The philosophers of the Middle Ages demonstrated both that the Earth did not exist and also that it was flat. Today they are still arguing about whether the world exists, but they no longer dispute about whether it is flat.
Philosophy - Philosophers Quotes
Organic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the philosopher, and this development, we are assured, is indubitably an advance. Unfortunately it is the philosopher, not the protozoan, who gives us this assurance.
There is reason to think the most celebrated philosophers would have been bunglers at business; but the reason is because they despised it. (Marquis of Halifax)
A Chinaman of the T’ang Dynasty – and, by which definition, a philosopher – dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher.
Philosophers, for the most part, are constitutionally timid, and dislike the unexpected. Few of them would be genuinely happy as pirates or burglars. Accordingly they invent systems which make the future calculable, at least in its main outlines.
I’ve developed a new philosophy… I only dread one day at a time. (“Peanuts”)
Europe will never be like America. Europe is a product of history. America is a product of philosophy.
To teach how to live with uncertainty, yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy can do.
There is a difference between a philosophy and a bumper sticker.
To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.
