Quotes by Philosophers - Page 176

None of us can study anything properly unless we do it with our whole being.
Mary Midgley
And yet, will we ever come to an end of discussion and talk if we think we must always reply to replies? For replies come from those who either cannot understand what is said to them, or are so stubborn and contentious that they refuse to give in even if they do understand.
Augustine of Hippo
Every Profound thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood
Friedrich Nietzsche
The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reasoning.
Voltaire
Nature is never so admired as when she is understood.
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
Such is the strange situation in which modern philosophy finds itself. No former age was ever in such a favourable position with regard to the sources of our knowledge of human nature. Psychology, ethnology, anthropology, and history have amassed an astoundingly rich and constantly increasing body of facts. Our technical instruments for observation and experimentation have been immensely improved, and our analyses have become sharper and more penetrating. We appear, nonetheless, not yet to have found a method for the mastery and organization of this material. When compared with our own abundance the past may seem very poor. But our wealth of facts is not necessarily a wealth of thoughts. Unless we succeed in finding a clue of Ariadne to lead us out of this labyrinth, we can have no real insight into the general character of human culture; we shall remain lost in a mass of disconnected and disintegrated data which seem to lack all conceptual unity.
Ernst Cassirer
The owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the coming of the dusk.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
[At the beginning of modern science], a light dawned on all those who study nature. They comprehended that reason has insight only into what it itself produces according to its own design; that it must take the lead with principles for its judgments according to constant laws and compel nature to answer its questions, rather than letting nature guide its movements by keeping reason, as it were, in leading-strings; for otherwise accidental observations, made according to no previously designed plan, can never connect up into a necessary law, which is yet what reason seeks and requires. Reason, in order to be taught by nature, must approach nature with its principles in one hand, according to which alone the agreement among appearances can count as laws, and, in the other hand, the experiments thought in accordance with these principles - yet in order to be instructed by nature not like a pupil, who has recited to him whatever the teacher wants to say, but like an appointed judge who compels witnesses to answer the questions he puts to them. Thus even physics owes the advantageous revolution in its way of thinking to the inspiration that what reason would not be able to know of itself and has to learn from nature, it has to seek in the latter (though not merely ascribe to it) in accordance with what reason itself puts into nature. This is how natural science was first brought to the secure course of a science after groping about for so many centuries.
Immanuel Kant
We may not know whether our understanding is correct, or whether our sentiments are noble, but the air of the day surrounds us like spring which spreads over the land without our aid or notice.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Haven't you noticed that opinion without knowledge is always a poor thing? At the best it is blind—isn't anyone who holds a true opinion without understanding like a blind man on the right road?
Plato
To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand. This is the sport, the luxury, special to the intellectual man. The gesture characteristic of his tribe consists in looking at the world with eyes wide open in wonder. Everything in the world is strange and marvelous to well-open eyes.
José Ortega y Gasset
At the limit it could be said that every speaking being has a personal language of his own, that is his own particular way of thinking and feeling. Culture, at its various levels, unifies in a series of strata, to the extent that they come into contact with each other, a greater or lesser number of individuals who understand each other's mode of expression to varying degrees, etc.
Antonio Gramsci
Try to get inside the world of Homer and see what it would be like to think with his view of reality. Only then can you begin to judge it, because only then do you really understand it.
John Mark Reynolds
On the inside, the copycats of the ruffians are more delicate than the copycats of prudes.
Criss Jami
It can be a good thing if deeper theology, or philosophy, only makes one more uncertain. It may lead to a healthy doubt; he may throw his hands up saying, 'God, I just don't know anymore. If you're out there, I'm giving it all to you.' From there, after the surrender, he is allowing God himself, rather than theories, books, and documents, to take over and lead him into all truth.
Criss Jami
Philosophy may serve as the bridge between theology and science. All atheism is a philosophy, but not all philosophy is atheism. Philosophy ('love of wisdom') is simply a tool depending on how one uses it, and in some cases, logically understanding the nature of God and existence.
