Quotes by Philosophers - Page 189

The man who has forgotten self may be said to have entered Heaven.
Zhuangzi
If you awaken from this illusion and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death (or shall I say death implies life?), you can feel yourself – not as a stranger in the world, not as something here unprobational, not as something that has arrived here by fluke - but you can begin to feel your own existence as absolutely fundamental.
Alan W. Watts
Now, what if Others were encapsulated in Things, in a way that Being towards Things were not ontologically severable, in Heidegger's terms, from Being towards Others? What if the mode of Dasein of Others were to dwell in Things, and so forth? In the same light, then, what if the Thing were a Dublette of the Self, and not what is called the Other? Or more radically still, what if the Self were in some fundamental way becoming a Xerox copy, a duplicate, of the Thing in its assumed essence?
Avital Ronell
We strive toward the middle, and we run from ourselves.
Chris Matakas
..it is precisely the self that cannot and must not be sacrificed. It is the unsacrificed self that we must respect in man above all.
Ayn Rand
We are free to live the life we have imagined, not the life imagined for us.
Chris Matakas
It is in community where we find our very selves.
Chris Matakas
A man’s spirit is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego.
Ayn Rand
Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egotist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge or act. These are functions of the self.
Ayn Rand
If, to him, love was a celebration of one’s self and of existence—then, to the self-haters and life-haters, the pursuit of destruction was the only form and equivalent of love.
Ayn Rand
The belief that personality is mysterious and irreducible has no scientific warrant, and is accepted chiefly because it is flattering to our human self esteem.
Bertrand Russell
Only by externalization, by entering into social relationships, can we develop the interiority of our own person.
Jürgen Habermas
Hold tight to what is most yourself,Don't squander it, don't let your lifeBe governed by what disturbs you.
Abu al-Ala al-Ma'arri
Charity: begins at home and remains there. When it goes out, it's because it wants to brag about itself
Bangambiki Habyarimana
And if I forget how many times I have been here, and in how many shapes, this forgetting is the necessary interval of darkness between every pulsation of light. I return in every baby born.
Alan W. Watts
As is so often the way, what we have suppressed and overlooked issomething startlingly obvious. The difficulty is that it is so obvious andbasic that one can hardly find the words for it. The Germans call it aHintergedanke, an apprehension lying tacitly in the back of our mindswhich we cannot easily admit, even to ourselves. The sensation of "I" asa lonely and isolated center of being is so powerful andcommonsensical, and so fundamental to our modes of speech andthought, to our laws and social institutions, that we cannot experienceselfhood except as something superficial in the scheme of the universe. Iseem to be a brief light that flashes but once in all the aeons of time—arare, complicated, and all-too-delicate organism on the fringe ofbiological evolution, where the wave of life bursts into individual,sparkling, and multicolored drops that gleam for a moment only tovanish forever. Under such conditioning it seems impossible and evenabsurd to realize that myself does not reside in the drop alone, but in thewhole surge of energy which ranges from the galaxies to the nuclearfields in my body. At this level of existence "I" am immeasurably old;my forms are infinite and their comings and goings are simply thepulses or vibrations of a single and eternal flow of energy.
Alan W. Watts
Why should anyone be so grateful for acceptance unless he doubts that he is acceptable, and why should a young, educated and successful couple have such doubts, if not due to the fact that they cannot accept themselves because they are not themselves.
Erich Fromm
Indeed, with the experience of self disappears the experience of identity - and when this happens, man could become insane if he did not save himself by acquiring a secondary sense of self; he does that by experiencing himself as being approved of, worthwhile, successful, useful - briefly, as a salable commodity which is he because he is looked upon by others as an entity, not unique but fitting into one of the current patterns.
Erich Fromm
But who is this self that is to be renounced and to have no benefit? It seems that *you* yourself are supposed to be it. And for whose benefit is unselfish self-renunciation recommended to you? Again, for *your* benefit and behoof, only through that unselfishness you are procuring your "true benefit." You are to benefit *yourself*, and yet you are not to seek *your* benefit
Max Stirner
Here we come upon the old, old craze of the world, which has not yet learned to do without clericalism--that to live and work *for an idea*is man's calling, and according to the faithfulness its fulfilment his *human worth* is measured
Max Stirner
How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it.
G.K. Chesterton
One has to get rid of the self. Once the self is thrown away, nothing is lacking. You start overflowing and blossoms start falling on you.
