Quotes by Philosophers - Page 13

Many millions of pregnancies—many if not most of which have each led to the birth of at least one child—were each used as nothing but a conspicuous means to a secret end called the evasion of abortion.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The world economy would collapse if a significant number of people were to realize and then act on the realization that it is possible to enjoy many if not most of the things that they enjoy without first having to own them.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
When selecting a one-night stand, a heterosexual woman who is materialistic is a trillion times more likely to choose a sexually unattractive poor man who seems rich over a sexually attractive rich man who seems poor.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Loneliness tortures many if not most of the elderly more intensely and more frequently than it torments many if not most of us who will never be or have not yet been pushed or pulled into old age.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Patriotism is the narcissism of countries.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Greed is a contagious mental illness without which civilization as we know it would not have been possible.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Many if not most slaves would have each readily jumped, and many if not most slaves would each readily jump, at the opportunity to be a master, if such an opportunity presents or had presented itself.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Just like how most if not all poor boys look up to and aspire to someday be rich men, most if not all underdeveloped and developing countries look up to and aspire to someday be developed countries.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Having beef with someone is unnecessary and avoidable. Whatever the issue, if not positive, it is an opportunity to cut the excess fat from an unhealthy dietary network. Simply excuse yourself from the table of negativity and lean forward in peace.
T.F. Hodge
When spontaneous demoralizing thoughts seep into your conscience, don't trip...allowing them to fester. These are random tests of your conviction and determination. Large or small, your reaction to such intrusions is a defining moment for which no one else, but you, can mitigate.
T.F. Hodge
Search for the stranger inside you, forgotten even by your death.
Sorin Cerin
Not a few millions of parents strongly hope that their own children will step in by instantly becoming their own parents’ foster parents, if and when the parents reach their second childhood.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I would rather my descendants have greater abilities and a greater knowledge of the love of Christ than I do, much like standing on one's shoulders in order to get a clearer view of the valley.
Criss Jami
My sense of the holy is bound up with the hope that some day my remote descendants will live in a global civilization in which love is pretty much the only law.
Richard M. Rorty
Love is one of those topics that plenty of people try to write about but not enough try to do.
Criss Jami
In the case of Michel Angelo we have an artist who with brush and chisel portrayed literally thousands of human forms; but with this peculiarity, that while scores and scores of his male figures are obviously suffused and inspired by a romantic sentiment, there is hardly one of his female figures that is so,—the latter being mostly representative of woman in her part as mother, or sufferer, or prophetess or poetess, or in old age, or in any aspect of strength or tenderness, except that which associates itself especially with romantic love. Yet the cleanliness and dignity of Michel Angelo's male figures are incontestable, and bear striking witness to that nobility of the sentiment in him, which we have already seen illustrated in his sonnets.
Edward Carpenter
Described in this way, utilitarianism has little in common with the prosaic, visionless notion of the 'merely utilitarian,' in the sense of a narrowly or mundanely functional or efficient option. No such limited horizon confined the thought and character of the great English-language utilitarian philosophers, whose influence ran its course from the period just before the French Revolution through the Victorian era. Happiness, for them, was more of a cosmic calling, the path to world progress, and whatever was deemed 'utilitarian' had to be useful for that larger and inspiring end, the global minimization of pointless suffering and the global maximization of positive well-being or happiness. It invokes, ultimately, the point of view of universal benevolence. And it is more accurately charged with being too demanding ethically than with being too accommodating of narrow practicality, material interests, self-interestedness, and the like.
Bart Schultz
If the entire world sought to make itself worthy of happiness rather than make itself happy, then the entire world would be happy.
Criss Jami
The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world...Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.
Karl Marx
A day in a storm strengthens you more than a thousand in sunshine.
Matshona Dhliwayo
The poor can dream. The weak can hope. The helpless can strive. The powerless can rise.
Matshona Dhliwayo
To encourage people, walk beside them. To inspire people, walk in front of them. To drive people, walk behind them. To lead people, walk with them.
Matshona Dhliwayo
The struggles of the past are the gateway to the blessings of the future.
Matshona Dhliwayo
The storm is the optimist’s friend, but the pessimist’s nightmare.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Be the calm in someone else’s storm.
