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Philosophical quotes offer condensed insights into humanity’s deepest questions. They invite reflection on how we think, live, and relate to the world around us. The following collection serves as a doorway to contemplation, curiosity, and quiet intellectual challenge.
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NOT YET RATED▼
Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments.
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
I imagine that the intelligent people are the ones so intelligent that they don't even need or want to look 'intelligent' anymore.
- Criss Jami
Killosophy
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
A philosopher knows that in reality he knows very little. That is why he constantly strives to achieve true insight. Socrates was one of these rare people. He knew that he knew nothing about life and about the world. And now comes the important part: it troubled him that he knew so little.
- Jostein Gaarder
Sophie’s World
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Whoever cannot seek the unforeseen sees nothing for the known way is an impasse.
- Heraclitus
Fragments
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go.
- Rebecca Solnit
A Field Guide to Getting Lost
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
For this feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy.
- Plato
Theaetetus
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.
- Thomas Aquinas
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
If a man has character, he has also his typical experience, which always recurs.
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
...reality is always plural and mutable.
- Robert Anton Wilson
Cosmic Trigger - Volume I: Final Secret of the Illuminati
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
To be evenminded
is the greatest virtue.
Wisdom is to speak
the truth and act
in keeping with its nature.
- Heraclitus
Fragments
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
O how incomprehensible everything was, and actually sad, although it was also beautiful. One knew nothing. One lived and ran about the earth and rode through forests, and certain things looked so challenging and promising and nostalgic: a star in the evening, a blue harebell, a reed-green pond, the eye of a person or a cow. And sometimes it seemed that something never seen yet long desired was about to happen, that a veil would drop from it all, but then it passed, nothing happened, the riddle remained unsolved, the secret spell unbroken, and in the end one grew old and looked cunning . . . or wise . . . and still one knew nothing perhaps, was still waiting and listening.
- Herman Hesse
Narcissus and Goldmund
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Think of your many years of procrastination; how the gods have repeatedly granted you further periods of grace, of which you have taken no advantage. It is time now to realise the nature of the universe to which you belong, and of that controlling Power whose offspring you are; and to understand that your time has a limit set to it. Use it, then, to advance your enlightenment; or it will be gone, and never in your power again.
- Marcus Aurelius
Meditations
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
It is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost.
- Murray N. Rothbard
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Dogs and philosophers do the greatest good and get the fewest rewards.
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Philosophizing is simply one way of being afraid, a cowardly pretense that doesn't get you anywhere.
- Louis-Ferdinand Celine
Journey to the End of the Night
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
When I was very young and in the cave of Trophonius I forgot to laugh. Then, when I got older, when I opened my eyes and saw the real world, I began to laugh and I haven’t stopped since. I saw that the meaning of life was to get a livelihood, that the goal of life was to be a High Court judge, that the bright joy of love was to marry a well-off girl, that the blessing of friendship was to help each other out of a financial tight spot, that wisdom was what the majority said it was, that passion was to give a speech, that courage was to risk being fined 10 rix-dollars, that cordiality was to say ‘You’re welcome’ after a meal, and that the fear of God was to go to communion once a year. That’s what I saw. And I laughed.
- Søren Kierkegaard
Either/Or: A Fragment of Life
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
What one generation finds ridiculous, the next accepts; and the third shudders when it looks back on what the first did.
- Peter Singer
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything that can be said can be said clearly.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Which came first, the mind or the idea of the mind? Have you never wondered? They arrived together. The mind is an idea.
- Bernard Beckett
Genesis
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
In this age, the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.
- John Stuart Mill
On Liberty
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Sometimes with the most intense pain a paralysis of sensibility occurs. The soul disintegrates--hence the deadly frost--the free power of the mind--the shattering, ceaseless wit of this kind of despair. There is no inclination for anything any more--the person is alone, like a baleful power--as he has no connection with the rest of the world he consumes himself gradually--and in accordance with his own principle he is--misanthropic and misotheos.
- Novalis
Philosophical Writings
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
I think it’s important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. [With analogy] we are doing this because it’s like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths…and then reason up from there.
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
It was time to take the pumpkin out of the pot and eat it. In the final analysis, that was what solved these big problems of life. You could think and think and get nowhere, but you still had to eat your pumpkin. That brought you down to earth. That gave you a reason for going on. Pumpkin.
