philosophical

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
e8c54eb	My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.	inspirational philosophical politics religion religious	Abraham Lincoln
4eb5225	The best things in life make you sweaty.	inspirational life love meaning-of-life philosophical puberty purpose	Edgar Allan Poe
4477c70	With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams	happiness inspirational philosophical	Max Ehrmann
9134ca2	If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;!	ataraxy coming-of-age fathers-and-sons philosophical	Rudyard Kipling
2c5da30	Death twitches my ear	carpe-diem creepy death death-and-dying inspirational living philosophical philosophy seize-the-day	Virgil
148a2e4	What we like to think of ourselves and what we really are rarely have much in common....	meaningful philosophical realistic	Stephen King
5d71d07	Avoid loud and aggressive persons	inspirational philosophical	Max Ehrmann
2be1e6a	We all can be only who we are, no more, no less.	inspirational kahlan philosophical	Terry Goodkind
de01274	Were knowledge all, what were our nee	inspirational love philosophical poetry	Christopher Brennan
de450d3	This first glance of a soul which does not yet know itself is like dawn in the heavens; it is the awakening of something radiant and unknown.	philosophical romance spiritual inspirational	Victor Hugo
9f5f37d	He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior.	ancient ancient-china ancient-chinese body chinese conquers fighting inspirational philosophical philosophy proverb self-improvement self-realization training warrior	Confucius
f2cf317	Socrates: Have you noticed on our journey how often the citizens of this new land remind each other it is a free country? Plato: I have, and think it odd they do this. Socrates: How so, Plato? Plato: It is like reminding a baker he is a baker, or a sculptor he is a sculptor. Socrates: You mean to say if someone is convinced of their trade, they have no need to be reminded. Plato: That is correct. Socrates: I agree. If these citizens were convinced of their freedom, they would not need reminders.	catholic-author christian citizens civil-liberty free-country freedom freedom-of-thought gadfly liberty philosophers philosophical philosophy plato socrates thought-provoking wisdom words-of-wisdom	E.A. Bucchianeri
b9aa2ed	It is wisdom to recognize necessity when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope.	philosophical	J.R.R. Tolkien
443c5c6	For other people, I can't speak - but, personally, I haven't gotten wise on anything. Certainly, I've been through this and that; and when it happens again, I say to myself, Here it is again. But that doesn't seem to help me. In my opinion, I, personally, have gotten steadily sillier and sillier - and that's a fact.	philosophical	Christopher Isherwood
1d800c1	If you make a deal with a fool, don't be surprised when they act foolishly.	philosophical	Jeffrey Archer
5352ac9	Learn to recognize omens, and follow them	paulo-coelho philosophical the-alchemist	Paulo Coelho
c78be84	This isn't lust. Lust wants, does the obvious, and pads back into the forest. Love is greedier. Love wants round-the-clock care; protection; rings, vows, joint accounts; scented candles on birthdays; life insurance. Babies. Love's a dictator.	inspirational love philosophical philosophy the-bone-clocks	David Mitchell
ef12465	Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man's values, it has to be earned. His own happiness is man's only moral purpose, but only his own virtue can achieve it...Life is the reward of virtue- and happiness is the goal and the reward of life. Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy- a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your won destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but using your mind's fullest power. Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seek nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing bu rational actions. The symbol of all relationships among such men, the moral symbol of respect for human beings, is the trade...A trader is a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take the undeserved.	objectivism philosophical philosophy	Ayn Rand
b13b73b	The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour.	dressing innovation introspection melancholy philosophical philosophy progress thinking thought	Ray Bradbury
ff26529	The individual soul touches upon the world soul like a well reaches for the water table. That which sustains the universe beyond thought and language, and that which is at the core of us and struggles for expression, is the same thing. The finite within the infinite, the infinite within the finite.	philosophical	Yann Martel
4d71864	Things are not always as bad as they seem. Sometimes, the darkness only makes it easier to see the light.	optimism philosophical	Jim Butcher
