An idea that is not...

An idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all.

Poetry must be new as...

Poetry must be new as foam, and as old as the rock.

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.

The universal view melts things...

The universal view melts things into a blur.

The truth is, indeed, that...

The truth is, indeed, that love is the threshold of another universe. Beyond the vibrations with which we are familiar, the rainbow-like range of its colours is still in full growth. But, for all the fascination that the lower shades have for us, it is only towards the "ultra" that the creation of light advances. It is in these invisible and, we might almost say, immaterial zones that we can look for true initiation into unity. The depths we attribute to matter are no more than the reflection of the peaks of spirit.

Do not allow your dreams...

Do not allow your dreams of a beautiful world to lure you away from the claims of men who suffer here and now. Our fellow men have a claim to our help; no generation must be sacrificed for the sake of future generations, for the sake of an ideal of happiness that may never be realised.

As to the Christian religion,...

As to the Christian religion, besides the strong evidence which we have for it, there is a balance in its favour from the number of great men who have been convinced of its truth after a serious consideration of the question. Grotius was an acute man, a lawyer, a man accustomed to examine evidence, and he was convinced. Grotius was not a recluse, but a man of the world, who certainly had no bias on the side of religion. Sir Isaac Newton set out an infidel, and came to be a very firm believer.

A friend is someone who...

A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.

Man Thinking must not be...

Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments.

We suffer: the external world...

We suffer: the external world begins to exist . . . ; we suffer to excess: it vanishes. Pain instigates the world only to unmask its unreality.

The Greek tradition was a...

The Greek tradition was a complete contrast to that of the Far East. ...the Greeks placed logic at the pinnacle of human thinking. Their sceptical attitude towards the wielding of 'non-being' as some sort of 'something' that could be subject to logical development was exemplified by Parmenides' influential arguments against the concept of empty space. ...He maintained that you can only speak about what is: what is not cannot be thought of, and what cannot be thought of cannot be. ...more unexpected was the further conclusion that time, motion nor change could exist either.

Autonomy, actuality, irreversibility, and... transcendence...

Autonomy, actuality, irreversibility, and... transcendence are the four attributes of Omega. In this way... we... enclose the energy-complex of our universe. ...Contrary to the appearances still admitted by physics, the Great Stability is not at the bottom in the infra-elementary sphere, but at the top in the ultra-synthetic sphere. ...[E]ntirely by its tangential envelope ...the world goes on dissipating itself in a chance way into matter. By its radial nucleus it finds its shape and... consistency in gravitating against the tide of probability towards a divine focus of mind which draws it onward.Thus something in the cosmos escapes from entropy, and does so more and more.

[T]he history of mankind could......

[T]he history of mankind could... be described as a history of outbreaks of fashionable philosophical and religious maladies. These... have... one serious function... evoking criticism.

Despite Newton's belated appreciation of...

Despite Newton's belated appreciation of Euclid's geometry, he set it aside as an undergraduate and immediately turned to Descartes' Geometrie, a much more difficult text. Newton read a few pages... and immediately got stuck. ...The second time through, he progressed a page or two further before running into more difficulties. Again, he read it from the beginning, this time getting further still. He continued this process until he mastered Descartes' text. Had Newton mastered Euclid first, Descartes' analytic geometry would have been much easier to understand. Newton later advised others not to make the same mistake.But Descartes had ignited Newton's interest in mathematics, an interest that bordered on obsession.

After history has taught us...

After history has taught us that possession of the Truth often produces fanaticism, and that an individual armed with truth is a potential terrorist, one is led to ask: are relativism and nihilism really the radical evil that we are led to believe? Or do they not also produce an awareness of the relativity of every point of view, and therefore of every religion? And so, do they not convey respect for the point of view of others and, therefore, the fundamental value of tolerance? There is beauty even in relativism and nihilism: they inhibit fanaticism.

Each the herald is who...

Each the herald is who wrote His rank, and quartered his own coat. There is no king nor sovereign state That can fix a hero's rate.

The moment we believe we've...

The moment we believe we've understood everything grants us the look of a murderer.

Aristotle... [i]n the de Caelo......

Aristotle... [i]n the de Caelo... lays it down that Parmenides was driven to take up the position that the One was immovable... because no one... yet imagined... any reality other than sensible reality.

Man alone at the very...

Man alone at the very moment of his birth, cast naked upon the naked earth, does she [Nature] abandon to cries and lamentations.

I got to know Bertrand...

I got to know Bertrand Russell in the last years of his life. I knew Karl Popper quite well, and they were a whole class above me in intelligence. It wasn’t that I was jealous, it was that I was trying to grapple with these problems with inadequate weaponry… Popper had this originality, Russell had it, and Einstein had it in spades.

All government is an ugly...

All government is an ugly necessity.

I shall assume that your...

I shall assume that your silence gives consent.

Out from the heart of...

Out from the heart of Nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old.

Ambition is a drug that...

Ambition is a drug that makes its addicts potential madmen.

'Tis from the resemblance of...

'Tis from the resemblance of the external actions of animals to those we ourselves perform, that we judge their internal likewise to resemble ours; and the same principle of reasoning, carry'd one step farther, will make us conclude that since our internal actions resemble each other, the causes, from which they are deriv'd, must also be resembling.

This insistence on "having his...

This insistence on "having his say upon the universe" is the profoundest motive of William James thinking as well as of his filial gratitude.

