Quotes by Philosophers - Page 8

Misguided good men are more dangerous than honest bad men. It is because they are seen as good that, in and by good conscience, the mob will always, stubbornly back them without question.
Criss Jami
Envy: Instead of focusing on your own goals, your goal becomes throwing off the rails other people’s goals and at the end of the day you gain nothing but a mischievous satisfaction that you have destroyed someone’s dream
Bangambiki Habyarimana
As man becomes more technologically advanced, his barbarity becomes even more lethal
Bangambiki Habyarimana
Socialism may be established by force, as in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—or by vote, as in Nazi (National Socialist) Germany. The degree of socialization may be total, as in Russia—or partial, as in England. Theoretically, the differences are superficial; practically, they are only a matter of time. The basic principle, in all cases, is the same.
Ayn Rand
perhaps the problem of evil is a human problem, one of an egotistical mind-set, an anthropocentric bent in our thinking and perspective.
Jacob M. Held
You are quite right, I changed my mind and do no longer speak of “radical evil.” … It is indeed my opinion now that evil is never “radical,” that it is only extreme, and that it possesses neither depth nor any demonic dimension. It can overgrow and lay waste the whole world precisely because it spreads like a fungus on the surface. It is “thought-defying,” as I said, because thought tries to reach some depth, to go to the roots, and the moment it concerns itself with evil, it is frustrated because there is nothing. That is its “banality.” Only the good has depth that can be radical.(letter to Scholem from December 1964)
Hannah Arendt
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
Blaise Pascal
Everywhere man blames nature and fate, yet his fate is mostly but the echo of his character and passions, his mistakes and weaknesses.
Democritus
Or how does it happen that trade, which after all is nothing more than the exchange of products of various individuals and countries, rules the whole world through the relation of supply and demand—a relation which, as an English economist says, hovers over the earth like the fate of the ancients, and with invisible hand allots fortune and misfortune to men, sets up empires and overthrows empires, causes nations to rise and to disappear—while with the abolition of the basis of private property, with the communistic regulation of production (and implicit in this, the destruction of the alien relation between men and what they themselves produce), the power of the relation of supply and demand is dissolved into nothing, and men get exchange, production, the mode of their mutual relation, under their own control again?
Karl Marx
The Fates and Furies, as well as the Graces and Sirens, glide with linked hands over life.
Jean Paul Friedrich Richter
Some people's theologies come across as blatantly wrong when weighed against what is revealed in Scripture. However God has mercy on those who may be wrong but genuinely seek understanding before seeking themselves.
Criss Jami
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
G.K. Chesterton
Assuming what people want is about as controlled as using fireworks to start a fire.
Criss Jami
The pressure of adversity is the most powerful sustainer of accountability. It's as though everything you do is multiplied by 50 in order to surpass those with a head-start. I was never capable of slacking when at the threshold of failure.
Criss Jami
Being shy is a symptom of a low self-esteem.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
We are not as important to most people as we are to ourselves. As a matter of fact, we are—to most people—not important at all.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Self Hate: The deadliest 'dis-ease' experienced by wounded souls.
T.F. Hodge
examination of its own history and of the forms of thought given the name “philosophy” indicates that “philosophy” has itself borne many fundamentally different meanings through the years, and from one school or movement to another.
Gregory B. Sadler
The rich are poor without the poor's acknowledgment of money.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
We, peopling the void air, make gods to whom we impute the ills we ought to bear.
Titus Lucretius Carus
The Use of the Understanding, in endeavouring to find out the Meaning of any Proposition whatsoever, in considering the nature and Evidence for or against it, and in judging of it according to the seeming Force or Weakness of the Evidence.
Anthony Collins
God is love, and music is the language of love; therefore, music is the language of God. Music is a language more profound than words. How often have you heard a great piece of music and felt that? Great music does not just make you feel good; great music suggests some profound truth or mysterious meaning that is objectively true but not translatable into words.
Peter Kreeft
The order that our mind imagines is like a net, or like a ladder, built to attain something. But afterward you must throw the ladder away, because you discover that, even if it was useful, it was meaningless.
Umberto Eco
A truly free man is not free 'from' anything, nor free 'to' anything, he is just free. Free within himself.
Ilyas Kassam
We seem to be unable to resist overstating every aspect of ourselves: how long we are on the planet for, how much it matters what we achieve, how rare and unfair are our professional failures, how rife with misunderstandings are our relationships, how deep are our sorrows. Melodrama is individually always the order of the day.
Alain de Botton
The sword wears out its sheath, as it is sometimes said. That is my story. My passions have made me live, and my passions have killed me. What passions, it may be asked. Trifles, the most childish things in the world. Yet they affected me as much as if the possessions of Helen, or the throne of the Universe, had been at stake.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves.
Eric Hoffer
The 2 extremes, neither one worse than the other: the result of bad religion is self-loathing and violence; the result of bad spirituality is self-worship and narcissism.
Criss Jami
When you're appeasing too much, you might be egotistically over-estimating everyone's need for your approval.
Criss Jami
It's easy to make a mess when you're not the one who has to clean it up.
Criss Jami
Perhaps a seemingly dull, boring person is not a person who lacks personality, but rather a person with so much personality most other things bore them.
Criss Jami
Revere the unity of all-that-iscarry out your daily activities with compassion;if you do not limit your compassion,you yourself will not be limited.