5bbb7a9	You put on a bishop's robe and miter, he pondered, and walk around in that, and people bow and genuflect and like that, and try to kiss your ring, if not your ass, and pretty soon you're a bishop. So to speak. What is identity? he asked himself. Where does the act end? Nobody knows.	identity philosophical	Philip K. Dick
63613c9	All life is theatre,' he said. 'We are all actors, you and I, in a play which nobody wrote and which nobody will see. We have no audience but ourselves....	philosophical theater theatre	Susan Cooper
32ea0b3	This is the story of a man named Eddie and it starts at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun. It may seem strange to start a story with and ending, but all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time.	inspirational opening-lines philosophical	Mitch Albom
a1295c3	All roads lead to Trantor, and that is where all stars end.	mystery philosophical	Isaac Asimov
60fab14	Your moral code begins by damning man as evil, then demands that he practice a good which it defines as impossible for him to practice...It demands that he starts, not with a standard of value, but with a standard of evil, which is himself, by means of which he is then to define the good: the good is that which he is not. A sin without volition is a slap at morality and an isolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of choice is outside the province of morality. If man is evil by birth, he has no will, no power to change it; if he has no will, he can be neither good nor evil; a robot is amoral. To hold a man's sin, a fact not open to his choice is a mockery of morality...To punish him for a crime he committed before he was born is a mockery of justice. To hold him guilty in a matter where no innocence exists is a mockery of reason. (The) myth decleares that he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge-he acquired a mind and became a rational being. It was the knowledge of good and evil-he became a moral being...The evils for which they damn him are reasn, morality, creativeness, joy-all the cardinal values of his existence....the essence of his nature as a man. Whatever he was- that robot in the Garden of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love- he was not a man.	philosophical philosophy	Ayn Rand
cc8c628	"The 21st chapter gives the novel the quality of genuine fiction, an art founded on the principle that human beings change. ----- "A Clockwork Orange Resucked" intro to first full American version 1986"	american intro introduction irony philosophical	Anthony Burgess
e4319ec	There is a coherence in things, a stability; something... is immune from change and shines out... in the face of the flowing, the fleeting, the spectral, like a ruby.	philosophical	Virginia Woolf
7900147	Because beyond their practical function, all gestures have a meaning that exceeds the intention of those who make them; when people in bathing suits fling themselves into the water, it is joy itself that shows in the gesture, notwithstanding any sadness the divers may actually feel. When someone jumps into the water fully clothed, it is another thing entirely: the only person who jumps into the water fully clothed is a person trying to drown; and a person trying to drown does not dive headfirst; he lets himself fall: thus speaks the immemorial language of gestures.	life philosophical	Milan Kundera
2b1a149	They can send death at once, but life is slower...	philosophical sci-fi	Ursula K. Le Guina K. Le Guin
8b55569	What the hell is instant? Nothing is instant. Instant rice takes five minutes, instant pudding in an hour.	philosophical realization	John Green
17d5d2f	Is Life itself a dream, I wonder?	life philosophical question	Lewis Carroll
8564f82	... the lofty mind of man can be imprisoned by the artifices of its own making.	christopher-marlowe faust faustian faustus grand-plans imprisionment imprison man mankind marlowe mind philosophical planning plans sad-but-true when-plans-go-wrong when-things-fall-apart	E.A. Bucchianeri
7fc2c12	Wandering is never waste, dear boy,' he said. 'While you wander you will find much to wonder about, and wonder is the first step to creation.	pearl-s-buck philosophical the-eternal-wonder	Pearl S. Buck
b3c01dd	There is justice in the world, Peter Lake, but it cannot be had without mystery.	mystery philosophical	Mark Helprin
b4236f5	Even our parents seemed to agree more and more with the television version of things, listening to the reporters' inanities as though they could tell us the truth about our own lives.	philosophical the-virgin-suicides	Jeffrey Eugenides
f5c76c2	God bless the lawn mower, he thought. Who was the fool who made January first New Year's Day? No, they should set a man to watch the grasses across a million Illinois, Ohio, and Iowa lawns, and on that morning when it was long enough for cutting, instead of ratchets and horns and yelling, there should be a great swelling symphony of lawn mowers reaping fresh grass upon the prairie lands. Instead of confetti and serpentine, people should throw grass spray at each other on the one day each year that really represents Beginning!	lawnmower new-year-s-day philosophical	Ray Bradbury
