We speak not strictly and...

We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.

For philosophy, it is supposed...

For philosophy, it is supposed by vast numbers of students and teachers of the subject, has for its goal philosophical knowledge, and indeed, even certain knowledge. It is presupposed, therefore, that there is such a thing as philosophical knowledge, and there are even men who think themselves the possessors of at least some of it.

Hungary conquered and in chains...

Hungary conquered and in chains has done more for freedom and justice than any people for twenty years. But for this lesson to get through and convince those in the West who shut their eyes and ears, it was necessary, and it can be no comfort to us, for the people of Hungary to shed so much blood which is already drying in our memories. In Europe's isolation today, we have only one way of being true to Hungary, and that is never to betray, among ourselves and everywhere, what the Hungarian heroes died for, never to condone, among ourselves and everywhere, even indirectly, those who killed them. It would indeed be difficult for us to be worthy of such sacrifices.

'My country, right or wrong'...

'My country, right or wrong' is a thing that no patriot would think of saying, except in a desperate case. It is like saying, 'My mother, drunk or sober'.

Socrates: Dear Pan and all the...

Socrates: Dear Pan and all the other Gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside. Let all my external possessions be in friendly harmony with what is within. May I consider the wise man rich.  As for gold, let me have as much as a moderate man could bear and carry with him. Do we need anything more, Phaedrus? For me that prayer is enough. Phaedrus: Let me also share in this prayer; for friends have all things in common.

I wish that life should...

I wish that life should not be cheap, but sacred. I wish the days to be as centuries, loaded, fragrant.

When you have understood that...

When you have understood that nothing is, that things do not even deserve the status of appearances, you no longer need to be saved, you are saved, and miserable forever.

The great extension of our...

The great extension of our experience in recent years has brought light to the insufficiency of our simple mechanical conceptions and, as a consequence, has shaken the foundation on which the customary interpretation of observation was based.

As every enquiry, which regards...

As every enquiry, which regards religion, is of the utmost importance, there are two questions in particular, which challenge our attention, to wit, that concerning its foundation in reason, and that concerning its origin in human nature. Happily, the first question, which is the most important, admits of the most obvious, at least, the clearest, solution. The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author; and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion. But the other question, concerning the origin of religion in human nature, is exposed to some more difficulty. The belief of invisible, intelligent power has been very generally diffused over the human race, in all places and in all ages; but it has neither perhaps been so universal as to admit of no exception, nor has it been, in any degree, uniform in the ideas, which it has suggested. Some nations have been discovered, who entertained no sentiments of Religion, if travellers and historians may be credited; and no two nations, and scarce any two men, have ever agreed precisely in the same sentiments.

The great god Pan is...

The great god Pan is dead.

There is absolutely nothing that...

There is absolutely nothing that can be taken for granted in this world.

I may not have been...

I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn't.

I cannot understand the people...

I cannot understand the people who take literature seriously; but I can love them, and I do. Out of my love I warn them to keep clear of this book. It is a collection of crude and shapeless papers upon current or rather flying subjects; and they must be published pretty much as they stand. They were written, as a rule, at the last moment; they were handed in the moment before it was too late, and I do not think that our commonwealth would have been shaken to its foundations if they had been handed in the moment after. They must go out now, with all their imperfections on their head, or rather on mine; for their vices are too vital to be improved with a blue pencil, or with anything I can think of, except dynamite. Their chief vice is that so many of them are very serious; because I had no time to make them flippant. It is so easy to be solemn; it is so hard to be frivolous.

The highest form of pure...

The highest form of pure thought is in mathematics.

Nor mourn the unalterable Days...

Nor mourn the unalterable Days That Genius goes and Folly stays.

Having always lived in fear...

Having always lived in fear of being surprised by the worst, I have tried in every circumstance to get a head start, flinging myself into misfortune long before it occurred.

Bohr seemed to think that...

