To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust. Henry David Thoreau
I was never aware of any other option but to question everything. Noam Chomsky
To ridicule philosophy is really to philosophize. Blaise Pascal
The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good are the two most important aims of philosophy. Voltaire
Philosophy can make people sick. Aristotle
There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness. Dalai Lama
A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. George Bernard Shaw
Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death. Socrates
There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands. Plato
Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder. Plato
Religions do a useful thing: they narrow God to the limits of man. Philosophy replies by doing a necessary thing: it elevates man to the plane of God. Victor Hugo
Scepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy. Napoleon Bonaparte
People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind. W B Yeats
There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being. James Joyce
Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable. Anton Chekhov
There’s a difference between a philosophy and a bumper sticker. Charles M Schultz
The ultimate triumph of philosophy would be to cast light upon the mysterious ways in which Providence moves to achieve the designs it has for man. Marquis de Sade
The whole philosophy of modern times is to dissolve distinctions between individuals and deal with them as large collections of people. It’s essentially self-interested on the part of authority. Tom Stoppard
No philosophy, no religion, has ever brought so glad a message to the world as this good news of Atheism. Annie Besant
The philosopher as an analyst is not concerned with the physical properties of things, but only with the way in which we speak about them. Alfred Jules Ayer
The spheres with which philosophy properly has to deal, the spheres proper to thought, are logic, nature, and history. Here necessity rules and therefore mediation has its validity. That this is true of logic and nature, no one will deny, but with history there is a difficulty, for here, it is said, freedom prevails. But I think that history is incorrectly interpreted and that the difficulty arises from the following: History, namely, is more than a product of the free actions of free individuals. The individual acts, but his action enters into the order of things that maintains the whole of existence. What is going to come of his action, one who acts does not really know. But this higher order of things that digests, so to speak, the free actions and works them together in its eternal laws is necessity, and this necessity is the movement of world history; it is therefore quite proper for philosophy to use mediation – that is, relative mediation. If I am contemplating a world – historical individuality, I can then distinguish between the deeds of which Scripture says ‘they follow him’ and the deeds by which he belongs to history. Philosophy has nothing to do with what could be called the inner deed, but the inner deed is the true life of freedom. Philosophy considers the external deed, yet in turn it does not see this as isolated but sees it as assimilated into and transformed in the world-historical process. This process is the proper subject for philosophy and it considers this under the category of necessity. Therefore it reject the reflection that wants to point out that everything could be otherwise; it views world-history in such a way that there is no question of an either/or. Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or II p174
An artist can’t produce great art unless he has a philosophy. He can’t say something unless he has something to say. L S Lowry
The Prime Directive is not just a set of rules. It is a philosophy, a very correct one. Star Trek: The Next Generation s1e22: Symbiosis, Picard
It’s hard to be philosophical when faced with suffering. ibid. Dr Crusher to Picard
I thought the Bajorans would be grateful to hear someone provide them with an opposing philosophical view. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine s5e8: Things Past, Garak
I am now convinced that theoretical physics is actually philosophy. Max Born
The journey to the guillotine and to the World War would start with the dreams of a philosopher. But not any old philosopher. Jean-Jacques Rousseau who was here ... just outside Paris, reshaped the mental habit of an entire generation, turning them from creatures of thought to creatures of feeling ... And the British couldn’t get enough of it. Simon Schama, A History of Britain s3e1: Forces of Nature, BBC 2002
Men of feeling in tune with the rhythms of nature. What appealed to men and women of feeling in the English provinces was Rousseau’s belief that urbanity, the graces and fashions of Metropolitan life were symptoms of everything that was rotten about the old world, the cosmetic mask behind which lurks the poxy disfigurement of a deceitful vicious terminally-diseased nation. ibid.
Chartres was the centre of a school of philosophy dedicated to Plato. Kenneth Clark: Civilisation s2e13: The Great Thaw, BBC 1969
Philosophy is nothing but discretion. John Selden
You will go most safely by the middle way. Ovid, Metamorphoses
My philosophy is basically this. And this is something I live by and I always have and I always will: don’t ever for any reason do anything to anyone for any reason ever no matter what. No matter where or who or who you are with, or, or where you are going or where you’ve been. Ever. For any reason whatsoever. The Office US s5e12: The Duel, Michael to David Wallace, NBC 2009
What kind of ethical philosophy is it that condemns every child, even before it is born, to inherit the sin of a remote ancestor? Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion p251
History is philosophy from examples. Dionysius of Hallicarnassus
The extraordinary influence of one of the most provocative and uncompromising thinkers of the nineteenth century. Bettany Hughes, Nietzsche: Genius of the Modern World II, BBC 2016
His philosophies were being distorted by a regime that stood for so much he loathed. Nietzsche was one of the most dangerous minds of the nineteenth century. ibid.
The murder of God: God is dead … Without a belief in God there is no authority for the moral values that underpin European society. ibid.
Barthes stepped into the road … He was struck down … Roland Barthes is one of the 21st century’s greatest thinkers. He questioned the assumptions of how we underpin our world. In 1957 he published a book, he called it Mythologies that looked seriously, rigorously and in detail at popular culture. A series of essays, mythologies, broke down the barrier between high art and consumerism. 21st Century Mythologies with Richard Clay, BBC 2020
… the unsexiness of striptease … for Bathes these things are myths: so commonplace we take them for granted. Yet they are packed with deeper meaning. ibid.
Barthes questioned how myths are used to shore up the prevailing power of money. ibid.
What might Roland Barthes have made of the 21st century? Roland Barthes grew up looking for meaning. ibid.
Today, the myth of plastic has taken a full U-turn from the wonder material of the 1950s to poisonous waste of the 20th century. ibid.
The Myth of Money: It’s a myth, something so insistent, as Barthes put it, that we accept it without question. Once, money was worth its weight in metal; today, it’s flimsy paper at best. An abstract idea with value only because we’re so used to it being something valuable. To buttress money’s authority, banknotes are adorned with symbols of the nation state and the face of prestigious historical figures conveying a legitimacy and stability. ibid.