Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Eros is an ego-overwhelming, boundary dissolving, breakthrough creating force scripted into human life that is pretty intrinsically psychedelic.
Imperfection clings to a person, and if they wait till they are brushed off entirely, they would spin for ever on their axis, advancing nowhere.
The healthy know not of their health, but only the sick: this is the physician's aphorism, and applicable in a far wider sense than he gives it.
In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government.
To look for a single general theory of how to decide the right thing to do is like looking for a single theory of how to decide what to believe.
I have a general moral: great philosophers may be great, but that is not a reason to follow them. Don't be a follower. Work it out for yourself.
Naturalism is a methodological rather than a metaphysical view. It's because I am a naturalist, actually, that I am sceptical about physicalism.
A man of sense is never discouraged by difficulties; he redoubles his industry and his diligence, he perseveres and infallibly prevails at last.
Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?
An enormous mass of experience, both of homeopathic doctors and their patients, is invoked in favor of the efficacy of these remedies and doses.
All of our life is but a mass of small habits - practical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual - that bear us irresistibly toward our destiny.
Only fools imagine they are already awake. How clearly they understand everything! How easily they distinguish this deception from that reality!
A moment of kindness can produce a mood of harmony between heaven and earth. Purity of heart can leave a fine example for a hundred generations.
Inculcating the various competing - competing, note - falsehoods of the major faiths into small children is a form of child abuse, and a scandal.
The question is not what I should do in the future to get it, but rather, what am I presently doing that prevents me from realizing it right now?
[To Aquinas] the senses are what we have in common with dumb animals. ... Our better part [is] the mind ... and [its] intellectual contemplation.
He who has conferred a benefit on anyone from motives of love or honor will feel pain, if he sees that the benefit is received without gratitude.
Everybody loves a thing more if it has cost him trouble: for instance those who have made money love money more than those who have inherited it.
We assume therefore that moral virtue is the quality of acting in the best way in relation to pleasures and pains, and that vice is the opposite.
Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art.
If we suspect that a man is lying, we should pretend to believe him; for then he becomes bold and assured, lies more vigorously, and is unmasked.
The general history of art and literature shows that the highest achievements of the human mind are, as a rule, not favourably received at first.
The real disturbers of the peace are those who, in a free state, seek to curtail the liberty of judgment which they are unable to tyrannize over.
Americans are optimists. They hope they'll be wealthy someday - and they're positive they can get one more brushful of paint out of an empty can.
Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.
We have in fact, two kinds of morality, side by side: one which we preach, but do not practice, and another which we practice, but seldom preach.
Most political leaders acquire their position by causing large numbers of people to believe that these leaders are actuated by altruistic desires
The Stoic assures us that what is happening now will happen over and over again. [If so, Providende would] ultimately grow weary through despair.
Fanaticism is the danger of the world, and always has been, and has done untold harm. I might almost say that I was fanatical against fanaticism.
When we perceive any object of a familiar kind, much of what appears subjectively to be immediately given is really derived from past experience.
When the man who knows all about the fruit fly chromosomes finds himself sitting next to an authority on Beowulf, there may be an uneasy silence.
I am convinced that we Christ-followers need an understanding of playfulness if we are going to take sanctification by the Holy Spirit seriously.
Truly, that reason upon which we plume ourselves, though it may answer for little things, yet for great decisions is hardly surer than a toss up.
If one should desire to know whether a kingdom is well governed, if its morals are good or bad, the quality of its music will furnish the answer.
I used to listen to what others said, and expect them to act accordingly. But nowadays, I listen to what they say, and then observe what they do.
A knight whose heart is set upon the Way, but who is ashamed of wearing shabby clothes and eating coarse food, is not worth calling into counsel.
You keep folks so intimidated. You can give them money, access, but they're still scared. And as long as you're scared, you're on the plantation.
It's important to distinguish the soul from the spirit, or will, because the will or the heart or the spirit is the executive center of the self.
What would become of history, had we not a dependence on the veracity of the historian, according to the experience, what we have had of mankind?
In human affairs every solution serves only to sharpen the problem, to show us more clearly what we are up against. There are no final solutions.
The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders.
Commitment becomes hysterical when those who have nothing to give advocate generosity, and those who have nothing to give up preach renunciation.
We are ready to die for an opinion but not for a fact: indeed, it is by our readiness to die that we try to prove the factualness of our opinion.
Those who are in love with the present can be cruel and corrupt but not genuinely vicious. They cannot be methodically and consistently ruthless.
In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
The course of history as a whole is no object of experience; history has no eidos, because the course of history extends into the unknown future.
If we have a better understanding of knowledge than we do of such justification or competence, then we can explain the latter through the former.
[Tar water] is of a nature so mild and benign and proportioned to the human constitution, as to warm without heating, to cheer but not inebriate.
But the velocities of the velocities - the second, third, fourth, and fifth velocities, etc. - exceed, if I mistake not, all human understanding.
Skepticism is a discipline fit to purify the mind of prejudice and render it all the more apt, when the time comes, to believe and to act wisely.