Philosopher

Explore 1213 quotes by Philosophers

A minimal state, limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on, is justified; that any more extensive state will violate persons' rights not to be forced to do certain things, and is unjustified; and that the minimal state is inspiring as well as right.

Robert Nozick

Anarchy, State, and Utopia

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Topic

Limited government

Author

Robert Nozick

Source

Anarchy, State, and Utopia

Genre

Philosophical literature

Language

English

Time

1974 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Basic Books, 1974, preface.

A full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?

An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation

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Topic

Suffering of animals Man and animals

Author

Jeremy Bentham

Source

An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation

Medium

Essay

Genre

Political literature

Language

English

Time

1789 1780s 18th century

Authentication Score 1

Original Citation

Bentham, Jeremy. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. London: T. Payne and Son, 1789, ch. 17.

Current Citation

Bentham, Jeremy. Utilitarianism and Other Essays. Penguin UK, 2004.

Few new truths have ever won their way against the resistance of established ideas save by being overstated.

Isaiah Berlin

More information about this quote

Topic

Anchoring effect Nature of progress Progress

Author

Isaiah Berlin

Source

The Philosophical Ideas of Giambattista Vico Vico and Herder: Two Studies in the History of Ideas

Medium

Essay

Genre

Philosophical literature

Language

English

Time

1976 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Berlin, Isaiah. "The Philosophical Ideas of Giambattista Vico." Vico and Herder: Two Studies in the History of Ideas. Viking Press/Hogarth, 1976, pt. 1.

The psychology of adultery has been falsified by conventional morals, which assume, in monogamous countries, that attraction to one person cannot coexist with a serious affection for another. Everybody knows that this is untrue.

Bertrand Russell

Marriage and Morals

More information about this quote

Topic

Infidelity

Author

Bertrand Russell

Source

Marriage and Morals

Language

English

Time

1929 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Russell, Bertrand. Marriage and Morals. Allen & Unwin, 1929, ch. 16.

The Great Society created by steam and electricity may be a society, but it is no community.

John Dewey

The Public and its Problems

More information about this quote

Topic

Technological progress

Author

John Dewey

Source

The Public and its Problems

Genre

Political literature Philosophical literature

Language

English

Time

1927 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Dewey, John. The Public and Its Problems. H. Holt and Company, 1927, ch. 3.

There exists a great chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a single, central vision, one system more or less coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel... And on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory... The first kind of intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes... Dante belongs to the first category, Shakespeare to the second.

Isaiah Berlin

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Topic

Hedgehogs and foxes Singlemindedness Open-mindedness Worldview

Author

Isaiah Berlin

Source

The Hedgehog and the Fox

Medium

Essay

Genre

Philosophical literature

Language

English

Time

1953 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Berlin, Isaiah. The Hedgehog and the Fox. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1953, ch. 1.

To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind.

Edmund Burke

More information about this quote

Topic

The good old days Human nature

Author

Edmund Burke

Source

Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontent

Medium

Pamphlet

Genre

Political literature

Language

English

Time

1770 1770s 18th century

Era

Age of Enlightenment

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Burke, Edmund. Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents. London: J. Dodsley, 1770.

Current Citation

Burke, Edmund. "Thoughts on the Present Discontents." The Portable Edmund Burke, edited by Isaac Kramnick. Penguin, 2009.

It is wrong always, everywhere and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

W.K. Clifford

More information about this quote

Topic

Unjustified beliefs Beliefs Evidence

Author

W.K. Clifford

Source

The Ethics of Belief

Medium

Essay

Genre

Philosophical literature

Statement Type

Precepts and axioms

Language

English

Time

1877 1870s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Clifford, William Kingdon. "The Ethics of Belief." Contemporary Review, 1877.

Current Citation

Clifford, William Kingdon. "The Ethics of Belief." The Ethics of Belief and Other Essays. Prometheus, 1999.

Freedom, though it has brought him independence and rationality, has made him isolated and, thereby, anxious and powerless.

Erich Fromm

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Topic

Downsides of freedom Modern life

Author

Erich Fromm

Source

Escape from Freedom

Genre

Psychological literature

Language

English

Time

1941 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Fromm, Erich. Escape from Freedom. Farrar & Rinehart, 1941, foreword.

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.

Jeremy Bentham

An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation

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Topic

Pleasure and pain

Author

Jeremy Bentham

Source

An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation

Genre

Philosophical literature

Language

English

Time

1789 1780s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Bentham, Jeremy. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. London: T. Payne, 1789, ch. 1.

Current Citation

Bentham, Jeremy. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Dover Publications, 2007, ch. 1.

The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason.

Bertrand Russell

Read The Problems of Philosophy at Project Gutenberg

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Topic

Questioning one's beliefs Critical thinking Philosophy

Author

Bertrand Russell

Source

The Problems of Philosophy

Genre

Philosophical literature

Language

English

Time

1912 1910s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Russell, Bertrand. The Problems of Philosophy. Henry Holt and Company/Williams and Norgate, 1912, ch. 15.

