Quotes by Philosophers - Page 23

Misfortunes occur only when a man is false.... Events circumstances etc. have their origin in ourselves. They spring from seeds which we have sown.
Henry David Thoreau
Seek out that particular mental attitude which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive along with which comes the inner voice which says "This is the real me " and when you have found that attitude follow it.
William James
This is the chief thing: be not perturbed for all things are according to the nature of the universal.
Marcus Aurelius
Let them know a real man who lives as he was meant to live.
Marcus Aurelius
Do you know that disease and death must needs overtake us no matter what we are doing? ... What do you wish to be doing when it overtakes you?... If you have anything better to be doing when you are so overtaken get to work on that.
Epictetus
Those who love a cause are those who love the life which has to be led in order to serve it.
Simone Weil
People are ridiculous only when they try or seem to be that which they are not.
Giacomo Leopardi
Live as you will wish to have lived when you are dying.
Christian Furchtegott Gellert
Of all the paths a man could strike into there is at any given moment a best path ... a thing which here and now it were of all things wisest for him to do ... to find this path and walk in it is the one thing needful for him.
Thomas Carlyle
Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries unite!
Karl Marx
That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.
Henry David Thoreau
Ah if the rich were rich as the poor fancy riches!
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Revolutions are not about trifles but spring from trifles.
Aristotle
By gnawing through a dyke even a rat may drown a nation.
Edmund Burke
Every generation revolts against its fathers and makes friends with its grandfathers.
Lewis Mumford
All reform except a moral one will prove unavailing.
Thomas Carlyle
Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal and equals that they may be superior.
Aristotle
Not actual suffering but the hope of better things incites people to revolt.
Eric Hoffer
Revenge is an inhuman word.
Seneca
In taking revenge a man is but equal to his enemy but in passing it over he is his superior.
Sir Francis Bacon
A nation without the means of reform is without the means of survival.
Edmund Burke
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the roots.
Henry David Thoreau
Every reform was once a private opinion and when it shall be a private opinion again it will solve the problem of the age.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The role of a retired person is no longer to possess one.
Simone de Beauvoir
Dismiss the old horse in good time lest he fail in the lists and the spectators laugh.
Horace
Republics are brought to their ends by luxury monarchies by poverty.
Charles Montesquieu
No sensible person ever made an apology.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Religion is the opium of the people.
Karl Marx
There was never law or sect or opinion did so much magnify goodness as the Christian religion doth.
Sir Francis Bacon
The world is my country all mankind are my brethren and to do good is my religion.
Thomas Paine
His religion at best is an anxious wish - like that of Rebelais a great Perhaps.
Thomas Carlyle
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors and also to love our enemies probably because they are generally the same people.
G.K. Chesterton
My atheism like that of Spinoza is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image to be servants of their human interests.
George Santayana
There is a crack in everything God has made.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of Man.
Francis Bacon
Religion is the opiate of the people.
Karl Marx
Zen is a way of liberation concerned not with discovering what is good or bad or advantageous but what is.
Alan Watts
Each religion by the help of more or less myth which it takes more or less seriously proposes some method of fortifying the human soul and enabling it to make its peace with its destiny.
George Santayana
Most people believe that the Christian commandments are intentionally a little too severe - like setting a clock half an hour ahead to make sure of not being late in the morning.
Søren Kierkegaard
Faith means intense usually confident belief that is not based on evidence sufficient to command assent from every reasonable person.
Walter Kaufmann
Mystic: a person who is puzzled before the obvious but who understands the non-existent.
Elbert Hubbard
I think if you ask people what their concept of heaven is they would say if they are honest that it is a big department store with new things every week - all the money to buy them and maybe a little more than the neighbours.
Erich Fromm
When people cease to believe in God they don't believe in nothing they believe in anything.
G.K. Chesterton
The merit claimed for the Anglican Church is that if you let it alone it will let you alone.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe. It is not enough that a thing be possible for it to be believed.
Voltaire
Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day.
Albert Camus
The writers against religion whilst they oppose every system are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.
Edmund Burke
My own mind is my own church.
Thomas Paine
The more you let yourself go the less others let you go.
Friedrich Nietzsche
It is always safe to assume that people are more subtle and less sensitive than they seem.
Eric Hoffer
We rarely confide in those who are better than we are.
Albert Camus
When the man is at home his standing in society is well known and quietly taken but when he is abroad it is problematical and is dependent on the success of his manners.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Make yourself necessary to somebody.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Always repenting of wrongs done will never bring my heart to rest.
Ji Kang
There is no greater sorrow than to recall a happy time in the midst of wretchedness.
Dante Alighieri
Life is full of chances and changes and the most prosperous of men may ... meet with great misfortunes.
Aristotle
Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Fortune is like the market where many times if you can stay a little the price will fall.
Francis Bacon
To make a crooked stick straight we bend it the contrary way.
Michel Montaigne
If you have behaved badly repent make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.
Aldous Huxley