Osho
Meanwhile, the self can stand in the way of the Not-Self, interfering with the free flow of spiritual grace, this maintaining the self in a state of blindness, and also with the flow of animal grace, which leads to the impairment of natural functions and, in the long run, of the slower processes called structure. For each individual human being, the main practical problems are these: How can I prevent my ego from eclipsing the inner light, synteresis, scintilla animae, and so perpetuating the state of unregenerate illusion and blindness? And these practical problems remain unchallenged, even if we abandon the notion of an entelechy or physiological intelligencer, of an atman or pneuma and think, instead, in terms [of] systems...
Aldous Huxley
Human nature has nevertheless been changed by the ever new appearance of these teachers of the purpose of existence: It now has one additional need—the need for the ever new appearance of such teachers and teachings of a “purpose.” Gradually, man has become a fantastic animal that has to fulfill one more condition of existence than any other animal: man has to believe, to know, from time to time why he exists; his race cannot flourish without a periodic trust in life—without faith in reason in life.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus the perception of the infinite is somehow prior in me to the perception of the finite, that is, my perception of God is prior to my perception of myself. For how would I understand that I doubt and that I desire, that is, that I lack something and that I am not wholly perfect, unless there were some idea in me of a more perfect being, by comparison with which I might recognize my defects?
René Descartes
The majority of men could sooner be brought to believe themselves a piece of lava in the moon than to take themselves for a self.
J.G. Fichte
Khuda tujhe kisi toofaan se aashna karde,Ke tere behr ki maujon men iztiraab naheenMay God grant you a storm! The voyage of your life is on too placid an ocean…
Muhammad Iqbal
Khird-Mandon Se Kya Puchon Ke Meri Ibtida Kya HaiKe Main Iss Fikar Mein Rehta Hun, Meri Intiha Kya HaiWhat should I ask the sages about my origin:I am always wanting to know my goal.
Muhammad Iqbal
There is a widespread philosophical tendency towards the view which tells us that Man is the measure of all things, that truth is man-made, that space and time and the world of universals are properties of the mind, and that, if there be anything not created by the mind, it is unknowable and of no account for us. This view, if our previous discussions were correct, is untrue; but in addition to being untrue, it has the effect of robbing philosophic contemplation of all that gives it value, since it fetters contemplation to Self. What it calls knowledge is not a union with the not-Self, but a set of prejudices, habits, and desires, making an impenetrable veil between us and the world beyond. The man who finds pleasure in such a theory of knowledge is like a man who never leaves the domestic circle for fear his word might not be law.
Bertrand Russell
Our fundamental tactic of self-protection, self-control, and self-definition is not spinning webs or building dams, but telling stories, and more particularly connecting and controlling the story we tell others - and ourselves - about who we are.
Daniel C. Dennett
The Illusory SelfI am composed of body and soul, I seem to have mind, reason, sense, yet I find none of them my own. For where was my body prior to my birth, and whither will it go when I have departed? Where are the various states produced by the life stages of an illusory self? Where is the newborn babe, the child, the boy, the pubescent, the stripling, the bearded youth, the lad, the full-grown man? Whence came the soul, whither will it go, how long will it be our mate? Can we tell its essential nature? When did we acquire it? Prior to our birth? But we were not then in existence. What of it after death? But then we who are embodied, compounds endowed with quality, shall be no more, but shall hasten to our rebirth, to be with the unbodied, without composition and without quality. But now, inasmuch as we are alive, we are the dominated rather than the rulers, known rather than knowing. The soul knows us, though unknown by us, and imposes commands we are obliged to obey as wervants their mistress. And when it will, it will transact its divorce in court and depart, leaving our home desolate of life. If we press it to remain, it will dissolve our relationship. So subtle is its nature that it furnishes no handle to the body.
Philo of Alexandria
The self can watch itself becoming lazy, or non-watchful; this is an asset that can make both for humor and profound well-being.
Eli Siegel
We become full human agents, capable of understanding ourselves, and hence of defining our identity, through our acquisition of rich human languages of expression.
Charles Taylor
See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own deeds.
Henry David Thoreau
But I will confess 
that I began as an astronomer—a liking
for bright flashes, vast distances, unreachable things,
a hand stretched always toward the furthest limit—
and that my longing for you has not taken me
very far from that original desire
to inscribe a comet’s orbit around the walls
of our city, to gently stroke the surface of the stars.
Troy Jollimore
[M]y discovering my own identity doesn't mean that I work it out in isolation, but that I negotiate it through dialogue, partly overt, partly internal, with others.
