Everything we call real is...

Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.

[One thing] underpins, makes consistent,...

[One thing] underpins, makes consistent, and gives meaning to all our other activities on behalf of animals. This one thing is that we take responsibility for our own lives, and make them as free of cruelty as we can. The first step is that we cease to eat animals. Many people who are opposed to cruelty to animals draw the line at becoming a vegetarian. It was of such people that Oliver Goldsmith, the eighteenth-century humanitarian essayist, wrote: "They pity, and they eat the objects of their compassion."

Contentment is natural wealth; luxury,...

Contentment is natural wealth; luxury, artificial poverty.

We regard society as the...

We regard society as the ensemble and union of men engaged in useful work. We can conceive of no other kind of society.

We are far too apt...

We are far too apt to think of Mill as a technically philosophical writer, because we cannot help thinking of him as the author of the Logic, and to forget that he, no less than Bentham and the other utilitarians, is primarily dominated by the practical interest of the social reformer. He is really far more interested in the question of how, “once the general happiness is recognized as the ethical standard,” this ideal is to be practically realized, than in the question of the ethical criterion and its proof.

I approach the presentation of...

I approach the presentation of Kierkegaard with some trepidation. Next to Nietzsche, or rather, prior to Nietzsche, I consider him to be the most important thinker of our post-Kantian age. With Goethe and Hegel, an epoch had reached its conclusion, and our prevalent way of thinking — that is, the positivistic, natural-scientific one — cannot really be considered as philosophy.

Whatever happens at all happens...

Whatever happens at all happens as it should; you will find this true, if you watch narrowly.

September 11, 2001, was just...

September 11, 2001, was just another day for most of the world’s desperately poor people, so presumably close to 30,000 children under five died from these causes on that day—about ten times the number of victims of the terrorist attacks. The publication of these figures did not lead to an avalanche of money for UNICEF or other aid agencies helping to reduce infant mortality. In the year 2000 Americans made private donations for foreign aid of all kinds totaling about $4 per person in extreme poverty, or roughly $20 per family. New Yorkers who were living in lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001, whether wealthy or not, were able to receive an average of $5,300 per family. The distance between these amounts encapsulates the way in which, for many people, the circle of concern for others stops at the boundaries of their own country—if it extends even that far.

Build your opponent a golden...

Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across.

In the conduct of life,...

In the conduct of life, habits count for more than maxims, because habit is a living maxim, becomes flesh and instinct. To reform one's maxims is nothing: it is but to change the title of the book. To learn new habits is everything, for it is to reach the substance of life. Life is but a tissue of habits.

Always take the short cut;...

Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.

As long as we try...

As long as we try to project from the relative and conditioned to the absolute and unconditioned, we shall keep the pendulum swinging between dogmatism and skepticism. The only way to stop this increasingly tiresome pendulum swing is to change our conception of what philosophy is good for. But that is not something which will be accomplished by a few neat arguments. It will be accomplished, if it ever is, by a long, slow process of cultural change – that is to say, of change in common sense, changes in the intuitions available for being pumped up by philosophical arguments.

Be gentle to all and...

Be gentle to all and stern with yourself.

It is the modest, not...

It is the modest, not the presumptuous, inquirer who makes a real and safe progress in the discovery of divine truths. One follows Nature and Nature's God; that is, he follows God in his works and in his word.

The only thing that isn't...

The only thing that isn't worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly. And be patient with those who don't.

We are firm believers in...

We are firm believers in the maxim that for all right judgment of any man or thing it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad.

The principal crime of the...

The principal crime of the human race, the highest guilt charged upon the world, the whole procuring cause of judgment, is idolatry.

If I have seen further...

If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants.

In his place, concord will...

