I have read somewhere or...

I have read somewhere or other, — in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, I think, — that history is philosophy teaching by examples.

His sense of the miseries...

His sense of the miseries and wrongs of "the greatest number" was the mainspring of the resolute beneficence of thought and purpose that really made his very life and daily being... Mill would take endless trouble to procure the reversal of an inhuman sentence in a police court; he abhorred insensibility to the sufferings of our fellows in the lower order of creation. He was warm in congratulation on Freeman's attack on field sports published in the Fortnightly (1869). "I honour him," Mill wrote, "for having broken ground—a thing I have been often tempted to do myself, but having so many unpopular causes already on my hands, thought it wiser not to provoke fresh hostility."

If the result of a...

If the result of a war is to change nothing, but only to destroy, with the mere result that a group of human beings who do not differ notably from the conquered acquires preponderant advantages for the future, there is lacking the affective strength of an existence that has inspired faith, of an existence whose destiny would have been decided by the war.

I do what is mine...

I do what is mine to do; the rest doesn't disturb me. (Hays translation)

We renounce all your spectacles,...

We renounce all your spectacles, as strongly as we renounce the matters originating them, which we know were conceived of superstition, when we give up the very things which are the basis of their representations. Among us nothing is ever said, or seen, or heard, which has anything in common with the madness of the circus, the immodesty of the theatre, the atrocities of the arena, the useless exercises of the wrestling-ground.

The situation of Great Britain,...

The situation of Great Britain, the character of her people, and the nature of her government fit her for trade and commerce. Her climate and her soil make them necessary to her well being. By trade and commerce we grew a rich and powerful nation, and by their decay we are growing poor and impotent. As trade and commerce enrich, so they fortify our country. The sea is our barrier, ships are our fortresses, and the mariners, that trade and commerce alone can furnish, are the garrisons to defend them.

It is not right to...

It is not right to vex ourselves at things, For they care not about it.

I must say, it [the...

I must say, it [the Koran] is as toilsome reading as I ever undertook. A wearisome confused jumble, crude, incondite; endless iterations, long-windedness, entanglement; most crude, incondite; — insupportable stupidity, in short! Nothing but a sense of duty could carry any European through the Koran ... It is the confused ferment of a great rude human soul; rude, untutored, that cannot even read; but fervent, earnest, struggling vehemently to utter itself in words ... We said "stupid:" yet natural stupidity is by no means the character of Mahomet's Book; it is natural uncultivation rather. The man has not studied speaking; in the haste and pressure of continual fighting, has not time to mature himself into fit speech ... The man was an uncultured semi-barbarous Son of Nature, much of the Bedouin still clinging to him: we must take him for that. But for a wretched Simulacrum, a hungry Impostor without eyes or heart ... we will not and cannot take him. Sincerity, in all senses, seems to me the merit of the Koran; what had rendered it precious to the wild Arab men ... Curiously, through these incondite masses of tradition, vituperation, complaint, ejaculation in the Koran, a vein of true direct insight, of what we might almost call poetry, is found straggling.

Almost as soon as I...

Almost as soon as I began to study philosophy, I was impressed by the way in which philosophical problems appeared, disappeared, or changed shape, as a result of new assumptions or vocabularies.

Ye watchful sprites, who make...

Ye watchful sprites, who make e'en man your care, And sure more gladly hover o'er the fair, Who grave on adamant all changeless things, The smiles of courtiers and the frowns of kings! Say to what softer texture ye impart The quick resolves of woman's trusting heart; Joys of a moment, wishes of an hour, The short eternity of Passion's power, Breathed in vain oaths that pledge with generous zeal E'en more of fondness than they e'er shall feel, Light fleeting vows, that never reach above, And all the guileless changefulness of love! Is summer's leaf the record? Does it last Till withering autumn blot it with his blast? Or, frailer still, to fade ere ocean's ebb,— Graved on some filmy insect's thinnest web, Some day-fly's wing that dies and ne'er has slept: Lives the light vow scarce longer than 'tis kept? Ah, call not perfidy her fickle choice! Ah, find not falsehood in an angel's voice! True to one word, and constant to one aim, Let man's hard soul be stubborn as his frame; But leave sweet woman's form and mind at will To bend and vary and be graceful still.

