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Philosophical Quotations |
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Bacon, Roger There are four chief obstacles in grasping truth, which hinder every man, however learned, and scarcely allow any one to win a clear title to learning, namely, submission to faulty and unworthy authority, influence of custom, popular prejudice, and concealment of our own ignorance accompanied by an ostentatious display of our knowledge. -- Roger Bacon, Opus majus There are two modes of acquiring knowledge, namely by reasoning and experience. Reasoning draws a conclusion and makes us grant the conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, nor does it remove doubt so that the mind may rest on the intuition of truth, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience. -- Roger Bacon, Opus majus He therefore who wishes to rejoice without doubt in regard to the truths underlying phenomena must know how to devote himself to experiment. -- Roger Bacon, Opus majus Becker, Ernest The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity - designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny of man. -- Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death Beecher, Henry Ward The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next. -- Henry Ward Beecher, source unknown It is defeat that turns bone to flint; it is defeat that turns gristle to muscle; it is defeat that makes men invincible. -- Henry Ward Beecher, Royal Truths Bentham, Jeremy Every law is an infraction of liberty. -- Jeremy Bentham, quoted in Two Concepts of Liberty, by I. Berlin Is not liberty to be evil liberty? If not, what is it? Do we not say that it is necessary to take liberty from idiots and bad men, because they abuse it? -- Jeremy Bentham, quoted in Two Concepts of Liberty, by I. Berlin But in truth, in no instance has a system in regard to religion been ever established, but for the purpose, as well as with the effect of its being made an instrument of intimidation, corruption, and delusion, for the support of depredation and oppression in the hands of governments. -- Jeremy Bentham, Constitutional Code Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. -- Jeremy Bentham, Constitutional Code No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion. -- Jeremy Bentham, Constitutional Code All punishment is mischief. All punishment of itself is evil. -- Jeremy Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation It is the greatest good to the greatest number which is the measure of right and wrong. -- Jeremy Bentham, Works Will you, Sir, or will you not, concur in putting matters on such a footing, in respect to the liberty of the press, and the liberty of public discussion, that at the hands of persons exercising the power of government, a man shall have no more fear from speaking and writing against them, than from speaking and writing for them? If his answer be yes, the government he declares in favor of, is an undespotic one; if his answer be no, the government he declares in favor of , is a despotic one. -- Jeremy Bentham, On Liberty of the Press and Public Bergson, Henri The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause. -- Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution A true empiricism is the one which purposes to keep a close to the original itself as possible, to probe more deeply into its life, and by a kind of spiritual auscultation to feel its soul palpitate;...an empiricism worthy of the name...sees itself obliged to make an absolutely new effort for each new object it studies. It cuts for the object a concept appropriate to the object alone, a concept one can barely say is still a concept, since it applies only to that one thing. This empiricism does not proceed by combining ideas one already finds in stock...but the representation to which it leads us is, on the contrary, a simple unique representation.... The intellect is characterized by a natural inability to understand life. Real intelligence enables us to penetrate to the inside of what we are studying, to reach the very bottom of it, to breathe its spirit, to feel the rhythm of its soul. For a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating one's self endlessly. In reality, life is no more made up of physico-chemical elements than a curve is composed of straight lines. In the evolution of life, just as in the evolution of human societies and of individual destinies, the greatest successes have been for those who accepted the heaviest risks. Let us have done with great metaphysical systems embracing all the possible and sometimes even the impossible! You must take things by storm; you must thrust intelligence outside itself by an act of will. To get a notion of this irreducibility and irreversibility [i.e. the reality that science misses], we must do violence to the mind, go counter to the natural bent of the intellect. But that is just the function of philosophy. The end and aim of all research is the comprehension of reality -- the recognizing of reality and the forming of our minds upon it as a model. All philosophical work that is fruitful arises out of concentrated thought with pure emotion at its base. Bierce, Ambrose Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing. -- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary [A Conservative is] A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others. -- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary Bore: a person who talks when you wish him to listen. -- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary Blackstone, Sir William It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer. -- Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England Boethius From thee, great God, we spring, to thee we tend -- Path, motive, guide, original and end. -- Boethius, The Consolations of Philosophy In every adversity of fortune, to have been happy is the most unhappy kind of misfortune. -- Boethius, The Consolations of Philosophy Nothing is miserable but what is thought so, and contrariwise, every estate is happy if he that bears it be content. -- Boethius, The Consolations of Philosophy Who hath so entire happiness that he is not in some part offended with the condition of his estate? -- Boethius, The Consolations of Philosophy Many men have got a great name from the false opinions of the crowd. And what could be baser than such a thing? For those who are falsely praised, must blush to hear their praises. And if they are justly won by merits, what can they add to the pleasure of a wise man's conscience? For he measures his happiness not by popular talk, but by the truth of his conscience. -- Boethius, The Consolations of Philosophy Who can give law to lovers? Love is a greater law to itself. -- Boethius, The Consolations of Philosophy Bradley, F.H. And we seem unable to clear ourselves from the old dilemma. If you predicate what is different, you ascribe to the subject what it is not; and if you predicate what is not different, you say nothing at all. -- F.H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality But space is nothing but a relation. For, in the first place, any space must consist of parts; and if the parts are not spaces, the whole is not space. -- F.H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality Bridgman, P.W. The true meaning of a term is to be found by observing what a man does with it, not by what he says about it. Broad, C.D. The scientists in question seem to me to confuse the Author of Nature with the Editor of 'Nature'; or at any rate to suppose that there can be no productions of the former which would not be accepted for publication by the latter. And I see no reason to believe this. -- Charlie D. Broad, The Mind and its Place in Nature It is clear that we mean something, and something different in each case, by such words [as substance, cause, change, etc.]. If we did not we could not use them consistently, and it is obvious that on the whole we do consistently apply and withhold such names. -- C.D. Broad, Scientific Thought Burke, Edmund The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -- Edmund Burke, letter to William Smith Society is indeed a contract...it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. -- Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France There is a dilemma to which every opposition to successful iniquity must, in the nature of things, be liable. If you lie still, you are considered as an accomplice in the measures in which you silently acquiesce. If you resist, you are accused of provoking irritable power to new excesses. The conduct of a losing party never appears right.... -- Edmund Burke, a letter to a member of the National Assembly Butler, Samuel A credulous mind...finds most delight in believing strange things, and the stranger they are the easier they pass with him; but regards those that are plain and feasible, for every man can believe such. -- Samuel Butler, Characters Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well. -- Samuel Butler, Note-Books |
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