Philosophy Quotes

“Genius is the naturalist or geographer of the supersensible regions, and draws their map; and, by acquainting us with new fields of activity, cools our affection for the old. These are at once accepted as the reality, of which the world we have conversed with is the show.”

“A philosopher must be more than a philosopher.”

“The ancients called beauty the flowering of virtue.”

“I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.”

“Illusion, Temperament, Succession, Surface, Surprise, Reality, Subjectiveness,--these are the threads on the loom of time, these are the lords of life.”

“And, in fine, the ancient precept, "Know thyself," and the modern precept, "Study nature," become at last one maxim.”

“A man should have a farm or a mechanical craft for his culture. We must have a basis for our higher accomplishments, our delicate entertainments of poetry and philosophy, in the work of our hands.”

“There is no doctrine of the Reason which will bear to be taught by the Understanding.”

“The primary wisdom is intuition. In that deep force, the last fact behind which analysis cannot go, all things find their origin.”

“There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. Permanence is but a word of degrees.”

“Everything that is popular, it has been said, deserves the attention of philosophers: and this is for the obvious reason, that although it may not be of any worth in itself, yet it characterizes the people.”

“There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”

“The way to achieve happiness is to try for perfection that is impossible to achieve, and spend the rest of your life trying to achieve it.”

“The philanthropists inquire whether Transcendentalism does not mean sloth: they had as lief hear that their friend is dead, as that he is a Transcendentalist; for then is he paralyzed, and can never do anything for humanity.”

“Is not the truth the truth?”

“We are amphibious creatures, weaponed for two elements, having two sets of faculties, the particular and the catholic.”

“The true philosopher and the true poet are one,and a beauty, which is truth,and a truth, which is beauty,is the aim of both.”

“We live in a system of approximations. Every end is prospective of some other end, which is also temporary; a round and final success nowhere. We are encamped in nature, not domesticated.”

“Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to affairs.”

“Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole.”

“People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know.”

“Every word which is used to express a moral or intellectual fact, if traced to its root, is found to be borrowed from some material appearance.”

“How much more the seeker of abstract truth, who needs periods of isolation, and rapt concentration, and almost a going out of thebody to think!”

“Life is a test and this world a place of trial.”

“The world, nature, human beings, do not move like machines. The edges are never clear-cut, but always frayed. Nature never draws a line without smudging it.”