A great philosopher in the...

A great philosopher in the wrong is like a beacon on the reefs which says to seamen: steer clear of me.

It is satisfaction to a...

It is satisfaction to a man to do the proper works of a man.

When the oak-tree is felled,...

When the oak-tree is felled, the whole forest echoes with it; but a hundred acorns are planted silently by some unnoticed breeze.

The peripateticks when they define...

The peripateticks when they define the soul or some inferior principle describe it only by outward circumstances, which every child can do, but they state nothing essentially.

We account the Scriptures of...

We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy. I find more sure remarks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatever.

The faction fight in the...

The faction fight in the Socialist Workers Party, its conclusion, and the recent formation of the Workers Party have been in my own case, the unavoidable occasion for the review of my own theoretical and political beliefs. This review has shown me that by no stretching of terminology can I regard myself, or permit others to regard me, as a Marxist.

All things are the same,—familiar...

All things are the same,—familiar in enterprise, momentary in endurance, coarse in substance. All things now are as they were in the day of those whom we have buried.

Our grand business undoubtedly is,...

Our grand business undoubtedly is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

Happiness implied a choice, and...

Happiness implied a choice, and within that choice a concerted will, a lucid desire.

I have some times seen...

I have some times seen actions as various as they were great, and my own sullen fate hath forced me to severall courses of life, but I finde not one hitherto which ends not in surfeits or satietie. Let us fansie a man as fortunate as this world can make him; what doth he do but move from bed to board, and provide for the circumstances of those two scenes? To day hee eates and drinkes, then sleeps, that hee may doe the like to morrow.

Avoid lawsuits beyond all things;...

Avoid lawsuits beyond all things; they pervert your conscience, impair your health and dissipate your property.

Constantly contemplate the whole of...

Constantly contemplate the whole of time and the whole of substance, and consider that all individual things as to substance are a grain of a fig, and as to time the turning of a gimlet.

Compared to the refined culture...

Compared to the refined culture of sclerotic forms and frames, which mask everything, the lyrical mode is utterly barbarian in its expression. Its value resides precisely in its savage quality: it is only blood, sincerity, and fire.

Not only was Thebes built...

Not only was Thebes built by the music of an Orpheus; but without the music of some inspired Orpheus was no city ever built, no work that man glories-in ever done.

I don't know whether this...

I don't know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I cannot know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms. What I touch, what resists me — that I understand. And these two certainties — my appetite for the absolute and for unity and the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle — I also know that I cannot reconcile them. What other truth can I admit without lying, without bringing in a hope I lack and which means nothing within the limits of my conditions?

I am more afraid of...

I am more afraid of our own blunders than of the enemy's devices.

The strange thing is that...

The strange thing is that it's always in Europe that dictatorships and totalitarian regimes spring up, yet it's always America that is "fascist".

Logical empiricism holds the view,...

Logical empiricism holds the view, notwithstanding some its assertions, that the forms of knowledge and consequently the relations of man to nature and to other men never change. According to rationalism, too, all subjective and objective potentialities are rooted in insights which the individual already possesses, but rationality uses existing objects as well as the active inner striving and ideas of man to construct standards for the future. In this regard, it is not so closely associated with the present order as is empiricism.

No thefts of free will...

No thefts of free will reported.

I have received, sir, your...

I have received, sir, your new book against the human species, and I thank you for it. You will please people by your manner of telling them the truth about themselves, but you will not alter them. The horrors of that human society—from which in our feebleness and ignorance we expect so many consolations—have never been painted in more striking colours: no one has ever been so witty as you are in trying to turn us into brutes: to read your book makes one long to go on all fours. Since, however, it is now some sixty years since I gave up the practice, I feel that it is unfortunately impossible for me to resume it: I leave this natural habit to those more fit for it than are you and I.

Music is everything. God himself...

Music is everything. God himself is nothing more than an acoustic hallucination.

