Favorite philosophical quote?

"You can't be chasing 15 rabbits. Otherwise, the public mind cannot follow you." Brian Mulroney

I mean, right? He really gets it. Gotta limit it to like five or six, but wisdom often comes far too late.

I always thought this one was funny

"I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when one's opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved.”
? Søren Kierkegaard

This one too:

"What if laughter were really tears"

ha

"But between theology and science there is a No Man's Land, exposed to attacks from both sides; this No Man's Land is philosophy."
Bertrand Russell

"The perceptions of dreamers and madmen, as perceptions, are just as good as those of others; the only objection to them is that, as their context is unusual, they are apt to give rise to fallacious inferences."
(a slightly paraphrased comment about the philosophy of Protagoras, from Bertrand Russell).

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.
-- Eric Hoffer, The True Believer (1951)

“It is the true believer’s ability to ‘shut his eyes and stop his ears’ to facts that do not deserve to be either seen or heard which is the source of his unequaled fortitude and constancy. He cannot be frightened by danger nor disheartened by obstacle nor baffled by contradictions because he denies their existence.”
Eric Hoffer

I don't know if I'd call it a favorite.. but I do find this Nietzsche quote to be intriguing.

Nietzsche:To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities - I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not - that one endures."
(The Will to Power, p 481)

Another from Russell. This one is very well-known, but it's a favorite of mine nonetheless:

"The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it."

Another infamous one:

Samuel Johnson (via James Boswell), in response to George Berkeley's idealism: "I refute it thus" (as he kicked a rock).

And a couple favorites from Donald Davidson:

"There is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. There is therefore no such thing to be learned, mastered, or born with. We must give up the idea of a clearly defined shared structure which language-users acquire and then apply to cases."

And

"Nothing in the world, no object or event, would be true or false if there were not thinking creatures."

Quoting Terrapin Station

Samuel Johnson (via James Boswell), in response to George Berkeley's idealism: "I refute it thus" (as he kicked a rock).

Don't you find it funny though that he thought he disproved idealism by kicking a mental rock with a mental foot? >:O

What I just said.

Hanover.

Someone ought to say in response to Samuel Johnson: "I refute it (realism) thus" (as they press on their eye and create a double-image)

"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use." Kierkegaard

"You are taking your sense of wonder, combining it with your inability to conceive of certain things, and demanding from everyone else that they remain as ignorant. That's not good."
? Kwalish Kid

“A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.”
? Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Hell isn't other people. Hell is yourself.”
? Ludwig Wittgenstein

"Stupidity has a knack of getting its way."
? Albert Camus

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
? Albert Camus

"We constantly create false positives. We touch wood for luck, we see faces in toasted cheese, fortunes in tea leaves. These provide a comforting illusion of meaning. This is the human condition in our bewildering and complex world. (and) In the irrational mindset, if you believe in the mystical pattern you have imposed on reality you call yourself 'spiritual'."
? Richard Dawkins

“All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.”
? Ambrose Bierce

“Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.”
? Ambrose Bierce

"Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you."
? Jean-Paul Sartre

“Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.”
? Aldous Huxley

"All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours."
? Aldous Huxley


Just a few...

Meow!

GREG

"Therefore they greatly deceive themselves, who declare and preach that the perfection of man consists in knowledge of the truth, and that all his woes proceed from false opinions and ignorance, and that the human race will at last be happy, when all or most people come to know the truth, and solely on the grounds of that, arrange and govern their lives. And these things are said by not far short of all philosophers both ancient and modern. . . . I am not unaware that the ultimate conclusion to be drawn from true and perfect philosophy is that we need not philosophize. From which we infer that, in the first place, philosophy is useless, for in order to refrain from philosophizing, there is no need to be a philosopher; in the second place it is exceedingly harmful, for the ultimate conclusion is not learned except at one’s own costs, and once learned, cannot be put into effect; as it is not in the power of man to forget the truths they know, and it is easier to rid oneself of any habit before that of philosophizing. Philosophy in short, hoping and promising at the beginning to cure our ills, is in the end reduced to a longing in vain to heal itself."

