Philosophy Quotes

"Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion."

Democritus

"Space is to place as eternity is to time."

Joseph Joubert

"It is only in the world of objects that we have time and space and selves."

T. S. Eliot

"Poetry is more philosophical and of higher value than history."

"Poetry is to philosophy what the Sabbath is to the rest of the week."

Augustus Hare

"State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters."

"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."

Voltaire

"God is the immanent, and not the transient, cause of all things."

Baruch Spinoza

"There is nothing permanent except change."

Heraclitus

“While I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy.”

“He who has lived as a true philosopher has reason to be of good cheer when he is about to die.”

“Those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.”

“Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?”

“The human being is a self-propelled automaton entirely under the control of external influences. He is like a float tossed about by the waves of a turbulent sea.”

“Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.”

“There's no present. There's only the immediate future and the recent past.”

“Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.”

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”

“There are only two things: truth and lies. Truth is indivisible, hence it cannot recognise itself; anyone who wants to recognise it has to be a lie.”

“Never call yourself a philosopher, nor talk a great deal among the unlearned about theorems, but act conformably to them.”

“All philosophy lies in two words: sustain and abstain.”

“Of what use is a philosopher who doesn't hurt anybody's feelings?”

“When asked why people give to beggars but not to philosophers, he replied, "Because they expect they may become lame and blind, but never that they will become philosophers."

“Asked what he had gained from philosophy, he replied, "This at least, if nothing else: to be prepared for every fortune."

“The whole is something besides the parts.”