Quotes by Philosophers - Page 215

I hear from afar the shouts of that false wisdom which is ever dragging us onwards, counting the present as nothing, and pursuing without pause a future which flies as we pursue, that false wisdom which removes us from our place and never brings us to any other.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Leave off asking what tomorrow will bring, andwhatever days fortune will give, count themas profit.
Horace
Worrying about what happened on Monday, or, what might happen on Wednesday, is at the expense of one’s Tuesday.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Contrary to popular belief: Knowing where you are from will not really tell you where you are going. It will merely tell you why you are where you are.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The present is the closest that you will ever get to the future.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Temporality temporalizes as a future which makes present in the process of having been.
Martin Heidegger
Nature  …   has made it impossible for us to have any communication from this earth with the other great bodies of the universe, in our present state; and it is highly possible that he has likewise cut off all communication betwixt the other planets, and betwixt the different systems.… We observe, in all of them, enough to raise our curiosity, but not to satisfy it  …   It does not appear to be suitable to the wisdom that shines throughout all nature, to suppose that we should see so far, and have our curiosity so much raised  …   only to be disappointed at the end  …   This, therefore, naturally leads us to consider our present state as only the dawn or beginning of our existence, and as a state of preparation or probation for farther advancement.…
Colin Maclaurin
As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries-not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience.
Willard Van Orman Quine
When you are nearer, you will understand how much your eyesight is deceived by distance. Therefore, push yourself a little harder.
Dante Alighieri
The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Bertrand Russell
The air, soil and water cumulatively degrade; the climates and oceans destabilize; species become extinct at a spasm rate across continents; pollution cycles and volumes increase to endanger life-systems at all levels in cascade effects; a rising half of the world is destitute as inequality multiplies; the global food system produces more and more disabling and contaminated junk food without nutritional value; non-contagious diseases multiply to the world’s biggest killer with only symptom cures; the vocational future of the next generation collapses across the world while their bank debts rise; the global financial system has ceased to function for productive investment in life-goods; collective-interest agencies of governments and unions are stripped while for-profit state subsidies multiply; police state laws and methods advance while belligerent wars for corporate resources increase; the media are corporate ad vehicles and the academy is increasingly reduced to corporate functions; public sectors and services are non-stop defunded and privatized as tax evasion and transnational corporate funding and service by governments rise at the same time at every level.
John McMurtry
The present is an eternal attempt to separate the past from the future.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how genetic engineering and nanotechnology will abolish suffering in all sentient life. This project is ambitious but technically feasible. It is also instrumentally rational and ethically mandatory. The metabolic pathways of pain and malaise evolved only because they once served the fitness of our genes. They will be replaced by a different sort of neural architecture. States of sublime well-being are destined to become the genetically pre-programmed norm of mental health. The world's last aversive experience will be a precisely dateable event.
David Pearce
What man is really anti-progressive? For he is only anti-certain-people's-visions-for-the-future.
Criss Jami
Dehumanization isn’t a way of talking. It’s a way of thinking—a way of thinking that, sadly, comes all too easily to us. Dehumanization is a scourge, and has been so for millennia. It acts as a psychological lubricant, dissolving our inhibitions and inflaming our destructive passions. As such, it empowers us to perform acts that would, under other circumstances, be unthinkable.
David Livingstone Smith
In 2030 we will be ageless and everyone will have an excellent chance to live forever. 2030 is a dream and a goal.
FM-2030
We have achieved two of the three alchemists' dreams: We have transmuted the elements and learned to fly. Immortality is next.
Max More
Conventional names define a person's past: ancestry, ethnicity, nationality, religion. I am not who I was ten years ago and certainly not who I will be in twenty years
FM-2030
The present is a transitory existence which is made in order to be abolished: it retrieves itself only by transcending itself toward the permanence of future being; it is only as an instrument, as a means, it is only by it's efficacy with regard to the coming of the future that the present is validly realized: reduced to itself it is nothing , one may dispose of it as he pleases.
Simone de Beauvoir
Thinking of the future, establishing aims for oneself, having preferences—all this presupposes a belief in freedom, even if one occasionally ascertains that one doesn't feel it.
Albert Camus
In 1949, neurologist Egas Moniz (1874-1955) received a Nobel Prize for his discovery of ‘the therapeutic value of leucotomy in certain psychoses’. Today, prefrontal leucotomy is derided as a barbaric treatment from a much darker age, and it is to be hoped that, one day, so too might antipsychotic drugs.
