Quotes about Philosophy

Chesterton is quoted as saying, "When a man stops believing in God, he doesn't then believe in nothing, he believes anything.

The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.

Happiness belongs to the self-sufficient.

Happiness does not lie in amusement; it would be strange if one were to take trouble and suffer hardship all one's life in order to amuse oneself

He is happy who lives in accordance with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for some chance period but throughout a complete life.

The greatest crimes are not those committed for the sake of necessity but those committed for the sake of superfluity. One does not become a tyrant to avoid exposure to the cold.

The cultivation of the intellect is man's highest good and purest happiness

Wretched, ephemeral race, children of chance and tribulation, why do you force me to tell you the very thing which it would be most profitable for you not to hear? The very best thing is utterly beyond your reach: not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. However, the second best thing for you is: to die soon

Hence while in respect of its substance and the definition that states what it really is in essence virtue is the observance of the mean, in point of excellence and rightness it is an extreme.

There is one end we all have — not in virtue of being rational, but simply in virtue of being human being — and that is happiness.

Reason is a light that God has kindled in the soul.

Life in accordance with intellect is best and pleasantest, since this, more than anything else, constitutes humanity.