philosophers

Too lazy to be ambitious,I let the world take care of itself.Ten days' worth of rice in my bag;a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?Listening to the night rain on my roof,I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.

Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.

If we had to earn our age by thinking for ourselves at least once a year, only a handful of people would reach adulthood.

Philosophers have argued about the strongest emotion known to man. Some say __ove_, others __ate_, others __ear_. I am disposed to put __uriosity_ on a level, at least, with these august sensations, just mere simple inquisitiveness.

Philosophers wonder when they do not know, artists when they do.

The phaenomena afforded by trades, are a part of the history of nature, and therefore may both challenge the naturalist's curiosity and add to his knowledge, Nor will it suffice to justify learned men in the neglect and contempt of this part of natural history, that the men, from whom it must be learned, are illiterate mechanicks... is indeed childish, and too unworthy of a philosopher, to be worthy of an honest answer.

Was not Hypatia the greatest philosopher of Alexandria, and a true martyr to the old values of learning? She was torn to pieces by a mob of incensed Christians not because she was a woman, but because her learning was so profound, her skills at dialectic so extensive that she reduced all who queried her to embarrassed silence. They could not argue with her, so they murdered her.

Philosophers and psychiatrists should explain why it is that we mathematicians are in the habit of systematically erasing our footsteps. Scientists have always looked askance at this strange habit of mathematicians, which has changed little from Pythagoras to our day.

Philosophers tell you what they think. Artists show you.

Poets are the sense, philosophers­­ the intelligence­­ of humanity.

Only poets and philosophers see the world as it really is, for only to them is it given to live without illusions. To see clearly is to not act.

There are poets,there are philosophers, there are spiritualists and me. I try to foot the bill of these mighty three.

It is certain that the labors of these early workers in the field of natural knowledge were brought to a standstill by the decay and disruption of the Roman Empire, the consequent disorganisation of society, and the diversion of men's thoughts from sublunary matters to the problems of the supernatural world suggested by Christian dogma in the Middle Ages. And, notwithstanding sporadic attempts to recall men to the investigation of nature, here and there, it was not until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that physical science made a new start, founding itself, at first, altogether upon that which had been done by the Greeks. Indeed, it must be admitted that the men of the Renaissance, though standing on the shoulders of the old philosophers, were a long time before they saw as much as their forerunners had done.

Some philosophers can't bear to say simple things, like "Suppose a dog bites a man." They feel obliged instead to say, "Suppose a dog d bites a man m at time t," thereby demonstrating their unshakable commitment to logical rigor, even though they don't go on to manipulate any formulae involving d, m, and t.

It appears that the solution of the problem of time and space is reserved to philosophers who, like Leibniz, are mathematicians, or to mathematicians who, like Einstein, are philosophers.

As long as there have been men and they have lived, they have all felt this tragic ambiguity of their condition, but as long as there have been philosophers and they have thought, most of them have tried to mask it.

There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

Some of the best things that have ever happened to us wouldn__ have happened to us, if it weren__ for some of the worst things that have ever happened to us.