Bohr seemed to think that he had solved this question. I could not find his solution in his writings. But there was no doubt that he was convinced that he had solved the problem and, in so doing, had not only contributed to atomic physics, but to epistemology, to philosophy, to humanity in general. And there are astonishing passages in his writings in which he is sort of patronizing to the ancient Far Eastern philosophers, almost saying that he had solved the problems that had defeated them. It's an extraordinary thing for me—the character of Bohr—absolutely puzzling. I like to speak of two Bohrs: one is a very pragmatic fellow who insists that the apparatus is classical, and the other is a very arrogant, pontificating man who makes enormous claims for what he has done.

Every thing in the world...

Every thing in the world is purchased by labour.

The rights and duties of...

The rights and duties of man thus simplified, it seems almost impertinent to attempt to illustrate truths that appear so incontrovertible: yet such deeply rooted prejudices have clouded reason, and such spurious qualities have assumed the name of virtues, that it is necessary to pursue the course of reason as it has been perplexed and involved in error, by various adventitious circumstances, comparing the simple axiom with casual deviations.Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices, which they have imbibed, they cannot trace how, rather than to root them out. The mind must be strong that resolutely forms its own principles; for a kind of intellectual cowardice prevails which makes many men shrink from the task, or only do it by halves. Yet the imperfect conclusions thus drawn, are frequently very plausible, because they are built on partial experience, on just, though narrow, views.

He who would write heroic...

He who would write heroic poems should make his whole life a heroic poem.

A soldier told Pelopidas, "We...

A soldier told Pelopidas, "We are fallen among the enemies." Said he, "How are we fallen among them more than they among us?"

It was in Nazi-occupied Austria...

It was in Nazi-occupied Austria that autism was coined as a diagnosis. While the term had been coined by the eugenicist and psychiatrist Eugene Bleuler in 1911, Bleuler only meant it to refer to a temporary symptom of schizophrenia. It was only under Nazi rule, in the work of Hans Asperger in the 1930s and 1940s that those who came to be called autistic were singled out as having a unique way of being. During a war where men were expected to express a 'soldier mentality' and to be part of the group, boys who failed to fit this economic requirement were singled out as pathological (it was mostly boys who got the diagnosis) and were baptized with a new name: autism. Those women who were diagnosed were also singled out if they had intellectual disabilities, since they were not seen as fit to reproduce.

Time will prolong time, and...

Time will prolong time, and life will serve life. In this field that is both limited and bulging with possibilities, everything to himself, except his lucidity, seems unforeseeable to him. What rule, then, could emanate from that unreasonable order? The only truth that might seem instructive to him is not formal: it comes to life and unfolds in men. The absurd mind cannot so much expect ethical rules at the end of its reasoning as, rather, illustrations and the breath of human lives.

An utterance can have Intentionality,...

An utterance can have Intentionality, just as a belief has Intentionality, but whereas the Intentionality of the belief is intrinsic the Intentionality of the utterance is derived.

Marriage is a duel to...

Marriage is a duel to the death, which no man of honour should decline.

[I]n my early manhood I...

[I]n my early manhood I learned to respect ignorance, to regard ignorance as an object of legitimate interest and reflection; and as I say, a sort of unconsidered preparation for this attitude of mind appears to have run back almost to my infancy. Moreover, when I got around to read Plato, I found that he reinforced and copper-fastened the notion which experience had already rather forcibly suggested, that direct attempts to overcome and enlighten ignorance are a doubtful venture; the notion that it is impossible, as one of my friends puts it, to tell anybody anything which in a very real sense he does not already know. It seemed extraordinary that this should be so. Nevertheless, there it was; and apparently no one could give,—certainly no one, not even Plato, did give,—any more intelligent and satisfying reason why it should be so than I could give; and I could give none at all.

Men love to wonder, and...

Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of our science.

It is trifling to believe...

It is trifling to believe in what you do or in what others do. You should avoid simulacra and even "realities"; you should take up a position external to everything and everyone, drive off or grind down your appetites, live, according to a Hindu adage, with as few desires as a "solitary elephant.

Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Fichte, Hegel,...

Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, James, Bergson all are united in one earnest attempt, the attempt to reinstate man with his high spiritual claims in a place of importance in the cosmic scheme.

It is the preservation of...

It is the preservation of the species, not of individuals, which appears to be the design of Deity throughout the whole of nature.

Civil government does by its...

Civil government does by its nature include much that is mechanical, and must be treated accordingly. We term it indeed, in ordinary language, the Machine of Society, and talk of it as the grand working wheel from which all private machines must derive, or to which they must adapt, their movements.

In the writings of such...

In the writings of such "pagan" philosophers as Plutarch and Porphyry we find a humanitarian ethic of the most exalted kind, which, after undergoing a long repression during medieval churchdom, reappeared, albeit but weakly and fitfully at first, in the literature of the Renaissance, to be traced more definitely in the eighteenth century school of "sensibility."

Our bodies are perishable, wealth...

Our bodies are perishable, wealth is not at all permanent and death is always nearby. Therefore we must immediately engage in acts of merit.

The twentieth-century conservative is concerned,...

The twentieth-century conservative is concerned, first of all, for the regeneration of the spirit and character – with the perennial problem of the inner order of the soul, the restoration of the ethical understanding, and the religious sanction upon which any life worth living is founded. This is conservatism at its highest.

The greatest saving one can...

The greatest saving one can make in the order of thought is to accept the unintelligibility of the world — and to pay attention to man.

To-morrow is the time I...

To-morrow is the time I get my pay —My uncle’s sword is hanging in the hall —I see a little cloud all pink and grey —Perhaps the rector’s mother will not call —I fancy that I heard from Mr. GallThat mushrooms could be cooked another way —I never read the works of Juvenal —I think I will not hang myself to-day.The world will have another washing day;The decadents decay; the pedants pall;And H. G. Wells has found that children play,And Bernard Shaw discovered that they squall;Rationalists are growing rational —And through thick woods one finds a stream astray,So secret that the very sky seems small —I think I will not hang myself to-day.

Shall I tell you the...

Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: Every man I meet is my master at some point, and in that, I learn of him.

This very second has vanished...

This very second has vanished forever, lost in the anonymous mass of the irrevocable. It will never return. I suffer from this and I do not. Everything is unique — and insignificant.

Wonder is the basis of...

Wonder is the basis of worship.

[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/porphyry/ Porphyry at Stanford Encyclopedia...

[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/porphyry/ Porphyry at Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2005)]

A free man - is...

A free man - is a man who is free internally. As all other people, externally he or she depends on society. Internally he or she is independent. A society can become liberated externally - from oppression, but it can become free only when the majority of people are free internally.

Every rebellion implies some kind...

Every rebellion implies some kind of unity.

If there is one fact...

If there is one fact we really can prove, from the history that we really do know, it is that despotism can be a development, often a late development and very often indeed the end of societies that have been highly democratic. A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep.

Every man I meet is...

Every man I meet is in some way my superior, and in that, I can learn of him.

...undefiled by pleasures, invulnerable to...

...undefiled by pleasures, invulnerable to any pain, untouched by arrogance, unaffected by meanness, an athlete in the greatest of all contests—the struggle not to be overwhelmed by anything that happens. (Hays translation)

To think that so many...

To think that so many have succeeded in dying!

Il y a jusque dans...

Il y a jusque dans les exercices des enfants ce qui pourrait arrêter le plus grand Mathématicien.

The All of Things is...

The All of Things is an infinite conjugation of the verb To do.

It was as though some...

It was as though some stubborn god spent their time in an immutable and absurd balancing act between life and death, prosperity and poverty.

In order to cease being...

In order to cease being a doubtful case, one has to cease being, that's all.