Criss Jami
The artist is often misunderstood because, stepping outside himself and holding most details in great tension, he's about as complex as a shape-shifter; or a head with faces on all sides, but not necessarily in the negative connotation as one being two-faced usually implies. For instance, to be misunderstood can mean to be improperly deemed a troublemaker when that is not one's true intent: you see, to troublemakers, the artist knows that the peacemaker may seem like a troublemaker; therefore he may, whether in honesty or in jest, at times, present himself as a troublemaker for perceptual, artistic flair. But then to the artless peacemakers, because of this they will interpret him as a troublemaker. This is why the artist has so few allies. To the troublemakers he's a troublemaker, yet still the peacemakers a troublemaker.
Criss Jami
Cognition begins with sensation.
Richard Tarnas
A distaste for the new is not always fear of the unknown, but sometimes ambition. Some people don't like the new way simply because they never got a chance to master the old way.
Criss Jami
You should always be ready to apply these two rules of action, the first, to do nothing other than what the kingly and law-making art ordains for the benefits of humankind, and, the second, to be prepared to change your mind if someone is at hand to put you right and guide you away from some groundless opinion.
Marcus Aurelius
It is a part of probability that many improbabilities will happen.
Aristotle
Understanding that rests in what it does not understand is the finest.
Zhuangzi
One of the bigger mistakes of our time, I suppose, was preaching the demonization of all judgment without teaching how to judge righteously. We now live in an age where, apart from the inability to bear even good judgment when it so passes by, still everyone, inevitably, has a viral opinion (judgment) about everything and everyone, but little skill in good judgment as its verification or harness.
Criss Jami
In sandy soil, when deep you delve, you reach the springs below; The more you learn, the freer streams of wisdom flow.
Thiruvalluvar
In an honest effort to gain understanding, asking questions do not, necessarily, imply a conclusion has been determined. They can be used to avoid making the wrong judgement. If building trust is the ultimate goal - there is no need to be defensive, or feel threatened by any inquiry.
T.F. Hodge
What we are trying to do is to understand this confusion and not cover it up with quotations.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Telling someone something he does not understand is pointless, even if you add that he will not be able to understand it.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Men all pay homage to what understanding understands, but no one understands enough to rely upon what understanding does not understand and thereby come to understand.
Zhuangzi
Clarity is like casting light. Clarity allows us to see better and eases the path of understanding. And just as one light source need not deny the illumination of another but can add to it, the understanding gained through one explanation can stand to gain from another, even if it is different in approach. The truth is more exclusive...
Cyrus Panjvani
Hence, you see your faith, you see your doubt, you see your desire and will to learn, and when you are induced by divine authority to believe what you do not see, you see at one that you believe these things; you analyze and discern all this.
Augustine of Hippo
I am a pioneer now, looking onto a promised land.
Robert M. Pirsig
In my opinion, at least, the splendid achievements of Alexander are the clearest possible proof that neither strength of body, nor noble blood, nor success in war even greater than Alexander's own... that none of these things, I say, can make a man happy, unless he can win one more victory in addition to those the world thinks so great---the victory over himself.
Arrian
In Jiu Jitsu, we often fall into the trap of simply trying a technique "harder," rather than recognizing that it is a poorly chosen tool for the task at hand.
Chris Matakas
Imagine a true master of the art, someone with complete skill in every aspect of Jiu Jitsu. This master would not force anything. He would simply allow the roll to take whatever form it does, and in every position would act in the most efficient way based off what the circumstance dictates, and not what he himself prefers.
Chris Matakas
It appears, at least from my perspective, that each and every position in Jiu Jitsu regardless of the seeming complexity is really governed by no more than a handful of minimum viable products. Pursue to understand these essentials, and you will see that complexity is a myth perpetuated by lack of understanding, and it is this understanding which is possible for each of us.
Chris Matakas
We must not learn to try harder. The key is to learn how not to try in the first place.
Chris Matakas
Any advanced student will tell you the best way to recover guard is simply not to get your guard passed in the first place.
Chris Matakas
When your view is criticized or even ridiculed on television, on radio talk show, or in a newspaper editorial, don't just react angrily. Take a moment to jot down on paper the person's main thesis and how that thesis was supported. Then do two things. First, assume the person is expressing at least some good points and try to identify them. This assumption may be false, but the search for common ground with intellectual opponents is a good habit. In the process of identifying these good points, try to argue against your own view. Second, try to state on paper exactly how you would argue against the view being expressed in an intellectually precise yet emotionally calm way.
