The book is what we have come to expect from Marion: challenging, subtle and nuanced analyses, dassling formulations,. . a provocative and original philosophical genius.
The consciousness of self is the greatest hindrance to the proper execution of all physical action.
Most men are not wicked. . . They are sleep-walkers, not evil evildoers.
Newton, Pascal, Bossuet, Racine, F?nelon -- that is to say, some of the most enlightened men on earth, in the most philosophical of all ages -- have been believers in Jesus Christ; and the great Cond?, when dying, repeated these noble words, "Yes, I shall see God as He is, face to face!".
We Are The Sum Total Of Our Choices.
I still believe that man, not having been given the power of creation, does not posses the right of destroying the meanest creature that lives. The perogative of destruction belongs solely to the Creator of all that lives.
Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and justification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical.
Where politics is concerned, I think poets have to be pragmatists, philosophical pragmatists.
Theatre within theatre, when characters sees themselves on stage, always raises philosophical questions of choice and free will.
If you defend a behavior by arguing that people are programmed directly for it, then how do you continue to defend it if your speculation is wrong, for the behavior then becomes unnatural and worthy of condemnation. Better to stick resolutely to a philosophical position on human liberty: what free adults do with each other in their own private lives is their business alone. It need not be vindicated and must not be condemned by genetic speculation.
Slanderers do not hurt me because they do not hit me.
I feel like the Internet needs to be disarmed in some way. There needs to be a philosophical undermining of the Internet. We take it too seriously and too literally. For a reference we go to Wikipedia, which is full of inaccuracies and misinformation. It's kind of beautiful - it's all the product of imagination; it's not reality at all.
A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.
To do as one would be done by, and to love one's neighbour as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality
I want to discover a truth for myself that is really true. Whether it's a piece of scientific knowledge, or a philosophical truth.
Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.
For a truly religious man nothing is tragic.
We like the idea of being a little divisive without making it into some kind of philosophical musical approach, and maybe we can convert some people to our view of the world.
There are signs, these days, that the cultural hegemony of postmodernism is weakening in the West. When even the developers tell an architect like Moshe Safdie that they are tired of it, then can philosophical thinking be far behind?
When I experienced altered states of consciousness, my whole philosophical structure crumbled, and that terrified me. And what scared me the most was the realisation that death was not the end!