- Alexander McCall Smith
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.
- Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments.
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
I imagine that the intelligent people are the ones so intelligent that they don't even need or want to look 'intelligent' anymore.
- Criss Jami
Killosophy
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
A philosopher knows that in reality he knows very little. That is why he constantly strives to achieve true insight. Socrates was one of these rare people. He knew that he knew nothing about life and about the world. And now comes the important part: it troubled him that he knew so little.
- Jostein Gaarder
Sophie’s World
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Whoever cannot seek the unforeseen sees nothing for the known way is an impasse.
- Heraclitus
Fragments
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go.
- Rebecca Solnit
A Field Guide to Getting Lost
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
For this feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy.
- Plato
Theaetetus
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.
- Thomas Aquinas
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
If a man has character, he has also his typical experience, which always recurs.
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
...reality is always plural and mutable.
- Robert Anton Wilson
Cosmic Trigger - Volume I: Final Secret of the Illuminati
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
To be evenminded
is the greatest virtue.
Wisdom is to speak
the truth and act
in keeping with its nature.
- Heraclitus
Fragments
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
O how incomprehensible everything was, and actually sad, although it was also beautiful. One knew nothing. One lived and ran about the earth and rode through forests, and certain things looked so challenging and promising and nostalgic: a star in the evening, a blue harebell, a reed-green pond, the eye of a person or a cow. And sometimes it seemed that something never seen yet long desired was about to happen, that a veil would drop from it all, but then it passed, nothing happened, the riddle remained unsolved, the secret spell unbroken, and in the end one grew old and looked cunning . . . or wise . . . and still one knew nothing perhaps, was still waiting and listening.
- Herman Hesse
Narcissus and Goldmund
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Think of your many years of procrastination; how the gods have repeatedly granted you further periods of grace, of which you have taken no advantage. It is time now to realise the nature of the universe to which you belong, and of that controlling Power whose offspring you are; and to understand that your time has a limit set to it. Use it, then, to advance your enlightenment; or it will be gone, and never in your power again.
- Marcus Aurelius
Meditations
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
It is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost.
- Murray N. Rothbard
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Dogs and philosophers do the greatest good and get the fewest rewards.
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Philosophizing is simply one way of being afraid, a cowardly pretense that doesn't get you anywhere.
- Louis-Ferdinand Celine
Journey to the End of the Night
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
When I was very young and in the cave of Trophonius I forgot to laugh. Then, when I got older, when I opened my eyes and saw the real world, I began to laugh and I haven’t stopped since. I saw that the meaning of life was to get a livelihood, that the goal of life was to be a High Court judge, that the bright joy of love was to marry a well-off girl, that the blessing of friendship was to help each other out of a financial tight spot, that wisdom was what the majority said it was, that passion was to give a speech, that courage was to risk being fined 10 rix-dollars, that cordiality was to say ‘You’re welcome’ after a meal, and that the fear of God was to go to communion once a year. That’s what I saw. And I laughed.
- Søren Kierkegaard
Either/Or: A Fragment of Life
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
What one generation finds ridiculous, the next accepts; and the third shudders when it looks back on what the first did.
- Peter Singer
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything that can be said can be said clearly.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Which came first, the mind or the idea of the mind? Have you never wondered? They arrived together. The mind is an idea.
- Bernard Beckett
Genesis
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
In this age, the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.
- John Stuart Mill
On Liberty
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Sometimes with the most intense pain a paralysis of sensibility occurs. The soul disintegrates--hence the deadly frost--the free power of the mind--the shattering, ceaseless wit of this kind of despair. There is no inclination for anything any more--the person is alone, like a baleful power--as he has no connection with the rest of the world he consumes himself gradually--and in accordance with his own principle he is--misanthropic and misotheos.
- Novalis
Philosophical Writings
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
I think it’s important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. [With analogy] we are doing this because it’s like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths…and then reason up from there.
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
It was time to take the pumpkin out of the pot and eat it. In the final analysis, that was what solved these big problems of life. You could think and think and get nowhere, but you still had to eat your pumpkin. That brought you down to earth. That gave you a reason for going on. Pumpkin.
