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Socrates41 quotes
Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder. — Socrates · 400 BCThe unexamined life is not worth living. — Socrates · 399 BCThe true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention. — Socrates · 375 BCDemocracy passes into despotism. — Socrates · 375 BCFor our discussion is about no ordinary matter, but on the right way to conduct our lives. — Socrates · 375 BCI know that I do not know. — Socrates · 399 BCAll 41 quotes →Aristotle32 quotes
All men by nature desire to know. — Aristotle · 322 BCMan is by nature a political animal. — Aristotle · 350 BCNo tyrant need fear till men begin to feel confident in each other. — Aristotle · 350 BCOne swallow does not make a spring. — Aristotle · 322 BCThe basis of a democratic state is liberty. — Aristotle · 350 BCWe learn an art or craft by doing the things that we shall have to do when we have learnt it. — Aristotle · 322 BCAll 32 quotes →Friedrich Nietzsche29 quotes
God is dead: but as the human race is constituted, there will perhaps be caves for millenniums yet, in which people will show his shadow. — Friedrich Nietzsche · 1882What does not destroy me, makes me stronger. — Friedrich Nietzsche · 1889"Where is God gone?" he called out. "I mean to tell you! We have killed him,—you and I! We are all his murderers!" — Friedrich Nietzsche · 1882He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. — Friedrich Nietzsche · 1886Life always gets harder toward the summit-the cold increases, responsibility increases. — Friedrich Nietzsche · 1895This is hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver. — Friedrich Nietzsche · 1883All 29 quotes →Marcus Aurelius27 quotes
Every instant of time is a pinprick of eternity. — Marcus Aurelius · 180Be like a headland of rock on which the waves break incessantly: but it stands fast and around it the seething of the waters sinks to rest. — Marcus Aurelius · 180Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one. — Marcus Aurelius · 180What is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee. — Marcus Aurelius · 180Mankind have been created for the sake of one another. — Marcus Aurelius · 180Love the little trade which you have learned, and be content with it. — Marcus Aurelius · 180All 27 quotes →John Stuart Mill21 quotes
He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. — John Stuart Mill · 1859A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for...is a miserable creature, who has no chance of being free. — John Stuart Mill · 1862Human existence is girt round with mystery: the narrow region of our experience is a small island in the midst of a boundless sea. — John Stuart Mill · 1873We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still. — John Stuart Mill · 1859The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors. — John Stuart Mill · 1859An opinion that corn-dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn-dealer. — John Stuart Mill · 1859All 21 quotes →Blaise Pascal20 quotes
The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of. — Blaise Pascal · 1662We never do evil so fully and cheerfully as when we do it out of conscience. — Blaise Pascal · 1662God is, or He is not. But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separates us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager?... If you win, you win everything; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. — Blaise Pascal · 1662What a chimera then is man! What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, feeble earth-worn, depository of truth, a sink of uncertainty and error, the glory and the shame of the universe. — Blaise Pascal · 1670The last act is bloody, no matter how happy the rest of the play. — Blaise Pascal · 1670We know the truth, not only by the reason, but by the heart. — Blaise Pascal · 1670All 20 quotes →Heraclitus17 quotes
One cannot step twice into the same river, for the waters are continually flowing on. — HeraclitusA man's character is his fate. — HeraclitusDonkeys would prefer refuse to gold. — HeraclitusMan, like a light in the night, is kindled and put out. — Heraclitus · 480 BCIt would not be better if things happened to men just as they wish. — HeraclitusEverything flows and nothing stays. — Heraclitus · 348 BCAll 17 quotes →Confucius16 quotes
Moral force never dwells in solitude; it will always bring neighbors. — Confucius · 221 BCI for my part am not one of those who have innate knowledge. I am simply one who loves the past and who is diligent in investigating it. — Confucius · 221 BCIs Goodness indeed so far away? If we really wanted Goodness, we should find that it was at our very side. — Confucius · 221 BCIf you desire what is good, the people will be good. The character of a ruler is like wind and that of the people is like grass. In whatever direction the wind blows the grass always bends. — Confucius · 221 BCAt fifteen my mind was set on learning. At thirty my character had been formed. At forty I had no more perplexities. At fifty I knew the Mandate of Heaven. At sixty I was at ease with whatever I heard. At seventy I could follow my heart's desire without transgressing moral principles. — Confucius · 221 BCA gentleman is ashamed to let his words outrun his deeds. — Confucius · 221 BCAll 16 quotes →Lucretius16 quotes
