Quotes by Philosophers - Page 65

The nature of the mind is to acquire, to absorb, is it not? Or rather the pattern it has created for itself is one of gathering in, and in that very activity the mind is preparing its own weariness, boredom. Interst, curiosity, is the beginning of acquisition, wich soon becomes boredom; and the urge to be free from boredom is another form of possession. So the mingd goes from boredom to interest to boredom again, til it is utterly weary; and these successive waves of interest and weariness are regarded as existence. "Commentaries on Living, Series II
Jiddhu Krsihnamurti
All men are bores. Surely no one will prove himself so great a bore as to contradict me in this. . . . The gods were bored, and so they created man. Adam was bored because he was alone, and so Eve was created. Thus boredom entered the world, and increased in proportion to the increase of population. Adam was bored alone; then Adam and Eve were bored together; then Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel were bored en famille; then the population of the world increased, and the peoples were bored en masse. To divert themselves they conceived the idea of constructing a tower high enough to reach the heavens. This idea is itself as boring as the tower was high, and constitutes a terrible proof of how boredom gained the upper hand.
Søren Kierkegaard
Good digestions, the gray monotony of provincial life, and the boredom—ah the soul-destroying boredom—of long days of mild content.
Jean-Paul Sartre
A utopia cannot, by definition, include boredom, but the ‘utopia’ we are living in is boring.
Lars Fr. H. Svendsen
Animals can be understimulated, but hardly bored.
Lars Fr. H. Svendsen
One mood can be replaced by another, but it is impossible to leave attunement altogether. However, profound boredom brings us as close to a state of un-attunement as we can come.
Lars Fr. H. Svendsen
Anthropocentrism gave rise to boredom, and when anthropomorphism was replaced by technocentrism, boredom became even more profound.
Lars Fr. H. Svendsen
Boredom is therefore a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
Bertrand Russell
If at any moment Time stays his hand, it is only when we are delivered over to the miseries of boredom.
Arthur Schopenhauer
When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored.
Eric Hoffer
Monotony has nothing to do with a place; monotony, either in its sensation or its infliction, is simply the quality of a person. There are no dreary sights; there are only dreary sight seers.
G.K. Chesterton
The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits.
Albert Camus
Write the masterpiece that has not been written.Sing the masterpiece that has not been sung.Paint the masterpiece that has not been painted.Create the masterpiece that has not been created.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Of course, the liar often imagines that he does no harm as long as his lies go undetected.
Sam Harris
False encouragement is a kind of theft: it steals time, energy, and motivation a person could put toward some other purpose.
Sam Harris
If we suspect that a man is lying, we should pretend to believe him; for then he becomes bold and assured, lies more vigorously, and is unmasked.
Arthur Schopenhauer
By wearing cosmetics a woman seeks to look younger or more beautiful than she otherwise would. Honesty doesn't require that she issue a continuous disclaimer: "I see you are looking at my face. Please be aware that I don't look this good first thing in the morning.
Sam Harris
The opportunity to decieve others is ever present and often tempting, and each instance of deception casts us onto some of the steepest ethical terrain we ever cross.
Sam Harris
If you don't want to slip up tomorrow, speak the truth today.
Bruce Lee
Caring about the happiness of others, we find our own.
Plato
You can own an elephant or a bank or power thereof but if there's no personal breast bliss all you own is a lot of dead atoms and ideas.
Allen Ginsberg
That most pleasant weather to feel is the one never felt.
Criss Jami
Make your paradise here on earth, your own little paradise
Bangambiki Habyarimana
In life the only things that you see are things that you are projecting, and life presents you with so many situations that demonstrate that this is so.
Osho
you feel what else is there to do in life apart from living? And even that is out of your control; it depends on an infinite number of factors. Everything is in your unconscious mind. Why sex desire arose in you, why you raised a family, how greed and anger entered you, why you were dishonest, why you accumulated wealth, why you made enemies – you have no idea! You are just like a puppet, whose strings are being pulled by someone else. You imagine you are dancing, but in fact it is someone else who is making you dance.Look closely at your life and you will find that you are nothing more than a puppet. How can anything real happen in the life of a man who is not his own master, but merely a puppet?
