Philosophy - Quotes

A man becomes a philosopher by reason of a certain perplexity, from which he seeks to free himself. - Arthur Schopenhauer

A philosopher is one who disengages himself from all former prejudices, masters his passions, and learns to think, speak, and act, according to rule and order. He is ready to teach, but more ready to learn. He is of all, and yet of no sect … If he thinks with few, it is not because they are few, but because there are few that think. - Anne Mary Perceval

At best, a true philosopher can fulfil his mission very imperfectly, which is to pilot himself, or at most a few voluntary companions who may find themselves in the same boat. - George Santayana

He is but a poor philosopher who holds a view so narrow as to exclude forms not to his personal taste. - John Galsworthy

I have a simple philosophy: Fill what’s empty. Empty what’s full. Scratch where it itches. - Alice Roosevelt Longworth

I think that the task of philosophy is not to provide answers, but to show how the way we perceive a problem can be itself part of a problem. - Slavoj Zizek

It is unfortunately very difficult to describe the nature of philosophy in a small compass; the only satisfaction that an author can draw from the attempt to do so lies in the knowledge that an answer to the question "What is philosophy?" is apt to seem persuasive only to the extent that it is brief. The more one ponders over the qualifications that any reasoned answer must contain, the more one is driven to the conclusion that this question is itself one of the principal subjects of philosophical thinking. - Roger Scruton

Man is a philosopher in spite of himself. - John Grier Hibben

My philosophy is to make the most of all that comes, and the least of all that goes. - Teresa Watkins 

Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. Philosophy does not result in 'philosophical propositions', but rather in the clarification of propositions. Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries. - Ludwig Wittgenstein 

Philosophy is concerned with that which is, in contrast with that which seems to be. Its aim is to reveal the reality which underlies appearance. - John Grier Hibben

Philosophy is like trying to open a safe with a combination lock: each little adjustment of the dials seems to achieve nothing, only when everything is in place does the door open. - Ludwig Wittgenstein

Philosophy is not a theory but an activity. - Ludwig Wittgenstein

Philosophy is reason with the eyes of the soul. - William Gilmore Simms

Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind is also rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good. - Bertrand Russell 

Philosophy unravels the knots in our thinking; hence its results must be simple, but its activity is as complicated as the knots that it unravels. - Ludwig Wittgenstein

Philosophy, like science, consists of theories or insights arrived at as a result of systemic reflection or reasoning in regard to the data of experience. It involves, therefore, the analysis of experience and the synthesis of the results of analysis into a comprehensive or unitary conception. Philosophy seeks a totality and harmony of reasoned insight into the nature and meaning of all the principal aspects of reality. - Joseph Alexander Leighton

The business of philosophy is to circumnavigate human nature. - Julius Charles Hare

The continual pursuit of meanings – wider, clearer, more negotiable, more articulate meanings – is philosophy. - Suzanne K. Langer

The object of studying philosophy is to know one’s own mind, not other people’s. - William Ralph Inge

The philosopher strives to find the liberating word, that is, the word that finally permits us to grasp what up to now has intangibly weighed down upon our consciousness. - Ludwig Wittgenstein

The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next. - Henry Ward Beecher

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. - Abraham Lincoln

What is rational is real and what is real is rational. On this conviction the plain man like the philosopher takes his stand, and from it philosophy starts in its study of the universe of the mind as well as the universe of nature. - Hegel

Wisdom is the perfect good of the human mind; philosophy is the love of wisdom and the endeavour to attain it. - Seneca

Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher; and philosophy begins in wonder. - Plato

You can’t do without philosophy, since everything has its hidden meaning which we must know. - Maxim Gorky