Charles Taylor
The philosophical I is not the man, not the human body or the human soul of which psychology treats, but the metaphysical subject, the limit - not a part of the world.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
I have to admit it humbly, mon cher compatriote, I was always bursting with vanity. I, I, I is the refrain of my whole life, which could be heard in everything I said. I could never talk without boasting, especially if I did so with that shattering discretion that was my specialty. It is quite true that I always lived free and powerful. I simply felt released in the regard to all the for the excellent reason that I recognized no equals. I always considered myself more intelligent than everyone else, as I’ve told you, but also more sensitive and more skillful, a crack shot, an incomparable driver, a better lover. Even in the fields in which it was easy for me to verify my inferiority–like tennis, for instance, in which I was but a passable partner–it was hard for me not to think that, with a little time and practice, I would surpass the best players. I admitted only superiorities in me and this explained my good will and serenity. When I was concerned with others, I was so out of pure condescension, in utter freedom, and all the credit went to me: my self-esteem would go up a degree.
Albert Camus
And the idea of ourselves is our escape from the fact of what we really are.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Each of us is several, is man, is a profusion of selves. So that the self who disdains his surroundings is not the same as the self who suffers or takes joy in them. In the colony of our being there are many species of people who think and feel in different ways.
Pascal Mercier
Owing to ignorance of the rope the rope appears to be a snake; owing to ignorance of the Self the transient state arises of the individualized, limited, phenomenal aspect of the Self.
Guru Nanak
To know who I am is a species of knowing where I stand. My identity is defined by the commitments and identifications which provide the frame or horizon within which I can try to determine from case to case what is good, or valuable, or what ought to be done, or what I endorse or oppose. In other words, it is the horizon within which I am capable of taking a stand.
Charles Taylor
Certainly, if he still has himself, a man of understanding has lost nothing.
Michel de Montaigne
For it is in your power to retire into yourself whenever you choose.
Marcus Aurelius
We read the weird tales in newspapers to crowd out the even weirder stuff inside us.
Alain de Botton
We define our identity always in dialogue with, sometimes in struggle against, the things our significant others want to see in us. Even after we outgrow some of these others—our parents, for instance—and they disappear from our lives, the conversation with them continues within us as long as we live.
Charles Taylor
Some care is needed in using Descartes' argument. "I think, therefore I am" says rather more than is strictly certain. It might seem as though we are quite sure of being the same person to-day as we were yesterday, and this is no doubt true in some sense. But the real Self is as hard to arrive at as the real table, and does not seem to have that absolute, convincing certainty that belongs to particular experiences.
Bertrand Russell
To be oneself, simply oneself, is so amazing and utterly unique an experience that it's hard to convince oneself so singular a thing happens to everybody.
Simone de Beauvoir
Other people teach us who we are. Their attitudes to us are the mirror in which we learn to see ourselves, but the mirror is distorted. We are, perhaps, rather dimly aware of the immense power of our social enviornment.
Alan W. Watts
So then, the relationship of self to other is the complete realization that loving yourself is impossible without loving everything defined as other than yourself.
Alan W. Watts
Like too much alcohol,self-consciousness makes us see ourselves double, and we make the double image for two selves - mental and material, controlling and controlled, reflective and spontaneous. Thus instead of suffering we suffer about suffering, and suffer about suffering about suffering.
Alan W. Watts
You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.
Alan W. Watts
Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.
Alan W. Watts
Self-sacrifice? But it is precisely the self that cannot and must not be sacrificed.
Ayn Rand
The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed.
Søren Kierkegaard
To the man of science, on his unassuming and laborious travels, which must often enough be journeys through the desert, there appear those glittering mirages called 'philosophical systems'; with bewitching deceptive power they show the solution of all enigmas and the freshest draught of the true water of life to be near at hand; his heart rejoices, and it seems to the weary traveller that his lips already touch the goal of all the perseverance and sorrows of the scientific life... Other natures again, may well grow exceedingly ill-humoured and curse the salty taste which these apparitions leave behind in the mouth and from which arises a raging thirst – without one having been brought so much as a step nearer to any kind of spring.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Life seems to be a process of replacing one anxiety with another and substituting one desire for another--which is not to say that we should never strive to overcome any of our anxieties or fulfil any of our desires, but rather to suggest that we should perhaps build into our strivings an awareness of the way our goals promise us a respite and a resolution that they cannot, by definition, deliver.
Alain de Botton
Always having what we wantmay not be the best good fortuneHealth seems sweetestafter sickness, foodin hunger, goodnessin the wake of evil, and at the endof daylong labor sleep.
Heraclitus
So he said, 'What would you like to do? What is your desire really?' I said, 'Doctor, I don't think you're going to find this very healthy and clear, but I really would like to stop working forever–never work again, never do anything like the kind of work I’m doing now–and do nothing but write poetry and have leisure to spend the day outdoors and go to museums and see friends.
Allen Ginsberg
To spend your time wanting things is to smother your time for achieving things beyond your expectations.
Criss Jami