J.P. Moreland
You must be able to say "I understand," before you can say "I agree," or "I disagree," or "I suspend judgment.
Mortimer J. Adler
Through understanding comes control. Through ignorance one goes on forcing and suppressing. Always do everything with understanding, and you never harm yourself or anybody else.
Osho
We can either approach Jiu Jitsu through the lens of the "real world" or we can approach the real world through the lens of Jiu Jitsu. I have found the latter to be far more rewarding.
Chris Matakas
To demand that the intelligence abstain from judging mutilates its faculty of understanding.It is in the value judgment that understanding culminates.
Nicolás Gómez Dávila
Self-awareness - the commendable ability to be yourself without being a nuisance to someone else.
Criss Jami
Tsze-kung wished to dispense with the sacrifice of a sheep for the New Moon ceremony. The Master said, "You love the sheep; I love the ceremony.
Confucius
cautiously, you avoid trouble. See all that you can – then, if you forget the perilous and
Confucius
The schematicism by which our understanding deals with the phenomenal world ... is a skill so deeply hidden in the human soul that we shall hardly guess the secret trick that Nature here employs.
Immanuel Kant
I would say that introverts make some of the best international philosophers. The less common attribute of the introverted lifestyle - a close societal connection, as such a connection disappears or changes in relevance as the currents of the winds change - leaves too much room for one's own cultural bias. Instead, introverts tend to turn inward, the laboratory of being and all its forms. This is the most accurate study of the individual human being, which is in turn, rather than those affected by cultural limitations, the most universal reflection of human understanding and human behavior.
Criss Jami
In general, I feel if you can't say it clearly you don't understand it yourself.
John Rogers Searle
Whence then come my errors? They come from the sole fact that since the will is much wider in its range and compass than the understanding, I do not restrain it within the same bounds, but extend it also to things which I do not understand: and as the will is of itself indifferent to these, it easily falls into error and sin, and chooses the evil for the good, or the false for the true.
René Descartes
Simplicity is a bliss that makes one comprehend.
Criss Jami
If you follow the classical pattern, you are understanding the routine, the tradition, the shadow -- you are not understanding yourself.
Bruce Lee
If men could only know each other, they would neither idolize nor hate.
Elbert Hubbard
To learn to see- to accustom the eye to calmness, to patience, and to allow things to come up to it; to defer judgment, and to acquire the habit of approaching and grasping an individual case from all sides. This is the first preparatory schooling of intellectuality. One must not respond immediately to a stimulus; one must acquire a command of the obstructing and isolating instincts.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand.
Alain de Botton
I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than understanding. We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind.
Michel de Montaigne
There’s nothing as significant as a human face. Nor as eloquent. We can never really know another person, except by our first glance at him. Because, in that glance, we know everything. Even though we’re not always wise enough to unravel the knowledge.
Ayn Rand
Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.
Aristotle
There are matters in that book, said to be done by the express command of God, that are as shocking to humanity, and to every idea we have of moral justice, as any thing done by Robespierre, by Carrier, by Joseph le Bon, in France, by the English government in the East Indies, or by any other assassin in modern times. When we read in the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, etc., that they (the Israelites) came by stealth upon whole nations of people, who, as the history itself shews, had given them no offence; that they put all those nations to the sword; that they spared neither age nor infancy; that they utterly destroyed men, women and children; that they left not a soul to breathe; expressions that are repeated over and over again in those books, and that too with exulting ferocity; are we sure these things are facts? are we sure that the Creator of man commissioned those things to be done? Are we sure that the books that tell us so were written by his authority?...The Bible tells us, that those assassinations were done by the express command of God. And to read the Bible without horror, we must undo every thing that is tender, sympathising, and benevolent in the heart of man. Speaking for myself, if I had no other evidence that the Bible is fabulous, than the sacrifice I must make to believe it to be true, that alone would be sufficient to determine my choice.
Thomas Paine
No wonder many people dare not look closely at life: It's a horrible sight.
Bangambiki Habyarimana
When we operate on the basis of the will to control, we are aware of only one kind of "evil": the failure of existence to conform to the plan we have for it.
Jerome A. Miller