There runs a strange law...

There runs a strange law through the length of human history — that men are continually tending to undervalue their environment, to undervalue their happiness, to undervalue themselves. The great sin of mankind, the sin typified by the fall of Adam, is the tendency, not towards pride, but towards this weird and horrible humility. This is the great fall, the fall by which the fish forgets the sea, the ox forgets the meadow, the clerk forgets the city, every man forgets his environment and, in the fullest and most literal sense, forgets himself. This is the real fall of Adam, and it is a spiritual fall. It is a strange thing that many truly spiritual men, such as General Gordon, have actually spent some hours in speculating upon the precise location of the Garden of Eden. Most probably we are in Eden still. It is only our eyes that have changed.

Parmenides: Whatever the subject of...

Parmenides: Whatever the subject of your hypothesis, if you suppose that it is or is not, or that it experiences any other affection, you must consider what happens to it and to any other particular things you may choose, and to a greater number and to all in the same way; and you must consider other things in relation to themselves and to anything else you may choose in any instance, whether you suppose that the subject of your hypothesis exists or does not exist, if you are to train yourself completely to see the truth perfectly.

As there is a use...

As there is a use in medicine for poisons, so the world cannot move without rogues.

Suicide is a sudden accomplishment,...

Suicide is a sudden accomplishment, a lightning-like deliverance: it is nirvana by violence.

THERE is no method of...

THERE is no method of reasoning more common, and yet none more blameable, than, in philosophical disputes, to endeavour the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretence of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality. When any opinion leads to absurdities, it is certainly false; but it is not certain that an opinion is false, because it is of dangerous consequence. Such topics, therefore, ought entirely to be forborne; as serving nothing to the discovery of truth, but only to make the person of an antagonist odious.

A true initiation never ends.

A true initiation never ends.

It's better to bet on...

It's better to bet on this life than on the next.

One of the actual and...

One of the actual and certain consequences of the idea that all men are equal is immediately to produce very great men.

At this point one of...

At this point one of the priests, a very old man, said, “O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children: there is not such a thing as an old Greek.” And on hearing this Solon asked, “What do you mean by this saying?” The priest replied, “You are young in soul, every one of you. For you possess not a single belief that is ancient and derived from old tradition, nor is your understanding grey with age...“

I find men victims of...

I find men victims of illusion in all parts of life. Children, youths, adults, and old men, all are led by one bawble or another. Yoganidra, the goddess of illusion, Proteus, or Momus, or Gylfi's Mocking, — for the Power has many names, — is stronger than the Titans, stronger than Apollo.

What place do we occupy...

What place do we occupy in the "universe"? A point, if that! Why reproach ourselves when we are evidently so insignificant? Once we make this observation, we grow calm at once: henceforth, no more bother, no more frenzy, metaphysical or otherwise. And then that point dilates, swells, substitutes itself for space. And everything begins all over again.

It is a great pity...

It is a great pity that human beings cannot find all of their satisfaction in scientific contemplativeness.

Ignorance is the mother of...

Ignorance is the mother of Devotion: A maxim that is proverbial, and confirmed by general experience. Look out for a people, entirely destitute of religion: If you find them at all, be assured, that they are but few degrees removed from brutes. What so pure as some of the morals, included in some theological system? What so corrupt as some of the practices, to which these systems give rise?

It is now almost my...

It is now almost my sole rule of life to clear myself of cants and formulas, as of poisonous Nessus shirts.

When Darius offered him ten...

When Darius offered him ten thousand talents, and to divide Asia equally with him, "I would accept it," said Parmenio, "were I Alexander." "And so truly would I," said Alexander, "if I were Parmenio." But he answered Darius that the earth could not bear two suns, nor Asia two kings.

ONLY THE MADMAN IS ABSOLUTELY...

ONLY THE MADMAN IS ABSOLUTELY SURE.

We get into the habit...

We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking.

I must frankly say that...

I must frankly say that Bernard Shaw always seems to me to use the word God not only without any idea of what it means, but without one moment's thought about what it could possibly mean. He said to some atheist, "Never believe in a God that you cannot improve on." The atheist (being a sound theologian) naturally replied that one should not believe in a God whom one could improve on; as that would show that he was not God.

Out of Plato come all...

Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated among men of thought. Great havoc makes he among our originalities. We have reached the mountain from which all these drift bowlders were detached. The Bible of the learned for twenty- two hundred years, every brisk young man, who says in succession fine things to each reluctant generation,—Boethius, Rabelais, Erasmus, Bruno, Locke, Rousseau, Alfieri, Coleridge,—is some reader of Plato, translating into the vernacular, wittily, his good things.

They reckon ill who leave...

They reckon ill who leave me out; When me they fly, I am the wings; I am the doubter and the doubt; And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

He detested objective truths, the...

He detested objective truths, the burden of argument, sustained reasoning. He disliked demonstrating, he wanted to convince no one. Others are a dialectician's invention.

[http://www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/1922/ Nobel Foundation: Niels Bohr]

[http://www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/1922/ Nobel Foundation: Niels Bohr]

What peculiar privilege has this...

What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call thought, that we must thus make it the model of the whole universe? Our partiality in our own favour does indeed present it on all occasions; but sound philosophy ought carefully to guard against so natural an illusion.

It is justice, not charity,...

It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.