The history of philosophical system is the picture gallery of reason.
Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know.
Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.
Every great philosophy... as a whole says always only: this is the image of all life, and from this learn the meaning of your life.
What then can be his escort through life? One thing and one thing only, Philosophy.
When you are philosophising you have to descend into primeval chaos and feel at home there.
Perhaps men entertain as many truths as falsehoods; have as many good qualities as bad; feel as many pleasures as pains. But we like to malign human nature, in order to try to raise ourselves above the common level, and to acquire for ourselves the respect of which we strive to rob it. We are so presumptuous, that we imagine we can separate our own personal interests from those of humanity in general, and malign the human race without implicating ourselves. This absurd vanity has filled books of philosophy with diatribes against human nature. Man is in disgrace with all thinkers, who rival one another in accusing him of depravity. But perhaps he may be about to rise again and recover all his virtues; nothing is permanent, and philosophy, like clothes, music, architecture, &c, has its vogues.
Philosophy is true mother of the arts.
When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only: What are the facts, and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or what you think could have beneficent social effects if it were believed; but look only and solely at what are the facts.
Luxurious food and drinks, in no way protect you from harm. Wealth beyond what is natural, is no more use than an overflowing container. Real value is not generated by theaters, and baths, perfumes or ointments, but by philosophy.
O philosophy, life’s guide! O searcher-out of virtue and expeller of vices! What could we and every age of men have been without thee? Thou hast produced cities; thou hast called men scattered about into the social enjoyment of life.
Philosophy only is the true one which reproduces most faithfully the statements of nature, and is written down, as it were, from nature's dictation, so that it is nothing but a copy and a reflection of nature, and adds nothing of its own, but is merely a repetition and echo.
A new fundamental science, pure phenomenology, has developed within philosophy: This is a science of a thoroughly new type and endless scope. It is inferior in methodological rigor to none of the modern sciences. All philosophical disciplines are rooted in pure phenomenology, through whose development, and through it alone, they obtain their proper force.
Ideas, being only accessible to crowds after having assumed a very simple shape, must often undergo the most thoroughgoing transformations to become popular. It is especially when we are dealing with somewhat lofty philosophic or scientific ideas that we see how far-reaching are the modifications they require in order to lower them to the level of the intelligence of crowds.
When people begin to philosophize they seem to think it necessary to make themselves artificially stupid.
A philosophy should be portable.
There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples my philosophy is kindness.
To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.
I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.
Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.
The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men.
I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.
A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.
History should be written as philosophy.
Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God.
I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.
Religions do a useful thing: they narrow God to the limits of man. Philosophy replies by doing a necessary thing: it elevates man to the plane of God.
Greek philosophy seems to have met with something with which a good tragedy is not supposed to meet, namely, a dull ending.
Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.
Philosophy finds it an easy matter to vanquish past and future evils, but the present are commonly too hard for it.