-Leopardi, (OM 186–187)

Not a quote by a philosopher, but I've always loved this (used to be in my signature on the old pf.) I offer it as a counterpoint to Leopardi. All you have to do is stop seeking some ultimate truth, look around & lo! so many seals.

"In those high latitudes we found such quantities of seals and walruses that we simply did not know what to do with them.There were thousands and thousands lying there; we walked among them and hit them on the head, and laughed heartily in the abundance which God had created." - Jan Weizl

So many seals! And then you can hit them.

No, but so I actually like - & somewhat agree with - the Leopardi quote. But there's a hint of self-pity that rubs me the wrong way. And not just self-pity, but respecting oneself for having come to the impasse where one can pity oneself in such a way.

Reply to csalisbury I would say that I agree with the overall sentiment that reason is a burden as much as it is a gift. And I would also agree that philosophy has a history of attempting to "solve" problems using reason, the same reason that was used to identify these problems to begin with. Wittgenstein would have thought that philosophy is meant to untangle ourselves from problems, whereas pessimists like Leopardi would have argued philosophy is the means in which these problems are brought forth into clarity.

But I think, at the same time, that there is some kind of non-hedonic satisfaction in acquiring truth, even if truth overall is a detriment to happiness. It's the thing that keeps us from wondering if we'd be doing a service to people like Leopardi by euthanizing them or something edgy like that.

Reply to darthbarracuda
Non-hedonic is too strong for me, but I see your point.

But we're not satisfied, leaving it at Leopardi's quote, are we? (I know I'm not)

"They do say that verbal insults hurt more than physical pain. They are, of course, wrong, as you will soon discover when I stick this toasting fork into your head." Blackadder.

According to Wikipedia he is also considered a philosopher, so I will go with that.

"There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal." -- Hayek.

"What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves." -- Hayek

"If socialists understood economics, they wouldn't be socialist." -- Hayek

“A metaphor is an affair between a predicate with a past and an object that yields while protesting”.
--Nelson Goodman

"The future is the only transcendental value for men without God." - Albert Camus

The "idolatry of tomorrow." in Cioran's words.

"To be is to be the value of a variable." - W. V. O. Quine

“On the day when it will be possible for woman to love not in her weakness but in her strength, not to escape herself but to find herself, not to abase herself but to assert herself, on that day love will become for her, as for man, a source of life and not of mortal danger. One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” Simone de Beauvoir

Søren Kierkegaard:[i]To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception; it is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or in eternity. For usually, whatever variations there may be, when there is talk of being deceived in love the one deceived is still related to love, and the deception is simply that it is not present where it was thought to be; but one who is self-deceived has locked himself out and continues to lock himself out from love. There is also talk about being deceived by life or in life; but he who self-deceptively cheated himself out of living - his loss is irredeemable. One who throughout his whole life has been deceived by life - for him the eternal can treasure rich compensation; but the person who has deceived himself has prevented himself from winning the eternal. He who because of love became sacrifice to human deceit - what has he really lost when in eternity it turns out that love endures; whereas the deception is no more!

But one who has ingeniously deceived himself by cleverly falling into the snare of cleverness, alas, even if throughout his entire life he has in his own conceit considered himself happy, what has he not lost when in eternity it appears that he deceived himself! In the temporal world a man may succeed in getting along without love; he may succeed in slipping through life without discovering the self-deception; he may have the terrible success, in his conceit, of becoming proud of it; but in eternity he cannot dispense with love and cannot escape discovering that he has lost everything. How earnest existence is, how terrible it is, precisely when in chastisement it permits the wilful person to counsel himself, permits him to live on proud of - being deceived - until finally he is permitted to verify that he has deceived himself in eternity!

