Quotes about Philosophy

Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.

I hate quotes: tell me what you know.

all nature is the rapid efflux of goodness executing and organizing itself.

The advantage of the ideal theory over the popular faith, is this, that it presents the world in precisely that view which is most desirable to the mind. It is, in fact, the view which Reason, both speculative and practical, that is, philosophy and virtue, take. For, seen in the light of thought, the world always is phenomenal; and virtue subordinates it to the mind.

Philosophically considered, the universe consists of Nature and the Soul.

I would put myself in the attitude to look in the eye an abstract truth, and I cannot. I blench and withdraw on this side and on that. I seem to know what he meant who said, No man can see God face to face and live.

This outlook, one that said that American history must be the history of nature speaking through men, not of men shaping nature, became the single most powerful force in American intellectual life in the nineteenth century and shaped some of America's greatest works of literature, such as Moby Dick, Leaves of Grass and Walden, as well as generating an American school of philosophy , to be furthered by William James and John Dewey.

There is a crack in every thing God has made.

was a melancholy introvert who declined to join in philosophical discussions.)   The Concord circle of sympathetically-minded thinkers, writers, and social activists became known as Transcendentalists. What exactly is Transcendentalism? That's the question Emerson set out to answer at Boston's Masonic Temple in 1842. In addition to defining his own philosophy, this lecture planted the seeds of the modern self-help and personal development movements.

We tend to start with Earth and reason up toward Heaven, when instead we should start with Heaven and reason down toward Earth.

A Greek philosopher said, 'All men think it is only the other man who is mortal'. The way we scurry about accumulating things is testimony to our unspoken doctrine that we are exceptions to the law of death. The events of September 11, 2001, were a shocking reminder to millions of Americans of something we should have already understood - our mortality.

Atheism is an empty cup crying out to be filled, while religion is an empty cup appearing to be filled.