- I'm not in this world to live up to your expectations and you're not in this world to live up to mine. (Bruce Lee)
- Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves. Because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all that because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good. (Bertrand Russell's, "The Problems of Philosophy")
- Some philosophers believe that philosophy can make real progress in the hunt for knowledge, others say that it is 'thinking about thinking' and does no more than help to clarify ideas and remove misunderstandings.
- Approximately? This suggests that the world isn't at all mathematically neat and perfect.
- You reject reason. No...only its dogmatic representation of itself as timeless certainty. You say nothing is real because everything is only a cultural, linguistic or historical construct. Nothing is any less real for being cultural, linguistic or historical, especially if there is no universal or timeless reality to which it can be compared. You say there are an infinite number of meanings. No - only that there is never just one. You say everything is of equal value. No only that the question must remain open.
- Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something (Plato)
- Why should I fear death?
If I am, death is not.
If death is, I am not.
Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do? (Epicurus)
- Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves poison the fountain. (John Locke)
- Most people spend their entire life imprisoned within the confines of their own thoughts. They never go beyond a narrow, mind-made, personalized sense of self that is conditioned by the past. (Eckhart Tolle)
- Seeing, contrary to popular wisdom, isn't believing. It's where belief stops, because it isn't needed any more. (Terry Pratchett )
- It's not "cogito ergo sum" (I think therefore I am) but "dedita ergo sum" (I do what I'm addicted to doing therefore I am) and "pecco ergo sum" (I sin therefore I am). (The Addiction 1995)