The eternal does not let itself be mocked; it is rather that which does not need to use might but almightily uses a little mockery in order to punish the presumptuous in a terrible way [...] Need, to have need, and to be needy - how reluctantly a man wishes this to be said of him! And yet, we pay the highest compliment when we say of [...] a girl - 'it is a need for her to love'. Alas, even the most needy person who has ever lived - if he still has had love - how rich his life has been in comparison with him, the only really poor person, who lived out his life and never felt the need of anything! It is a girl's greatest riches that she needs the beloved[/i]

Sören Kierkegaard:To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception; it is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or in eternity.

(Y)

G.K. Chesterton:All Christianity concentrates on the man at the cross-roads. The vast and shallow philosophies, the huge syntheses of humbug, all talk about ages and evolution and ultimate developments. The true philosophy is concerned with the instant. Will a man take this road or that? - that is the only thing to think about, if you enjoy thinking. The aeons are easy enough to think about, any can think about them. The instant is really awful: and it is because our religion has intensely felt the instant, that it has in literature dealt much with battle and in theology much with hell. It is full of danger, like a boy's book: it is at an immortal crisis

DaoDeJing:[i]He who is virtuous experiences virtue, he who loses the way is lost. When you are at one with the Dao, the Dao welcomes you. When you are at one with virtue, the virtue is always there. When you are at one with loss, the loss is experienced willingly. He who does not trust enough, will not be trusted

[...]

When the Great Dao is forgotten, kindness and morality arise; when wisdom and intelligence are born, the great pretense begins; when there is no peace in the family, filial piety and devotion arise; when the country is confused and in chaos, the loyal ministers appear. Give up sainthood, renounce wisdom, and it will be a hundred times better for everyone. Give up kindness, renounce morality, and men will rediscover filial piety and love. Give up ingenuity, renounce profit, and bandits and thieves will disappear. These three are outward forms alone, they are not sufficient in themselves, it is more important to see the simplicity, to realise one's true nature

[...]

Do you think you can take over the Universe and improve it? I do not believe it can be done. The Universe is sacred, you cannot improve it. If you try to change it, you will ruin it. If you try to hold it, you will lose it. So sometimes things are ahead, and sometimes they are behind, sometimes breathing is hard, sometimes it comes easily, sometimes there is strength, and sometimes weakness, sometimes one is up, and sometimes down. Therefore the sage avoids extremes, excesses and complacency.

Whenever you advise a ruler in the way of Dao, counsel him not to use force to conquer the universe for this would only cause resistance. Thorn bushes spring up wherever the army has passed. Lean years follow in the wake of a great war. Just do what needs to be done. Never take advantage of power. Achieve results, but never glory in them. Achieve results, but never boast. Achieve results, but never be proud. Achieve results because this is the natural way. Achieve results but not through violence. Force is followed by loss of strength. This is not the way of Dao. That which goes against the Dao, comes to an early end.

[...]

If you delight in killing, you cannot fulfil yourself.

[...]

War is conducted like a funeral. When many people are being killed, they should be mourned in heartfelt sorrow. That is why a victory must be observed like a funeral

[...]

Once the whole is divided, the parts need names. There are already enough names. One must know when to stop. Knowing when to stop avoids trouble.

[...]

Perseverance is a sign of willpower. He who stays where he is endures. To die but not to perish is to be eternally present

[...]

A truly good man is not aware of his goodness, and is therefore good. A foolish man tries to be good, and is therefore not good. A truly good man, does nothing, yet leaves nothing undone. A foolish man is always doing, yet much remains to be done. When a truly kind man does something, he leaves nothing undone. When a just man does something, he leaves a great deal to be done. When a disciplinarian does something and no one responds, he rolls up his sleeves in an attempt to enforce order. Therefore when Dao is lost, there is goodness. When goodness is lost, there is kindness. When kindness is lost, there is justice. When justice is lost, there is ritual. Now ritual, is the husk of faith and loyalty. The beginning of confusion.[/i]

'Nothing matters very much. And very few things matter at all.'

I don't remember who said that, but somebody did, and it has always stuck with me.

