Quotes by Philosophers - Page 25

Every gain made by individuals or society is almost instantly taken for granted.
Aldous Huxley
The simple faith in progress is not a conviction belonging to strength but one belonging to acquiescence and hence to weakness.
Norbert Wiener
He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils for time is the greatest innovator.
Francis Bacon
Ambition can creep as well as soar.
Edmund Burke
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is very important.
Bertrand Russell
To overcome difficulties is to experience the full delight of existence.
Arthur Schopenhauer
The superior man makes the difficulty to be overcome his first interest success comes only later.
Confucius
The greater the difficulty the more glory in surmounting it.
Epicurus
Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy for it means pushing back a boundary-line and adding to one's liberty.
Henri-Frédéric Amiel
The harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap we esteem too lightly 'tis dearness only that gives everything it's value.
Thomas Paine
Difficulties exist to be surmounted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A great man is one who seizes the vital issue in a complex question what we might call the jugular vein of the whole organism and spends his energies upon that.
Joseph Rickaby
The block of granite which was an obstacle in the path of the weak becomes a stepping stone in the path of the strong.
Thomas Carlyle
All work of man is as the swimmer's: a vast ocean threatens to devour him if he front it not bravely it will keep its word.
Thomas Carlyle
If we can really understand the problem the answer will come out of it because the answer is not separate from the problem.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion most people would be content to take their own and depart.
Socrates
It isn't that they can't see the solution it's that they can't see the problem.
G.K. Chesterton
The infinitely little have pride infinitely great.
Voltaire
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly the true place for a just man is also a prison.
Henry David Thoreau
Pride ruined the angels.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I do not believe that any peacock envies another peacock his tail because every peacock is persuaded that his own tail is the finest in the world. The consequence of this is that peacocks are peaceable birds.
Bertrand Russell
Pride is the direct appreciation of oneself.
Arthur Schopenhauer
There is a certain noble pride through which merits shine brighter than through modesty.
Jean Paul Richter
To lead an untrained people to war is to throw them away.
Confucius
We should lay up in peace what we shall need in war.
Syrus
Our prayers should be for blessings in general for God knows best what is good for us.
Socrates
Alas for the unhappy man that is called to stand in the pulpit and not give the bread of life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nor it is an objection to say that we must understand a prayer if it is to have its true effect. That simply is not the case. Who understands the wisdom of a flower? Yet we can take pleasure in it.
Rudolph Steiner
Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Teach me O God not to torture myself not to make a martyr out of myself through stifling reflection but rather teach me to breathe deeply in faith.
Søren Kierkegaard
Jesus Christ is a God whom we approach without pride and before whom we humble ourselves without despair.
Blaise Pascal
The exercise of prayer in those who habitually exert it must be regarded by us doctors as the most adequate and normal of all the pacifiers of the mind and calmers of the nerves.
William James
Though I am weak yet God when prayed Cannot withhold his conquering aid.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is vain to ask of the gods what man is capable of supplying for himself.
Epicurus
Prayer among sane people has never superseded practical efforts to secure the desired end.
George Santayana
The Ancient Mariner said to Neptune during a great storm "O God you will save me if you wish but I am going to go on holding my tiller straight."
Michel de Montaigne
The only prayer which a well-meaning man can pray is O ye gods give me whatever is fitting unto me!
Appollonius of Tyana
The wise man in the storm prays God not for safety from danger but for deliverance from fear.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The first petition that we are to make to Almighty God is for a good conscience the next for health of mind and then of body.
Seneca
To stand on one leg and prove God's existence is a very different thing from going down on one's knees and thanking him.
Søren Kierkegaard
If the only prayer you say in your whole life is "Thank you " that would suffice.
Meister Eckhart
God prefers bad verses recited with a pure heart to the finest verses chanted by the wicked.
Voltaire
Many pray with their lips for that for which their hearts have no desire.
Jonathan Edwards
He prayeth well who loveth well Both man and bird and beast. He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small For the dear God who loveth us He made and loveth all.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
We one and all of us have an instinct to pray and this fact constitutes an invitation from God to pray.
Charles Sanders Peirce
Religion is no more possible without prayer than poetry without language or music without atmosphere.
James Martineau
Prayer does not change God but it changes him who prays.
Søren Kierkegaard
We offer up prayers to God only because we have made Him after our own image. We treat Him like a Pasha or a Sultan who is capable of being exasperated and appeased.
Voltaire
There are few men who dare to publish to the world the prayers they make to Almighty God.
Michel de Montaigne
It is simpler and easier to flatter men than to praise them.
Jean Paul Richter
The sweetest of all sounds is praise.
Xenophon
Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny.
Eric Hoffer
Some natures are too good to be spoiled by praise.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wherever I found a living creature there I found the will to power.
Friedrich Nietzsche
He who has great power should use it lightly.
Seneca
Power corrupts the few while weakness corrupts the many.
Eric Hoffer
The tyrant dies and his rule is over the martyr dies and his rule begins.
Søren Kierkegaard
The only justification in the use of force is to reduce the amount of force necessary to be used.
Alfred North Whitehead
Many a man's strength is in opposition and when he faileth he groweth out of use.
Francis Bacon
It is life near the bone where it is sweetest.
Henry David Thoreau