Osho
Always remember that you are the observer and not the doer. Do not take life to be anything more than acting. Don’t identify yourself too much with the action.Whether you are a wife or husband, a businessman or client, don’t get too involved. Don’t lose yourself in it, for you are simply playing a role in the play. Keep outside of it, and within yourself. These are all necessary parts of life. You must go to work, it is necessary. The play is delightful if you see it as play, but it is fatal if you take it to be life. There is no reason so disrupt your life. You have to play the part that life has given you.
Osho
You never suffer nearly as much as you imagine you suffer. You never suffer the illnesses you most dread nor the miseries that you fear.
Osho
They happen only when you are distant,aloof. They happen, they cannot be brought. They happen you cannot force them to happen. They are spontaneous happenings.
Osho
But life itself is without use. What is the purpose of it? Where are you going? What is the result? No purpose, no result, no goal. Life is a constant ecstasy, moment to moment you can enjoy it but if you start thinking of results you miss enjoying it, your roots are uprooted, you are no longer in it, you have become an outsider. And then you will ask for the meaning, for the purpose.
Osho
People who wear G-strings suffer from indecision.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation.
William James
Man is more likely to believe an opinion that he wanted to hear … than a fact that he wishes was an opinion.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
He knew that the dread in these men’s minds was not of the fact, but of his naming it—as if the fact had not existed, but his words held the power to make it exist.
Ayn Rand
So, Colonna, please demonstrate to our friends how it's possible to respect, or appear to respect, one fundamental principle of democratic journalism, which is separating fact from opinion. ...''Simple,' I said. 'Take the major British or American newspapers. If they report, say, a fire or a car accident, then obviously they can't indulge in saying what they think. And so they introduce into the piece, in quotation marks, the statements of a witness, a man in the street, someone who represents public opinion. Those statements, once put in quotes, become facts - in other words, it's a fact that that person expressed that opinion. But it might be assumed that the journalist has only quoted someone who thinks like him. So there will be two conflicting statements to show, as a fact, that there are varying opinions on a particular issue, and the newspaper is taking account of this irrefutable fact. The trick lies in quoting first a trivial opinion and then another opinion that is more respectable, and more closely reflects the journalist's view. In this way, readers are under the impression that they are being informed about two facts, but they're persuaded to accept just one view as being more convincing.
Umberto Eco
The facts of science always imply a theoretical, which means a symbolic, element.
Ernst Cassirer
Friends are generally of the same sex, for when men and women agree, it is only in their conclusions, their reasons are always different.
George Santayana
Oh, how crafty of religion, I cried out indignantly, to transplant rewards and punishments into a future life in order to comfort cowards and the enslaved and aggrieved, enabling them to bow their necks patiently before their masters, and to endure this earthly life without groaning (the only life of which we can be sure)!
Nikos Kazantzakis
I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting. Many a man has borne himself proudly on the scaffold; surely the same pride should teach us to think truly about man's place in the world. Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cosy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigour, and the great spaces have a splendour of their own.
Bertrand Russell
If someone stops where they should not, they’ll stop anywhere. If someone slights a person they should treat generously, they’ll slight anyone. And if someone races ahead, they retreat in a hurry.
Mencius
Our thoughts shape how we behave.
Bangambiki Habyarimana
Clever talk, ingratiating looks, fawning reverence: Tso-ch’iu Ming found that shameful, and so do I. Friendly while harboring resentment: Tso-ch’iu Ming found that shameful, too, and so do I.
Confucius
Allow yourself to think only those thoughts that match your principles and can bear the bright light of day. Day by day, your choices, your thoughts, your actions fashion the person you become. Your integrity determines your destiny.
Heraclitus
Let us be cautious in making assertions and critical in examining them, but tolerant in permitting linguistic forms.[Carnap’s famous plea for tolerance to which W.V. Quine took exception.]