We are now brought face to face with a tyranny which holds out the threat of becoming, thanks to "the conquest of nature" and in particular of human nature, what no earlier tyranny ever became: perpetual and universal.

Leo Strauss

More information about this quote

Topic

Soviet Union Cold War Totalitarianism

Author

Leo Strauss

Source

On Tyranny

Genre

Philosophical literature

Language

English

Time

1948 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Strauss, Leo. On Tyranny: An Interpretation of Xenophon's Hiero. The Free Press, 1948.

We love well only once, the first time. The loves which follow are less involuntary.

Jean de La Bruyere

More information about this quote

Topic

First love Being in love Love

Author

Jean de La Bruyere

Source

The Characters, or The Manners of the Age

Language

French

Time

1688 1680s 17th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

De La Bruyere, Jean. "Du Coeur [Of the Heart]." Les Caracteres ou Les Moeurs de Ce Siecle [The Characters or The Manners of the Age]. Paris: Chez Estienne Michallet, 1688.

An unlearned carpenter of my acquaintance once said in my hearing: "There is very little difference between one man and another; but what little there is, is very important." This distinction seems to me to go to the root of the matter.

William James

The Will to Believe

More information about this quote

Topic

Difference

Author

William James

Source

The Will to Believe

Language

English

Time

1896 1890s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

James, William. "The Importance of Individuals." The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1897.

We must soften into a credulity below the milkiness of infancy, to think all men virtuous. We must be tainted with a malignity truly diabolical, to believe all the world to be equally wicked and corrupt.

Edmund Burke

More information about this quote

Topic

Human nature Original sin Virtue Perspective

Author

Edmund Burke

Source

Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontent

Medium

Pamphlet

Genre

Political literature

Language

English

Time

1770 1770s 18th century

Era

Age of Enlightenment

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Burke, Edmund. Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents. London: J. Dodsley, 1770.

Current Citation

Burke, Edmund. "Thoughts on the Present Discontents." The Portable Edmund Burke, edited by Isaac Kramnick. Penguin, 2009.

Though collecting quotations could be considered as merely an ironic mimetism-victimless collecting, as it were... In a world that is well on its way to becoming one vast quarry, the collector becomes someone engaged in a pious work of salvage. The course of modern history having already sapped the traditions and shattered the living wholes in which precious objects once found their place, the collector may now in good conscience go about excavating the choicer, more emblematic fragments.

Susan Sontag

Melancholy Objects

More information about this quote

Topic

Quotations

Author

Susan Sontag

Source

Melancholy Objects The New York Review of Books

Medium

Essay Magazine

Language

English

Time

1974 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Sontag, Susan. "Melancholy Objects." The New York Review of Books, 18 Apr. 1974.

Whether we like it or not, change comes, and the greater the resistance, the greater the pain.

Alan Watts

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More information about this quote

Topic

Resistance to change Change Acceptance

Author

Alan Watts

Source

Become What You Are

Genre

Religious literature Philosophical literature

Language

English

Time

1995 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Watts, Alan. Become What You Are. Shambhala, 1995.

Manners are of more importance than laws... Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. They give their whole form and color to our lives.

Edmund Burke

More information about this quote

Topic

Manners Custom and convention

Author

Edmund Burke

Source

Two Letters to a Member of the Present Parliament, on the Proposals for Peace with the Regicide Directory of France

Medium

Open letter Letter

Genre

Political literature

Language

English

Time

1796 1790s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Burke, Edmund. Two Letters to a Member of the Present Parliament, on the Proposals for Peace with the Regicide Directory of France. London: F. and C. Rivington, 1796, letter 1.

Current Citation

Burke, Edmund. Letters on a Regicide Peace." The Portable Edmund Burke, edited by Isaac Kramnick. Penguin, 2009, letter 1.

Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.

John Dewey

More information about this quote

Topic

Scientific progress Progress Imagination

Author

John Dewey

Source

The Copernican Revolution The Quest for Certainty

Language

English

Time

1929 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Dewey, John. "The Quest for Certainty: A Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action." 1928–1929, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Even the most insensitive hit song enthusiast cannot always escape the feeling that the child with a sweet tooth comes to know in the candy store.

Theodor Adorno

More information about this quote

Topic

Popular culture Music Art

Author

Theodor Adorno

Medium

Essay

Language

German

Time

1938 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score

Original Citation

Adorno, Theodor. "Über den Fetischcharakter in der Musik und die Regression des Hörens [On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening]." Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung [Journal of Social Research], 1938.

Current Citation

Adorno, Theodor. "On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening." Modernism: An Anthology of Documents, edited by Vassiliki Kolocotroni, Jane Goldman and Olga Taxidou. University of Chicago Press, 1998.