Thus, all unknown quantities can...

Thus, all unknown quantities can be expressed in terms of a single quantity, whenever the problem can be constructed by means of circles and straight lines, or by conic sections, or even by some other curve of degree not greater than the third or fourth.But I shall not stop to explain this in more detail, because I should deprive you of the pleasure of mastering it yourself, as well as of the advantage of training your mind by working over it, which is in my opinion the principal benefit to be derived from this science. Because, I find nothing here so difficult that it cannot be worked out by anyone at all familiar with ordinary geometry and with algebra, who will consider carefully all that is set forth in this treatise.

But the thing a man...

But the thing a man does practically believe (and this is often enough without asserting it even to himself, much less to others); the thing a man does practically lay to heart, and know for certain, concerning his vital relations to this mysterious Universe, and his duty and destiny there, that is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively determines all the rest. That is his religion; or, it may be, his mere scepticism and no-religion: the manner it is in which he feels himself to be spiritually related to the Unseen World or No-World; and I say, if you tell me what that is, you tell me to a very great extent what the man is, what the kind of things he will do is.

Homer tells us also that...

Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains. Pluto could not endure the sight of his deserted, silent empire. He dispatched the god of war, who liberated Death from the hands of her conqueror.

And it is certain that...

And it is certain that those who do not yield to their equals, who keep terms with their superiors, and are moderate towards their inferiors, on the whole succeed best.

You may tell a man,...

You may tell a man, thou art a fiend, but not, your nose wants blowing. To him alone who can bear a thing of that kind, you may tell all.

The more the concept of...

The more the concept of reason becomes emasculated, the more easily it lends itself to ideological manipulation and to propagation of even the most blatant lies. … Subjective reason conforms to anything.

Don't tell yourself anything more...

Don't tell yourself anything more than what the initial impressions report. It's been reported to you that someone is speaking badly about you. This is the report – the report wasn't that you've been harmed. I see that my son is sick – but not that his life is at risk. So always stay within your first impressions, and don't add to them in your head – this way nothing can happen to you.

Whoever is suspicious incites treason.

Whoever is suspicious incites treason.

Life creates itself in delirium...

Life creates itself in delirium and is undone in ennui.

His Religion is not an...

His Religion is not an easy one: with rigorous fasts, lavations, strict complex formulas, prayers five times a day, and abstinence from wine, it did not "succeed by being an easy religion." As if indeed any religion, or cause holding of religion, could succeed by that! It is a calumny on men to say that they are roused to heroic action by ease, hope of pleasure, recompense, — sugar-plums of any kind, in this world or the next! In the meanest mortal there lies something nobler.

...there are more things to...

...there are more things to admire in men than to despise.

We have seen better days.

We have seen better days.

If you mean to know...

If you mean to know yourself, interline such of these aphorisms as affect you agreeably in reading, and set a mark to such as left a sense of uneasiness with you; and then show your copy to whom you please.

O love! only a few...

O love! only a few rays of thy sacred fire radiate in this exhausted world!

Life inspires more dread than...

Life inspires more dread than death — it is life which is the great unknown.

I cannot call this Shakspeare...

I cannot call this Shakspeare a "Sceptic," as some do; his indifference to the creeds and theological quarrels of his time misleading them. No: neither unpatriotic, though he says little about his Patriotism; nor sceptic, though he says little about his Faith. Such "indifference" was the fruit of his greatness withal: his whole heart was in his own grand sphere of worship (we may call it such); these other controversies, vitally important to other men, were not vital to him.

L'homme enfin n'est pas entièrement...

L'homme enfin n'est pas entièrement coupable — il n'a pas commencé l'histoire — ni tout à fait innocent, puisqu'il la continue.

Skills are called hidden treasure...

Skills are called hidden treasure as they save like a mother in a foreign country.

Reminiscences, even extensive ones, do...

Reminiscences, even extensive ones, do not always amount to an autobiography. … For even if months and years appear here, it is in the form they have in the moment of recollection. This strange form — it may be called fleeting or eternal — is in neither case the stuff that life is made of.