Quotes about Philosophy

We study history not to be clever in another time, but to be wise always.

Hours and days and months and years go by; the past returns no more, and what is to be we cannot know; but whatever the time gives us in which we live, we should therefore be content.

If there ever was a time when absolutely nothing existed, all there could possibly be now is nothing.

Life is deep, but our current politics is shallow. The history of this country is like the stuff of great art and philosophy, while our current politics is more on the level of gossip magazines. It is shallow and tawdry, an unworthy vehicle for grappling with the meaning of what we are going through. We need to think more deeply if we're to create more powerfully. We need to focus on a broader understanding of the American story and commit ourselves to rewriting it.

Chesterton is quoted as saying, "When a man stops believing in God, he doesn't then believe in nothing, he believes anything.

The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.

Happiness belongs to the self-sufficient.

Happiness does not lie in amusement; it would be strange if one were to take trouble and suffer hardship all one's life in order to amuse oneself

He is happy who lives in accordance with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for some chance period but throughout a complete life.

The greatest crimes are not those committed for the sake of necessity but those committed for the sake of superfluity. One does not become a tyrant to avoid exposure to the cold.

The cultivation of the intellect is man's highest good and purest happiness

Wretched, ephemeral race, children of chance and tribulation, why do you force me to tell you the very thing which it would be most profitable for you not to hear? The very best thing is utterly beyond your reach: not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. However, the second best thing for you is: to die soon