The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.
Philosophy - Philosophers Quotes
Philosophy begins in wonder, and, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains.
Organic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the philosopher, and this development, we are assured, is indubitably an advance. Unfortunately it is the philosopher, not the protozoan, who gives us this assurance.
There is reason to think the most celebrated philosophers would have been bunglers at business; but the reason is because they despised it. (Marquis of Halifax)
A Chinaman of the T’ang Dynasty – and, by which definition, a philosopher – dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher.
Philosophers, for the most part, are constitutionally timid, and dislike the unexpected. Few of them would be genuinely happy as pirates or burglars. Accordingly they invent systems which make the future calculable, at least in its main outlines.
I’ve developed a new philosophy… I only dread one day at a time. (“Peanuts”)
Europe will never be like America. Europe is a product of history. America is a product of philosophy.
To teach how to live with uncertainty, yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy can do.
There is a difference between a philosophy and a bumper sticker.
