Idea from 'Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose' (1784)
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet
— Various attributions, commonly cited as Aristotle's maxim
We see things not as they are, but as we are
— Paraphrase of central idea in 'Critique of Pure Reason'
He who is cruel to living creatures cannot be a good man
— On the Basis of Morality, 1840
The mind, once expanded by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions
— Attributed in speeches and essays (no single definitive source)
The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom
— Proverbs of Hell, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Every perception is a gamble
— Philosophy as Rigorous Science (1911)
What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality
— Moral Essays, On the Control of Anger
The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness
— Essays, Book II, Chap. XII.
To philosophize is to dry one's eyes while staring into the sun of meaning
— A Short History of Decay (1949)
The fox condemns the trap, not himself
— The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Proverbs of Hell
The lantern of reason may illuminate, but it never lights the path entire
— Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance
— Poetics
I think therefore I am, is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches
— The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years mere study of books
— Attributed, collected works
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom
— The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793)
Truth springs from argument amongst friends
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven
— Paradise Lost, Book I
All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone
— Pensées, Section VIII, 139
There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times
— Letters on the English
The true voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes
— In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu)
Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred
— I Have a Dream, Speech, Washington, D.C., 1963
We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our schoolmasters, and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us
— My Thoughts, 1720s-1750s (Notebooks)
He who seeks wisdom is already wise; he who thinks he has found it is a fool
The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil
— De Officiis (On Duties), Book I
A gaze that ceases to seek is already blind
— Totality and Infinity
No one is free who has not obtained the empire of himself
— 'Golden Verses' (attributed)
The falcon cannot hear the falconer, yet it circles the sky by instinct alone
— The Sovereignty of Good
What you are, that you are unaware of; what you are aware of, that you are not
— Being and Nothingness
The ship is safest when it is in port, but that is not what ships were built for
— Interview, attributed aphorism from various sources, cited in Coelho's works and talks
Out of life's school of war—what doesn't kill me, makes me stronger
— Twilight of the Idols, Maxims and Arrows, 8
Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time
— The Use of Life
Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear has a wider scope than reverence
— Euthyphro, Dialogue with Plato
The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.
— Pensées, No. 277
The greatest happiness lies in the conviction that we are loved
— Les Misérables
What is a rebel? A man who says no: but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation
— The Rebel (L’Homme révolté), 1951
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance—it is the illusion of knowledge
— The Discoverers (1983)
The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear
— . Attributed via Xenophon, as reported in various dialogues
The narrowest prison in the world is a mind convinced it is free
— Gravity and Grace
Every passion of the soul has its mode of expression, some by the eyes, others by the face and still more through the actions themselves
— The Passions of the Soul, Article 15
The true method of knowledge is experiment
— Marriage of Heaven and Hell, "Proverbs of Hell"
We do not see the world as it is, we see it as we are
— Paraphrase of themes from the Critique of Pure Reason
A wise man ought not to be ashamed to inquire as he knows not
— Plato, Symposium (context: discussion of wisdom and inquiry)
To think is to say no
— Propos sur les pouvoirs (1925)
You can discover the truth by logic only if you have already found it without it
— The Sign of the Broken Sword (1905)
The mind is like an iceberg; it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water
— New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1933), Lecture XXXI
The greatest gift of reason is to know its limits
— Pensées
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination
— Attributed, various interviews and writings
We are always beginning to live, and yet always preparing to live
— Ethics (1677), Part IV, Proposition 67, Scholium
No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness
— Problemata, Book XXX, 1
The harmony of the soul is like a well-tuned lyre; discord within breeds confusion without
— Phaedo (approximate)
In every phenomenon the beginning remains always the most notable moment
— Conversations with Eckermann
Liberty consists in doing what one desires
— On Liberty
The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation
— A Fragment on Government, 1776
The entire future lies in uncertainty; live immediately
— Letters to Lucilius, Letter I
The mind is furnished with ideas by experience alone
— An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), Book II, Chapter I
Every light casts its own shadow, and in that shadow we find the courage to search for truth
— Gravity and Grace
A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X
The lantern burns brighter the closer it gets to darkness, and so does understanding near the edge of unknowing
— Merleau-Ponty on ambiguity (paraphrased from Sense and Non-Sense)
To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy
— Aphorisms
We are each of us a mystery to ourselves, and it is the labor of a lifetime to become clear
— The Sovereignty of Good
No road leads so deep into the forest as the pursuit of certainty
— Philosophical Notebooks, various entries (c. 1940s)
There is no way of saying for certain that waking is not dreaming or that dreaming is not waking
— Zhuangzi, chapter 2
We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world
— Dhammapada, verse 1
The mind is a garden where ideals are seeds; with careful care, weeds of habit do not choke the harvest
— Ethics (Paraphrased aphorism inspired by his text)
Man is disturbed not by things, but by the views he takes of them
— Enchiridion, Section 5
To stumble along the road of reason is nobler than to stand still in comfort
— Gravity and Grace (1947)
The mind is not for knowing, but for acting
— Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, Lecture II
We are too weak to discover the truth by reason alone
— Discourse on Method, 1637
You must become who you are
— Thus Spoke Zarathustra
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious
— Alchemical Studies (Collected Works), Paragraph 335
The mind is like a labyrinth: every turn reveals a new corridor, but no map marks the destination
— Attributed, essays and interviews
He who tries to ascend the mountain of self with only the rope of logic will find the peak always wreathed in mist
— Culture and Value (notebook reflections)
Every answer breeds its own questions, and every question leads us deeper into the labyrinth
— Philosophy of Existence
Every present moment is governed by the necessity of the past and the freedom of the future
— The Ethics of Ambiguity, Part I
The harmony of the world is made manifest in Form and Number
— As quoted in Florensky's 'The Pillar and Ground of the Truth' (1914) and related historical sources
He who longs to attain the ideal must first examine the real
— Philosophy of Right
Habits are the invisible architecture of our lives; we shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us
— Human Nature and Conduct
Nothing is more imminent than the impossible . . . what we must always foresee is the unforeseen
— From 'Les Misérables' (Part IV, Book 7, Chapter 3)
To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune; to be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it—who can say this is not greatness?
— The Book of Snobs (1846–1847)
Let no one delay the study of philosophy while young nor weary of it when old, for no one is either too early or too late for the health of the soul
— Letter to Menoeceus
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all
— Intentions (1891)
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool
— Caltech commencement address, 1974
The pine tree seems to listen, the wind to whisper, and the stars to wink, yet we, who have seen so many change, know that they neither listen nor whisper nor winking are
— Critique of Pure Reason, Preface to Second Edition
The mind is a mirror, it reflects what it is shown, but to see behind the glass we must learn the art of turning the gaze inward
— Enneads, VI.9
The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today
— Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter I
Whoever is happy will make others happy too
— The Diary of a Young Girl
One’s greatest tyranny is one’s own habits
— Gravity and Grace (1947)
Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred
— Speech: 'I Have a Dream', 1963
One cannot discover new oceans unless one has the courage to lose sight of the shore
— Les Faux-monnayeurs (The Counterfeiters), epigraph (attributed)
Night is not merely the absence of day, but the cradle of possibility
— The Ethics of Ambiguity
Even a fool, when he holds his tongue, is counted wise
— Tao Te Ching, Chapter 56
The path up and down are one and the same, yet the traveler is altered at every step
— Fragment 60 (DK B60)
We are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several, and the majority of our controversies come from that
— Meditations, Book 12