Quotes about Philosophy

The major heresies of our day are not about God but about man.

For he believed not only that there was all truth somewhere but also that there was some truth everywhere.

Heidegger says that "the fundamental question of metaphysics" is "why is there anything at all rather than nothing?" The fundamental question is not, as Plato thought, "what" a thing is (every Platonic dialogue is about that, about an essence, a definition, a concept, such as justice or piety or learning) but why it exists, why anything exists. Plato never asked that ultimate question. And the answer is God.

The quantity comes from the efficient cause but the quality comes from the formal cause.

St. Augustine says, "If God is, why is there evil? But if God is not, why is there good?

The only honest reason for anyone ever to believe anything is that it is true, that it is really there.

St. Thomas connects servile fear with dead faith (loveless faith) and filial fear with living faith.

essential form

Morality flows from metaphysics because goodness flows from God.

Likewise the subjection of woman to man results from the perfection of the male and the imperfection of the female sex.

Cicero famously said, you have no choice between having a philosophy and not having one, only between having a good one and having a bad one. And not to admit that you have a philosophy at all is to have a bad one. For it is one that does not know itself. So how could it know anything else, especially us?

The universe is the sum total of all these moving things, however many there are. The whole universe is in the process of change. But we have already seen that change in any being requires an outside force to actualize it. Therefore, there is some force outside (in addition to) the universe, some real being transcendent to the universe. This is one of the things meant by God.