Philosophy Quotes - Page 160

I am opposing it with an idea of the history of philosophy as a history of philosophers, that is, a history of mortal, fragile and limited creatures like you and I. I am against the idea of clean, clearly distinct epochs in the history of philosophy or indeed in anything else. I think that history is always messy, contingent, plural and material. I am against the constant revenge of idealism in how we think about history.

Philosophy for me is essentially atheistic. Now that's an anxious atheism. It's an atheism that is anxious because it inhabits questions that were resolved religiously in the pre-modern period.

Philosophy teaches us to look at the world again. It brings out at a theoretical level what all plain, common, ordinary people, in a sense, know already.

For me, philosophy is an activity of thought that is common to human beings. Human beings at their best.

Genuinely great humour recognises the world it's describing and yet we are also called into question by it. That's what great art should do. That's what great philosophy should do. The one thing about humour is that this is an everyday practice that does this.

There are lots of stories about how philosophy begins. Some people claim it begins in wonder; some people claim it begins in worry. I claim it begins in disappointment.

The next time anyone asks you "What is Bertrand Russell's philosophy?" the correct answer is "What year, please?"

It might be suggested, and not easily disproven that anything, no matter how exotic, can be believed by someone. On the other hand, abstract belief is largely impossible; it is the concrete, the actuality of the cup, the candle, the sacrificial stone, which hardens belief; the statue is nothing until it cries, the philosophy is nothing until the philosopher is martyred.

Philosophy is a bad master for poetry; religion worse; and politics self-serving will never serve the Muse.

So what if right now everything is wrong?

I have a philosophy that everything you write doesn't have to be good for everybody. There are going to be people that get irritated by some of the things I write-including my parents. And then there are going to be people that you draw in because of the pointedness of certain things.

If it makes you happy it can't be that bad

Are we going to debate philosophy or should I just kiss and make up with the demon now? Let it get a good shot at your throat so it can rip it out? (Xypher) Put him down mercifully. (Kat) Yes, Queenie. I’ll make sure and use a cushioned blade. (Xypher)

I was not looking for a sitcom, because the philosophy at that point was that you had to make a choice: Were you going to do movies or TV? You couldn't cross over.

I studied art history and philosophy and took economics and political science classes. I just took whatever I wanted and I didn't worry about grades and I read and learned a lot, and I didn't have much of a social life, so it was deeply absorbing.

I wanna be free. Free to scream, free to bathe, free to paint my toes all day.

There are millions and millions of Sufis who have existed in Islamic history and have the deepest impact on every aspect of Islamic culture and civilization to philosophy to art to science to social structure to economics who have not met the destiny of al-Hallaj.

There's no longer a monolithic evil empire somewhere, spreading a different philosophy of life. That doesn't exist.

Your being alone is important and has validity beyond any philosophy. That is the message that you are trying to give to yourself. You are each trying to rediscover for yourselves, in your terms now - after centuries of myths and distortions - the validity of your own beings.

But insensate Time is nothing if not cruel and heartless. It corrodes then destroys, so that the man you literally and figuratively looked up to with your chubby face, who scooped you up to cross the street and patted you on the head to laughter, will later look through you from a crooked hospital bed then blindly up at you while wearing makeup in a bargain casket. The people who now surround you generating warmth will disappear leaving only an empty chill; the body you own and the brain it houses will malfunction.

People do not die - they kill themselves.

Shall I tell you what philosophy holds out to humanity? Counsel...You are called in to help the unhappy.

Philosophy is good advice, and no one gives good advice at the top of his lungs.

Misfortunes, in fine, cannot be avoided; but they may be sweetened, if not overcome, and our lives made happy by philosophy.

Philosophy alone makes the mind invincible, and places us out of the reach of fortune, so that all her arrows fall short of us.