Quote archive

Philosophy quotes — page 12

Quotations 265–288 of 692.

  1. Simplify, simplify.
  2. The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it.
  3. The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.
  4. He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.
  5. Consciousness…does not appear to itself chopped up in bits…It is nothing jointed; it flows.
  6. Experience is not a veil that shuts man off from nature; it is a means of penetrating continually further into the heart of nature.
  7. The quest for certainty…has always been a quest for a peace that is assured.
  8. Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty.
  9. The many become one, and are increased by one.
  10. In the Garden of Eden Adam saw the animals before he named them: in the traditional system, children named the animals before they saw them.
  11. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
  12. Man is a useless passion.
  13. Even in the darkest of times we have the right to expect some illumination.
  14. The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.
  15. When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
  16. Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
  17. It is easy to obtain confirmations…for nearly every theory—if we look for confirmations.
  18. The heart of compassion is possessed by all; so too the hearts of shame, of respect, and of right and wrong.
  19. All things are already complete in me. There is no greater delight than to turn within and find sincerity.
  20. I am good at nourishing my flood-like qi.
  21. Learning must never stop.
  22. Human nature is bad; whatever is good about it is the product of deliberate activity (wei).
  23. The trouble with people is that they are blinkered by one corner and obscure the greater pattern.
  24. Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly…He did not know whether Zhou had dreamed he was a butterfly, or a butterfly was dreaming it was Zhou.