Wisdom Quotes - Page 111

My whole wretched life swam before my weary eyes, and I realized no matter what you do it's bound to be a waste of time in the end so you might as well go mad.

Natural science physics contains in itself synthetical judgments a priori, as principles. ... Space then is a necessary representation a priori, which serves for the foundation of all external intuitions.

If I believe in something, I will fight for it, with all I have. But I do not demand all or nothing. I would rather get something than nothing.

But though Usury is in itself immoral, and justly condemned by every ethical code, its chief and worst defect in the particular case we are now examining, the growth of Capitalism and its increasing proletariat, is the centralization of irresponsible control over the lives of men: the putting power over the proletariat into the hands of a few who can direct the loans of currency and credit without which that proletariat could not be fed and clothed and maintained in work.

The society of Christendom and especially of Western Christendom up to the explosion, which we call the Reformation, had been a society of owners: a Proprietarial Society. It was one in which there remained strong bonds between one class and another, and in which there was a hierarchy of superior and inferior, but not, in the main, a distinction between a restricted body of possessors and a main body of destitute at the mercy of the possessors, such as our society has become.

He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great.

Wisdom is one thing, to know how to make true judgment, how all things are steered through all things.

The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next.

Good nature is worth more than knowledge, more than money, more than honor, to the persons who possess it.

Jefferson, though the secret vote was still unknown at the time had at least a foreboding of how dangerous it might be to allow the people to share a public power without providing them at the same time with more public space than the ballot box and with more opportunity to make their voices heard in public than on election day. What he perceived to be the mortal danger to the republic was that the Constitution had given all power to the citizens, without giving them the opportunity of being citizens and of acting as citizens.

Each moment of life is only as precious as is our ability to attend to it.

Act quickly, think slowly.

Our dignity is not in what we do, but what we understand.

It is one thing to be clever and another to be wise.

The basic struggle today is not between individualism and collectivism, free enterprise and socialism, democracy and dictatorship. These are only the superficial manifestations of a deeper struggle which is moral and spiritual and involves above all else whether man shall exist for the state, or the state for man, and whether freedom is of the spirit or a concession of a materialized society.

It is not enough to prove something, one also has to seduce or elevate people to it. That is why the man of knowledge should learns how to speak his wisdom: and often in such a way that it sounds like folly!

It is only because the majority opinion will always be opposed by some that our knowledge and understanding progress. In the process by which opinion is formed, it is very probable that, by the time any view becomes a majority view, it is no longer the best view: somebody will already have advanced beyond the point which the majority have reached. It is because we do not yet know which of the many competing new opinions will prove itself the best that we wait until it has gained sufficient support.

Discovering the truth about ourselves is a lifetime’s work, but it’s worth the effort.

We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.

Someone, I don't know who- it might have even been me- said, Any man at the age of twenty-five who is not a Communist has no heart: any man who is still is at the age of thirty-five has no head.

There are two kinds of stories, the ones you live and the ones you make up. And nobody knows the difference, and I don't ever tell which is which.

Great changes are about to take place in the whole universe. It will not be a comfortable time. It is important that each one has no fear, no concern, knowing that this great upheaval is necessary before the next step can be taken.

Where ever you are, be there totally.

And as this is the obvious appearance of things, it must be admitted, till some hypothesis be discovered, which by penetrating deeper into human nature, may prove the former affections to be nothing but modifications of the latter. All attempts of this kind have hitherto proved fruitless, and seem to have proceeded entirely from that love of simplicity which has been the source of much false reasoning in philosophy.

If you divorce capital from labor, capital is hoarded, and labor starves.