In his place, concord will appear, brooding peace and prosperity on the happy land; joy fitting in every face, content in every heart; a people unoppressed, undisturbed, unalarmed; busy to improve their private property and the public stock; fleets covering the ocean; bringing home wealth by the returns of industry; carrying assistance or terror abroad by the direction of wisdom; and asserting triumphantly the right and the honour of Great Britain, as far as waters roll and as winds can waft them.Those who live to see such happy days, and to act in so glorious a scene, will perhaps call to mind with some tenderness of sentiment, when he is no more, a man, who contributed his mite to carry on so good a work, and who desired life for nothing so much, as to see a king of Great Britain the most popular man in his country, and a patriot king at the head of an united people.

Thought without language, says Lavelle,...

Thought without language, says Lavelle, would not be a purer thought; it would be no more than the intention to think. And his last book offers a theory of expressiveness which makes of expression not “a faithful image of an already realized interior being, but the very means by which it is realized.”

That which had grown from...

That which had grown from the earth, to the earth, But that which has sprung from heavenly seed, Back to the heavenly realms returns. This is either a dissolution of the mutual involution of the atoms, or a similar dispersion of the unsentient elements.

If we read History with...

If we read History with any degree of thoughtfulness, we shall find that checks and balances of Profit and Loss have never been the grand agents with men, that they have never been roused into deep, thorough, all-pervading efforts by any computable prospect of Profit and Loss, for any visible, finite object; but always for some invisible and infinite one.

There is not love of...

There is not love of life without despair about life.

I do no­body harm, I...

I do no­body harm, I say none harm, I think none harm, but wish everybody good. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith, I long not to live.

In my Judgment no Lines...

In my Judgment no Lines ought to be admitted into plain Geometry besides the right Line and the Circle.

Things are opaque to us,...

Things are opaque to us, and we are opaque to ourselves.

If thou canst see sharp,...

If thou canst see sharp, look and judge wisely, says the philosopher.

The premonition of madness is...

The premonition of madness is complicated by the fear of lucidity in madness, the fear of the moments of return and reunion, when the intuition of disaster is so painful that it almost provokes a greater madness [...] One would welcome chaos if one were not afraid of lights in it.

O thou who art able...

O thou who art able to write a Book, which once in the two centuries or oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy not him whom they name City-builder, and inexpressibly pity him whom they name Conqueror or City-burner! Thou too art a Conqueror and Victor; but of the true sort, namely over the Devil: thou too hast built what will outlast all marble and metal, and be a wonder-bringing City of the Mind, a Temple and Seminary and Prophetic Mount, whereto all kindreds of the Earth will pilgrim.

There is but one truly...

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest – whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories – comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer. And if it is true, as Nietzsche claims, that a philosopher, to deserve our respect, must preach by example, you can appreciate the importance of that reply, for it will precede the definitive act. These are facts the heart can feel; yet they call for careful study before they become clear to the intellect. If I ask myself how to judge that this question is more urgent than that, I reply that one judges by the actions it entails. I have never seen anyone die for the ontological argument.

The peripatetics look on God...

The peripatetics look on God as they do on carpenters, who build with stone and timber, without any infusion of life. But the world which is God's building is full of spirit, quick and living.

The managers will exercise their...

The managers will exercise their control over the instruments of production and gain preference in the distribution of the products, not directly, through property rights vested in them as individuals, but indirectly, through their control of the state which in turn will own and control the instruments of production. The state – that is, the institutions which comprise the state – will if we wish to put it that way, be the “property” of the managers’.

The universal intelligence puts itself...

The universal intelligence puts itself in motion for every separate effect... or it puts itself in motion once, and everything else comes by way of a sequence in a manner; or individual elements are the origin of all things. In a word, if there is a god, all is well; and if chance rules, do not thou be governed by it.

That fear which gives birth...

That fear which gives birth to thoughts, and the fear of thoughts...

The uttered part of a...

The uttered part of a man's life, let us always repeat, bears to the unuttered, unconscious part a small unknown proportion. He himself never knows it, much less do others.

A profound thought is in...

