Nothing is more dangerous to reason than the flights of the imagination and nothing has been the occasion of more mistakes among philosophers.
Anytime you see a Hungarian, kick him. He'll know why. Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours.
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.
All the persecutors declare against each other mortal war, while the philosopher, oppressed by them all, contents himself with pitying them.
To decide to become a philosopher seemed as foolish to me as to decide to become a poet.
It is good to renew one's wonder, said the philosopher. Space travel has again made children of us all.
Nothing is too absurd to be said by some of the philosophers.
In PLATO AT THE GOOGLEPLEX, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein set out to showcase, in sometimes startling ways, the continuing relevance of a classic philosopher. But what's remarkable is that she actually brings off this tour de force with both madcap brilliance and commanding authority.
Seneca brings vividly before us a picture of the various scholars assembled in a school of the philosophers.
What must the English and French think of the language of our philosophers when we Germans do not understand it ourselves?
Both wit and understanding are trifles without integrity. The ignorant peasant without fault is greater than the philosopher with many. What is genius or courage without a heart?
Philosophers' Syndrome: mistaking a failure of the imagination for an insight into necessity.
The continual pursuit of meanings-wider, clearer, more negotiable, more articulate meanings- is philosophy.
Philosophers say man forms himself in dialogue.
It is perfectly true, as philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.
He who esteems trifles for themselves is a trifler; he who esteems them for the conclusions to be drawn from them, or the advantage to which they can be put, is a philosopher.
When I was 16 I started keeping a diary in which I recorded my disagreements with the famous philosophers. I didn't insist that they were wrong, that I was right and I had to prevail. I just agreed and disagreed with them. I thought there was a high degree of probability that I was right and some other thinkers were wrong. But I wasn't positive about it.
The true cook is the perfect blend, the only perfect blend, of artist and philosopher. He knows his worth: he holds in his palm the happiness of mankind, the welfare of generations yet unborn.
One can only become a philosopher, but not be one. As one believes he is a philosopher, he stops being one.
If someone asks, ‘But what in the end is a philosopher?’ I would say ‘A philosopher is a human being who fights in theory. ’