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Quotes about philosophy

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Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is an intellectual quality; an attribute that belongs not to fate nor chance. Neither possesses it, neither is capable of it.
John Adams1735–1826Letter to John Taylor (15 April 1814)
- Liberty
The Infinite, from which comes the impulse that lead us to activity, is not the highest Reason, but higher than reason; not the highest Goodness, but higher than goodness.
Felix Adler1851–1933Life and Destiny (1913), Section 2 : Religion
- Theology
Somehow the secret of the universe is hidden in our breast. Somehow the destinies of the universe depend upon our exertions.
Felix Adler1851–1933Life and Destiny (1913), Section 2: Religion
Can we actually “know” the universe? My God, it’s hard enough finding your way around in Chinatown.
Woody Allenborn 1935Getting Even (1971), “My Philosophy”
- Comedy
What if nothing exists and we’re all in somebody’s dream? Or what’s worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?
Woody Allenborn 1935Without Feathers (1975)
- Comedy
Like every ‘intellectual’, a philosophy teacher is a petty bourgeois. When he opens his mouth, it is petty-bourgeois ideology that speaks: its resources and ruses are infinite.
Louis Althusser1918–1990Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (1968), “Philosophy as a Revolutionary Weapon”, p. 2
All men desire to know.
Aristotle384–322 BC
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotle384–322 BC
I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.
Aristotle384–322 BC
The totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something besides the parts.
Aristotle384–322 BCMetaphysics, Book VIII, 1045a.8–10
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
If therefore it be a thing external that causes thy grief, know, that it is not that properly that doth cause it, but thine own conceit and opinion concerning the thing: which thou mayest rid thyself of, when thou wilt.
Marcus Aurelius121–180Meditations (c. 170–180), The Eighth BookIn context
- Emotion
- Thinking
Man becomes conscious of himself and his humanity only in society and only by the collective action of the whole society.
Mikhail Bakunin1814–1876Man, Society, and Freedom (1871)
Any theory which causes solipsism to seem just as likely an explanation for the phenomena it seeks to describe ought to be held in the utmost suspicion.
Iain Banks1954–2013The Algebraist (2004), Chapter 5, “Conditions of Passage” (p. 298)
Nothing is wholly obvious without becoming enigmatic. Reality itself is too obvious to be true.
Jean Baudrillard1929–2007The Perfect Crime (1993)