Neel Burton
A prophet is always underestimated, and part of what makes one a prophet is that he doesn't really mind it.
Criss Jami
You create your future by what you do in the present
Bangambiki Habyarimana
This cult of the future is not only a weakness but a cowardice of the age.
G.K. Chesterton
...it is the fear of the past; a fear not merely of the evil in the past, but of the good in the past also. The brain breaks down under the unbearable virtue of mankind. There have been so many flaming faiths that we cannot hold; so many harsh heroisms that we cannot imitate; so many great efforts of monumental building or of military glory which seems to us at once sublime and pathetic. The future is a refuge from the fierce competition of our forefathers.
G.K. Chesterton
The future is a blank wall on which every man can write his own name as large as he likes; the past I find already sovered with scribbles, such as Plato, Isaiah, Shakespeare, Michael Angelo, Napoleon. I can make the future as narrow as myself; the past is obliged to be as broad and turbulant as humanity.
G.K. Chesterton
Life is divided into three parts: what was, what is and what shall be. Of these three periods, the present is short, the future is doubtful and the past alone is certain.
Seneca
We can't make up for lost time, but we can make room to share space.
T.F. Hodge
A man can control only what he comprehends, and comprehend only what he is able to put into words. The inexpressible therefore is unknowable. By examining future stages in the evolution of language we come to learn what discoveries, changes and social revolutions the language will be capable, some day, of reflecting.
Stanisław Lem
There was something called Christianity.
Aldous Huxley
It is sometimes but the mere hope for enjoyment that allows one to enjoy something, even when he is not really enjoying it at the moment.
Criss Jami
Too many of our preferences reflect nasty behaviours and states of mind that were genetically adaptive in the ancestral environment. Instead, wouldn't it be better if we rewrote our own corrupt code?
David Pearce
It is more important to know where you are going than to get there quickly. Do not mistake activity for achievement.
Isocrates
There are so many futures still to dawn!
Friedrich Nietzsche
I may not have had a great background, but I am grateful because nothing could have prepared me for the future than the past I've been through.
Gift Gugu Mona
My life doesn't bore me, because I know its worth. So when I let you be part of it, ensure you add value and not attempt to devalue it; or else you can never be part of my future.
Gift Gugu Mona
Man wants to make certain about the future,about tommorow--which cannot be done. Let it sink as deeply in your heart as possible, it cannot be done. Don't waste your present moment trying to make the future certain. The future is uncertainity that is the very quality of the future.One can do only one thing: Be alert and wait.
Osho
If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future.
Blaise Pascal
The man of the future will be young or he will not be.
Régis Debray
The only thing that is sure about the future is that it will happen. The only thing not sure about the future is what will happen".
Ronald Green
I foresee the day when we shall read nothing but telegrams and prayers.
Emil M. Cioran
It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.
Voltaire
People are like dice. We throw ourselves in the direction of our own choosing.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Who really can face the future? All you can do is project from the past, even when the past shows that such projections are often wrong. And who really can forget the past? What else is there to know?
Robert M. Pirsig
How can the past and future be, when the past no longer is, and the future is not yet? As for the present, if it were always present and never moved on to become the past, it would not be time, but eternity.
Augustine of Hippo
Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.
Noam Chomsky
Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.
Albert Camus
Success needs no authorization, yet failure requires permission.
T.F. Hodge
Whatever you search for will either meet you halfway or wait for you.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Skill + hard work = SuccessSkill + hard work + prayer = Great success
Matshona Dhliwayo
Rise above storms.Sail against tides.Succeed against the odds.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Success is always looking for the next best man because she knows how valuable she is.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Success gives in to those who truly desire her.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Think of success. Dream of Success. Live for success.
Matshona Dhliwayo
The distance between success and your dreams is hard work.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Talent is the seed,hard work is the stem,perseverance is the branch,and success is the fruit.
Matshona Dhliwayo
You have to sacrifice life to get life
Bangambiki Habyarimana
A faint hearted man will always be poor
Bangambiki Habyarimana
Success is yours if you are willing to pursue it to the ends of the earth.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Everybody say it's impossible, but I'll try to make it possible
Bangambiki Habyarimana