A profound thought is in a constant state of becoming; it adopts the experience of a life and assumes its shape. Likewise, a man's sole creation is strengthened in its successive and multiple aspects: his works. One after another they complement one another, correct or overtake one another, contradict one another, too. If something brings creation to an end, it is not the victorious and illusory cry of the blinded artist: "I have said everything," but the death of the creator which closes his experiences and the book of his genius. That effort, that superhuman consciousness are not necessarily apparent to the reader. There is no mystery in human creation. Will performs this miracle. But at least there is no true creation without a secret. To be true, a succession of works can be but a series of approximations of the same thought. But it is possible to conceive of another type of creator proceeding by juxtaposition. Their words may seem to be devoid of inter-relations, to a certain degree, they are contradictory. But viewed all together, they resume their natural grouping.

Magic is nothing but the...

Magic is nothing but the wisdom of the Creator revealed and planted in the creature. It is a name — as Agrippa saith — "not distasteful to the very Gospel itself."

All kinds of music are...

All kinds of music are not suited to praise God and to be heard in the sanctuary; all methods of philosophy are not fit for discoursing worthily of God, His power, the principles of His operations, and His mysteries.

If the subjectivist view hold...

If the subjectivist view hold true, thinking cannot be of any help in determining the desirability of any goal in itself. The acceptability of ideals, the criteria for our actions and beliefs, the leading principles of ethics and politics, all our ultimate decisions are made to depend upon factors other than reason. They are supposed to be matters of choice and predilection, and it has become meaningless to speak of truth in making practical, moral or esthetic decisions.

Only to the rational animal...

Only to the rational animal is it given to follow voluntarily what happens; but simply to follow is a necessity imposed on all.

Books, like conversation, rarely give...

Books, like conversation, rarely give us any precise ideas: nothing is so common as to read and converse unprofitably. We must here repeat what Locke has so strongly urged—Define your terms.

Tell me how you want...

Tell me how you want to die, and I'll tell you who you are.

They understood in their heart...

They understood in their heart that it was indispensable to be brave; that Odin would have no favor for them, but despise and thrust them out, if they were not brave. Consider too whether there is not something in this! It is an everlasting duty, valid in our day as in that, the duty of being brave. Valor is still value. The first duty for a man is still that of subduing Fear. We must get rid of Fear; we cannot act at all till then.

The important thing isn't the...

The important thing isn't the soundness or otherwise of the argument, but for it to make you think.

The secret of happiness is...

The secret of happiness is freedom and the secret of freedom is courage.

Shortly after 9/11 a French...

Shortly after 9/11 a French spokesman for the activist group ATTAC quoted the adage: "He who sows the wind shall reap the whirlwind." French prime minister Lionel Jospin seemed to be pointing in this direction when he asked, "What lesson are the Americans going to draw from what has happened?" The lesson, Jospin indicated, should be for the U.S. to moderate her unilateralism. For Cardinal Karl Lehmann, president of the German Bishops' Conference, the lesson to be drawn from terrorism was that "the West must not seek to dominate the rest of the world."

Know the joy of life...

Know the joy of life by piling good deed on good deed until no rift or cranny appears between them.

Superstition excites storms; philosophy appeases...

Superstition excites storms; philosophy appeases them.

Irons and the unbreathable air...

Irons and the unbreathable air of this world strip us of everything, except the freedom to kill ourselves; and this freedom grants us a strength and pride to triumph over the loads which overwhelm us.

In the meanest mortal there...

In the meanest mortal there lies something nobler. The poor swearing soldier, hired to be shot, has his "honor of a soldier," different from drill-regulations and the shilling a day. It is not to taste sweet things, but to do noble and true things, and vindicate himself under God's Heaven as a god-made Man, that the poorest son of Adam dimly longs. Show him the way of doing that, the dullest day-drudge kindles into a hero. They wrong man greatly who say he is to be seduced by ease.