Life is one long struggle in the dark. — Lucretius · 55 BCAnd life is given to none freehold, but it is leasehold for all. — Lucretius · 55 BCThe ring on the finger becomes thin beneath by wearing, the fall of dripping water hollows the stone. — Lucretius · 55 BCA tree cannot grow in the sky, nor clouds be in the deep sea, nor fish live in the fields, nor can blood be in sticks nor sap in rocks. — Lucretius · 55 BCPleasant it is, when over a great sea the winds trouble the waters, to gaze from shore upon another's great tribulation: not because any man's troubles are a delectable joy, but because to perceive what ills you are free from yourself is pleasant. — Lucretius · 55 BCLovely it is, when the winds are churning up the waves on the great sea, to gaze out from the land on the great efforts of someone else; not because it's an enjoyable pleasure that somebody is in difficulties, but because it's lovely to realize what troubles you are yourself spared. — Lucretius · 55 BCAll 16 quotes →Niccolo Machiavelli15 quotes
God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasions for it. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1531A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms; and as there cannot be good laws where the state is not well armed, it follows that where they are well armed they have good laws. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532Among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532It is much safer to be feared than loved. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1527All 15 quotes →Thomas Hobbes13 quotes
In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain... And the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. — Thomas Hobbes · 1651Curiosity...is a Lust of the mind. — Thomas Hobbes · 1651No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. — Thomas Hobbes · 1651Such truth as opposeth no man's profit nor pleasure is to all men welcome. — Thomas Hobbes · 1651Riches, knowledge and honour are but several sorts of power. — Thomas Hobbes · 1651I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death. — Thomas Hobbes · 1651All 13 quotes →Bertrand Russell12 quotes
The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder's lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately. — Bertrand Russell · 1928A dog cannot relate his autobiography; however eloquently he may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were honest though poor. — Bertrand Russell · 1948Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day. — Bertrand Russell · 1928It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true. — Bertrand Russell · 1928Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness. — Bertrand Russell · 1930Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones. — Bertrand Russell · 1950All 12 quotes →Cicero12 quotes
For it is commonly said: completed labors are pleasant. — Cicero · 45 BCLet the punishment match the offense. — Cicero · 43 BCThere are more disorders of the mind than of the body, and they are of a more dangerous nature. — Cicero · 45 BCFor of all gainful professions, nothing is better, nothing more pleasing, nothing more delightful, nothing better becomes a well-bred man than agriculture. — Cicero · 44 BCTo be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be ever a child. — Cicero · 46 BCA friend is, as it were, a second self. — Cicero · 44 BCAll 12 quotes →Francis Bacon12 quotes
Ancient times were the youth of the world. — Francis Bacon · 1605For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes. — Francis Bacon · 1620Nature to be commanded must be obeyed. — Francis Bacon · 1620For knowledge itself is a power whereby he knoweth. — Francis Bacon · 1605Riches are a good handmaid, but the worst mistress. — Francis Bacon · 1605They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea. — Francis Bacon · 1605All 12 quotes →John Locke12 quotes
It is one thing, to show a man that he is in an error; and another, to put him in possession of truth. — John Locke · 1690Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas; how comes it to be furnished?... Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience. — John Locke · 1690Nature never makes excellent things for mean or no uses. — John Locke · 1690Crooked things may be as stiff and unflexible as straight; and men may be as positive and peremptory in error as in truth. — John Locke · 1690Virtue is harder to be got, than a Knowledge of the World; and, if lost in a young Man, is seldom recover'd. — John Locke · 1693He that will have his Son have a Respect for him and his Orders, must himself have a great Reverence for his Son. — John Locke · 1693All 12 quotes →William Blake12 quotes
No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings. — William Blake · 1793The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. — William Blake · 1793The cistern contains: the fountain overflows. — William Blake · 1794For every thing that lives is Holy. — William Blake · 1794If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise. — William Blake · 1793You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. — William Blake · 1794All 12 quotes →Lao Tzu11 quotes
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. — Lao Tzu · 400 BCNature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. — Lao Tzu · 400 BCThe sage does not accumulate for himself.