Lao Tzu
The exaggerated dopamine sensitivity of the introvert leads one to believe that when in public, introverts, regardless of its validity, often feel to be the center of (unwanted) attention hence rarely craving attention. Extroverts, on the other hand, seem to never get enough attention. So on the flip side it seems as though the introvert is in a sense very external and the extrovert is in a sense very internal - the introvert constantly feels too much 'outerness' while the extrovert doesn't feel enough 'outerness'.
Criss Jami
When Christ at a symbolic moment was establishing His great society, He chose for its cornerstone neither the brilliant Paul nor the mystic John, but a shuffler, a snob, a coward – in a word, a man. And upon this rock He has built His Church, and the gates of Hell have not prevailed against it. All the empires and the kingdoms have failed, because of this inherent and continual weakness, that they were founded by strong men and upon strong men. But this one thing, the historic Christian Church, was founded on a weak man, and for that reason it is indestructible. For no chain is stronger than its weakest link.
G.K. Chesterton
But should we accept this negative view of power? Is power all bad? Specifically, can Christians share in this devaluation of power and discipline as inherently evil? Can we who claim to be disciples - who are called and predestined to be conformed to the likeness of the Son (Rom. 8:29) - be opposed to discipline and formation as such? Can we who are called to be subject to the Lord of life really agree with the liberal Enlightenment notion of the autonomous self? Are we not above all called to subject ourselves to our Domine and conform to his image? Of course, we are called not to conform to the patterns of 'this world' (Rom. 12:2) or to our previous evil desires (1 Peter 1:14), but that is a call not to nonconformity as such but rather to an alternative conformity through a counterformation in Christ, a transformation and renewal directed toward conformity to his image. By appropriating the liberal Enlightenment notion of negative freedom and participating in its nonconformist resistance to discipline (and hence a resistance to the classical spiritual disciplines), Christians are in fact being conformed to the patterns of this world (contra Rom. 12:2).
James K.A. Smith
God created through love and for love. God did not create anything except love itself, and the means to love. He created love in all its forms. He created beings capable of love from all possible distances. Because no other could do it, he himself went to the greatest possible distance, the infinite distance. This infinite distance between God and God, this supreme tearing apart, this agony beyond all others, this marvel of love, is the crucifixion. Nothing can be further from God than that which has been made accursed.
Simone Weil
Maths is at only one remove from magic.
Neel Burton
It is impossible for me to remember how many days or weeks went by in this way. Time is round, and it rolls quickly.
Nikos Kazantzakis
Lose your face: become capable of loving without remembering, without phantasm and without interpretation, without taking stock. Let there just be fluxes, which sometimes dry up, freeze or overflow, which sometimes combine or diverge.
Gilles Deleuze
Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders.
Friedrich Nietzsche
I've finally decided to write about profit for a changeBut before I really started I already started to feel lameBaby what's it to a beast who manely to money remains untamed
Criss Jami
When you think there is nothing left to improve on, your business dies, for there is no shortage of innovators
Bangambiki Habyarimana
To a misogynist: To err is woman.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Examine the lives of the best and more fruitful men and peoples, and ask yourselves whether a tree, if it is to grow proudly into the sky, can do without bad weather and storms: whether unkindness and opposition from without, whether some sort of hatred, envy, obstinacy, mistrust, severity, greed and violence do not belong to the favouring circumstances without which a great increase even in virtue is hardly possible. The poison which destroys the weaker nature strengthens the stronger – and he does not call it poison, either.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Men are driven by two principal impulses, either by love or by fear.
Niccolò Machiavelli
Some of our friends are our friends only because we used to be friends.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Poverty has deceived many of us into believing that some people who are in that state love the food, clothes, places, and people that they do not even like. The same can be said about wealth.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
On the positive side, a strong sense of comradely loyalty triggers genuine affection and friendship. On the negative side, it may strengthen contempt for the lives of opponents and, of course, the loss of a comrade may be followed by even greater brutality in battle.
Nel Noddings
One great help here - and I make no claim that it is the only help or even a necessary condition for forgiveness - is sincere repentance on the part of the wrongdoer. When I am wronged by another, a great part of the injury - over and above any physical harm I may suffer - is the insulting or degrading message that has been given to me by the wrongdoer: the message that I am less worthy than he is, so unworthy that he may use me merely as a means or object in service to his desires and projects. Thus failing to resent(or hastily forgiving) the wrongdoer runs the risk that I am endorsing that very immoral message for which the wrongdoer stands. If the wrongdoer sincerely repents, however, he now joins me in repundiating the degrading and insulting message - allowing me to relate to him (his new self) as an equal without fear that a failure to resent him will be read as a failure to resent what he hs done.
Jeffrie G. Murphy
Pride and ego makes a mockery of an apology. Humility wins forgiveness without question...so break 'yo'self'!
T.F. Hodge
A man does not have to feel less than human to realize his sin; oppositely, he has to realize that he gets no special vindication for his sin.
Criss Jami
Love is the brightest star in the soul's sky.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Our highest deeds come from helping the lowest people.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Love's light conquers hate's darkness.
Matshona Dhliwayo
A tree does not despair when a few of its leaves fall off because there is more room for greener ones to take their place.
Matshona Dhliwayo
f you are too good to look after God’s trash, you are not good enough to look after God’s treasure.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Keep negative people in your prayers, not in your life.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Love is the only flame that can light up your soul and universe simultaneously.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Men would live exceedingly quiet if these two words, mine and thine, were taken away.
Anaxagoras
In many a case, the phrase ‘I’d like to get to know you better’ is a euphemism for ‘I want us to fuck.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana