Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Our originality shows itself most strikingly not in what we wholly originate but in what we do with that which we borrow from others.
... freedom is a conquest, always partial, always precarious, always challenged. ... the freest person is the one with the most hope.
Nietzsche's break with Schopenhauer rests on precisely this point; it is a matter of knowing whether the will is unitary or multiple.
Wherever the relevance of speech is at stake, matters become political by definition, for speech is what makes man a political being.
The process of translating comprises in its essence the whole secret of human understanding of the world and of social communication.
It is only because a person has volitions of the second order that he is capable both of enjoying and of lacking freedom of the will.
Such is the power of imagination, that even a chimerical pleasure in expectation affects us more than a solid pleasure in possession.
Whoever appears to have much cunning has in reality very little; being deficient in the essential article, which is, to hide cunning.
Of all the knowledge, that most worth having is knowledge about health! The first requisite of a good life is to be a healthy person.
However insignificant the minority, and however trifling the proposed trespass against their rights, no such trespass is permissible.
An argument fatal to the communist theory, is suggested by the fact, that a desire for property is one of the elements of our nature.
It is not that we propose a theory and Nature may shout NO; rather, we propose a maze of theories, and Nature may shout INCONSISTENT.
What is it that makes all of us end each day with the sense that we have not lived our time, but have been lived, used by what we do?
Prayer is not a discourse. It is a form of life, the life with God. That is why it is not confined to the moment of verbal statement.
The love of Americans for their country is not an indulgent, it is an exacting and chastising love; they cannot tolerate its defects.
Cowardice and courage are never without a measure of affectation. Nor is love. Feelings are never true. They play with their mirrors.
If I became a philosopher, if I have so keenly sought this fame for which I'm still waiting, it's all been to seduce women basically.
I needed to justify my existence, and I had made an absolute of literature. It took me thirty years to get rid of this state of mind.
It is no longer possible to escape men. Farewell to the monsters, farewell to the saints. Farewell to pride. All that is left is men.
Upon the progress of knowledge the whole progress of the human race is immediately dependent: he who retards that, hinders this also.
To ask at what time a man has first any ideas is to ask when he begins to perceive; having ideas and perception being the same thing.
The principles which men profess on any controverted subject are usually a very incomplete exponent of the opinions they really hold.
It would perhaps be as well if things were to remain quiet for a few years yet, so that all this 1848 democracy has time to rot away.
Gold is now money with reference to all other commodities only because it was previously, with reference to them, a simple commodity.
See others as yourself. See families as your family. See towns as your town. See countries as your country. See worlds as your world.
Rushing into action, you fail. Trying to grasp things, you lose them. Forcing a project to completion, you ruin what was almost ripe.
I alone have the mind of a fool, and am all muddled and vague. The people are so smart and bright. While I am just dull and confused.
Great accomplishment seems imperfect, Yet it does not outlive its usefulness. Great fullness seems empty, Yet it cannot be exhausted.
If you practice inaction, nothing will be left undone: For the way to acquire lordship over society is by invariably not interfering.
The True Person governs by emptying the heart of desire and filling the belly with food, weakening ambitions and strengthening bones.
No private enterprise will ever fall prey to bureaucratic methods of management if it is operated with the sole aim of making profit.
Business is a means- the only means- to increase the quantity of goods available for preserving life and rendering it more agreeable.
History is truely the witness of times past, the light of truth, the life of memory, the teacher of life, the messenger of antiquity.
How do our philosophers act? Do they not inscribe their signatures to the very essays they write on the propriety of despising glory.
The young today cannot follow narrative but they are alert to drama. They cannot bear description but they love landscape and action.
I think the imagination helps us move out of the purely oppositional mentality and see the world in a richer and more variegated way.
The world is not divine sport, it is divine destiny. There is a divine meaning of the world, of man, of human persons, of you and me.
... a result once generally accepted by mathematicians is seldom retracted, and then only with great pangs. The Nature of Mathematics
The root of the kingdom is in the state. The root of the state is in the family. The root of the family is in the person of its head.
Don't cry upon you losses Don't mesure today with tommorows Don't trust to passed and coming day Believe in now - and be happy today.
The number of different aspects that the face of a man has assumed may be taken almost as a physiognomical measure of his ... genius.
The basic anxiety, the anxiety of a finite being about the threat of non-being, cannot be eliminated. It belongs to existence itself.
Human happiness is defined by the hardships and conflicts you have been through. The greater they are, the greater is your happiness.
Extreme poverty is not only a condition of unsatisfied material needs. It is often accompanied by a degrading state of powerlessness.
The like is not the friend of the like in as far as he is like; still the good may be the friend of the good in as far as he is good.
Whenever freedom is made into the absolute, the result is not freedom but anarchism. Freedom must be under law, or it is not freedom.
If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.
So far, I have been a spectator in this theater which is the world, but I am now about to mount the stage, and I come forward masked.
The major public goals in my life are intellectual goals. There are various philosophical things that I want to work on and work out.
In my view, a political vision is not a grab-bag of discrete problems and solutions. It is the visionary anticipation of a direction.