Rudolf Carnap
What is tolerance? It is a necessary consequence of humanity. We are all fallible, let us then pardon each other's follies. This is the first principle of natural right.
Voltaire
Contrary to popular definitions, true tolerance means 'putting up with error' - not 'accepting all views'. We don't tolerate what we enjoy or endorse - say, chocolate, or roses, or Mozart's music. By definition, we tolerate what we don't approve of or what we believe to be false.
Paul Copan
Thomas Henri Huxley often preached tolerance, but in practice he could not wait to go after religion and religious people in the most scornful of terms.[Curb your enthusiasm,2016]
Michael Ruse
I will conclude this work with stating in what light religion appears to me.If we suppose a large family of children, who, on any particular day, or particular circumstance, made it a custom to present to their parents some token of their affection and gratitude, each of them would make a different offering, and most probably in a different manner. Some would pay their congratulations in themes of verse and prose, by some little devices, as their genius dictated, or according to what they thought would please; and, perhaps, the least of all, not able to do any of those things, would ramble into the garden, or the field, and gather what it thought the prettiest flower it could find, though, perhaps, it might be but a simple weed. The parent would be more gratified by such a variety, than if the whole of them had acted on a concerted plan, and each had made exactly the same offering. This would have the cold appearance of contrivance, or the harsh one of control. But of all unwelcome things, nothing could more afflict the parent than to know, that the whole of them had afterwards gotten together by the ears, boys and girls, fighting, scratching, reviling, and abusing each other about which was the best or the worst present.Why may we not suppose, that the great Father of all is pleased with variety of devotion; and that the greatest offence we can act, is that by which we seek to torment and render each other miserable? For my own part, I am fully satisfied that what I am now doing, with an endeavour to conciliate mankind, to render their condition happy, to unite nations that have hitherto been enemies, and to extirpate the horrid practice of war, and break the chains of slavery and oppression is acceptable in his sight, and being the best service I can perform, I act it cheerfully.I do not believe that any two men, on what are called doctrinal points, think alike who think at all. It is only those who have not thought that appear to agree…As to what are called national religions, we may, with as much propriety, talk of national Gods. It is either political craft or the remains of the Pagan system, when every nation had its separate and particular deity…
Thomas Paine
True openness is the accompaniment of the desire to know, hence of the awareness of ignorance. To deny the possibility of knowing good and bad is to suppress true openness.
Allan Bloom
I do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or savage about them, except that we all call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits.
Michel de Montaigne
God has given us many faiths but only one world in which to co-exist. May your work help all of us to cherish our commonalities and feel enlarged by our differences.
Jonathan Sacks
I believe that even 'returning-to-nature' and anti pollution activities, no matter how commendable, are not moving toward a genuine solution if they are carried out solely in reaction to the over development of the present age.
Masanobu Fukuoka
The "silly" question is the first intimation of some totally new development
Alfred North Whitehead
Desultory reading is delightful, but to be beneficial, our reading must be carefully directed.
Seneca
When book and reader's furrowed brow meet, it isn't always the book that's stupid.
William H. Gass
Read whatever book you lay your hands on if you can, for every writer has a story to tell
Bangambiki Habyarimana
This is that which I think great readers are apt to be mistaken in. Those who have read of every thing are thought to understand every thing too; but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections; unless we chew them over again, they will not give us strength and nourishment.
John Locke
...reading good books is like engaging in conversation with the most cultivated minds of past centuries who had composed them, or rather, taking part in a well-conducted dialogue in which such minds reveal to us only the best of their thoughts
René Descartes
Why do you want to read anyway – for the sake of amusement or mere erudition? Those are poor, fatuous pretexts. Reading should serve the goal of attaining peace; if it doesn’t make you peaceful, what good is it?
Epictetus
Reading should serve the goal of attaining peace; if it doesn’t make you peaceful, what good is it?
Epictetus
I cannot call somebody ‘hard-working’ knowing only that they read and write. Even if ‘all night long’ is added, I cannot say it – not until I know the focus of all this energy.
Epictetus