a1dfac6	While the churches, bringing the sweet smell of piety for the soul, came in prancing and farting like brewery horses in bock-beer time, the sister evangelism, with release and joy for the body, crept in. silently and greyly, with its head bowed and its face covered.	humor philosophical	John Steinbeck
e2b39c1	Over and over again I have said that there is no way out of the present impasse. If we were wide awake we would be instantly struck by the horrors which surround us ... We would drop our tools, quit our jobs, deny our obligations, pay no taxes, observe no laws, and so on. Could the man or woman who is thoroughly awakened possibly do the crazy things which are now expected of him or her every moment of the day?	philosophical	Henry Miller
a433d71	The child-like, gum-chewing naivete , the glamour rooted in despair, the self admiring carelessness, the perfected otherness, the wispiness, the shadowy, voyeuristic, vaguely sinister aura, the pale, soft-spoken magical presence, the skin and bones...	description philosophical quote warhol	Andy Warhol
54397dd	Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does:otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story. But in life? I sometimes wonder. Our attitudes and opinions change we develop new habits and eccentricities; but that's something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that the character peaks a little later ;between twenty and thirty, say. And after that we're just stuck with what we've got. We're on our own. If so, that would explain a lot of lives, wouldn't it? And also if this isn't too grand a word--our tragedy.	philosophical psychological the-sense-of-an-ending	Julian Barnes
dfdad21	Would you ask a man who bags groceries if he fears death not because it is death but because there are still some interesting groceries he would like to bag?	humour philosophical	Don DeLillo
8a0e572	Pick a man, any man. That man there. See him. That man hatless. You know his opinion of the world. You can read it in his face, in his stance. Yet his complaint that a man's life is no bargain masks the actual case with him. Which is that men will not do as he wishes them to. Have never done, never will do. That's the way of things with him and his life is so balked about by difficulty and become so altered of its intended architecture that he is little more than a walking hovel hardly fit to house the human spirit at all. Can he say, such a man, that there is no malign thing set against him? That there is no power and no force and no cause? What manner of heretic could doubt agency and claimant alike? Can he believe that the wreckage of his existence is unentailed? No liens, no creditors? That gods of vengeance and of compassion alike lie sleeping in their crypt and whether our cries are for an accounting or for the destruction of the ledgers altogether they must evoke only the same silence and that it is this silence which will prevail?	philosophical religious	Cormac McCarthy
6147d50	[The Void Which Binds] actual but unaccessible presence in our universe is one of the prime causes for our species elaborating myth and religion, for our stubborn, blind belief in extrasensory powers, in telepathy and precognition, in demons and demigods and resurrection and reincarnation and ghosts and messiahs and so many other categories of almost-but-not-quite satisfying bullshit.	philosophical satirical science-fiction	Dan Simmons
844fe9e	O thanatos einai panta apo monos tou mia apodeixe eilikrineias.	philosophical truth	Graham Greene
4b64a22	The same way a compact disk isn't responsible for what's recorded on it, that's how we are. You're about as free to act as a programmed computer. You're about as one-of-a-kind as a dollar bill	free-will freedom individualism individuality philosophical	Chuck Palahniuk
6f6ac42	Terrible times breed terrible things, my lord.	environment greed nurture philosophical philosophy rulers war	George R.R. Martin
9bd00c4	Sometimes, the best thing you can do is nothing. Catelyn	philosophical	George R.R. Martin
de5283a	What if he could see this, his own skull, yellow and eroded? Two centuries old. Would he still speak? Would he speak, if he could see it, the grinning, aged skull? What would there be for him to say, to tell the people? What message could he bring? What action would not be futile, when a man could look upon his own aged, yellowed skull?	philosophical	Philip K. Dick
99a4b06	What is evil?' asked the Fiend	evil existential-questions philosophical	Joseph Delaney
8b72783	Some people, no matter how easy the path they are given on the walk of life, will find a way to mess it all up. Ray Levine was one of those people.	philosophical	Harlan Coben
