If one believes philosophers, then what we call religion is only a deliberately popularized or an instinctively artless philosophy. Poets seem to consider religion rather as a variation of poetry which by misjudging its proper beautiful game takes itself too seriously and one-sidedly. Philosophy, however, admits and recognizes that it can begin and complete itself only with religion. Poetry seeks only to strive for the infinite and despises worldly utility and culture, which are the true antitheses of religion. Eternal peace among artists is thus not far away.
Deng Xiaoping thought of himself as a great revolutionary and a great reformer. He had dismantled the Chinese communist management of the economy. In my next-to-last conversation with him, which was about six months before Tiananmen Square, he said to me that his aim would be the next phase to reduce the Communist Party to philosophical issues. And I said, "What's a philosophical issue?" And he said, "Well, like if we make an alliance with Russia. " Given his view of Russia, that was not the likeliest thing that would ever happen.
Sudden glory is the passion which maketh those grimaces called laughter.
All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.
Veiling truth in mystery.
One of the basic philosophical tenets of conservatism - which says that the more power devolves from the federal government to the states, the greater individual freedom grows - is just flatly contradicted by crucial junctures in the country's life, most conspicuously in the 1860s and 1960s, when it's been the federal government that's interceded against the states to secure individual freedom.
What I think about vivisection is that if people admit that they have the right to take or endanger the life of living beings for the benefit of many, there will be no limit to their cruelty.
I asked this heroic pet lover how it felt to have died for a schnauzer named Teddy. Salvador Biagiani was philosophical. He said it sure beat dying for absolutely nothing in the Viet Nam War.
Those who would be employed in propagating the Gospel should be familiar with the doctrines he is to combat and the doctrines he is to teach, and acquire a complete knowledge both of the Sacred Scriptures and of these philosophical and mythological dogmas which form the souls of the Buddhist and Hindu Systems.
Man is by nature a political animal.
Fame is but the breath of people, and that often unwholesome.
There are things I have wanted so long that I would only consent to have them if I could keep wanting them.
An unjust peace is better than a just war.
One man cannot practice many arts with success.
Things bring their own philosophy with them, that is, prudence.
The precepts of the law are these: to live honestly, to injure no one, and to give everyone else his due.
One that desires to excel should endeavor in those things that are in themselves most excellent.
The first and greatest punishment of the sinner is the conscience of sin.
One of things about beards is that, when men reach a certain age, they'd like to see if they can grow one. It's a phenomenon I understand very well. After you get over the itchy face, you go, "Oh, I don't have to shave, that's cool. " And then you move into the philosophical thing- people say, "You look weird, you have a beard. " And you say, "No, actually, it's weird to shave. " Having a beard is natural. When you think about it, shaving it off is quite weird.
No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.