Philosophy is dead. I believe Science holds the key. Stephen Hawking’s Grand Design: The Meaning of Life, Discovery 2012
Why are we here? Where do we come from? Traditionally, these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Stephen Hawking
The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point however is to change it. Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach
For the first time I believe Science has pushed past Religion and Philosophy in daring to tackle this most fundamental of questions. Jim Al-Khalili, The Secret Life of Chaos, BBC 2010
To learn is not to know; there are the learners and the learned. Memory makes the one, philosophy the others. Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy? John Keats, Lamia
Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings. ibid.
What I understand by ‘philosopher’: a terrible explosive in the presence of which everything is in danger. Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, 1908
The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments. Friedrich Nietzsche
There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy. Friedrich Nietzsche
How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo’s lute. John Milton, Comus 1637
I have tried too in my time to be a philosopher; but, I don’t know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in. Oliver Edwards, 1711-91
And new philosophy calls all in doubt;
The element of fire is quite put out:
The sun is lost, and the Earth, and no man’s wit
Can well direct him where to look for it. John Donne, 1572-1631
The safest general characterisation of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, 1929
There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it. Cicero 106-43 B.C.
When philosophy paints its grey on grey, then has a shape of life grown old. By philosophy’s grey on grey it cannot be rejuvenated but only understood. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk. W E F Hegel, Philosophy of Right, 1821
I find that some philosophers think that my whole approach to qualia is not playing fair. I don’t respect the standard rules of philosophical thought experiments. ‘But Dan, your view is so counterintuitive!’ No kidding. That’s the whole point. Of course it is counterintuitive. Nowhere is it written that the true materialist theory of consciousness should be blandly intuitive. I have all along insisted that it may be very counter- intuitive. That’s the trouble with ‘pure’ philosophical method here. It has no resources for developing, or even taking seriously, counterintuitive theories, but since it is a very good bet that the true materialist theory of consciousness will be highly counterintuitive (like the Copernican theory – at least at first), this means that ‘pure’ philosophy must just concede impotence and retreat into conservative conceptual anthropology until the advance of science puts it out of its misery. Philosophers have a choice: they can play games with folk concepts (ordinary language philosophy lives on, as a kind of aprioristic social anthropology) or they can take seriously the claim that some of these folk concepts are illusion-generators. The way to take that prospect seriously is to consider theories that propose revisions to those concepts. Daniel C Dennett, Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness
Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophische Untersuchungen
The philosopher’s treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness. ibid.
What is your aim in philosophy? – to show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle. ibid.
A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes. Ludwig Wittgenstein
Philosophy is the replacement of category-habits by category- disciplines. Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind, 1949
Almost 2,500 years ago a philosopher was born here: his name was Socrates. And he’s come to symbolise one of philosophy’s most inspiring gifts to the rest of us. The idea that thinking logically about our lives might help us to be more certain of ourselves, more independent, less conformist, less hamstrung by what other people think. It’s the dream that philosophy can set us free. Alain de Botton, Philosophy: Socrates on Self-Confidence, Channel 4 2000
Socrates wrote nothing down. And we know what he said chiefly through a series of dialogues he features in writings by his pupil Plato. ibid.
Socrates asks us to overcome our laziness and timidity. To work out what we really think and stand by it once we have. ibid.
Every one of the three-hundred books he [Epicurus] wrote has been lost. Alain de Botton, Philosophy: Epicurus on Happiness
Modern life is full of frustration, and most of us don’t seem to be able to respond very philosophically to it. We’re prone to losing our tempers ... Ancient Romans, were if anything, more angry than modern ones. Alain de Botton, Philosophy: Seneca on Anger
Having seen so much of it at first hand, Seneca thought anger a terrible problem. He even devoted a whole book entitled On Anger to the problem. ibid.
Seneca thought that anger a philosophical problem and amenable to treatment by philosophical argument. ibid.
The problem with these ideas is that they’re far too optimistic. In Seneca’s analysis, people get angry because they’re too hopeful. ibid.
Whenever we get angry there’s an element of surprise and a sense of self-pitying justice. ibid.
Seneca’s first piece of advice is to be more pessimistic ... If we can accept that there’s often nothing we can do about our frustrations, we will be less likely to lose our rag when we encounter them. ibid.
Be careful that you don't let anyone rob you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the elements of the world, and not after Christ. Colossians 2:8
Music is ... a higher revelation than all Wisdom & Philosophy. Ludwig van Beethoven
The first and most important thing an individual can do is to become an individual again, decontrol himself, train himself as to what is going on and win back as much independent ground for himself as possible. William S Burroughs
We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free. Epictetus, Discourses
Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it. Epictetus
The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things. Epictetus
It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe.
To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I’d been happy, and that I was happy still. For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration. Albert Camus, The Stranger
There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Albert Camus
Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it. Albert Camus
Philosophy is common sense with big words. James Madison
A philosopher knows that in reality he knows very little. That is why he constantly strives to achieve true insight. Socrates was one of these rare people. He knew that he knew nothing about life and about the world. And now comes the important part: it troubled him that he knew so little. Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World
Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger, portion of truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant. Edgar Allan Poe, The Mystery of Marie Roget