Reply to andrewk Arthur Balfour

Some others of mine:

Jean Luc Marion:The more a gift provides an immense richness, the less it can make itself visible in an object, or the less that the object rendering it visible corresponds to the gift in fact [...] Even more, to give oneseulf to another obviously does not coincide with the gift of some object. The only object that perhaps might prove this gift, because it makes it visible, is the ring worn on the finger: it indicates that another has given himself or herself to me by giving me this ring. But this ring does not attest to the gift made by another, because it is not costly enough either to pay for my own commitment (as if this golden ring were worth my life, my fidelity, my own gift) or to confirm materially what the other has given me in self-giving On the contrary, the ring attests to the gift I have become not by equaling it, but by giving the gift a symbolic support, without any parity with what it nonetheless shows. The gift hence does not coincide with the object of the gift. Moreover, one can suggest the following fundamental rule: the more a gift reveals itself to be precious, the less it is accomplished as an object, or what amounts to the same thing, the more the object is reduced to the abstract role of support, decoration, symbol

Soren Kierkegaard:If one who lives in a Christian culture goes up to God’s house, the house of the true God, with a true conception of God, with knowledge of God and prays—but prays in a false spirit; and one who lives in a idolatrous land prays with the total passion of the infinite, although his eyes rest on the image of an idol; where is there most truth? The one prays in truth to God, although he worships an idol. The other prays in untruth to the true God and therefore really worships an idol

Soren Kierkegaard:Let others complain that the age is wicked; my complaint is that it is paltry; for it lacks passion. Men's thoughts are thin and flimsy like lace, they are themselves pitiable like the lacemakers. The thoughts of their hearts are too paltry to be sinful. For a worm it might be regarded as a sin to harbor such thoughts, but not for a being made in the image of God. Their lusts are dull and sluggish, their passions sleepy...This is the reason my soul always turns back to the Old Testament and to Shakespeare. I feel that those who speak there are at least human beings: they hate, they love, they murder their enemies, and curse their descendants throughout all generations, they sin

Blaise Pascal:Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob - NOT of the philosophers and the scholars

Blaise Pascal:The heart has reasons, that reason knows not of.

Blaise Pascal:Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what it loves

Blaise Pascal:Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapour, a drop of water, suffices to kill him. But if the universe were to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him; the universe knows nothing of this

Benedict de Spinoza:Even if we did not know that our mind is eternal, we would still regard as of the first importance morality, religion, and absolutely all the things we have shown to be related to tenacity and nobility [...] The usual conviction of the multitude seems to be different. For most people apparently believe that they are free to the extent that they are permitted to yield to their lust, and that they give up their right to the extent that they are bound to live according to the rule of the divine law. Morality, then, and religion, and absolutely everything related to strength of character, they believe to be burdens, which they hope to put down after death, when they also hope to receive a reward for their bondage, that is, for their morality and religion. They are induced to live according to the rule of the divine law (as far as their weakness and lack of character allows) not only by this hope, but also, and especially, by the fear that they may be punished horribly after death. If men did not have this hope and fear, but believed instead that minds die with the body, and that the wretched, exhausted with the burden of morality, cannot look forward to a life to come, they would return to their natural disposition, and would prefer to govern all their actions according to lust, and to obey fortune rather than themselves. These opinions seem no less absurd to me than if someone, because he does not believe he can nourish his body with good food to eternity, should prefer to fill himself with poisons and other deadly things, or because he sees that the mind is not eternal, or immortal, should prefer to be mindless, and to live without reason. These [common beliefs] are so absurd they are hardly worth mentioning [...] Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself; nor do we enjoy it because we restrain our lusts; on the contrary, because we enjoy it, we are able to restrain them

Bertrand Russell (L)

“There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting.”

“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatsoever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widely spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.”

“When considering marriage one should ask oneself this question; 'will I be able to talk with this person into old age?' Everything else is transitory, the most time is spent in conversation.”