The more he uses for others, the more he has himself.
The more he gives to others, the more he possesses of his own.
The Way of Heaven is to benefit others and not to injure.
The Way of the sage is to act but not to compete. — Lao Tzu · 400 BCHe who knows does not speak.
He who speaks does not know. — Lao Tzu · 400 BCDo you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear? — Lao Tzu · 400 BCIf you try to change it, you will ruin it. Try to hold it, and you will lose it. — Lao Tzu · 400 BCAll 11 quotes →Thomas Paine11 quotes
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. — Thomas Paine · 1792I compare it to something behind a curtain, about which there is a great deal of bustle and fuss, and a wonderful air of seeming solemnity; but when by an accident, the curtain happens to be opened, and the company see what it is, they burst into laughter. — Thomas Paine · 1792The American Constitutions were to Liberty what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax. — Thomas Paine · 1791I believe in one God and no more, and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy. — Thomas Paine · 1794The church has set up a system of religion very contradictory to the character of the person whose name it bears. It has set up a religion of pomp and of revenue in pretended imitation of a person whose life was humility and poverty. — Thomas Paine · 1794It is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe. — Thomas Paine · 1794All 11 quotes →Albert Camus10 quotes
What is a rebel? A man who says no. — Albert Camus · 1951A single sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the papers. — Albert Camus · 1956There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. — Albert Camus · 1942Every revolutionary ends by becoming either an oppressor or a heretic. — Albert Camus · 1951You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question. — Albert Camus · 1956The meaning of life is the most urgent of questions. — Albert Camus · 1942All 10 quotes →Mencius10 quotes
The great man is the one who does not lose his [originally good] child's heart. — Mencius · 300 BCThe tendency of man's nature to good is like the tendency of water to flow downwards. — Mencius · 300 BCThe root of the kingdom is the state. The root of the state is in the family. The root of the family is in the person of its head. — Mencius · 300 BCThe great man is he who does not lose his child's heart. — Mencius · 300 BCThe people turn to a benevolent rule as water flows downwards, and as wild beasts fly to the wilderness. — Mencius · 300 BCWhen one by force subdues men, they do not submit to him in heart. They submit, because their strength is not adequate to resist. — Mencius · 300 BCAll 10 quotes →Soren Kierkegaard10 quotes
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom. — Soren Kierkegaard · 1844I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations-one can do either this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it-you will regret both. — Soren Kierkegaard · 1843If anyone on the verge of action should judge himself according to the outcome, he would never begin. — Soren Kierkegaard · 1843The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss-an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc.-is sure to be noticed. — Soren Kierkegaard · 1849For without risk, no faith; the more risk, the more faith; the more objective dependability, the less inwardness (since inwardness is precisely subjectivity); the less objective dependability, the deeper the possible inwardness. — Soren Kierkegaard · 1846What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music. — Soren Kierkegaard · 1843All 10 quotes →Baruch Spinoza9 quotes
Nature abhors a vacuum. — Baruch Spinoza · 1677Man is a social animal. — Baruch Spinoza · 1677It therefore comes to pass that everyone is fond of relating his own exploits and displaying the strength both of his body and his mind, and that men are on this account a nuisance one to the other. — Baruch Spinoza · 1677God and all the attributes of God are eternal. — Baruch Spinoza · 1677Pride is therefore pleasure arising from a man's thinking too highly of himself. — Baruch Spinoza · 1677He who would distinguish the true from the false must have an adequate idea of what is true and false. — Baruch Spinoza · 1677All 9 quotes →Boethius9 quotes
O happy race of mortals, if your hearts are ruled, as is the universe, by Love! — Boethius · 523If you expect a physician to help you, you must lay bare your wound. — Boethius · 523Who hath so entire happiness that he is not in some part offended with the condition of his estate? — Boethius · 524Nothing is miserable but what is thought so, and contrariwise, every estate is happy if he that bears it be content. — Boethius · 523Wherefore not without cause has one of your own followers asked, "If God is, whence come evil things? If He is not, whence come good?" — Boethius · 523You can take comfort in the likelihood that what is now making you miserable will also pass away. — Boethius · 523All 9 quotes →David Hume9 quotes
Of all the animals, with which this globe is peopled, there is none towards whom nature seems, at first sight, to have exercis'd more cruelty than towards man, in the numberless wants and necessities, with which she has loaded him, and in the slender means, which she affords to the relieving these necessities. — David Hume · 1739Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. — David Hume · 1748Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them. — David Hume · 1739The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience. — David Hume · 1748If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning, concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. — David Hume · 1748A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. — David Hume · 1748All 9 quotes →Adam Smith8 quotes
Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love. — Adam Smith · 1759Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. — Adam Smith · 1759Never complain of that of which it is at all times in your power to rid yourself. — Adam Smith · 1759We are delighted to find a person who values us as we value ourselves, and distinguishes us from the rest of mankind, with an attention not unlike that with which we distinguish ourselves. — Adam Smith · 1759How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it. — Adam Smith · 1759Though our brother is upon the rack, as long as we ourselves are at our ease, our senses will never inform us of what he suffers. They never did, and never can, carry us beyond our own person, and it is by the imagination only that we can form any conception of what are his sensations... His agonies, when they are thus brought home to ourselves, when we have thus adopted and made them our own, begin at last to affect us, and we then tremble and shudder at the thought of what he feels. — Adam Smith · 1759All 8 quotes →Epictetus8 quotes
How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself? — Epictetus · 135If thy brother wrongs thee, remember not so much his wrong-doing, but more than ever that he is thy brother. — Epictetus · 135Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. — Epictetus · 135Remember that you ought to behave in life as you should at a banquet. As something is being passed around it comes to you; stretch out your hand, take a portion of it politely. It passes on; do not detain it. Or it has not come to you yet; do not project your desire to meet it, but wait until it comes in front of you. So act toward children, so toward a wife, so toward office, so toward wealth. — Epictetus · 125Were I a nightingale, I would sing like a nightingale; were I a swan, like a swan. But as it is, I am a rational being, therefore I must sing hymns of praise to God. — Epictetus · 108Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things are either what they appear to be; or they are neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man's task. — Epictetus · 108All 8 quotes →George Santayana8 quotes
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. — George Santayana · 1905Let a man once overcome his selfish terror at his own finitude, and his finitude is, in one sense, overcome. — George Santayana · 1910Perhaps the only true dignity of man is his capacity to despise himself. — George Santayana · 1910The Bible is literature, not dogma. — George Santayana · 1910Religion in its humility restores man to his only dignity, the courage to live by grace. — George Santayana · 1925Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim. — George Santayana · 1905All 8 quotes →Rene Descartes8 quotes
I think, therefore I am. — Rene Descartes · 1637I will devote myself sincerely and without reservation to the general demolition of my opinions. — Rene Descartes · 1641Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed, for everybody thinks he is so well supplied with it, that even those most difficult to please in all other matters never desire more of it than they already possess. — Rene Descartes · 1637The reading of good books is like a conversation with the best men of past centuries-in fact like a prepared conversation, in which they reveal only the best of their thoughts. — Rene Descartes · 1637I could not possibly exist with the nature I actually have, that is, one endowed with the idea of God, unless there really is a God; the very God, I mean, of whom I have an idea. — Rene Descartes · 1641The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as the greatest virtues. — Rene Descartes · 1637All 8 quotes →Jean-Jacques Rousseau7 quotes
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau · 1762The body politic, like the human body, begins to die from its birth, and bears in itself the cause of its destruction. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau · 1762Censorship is crucial for preserving morals but useless for restoring them. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau · 1762The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms his strength into right, and obedience into duty. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau · 1762In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and never will exist. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau · 1762The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau · 1762All 7 quotes →Ludwig Wittgenstein7 quotes
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. — Ludwig Wittgenstein · 1921What is your aim in philosophy?-To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle. — Ludwig Wittgenstein · 1953The human body is the best picture of the human soul. — Ludwig Wittgenstein · 1953The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. — Ludwig Wittgenstein · 1922Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it... It leaves everything as it is. — Ludwig Wittgenstein · 1953Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. — Ludwig Wittgenstein · 1922All 7 quotes →