Matshona Dhliwayo
The darkest storms color the brightest rainbows.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Learn from the ocean; not fearing turbulence, it uses the wind against it to rise instead.
Matshona Dhliwayo
The only way to survive such shitty times, if you ask me, is to write and read big, fat books, you know? And I’m writing now another book on Hegelian dialectics, subjectivity, ontology, quantum physics and so on. That’s the only way to survive. Like Lenin. I will use his example. You know what Lenin did, in 1915, when World War I exploded? He went to Switzerland and started to read Hegel.
Slavoj Žižek
No matter how low the sun sets, the time is coming when it will surely rise.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Planting a flower in the desert takes greater skill than growing a garden in a rain forest.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Joy gives you strength.Hope gives you fortitude.Faith gives you courage.Love gives you power.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Use your mind’s talents diligently, your heart’s powers incredibly, and your soul’s genius profitably.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Dream while others are sleeping. Dare while others are wishing. Do while others are talking. Deliver while others are quitting.
Matshona Dhliwayo
If you want to know how fortunate you are, visit three places: the slum, the hospital, and the cemetery.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Rain is just God weeping for Earth’s troubles.
Matshona Dhliwayo
It is impossible for a star to shine and not get noticed, even in the dark.
Matshona Dhliwayo
It is not the size of a seed, but the size of what rises from it.
Matshona Dhliwayo
The richest person in the cemetery is the one who left behind the most happy memories.
Matshona Dhliwayo
You don’t have to swim when you know how to walk on water.
Matshona Dhliwayo
The uglier the storm the lovelier the rainbow.
Matshona Dhliwayo
You were given the problems you have because you can solve them; the burdens, because you can carry them; the trials, because you can overcome them; the opponents, because you can beat them; and the enemies, because you can conquer them.
Matshona Dhliwayo
If the wind brushes against you, do not complain; it brushes against everyone.
Matshona Dhliwayo
You were not born to impress the world, but to impress the universe.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Stars give so much to the world without demanding payment. Be likewise.
Matshona Dhliwayo
When I was poor, I was rich because I was happy; when I was wealthy, I was poor because I was sad.
Matshona Dhliwayo
A caterpillar knows it's a butterfly, even if the whole world tries to convince it that it's just a worm.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Stars cannot achieve their highest potential without the dark.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Calm skies don't make skillful eagles.
Matshona Dhliwayo
I understand why King Solomon asked for wisdom from God. For wisdom is like oil to a lamp, what would be the essence of having a lamp without oil in darkness?.
Gift Gugu Mona
Among other possibilities, money was invented to make it possible for a foolish man to control wise men; a weak man, strong men; a child, old men; an ignorant man, knowledgeable men; and for a dwarf to control giants.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
There is only one thing which is generally safe from plagiarism -- self-denial.
G.K. Chesterton
To some believers, being on the pill or using a condom is a nonverbal way of telling God to go to hell.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I'm always talking to God about whether or not he exists - that's how I know I'm a theist.
Criss Jami
When we look for success, it should be for the sole purpose of boasting sincerely in Christ. There's no other reason for it. Success is only worth it when the more intense it gets for you, the more you find yourself bragging for his glory rather than your own.
Criss Jami
God favors men and women who delight in being made worthy of happiness before the happiness itself.
Criss Jami
I'm convinced that most men don't know what they believe, rather, they only know what they wish to believe. How many people blame God for man's atrocities, but wouldn't dream of imprisoning a mother for her son's crime?
Criss Jami
It always seems as though the definition of love will remain debatable by an opinionated world.
Criss Jami
Trustful people are the pure at heart, as they are moved by the zeal of their own trustworthiness.
Criss Jami
I always make sure that the world will prove me right. It gives me the freedom to contradict myself.
Criss Jami
Those who wish to seek out the cause of miracles and to understand the things of nature as philosophers, and not to stare at them in astonishment like fools, are soon considered heretical and impious, and proclaimed as such by those whom the mob adores as the interpreters of nature and the gods. For these men know that, once ignorance is put aside, that wonderment would be taken away, which is the only means by which their authority is preserved.
Baruch Spinoza