"It seems to me a fundamental dishonesty, and a fundamental treachery to intellectual integrity, to hold a belief because you think it's useful and not because you think it's true.”

“To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.”

Reply to darthbarracuda

I like one of mine: "The universe is pointless - I'd just like to make that point."

“Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.”
Eric Hoffer.

“Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.”
Eric Hoffer

Reply to Agustino Thanks for the Pascal quotes. It is a shame he died so young :C

Quoting lambda

Thanks for the Pascal quotes. It is a shame he died so young :C

You should get a copy of his Pensées and read them if you haven't already! It's full of gold! ;)

"If people did not sometimes do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done."
Wittgenstein

I'm smart enough to know I'm stupid, but not stupid enough to think I'm smart. Without modesty, me.

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."

Marcel Proust

"A true philosopher never mentions other philosphers".

"What good does it do to adjust and integrate the self in a culture that is itself sick? What does it mean to be a well-adjusted Nazi? Is that mental health? Or is a maladjusted person in a Nazi society the only one who is sane?" -- Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything

"Like children, you are haunted with a fear that when the soul leaves the body, the wind may really blow her away and scatter her; especially if a man should happen to die in stormy weather and not when the sky is calm."

- Plato, Phaedo.


"Time; cannot be kept, stored or saved. But the less you spend, the more you will have."

- Me

"Most of the avoidable suffering in life springs from our attempts to escape the unavoidable suffering inherent in the fragmentary nature of our present existence. We expect immortal satisfactions from mortal conditions, and lasting and perfect happiness in the midst of universal change. To encourage this expectation, to persuade mankind that the ideal is realizable in this world, after a few preliminary changes in external conditions, is the distinguishing mark of all charlatans, whether in thought or action."

Hugh Kingsmill 1944

I'm not sure if this really constitutes a philosophical quote, but it's the phrase I find myself using most often and enjoying the most on this and similar websites:

"I know you are, but what am I?"

Now that I think about it, it's a really good response to Descartes.

“Our field of vision of the universe and the world in which we live, with all its breadth, can be as small as the dew of a much, much larger world ... Indeed, the universe is without beginning and without end.”
?The Philosopher Hakim Orod Bozorg Khorasani

“When we look at the starry sky at night and ask ourselves, where do we stand in this endless landscape, do we have the ability to leave a memory of ourselves in this endless space?”
?The Philosopher Hakim Orod Bozorg Khorasani

“Remember that we are human beings and humanity is the most important thing that is expected of us.”
?The Philosopher Hakim Orod Bozorg Khorasani


“No purpose should set humanity on fire.”
?The Philosopher Hakim Orod Bozorg Khorasani


“Be kind to be immortal.”
?The Philosopher Hakim Orod Bozorg Khorasani


“Kind people bring happiness.”
?The Philosopher Hakim Orod Bozorg Khorasani


“Kind people remember us, even when we have forgotten ourselves.”
?The Philosopher Hakim Orod Bozorg Khorasani


“Fill the cup of life only with love and friendship.”
?The Philosopher Hakim Orod Bozorg Khorasani


“Those who are far from the kind world inside them always make life difficult for themselves.”
?The Philosopher Hakim Orod Bozorg Khorasani


“Be kind, so that you will never be alone.”
?The Philosopher Hakim Orod Bozorg Khorasani


“Kindness is not about simplicity and ignorance, kind people believe in one of the most important norms of the universe and it is the result of action and reaction, it is simple to be kind to see kindness.”
?The Philosopher Hakim Orod Bozorg Khorasani


“Life without freedom is shameful.”
?The Philosopher Hakim Orod Bozorg Khorasani


“Even death is not the end for a captive bird.”
?The Philosopher Hakim Orod Bozorg Khorasani

"The situation is hopeless. We must take the next step."
- Pablo Casals - cellist

Quoting darthbarracuda

Philosophers have a tendency

This is about as good as any I can recall at present.

"Guitar groups are on their way out, Mr. Epstein."
~Dick Rowe, 1962