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Quotes about philosophy

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If we did not bring to the examinations of our instincts a knowledge of their comparative dignity we could never learn it from them.
C. S. Lewis1898–1963The Abolition of Man
No sooner do we depart from sense and instinct to follow reason but we are insensibly drawn into uncouth paradoxes, difficulties, and inconsistencies, which multiply and grow upon us as we advance in speculation; till at length, having wandered through many intricate mazes, we find ourselves just where we were, or, which is worse, sit down in a forlorn scepticism.
George Berkeley1685–1753
The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.
C. S. Lewis1898–1963
- Theology
If we will not learn to eat the only food that the universe grows…then we must starve eternally.
C. S. Lewis1898–1963The Problem of Pain
- Theology
To teach how to live with uncertainty, yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy can do.
Bertrand Russell1872–1970A History of Western Philosophy (1945), Introductory, p. xiv.
There is wishful thinking in Hell as well as on Earth.
C. S. Lewis1898–1963The Screwtape Letters (1942), Preface
- Theology
In the very books in which philosophers bid us scorn fame, they inscribe their names.
Cicero107–43 BC
- Writing
Who will take medicine unless he knows he is in the grip of disease?
C. S. Lewis1898–1963
- Theology
Never judge a philosophy by its abuse.
Augustine of Hippo354–430
Dualism is a truncated metaphysic.
C. S. Lewis1898–1963
- Theology
Philosophers, for the most part, are constitutionally timid, and dislike the unexpected. Few of them would be genuinely happy as pirates or burglars. Accordingly they invent systems which make the future calculable, at least in its main outlines.
Bertrand Russell1872–1970Unpopular Essays (1950), Chapter IV, Part iii, p. 74.
Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.
H. L. Mencken1880–1956
- Theology
We can only reason from what is; we can reason on actualities, but not on possibilities.
Thomas Paine1737–1809
There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.
Cicero107–43 BC
Why is it that you physicists always require so much expensive equipment? Now the Department of Mathematics requires nothing but money for paper, pencils, and erasers…and the Department of Philosophy is better still. It doesn’t even ask for erasers.
Isaac Asimov1920–1992
- Science