- Alexander McCall Smith
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.
- Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments.
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
I imagine that the intelligent people are the ones so intelligent that they don't even need or want to look 'intelligent' anymore.
- Criss Jami
Killosophy
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
A philosopher knows that in reality he knows very little. That is why he constantly strives to achieve true insight. Socrates was one of these rare people. He knew that he knew nothing about life and about the world. And now comes the important part: it troubled him that he knew so little.
- Jostein Gaarder
Sophie’s World
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Whoever cannot seek the unforeseen sees nothing for the known way is an impasse.
- Heraclitus
Fragments
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go.
- Rebecca Solnit
A Field Guide to Getting Lost
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
For this feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy.
- Plato
Theaetetus
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.
- Thomas Aquinas
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
If a man has character, he has also his typical experience, which always recurs.
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
...reality is always plural and mutable.
- Robert Anton Wilson
Cosmic Trigger - Volume I: Final Secret of the Illuminati
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
To be evenminded
is the greatest virtue.
Wisdom is to speak
the truth and act
in keeping with its nature.
- Heraclitus
Fragments
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
O how incomprehensible everything was, and actually sad, although it was also beautiful. One knew nothing. One lived and ran about the earth and rode through forests, and certain things looked so challenging and promising and nostalgic: a star in the evening, a blue harebell, a reed-green pond, the eye of a person or a cow. And sometimes it seemed that something never seen yet long desired was about to happen, that a veil would drop from it all, but then it passed, nothing happened, the riddle remained unsolved, the secret spell unbroken, and in the end one grew old and looked cunning . . . or wise . . . and still one knew nothing perhaps, was still waiting and listening.
- Herman Hesse
Narcissus and Goldmund
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Think of your many years of procrastination; how the gods have repeatedly granted you further periods of grace, of which you have taken no advantage. It is time now to realise the nature of the universe to which you belong, and of that controlling Power whose offspring you are; and to understand that your time has a limit set to it. Use it, then, to advance your enlightenment; or it will be gone, and never in your power again.
- Marcus Aurelius
Meditations
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
It is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost.
- Murray N. Rothbard
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Dogs and philosophers do the greatest good and get the fewest rewards.
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Philosophizing is simply one way of being afraid, a cowardly pretense that doesn't get you anywhere.
- Louis-Ferdinand Celine
Journey to the End of the Night
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
When I was very young and in the cave of Trophonius I forgot to laugh. Then, when I got older, when I opened my eyes and saw the real world, I began to laugh and I haven’t stopped since. I saw that the meaning of life was to get a livelihood, that the goal of life was to be a High Court judge, that the bright joy of love was to marry a well-off girl, that the blessing of friendship was to help each other out of a financial tight spot, that wisdom was what the majority said it was, that passion was to give a speech, that courage was to risk being fined 10 rix-dollars, that cordiality was to say ‘You’re welcome’ after a meal, and that the fear of God was to go to communion once a year. That’s what I saw. And I laughed.
- Søren Kierkegaard
Either/Or: A Fragment of Life
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
What one generation finds ridiculous, the next accepts; and the third shudders when it looks back on what the first did.
- Peter Singer
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything that can be said can be said clearly.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Which came first, the mind or the idea of the mind? Have you never wondered? They arrived together. The mind is an idea.
- Bernard Beckett
Genesis
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
In this age, the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.
- John Stuart Mill
On Liberty
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Sometimes with the most intense pain a paralysis of sensibility occurs. The soul disintegrates--hence the deadly frost--the free power of the mind--the shattering, ceaseless wit of this kind of despair. There is no inclination for anything any more--the person is alone, like a baleful power--as he has no connection with the rest of the world he consumes himself gradually--and in accordance with his own principle he is--misanthropic and misotheos.
- Novalis
Philosophical Writings
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
I think it’s important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. [With analogy] we are doing this because it’s like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths…and then reason up from there.
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
It was time to take the pumpkin out of the pot and eat it. In the final analysis, that was what solved these big problems of life. You could think and think and get nowhere, but you still had to eat your pumpkin. That brought you down to earth. That gave you a reason for going on. Pumpkin.
- Alexander McCall Smith
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Topic: Philosophical
NOT YET RATED▼
Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.
- Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451
Topic: Philosophical
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