3bd9b13	"Oh, people get used to so many things," said Vadesh, "if only they give them selves a chance."	human-nature philosophical robots thrill	Orson Scott Card
3fd42cf	Introspection does not need to be a still life. It can be an active alchemy.	introspection philosophical psychological psychology thoughtful	Anaïs Nin
6fa6134	My thought is me: that's why I can't stop. I exist because I think...and I can't stop myself from thinking. At this very moment, it's frightful, if I exist, it is because I am horrified at existing. I am the one who pulls myself from the nothingness to which I aspire: the hatred, the disgust of existing, there are as many ways to make myself exist, to thrust myself into existence. Thoughts are born at the back of me, like sudden giddiness, I feel them being born behind my head...if I yield, they're going to come round in front of me, between my eyes, and I always yield, the thought grows and grows and there it is, immense, filling me completely and renewing my existence.	narrative philosophical	Jean-Paul Sartre
da9bfc8	L'amore e una faccenda intima strana e piena di contraddizioni, visto che non di rado amiamo qualcuno solo perche amiamo noi stessi, per egoismo, avidita, desiderio fisico, brama di dominare l'oggetto d'amore e asservirlo; o al contrario, per desiderio di asservirci e essere dominati dal nostro amante, e in fondo l'amore assomiglia all'odio e gli e piu prossimo di quanto non si pensi normalmente.	jewish love love-and-hate love-hurts love-quotes philosophical philosophy philosophy-of-life religion	Amos Oz
620025e	"You're an unusual person," she said. "Bill didn't like you, but he never likes anything different. He's so--so prosaic. Don't you think that when a person gets older he should become--broadened in his outlook?"	philosophical	Philip K. Dick
a9f9ece	The people there were gods and midgets and knew themselves mortal and so the midgets walked tall so as not to embarrass the gods and the gods crouched so as to make the small ones feel at home.	philosophical	Ray Bradbury
d77a7fe	Night sometimes lends such tragic assistance to catastrophe.	philosophical sad-truth	Victor Hugo
2641a74	And everything was made of paper: sentences, pardons, pleas, bad records, demerits, proof of guilt, but never, it seemed, proof of innocence. If there were no paper, Carter felt, the entire judicial system would collapse and disappear.	paper philosophical	Patricia Highsmith
22df685	Maybe God left it up to people to develop the ability to bring back Christ into their lives. Maybe God wanted us to invent our own savior when we were ready. When we need it most. Denny says maybe it's up to us to create our own messiah. To save ourselves.	philosophical religion	Chuck Palahniuk
6eca494	"How do you keep your emotions so under control, Nicolas? Even when you're doing things that have to bother you?" She glanced up at him to make certain her question hadn't upset him. "I don't do anything unless I believe it is necessary. If it's necessary then there's no reason for me to be bothered by it. The universe has a natural order. I do my best to flow with it and not try to control things outside of myself. The truth is, control is a myth. You can't control another person or even an event. You can only control yourself. So that's what I do."	meditative philosophical	Christine Feehan
fa10d28	io, mio caro, non credo nell'amore universale. L'amore esiste in dosi modiche. Si possono amare forse cinque fra uomini e donne, dieci magari, talvolta financo quindici. E anche questo solo assai di rado. Ma se uno arriva e mi dice che ama tutto il Terzo mondo, o ama l'America Latina, o ama il sesso femminile, quello non e amore ma retorica. Pura demagogia. Slogan. Non siamo nati per amare piu di una manciata di persone.	human-nature humanity jewish jews love-hurts love-quotes philosophical philosophy society	Amos Oz
0631766	Oliver, success is usually a feeling of mere relief, where failure is pain. Happiness, you see, lies in neither, but in sticking to a daily ritual and becoming absorbed in something useful. When the war is over, even the greatest warriors do not exult. They go back to their garden or kitchen or library -- or school -- and resume life. (as said by Mrs. Pearson)	philosophical	Adam Gopnik
175aac2	The problem, of course, was that people did not seem to understand the difference between right and wrong. They needed to be reminded about this, because if you left it to them to work out for themselves, they would never bother. They would just find out what was best for them, and then they would call that the right thing.	philosophical right-and-wrong	Alexander McCall Smith
6773ce8	Everything engravers do gets printed opposite. The engraver has to be able to see it both ways.	opposites philosophical william-blake	Tracy Chevalier
a2bd3c6	Then sense. Use your sense. Not all of us are born for greatness, but all of us have sense. Make use of it. Think. Think long and well.	philosophical thought-provoking	Richard Llewellyn

My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.

inspirational philosophical politics religion religious

Abraham Lincoln

4eb5225

The best things in life make you sweaty.

inspirational life love meaning-of-life philosophical puberty purpose

Edgar Allan Poe

4477c70

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams

happiness inspirational philosophical

Max Ehrmann

9134ca2

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;!

ataraxy coming-of-age fathers-and-sons philosophical

Rudyard Kipling

2c5da30

Death twitches my ear

carpe-diem creepy death death-and-dying inspirational living philosophical philosophy seize-the-day

Virgil

148a2e4

What we like to think of ourselves and what we really are rarely have much in common....

meaningful philosophical realistic

Stephen King

5d71d07

Avoid loud and aggressive persons

inspirational philosophical

Max Ehrmann

2be1e6a

We all can be only who we are, no more, no less.

inspirational kahlan philosophical

Terry Goodkind

de01274

Were knowledge all, what were our nee

inspirational love philosophical poetry

Christopher Brennan

de450d3

This first glance of a soul which does not yet know itself is like dawn in the heavens; it is the awakening of something radiant and unknown.

philosophical romance spiritual inspirational

Victor Hugo

9f5f37d

He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior.

ancient ancient-china ancient-chinese body chinese conquers fighting inspirational philosophical philosophy proverb self-improvement self-realization training warrior

Confucius

f2cf317

Socrates: Have you noticed on our journey how often the citizens of this new land remind each other it is a free country? Plato: I have, and think it odd they do this. Socrates: How so, Plato? Plato: It is like reminding a baker he is a baker, or a sculptor he is a sculptor. Socrates: You mean to say if someone is convinced of their trade, they have no need to be reminded. Plato: That is correct. Socrates: I agree. If these citizens were convinced of their freedom, they would not need reminders.

catholic-author christian citizens civil-liberty free-country freedom freedom-of-thought gadfly liberty philosophers philosophical philosophy plato socrates thought-provoking wisdom words-of-wisdom

E.A. Bucchianeri

b9aa2ed

It is wisdom to recognize necessity when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope.

philosophical

J.R.R. Tolkien

443c5c6

For other people, I can't speak - but, personally, I haven't gotten wise on anything. Certainly, I've been through this and that; and when it happens again, I say to myself, Here it is again. But that doesn't seem to help me. In my opinion, I, personally, have gotten steadily sillier and sillier - and that's a fact.

philosophical

Christopher Isherwood

1d800c1

If you make a deal with a fool, don't be surprised when they act foolishly.

philosophical

Jeffrey Archer

5352ac9

Learn to recognize omens, and follow them

paulo-coelho philosophical the-alchemist

Paulo Coelho

c78be84

This isn't lust. Lust wants, does the obvious, and pads back into the forest. Love is greedier. Love wants round-the-clock care; protection; rings, vows, joint accounts; scented candles on birthdays; life insurance. Babies. Love's a dictator.

inspirational love philosophical philosophy the-bone-clocks

David Mitchell

ef12465

Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man's values, it has to be earned. His own happiness is man's only moral purpose, but only his own virtue can achieve it...Life is the reward of virtue- and happiness is the goal and the reward of life. Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy- a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your won destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but using your mind's fullest power. Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seek nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing bu rational actions. The symbol of all relationships among such men, the moral symbol of respect for human beings, is the trade...A trader is a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take the undeserved.

objectivism philosophical philosophy

Ayn Rand

b13b73b

The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour.

dressing innovation introspection melancholy philosophical philosophy progress thinking thought

Ray Bradbury

ff26529

The individual soul touches upon the world soul like a well reaches for the water table. That which sustains the universe beyond thought and language, and that which is at the core of us and struggles for expression, is the same thing. The finite within the infinite, the infinite within the finite.

philosophical

Yann Martel

4d71864

Things are not always as bad as they seem. Sometimes, the darkness only makes it easier to see the light.

optimism philosophical

Jim Butcher

5bbb7a9

You put on a bishop's robe and miter, he pondered, and walk around in that, and people bow and genuflect and like that, and try to kiss your ring, if not your ass, and pretty soon you're a bishop. So to speak. What is identity? he asked himself. Where does the act end? Nobody knows.

identity philosophical

Philip K. Dick

63613c9

All life is theatre,' he said. 'We are all actors, you and I, in a play which nobody wrote and which nobody will see. We have no audience but ourselves....

philosophical theater theatre

Susan Cooper

32ea0b3

This is the story of a man named Eddie and it starts at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun. It may seem strange to start a story with and ending, but all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time.

inspirational opening-lines philosophical

Mitch Albom

a1295c3

All roads lead to Trantor, and that is where all stars end.

mystery philosophical

Isaac Asimov

60fab14

Your moral code begins by damning man as evil, then demands that he practice a good which it defines as impossible for him to practice...It demands that he starts, not with a standard of value, but with a standard of evil, which is himself, by means of which he is then to define the good: the good is that which he is not. A sin without volition is a slap at morality and an isolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of choice is outside the province of morality. If man is evil by birth, he has no will, no power to change it; if he has no will, he can be neither good nor evil; a robot is amoral. To hold a man's sin, a fact not open to his choice is a mockery of morality...To punish him for a crime he committed before he was born is a mockery of justice. To hold him guilty in a matter where no innocence exists is a mockery of reason. (The) myth decleares that he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge-he acquired a mind and became a rational being. It was the knowledge of good and evil-he became a moral being...The evils for which they damn him are reasn, morality, creativeness, joy-all the cardinal values of his existence....the essence of his nature as a man. Whatever he was- that robot in the Garden of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love- he was not a man.

philosophical philosophy

Ayn Rand

cc8c628

"The 21st chapter gives the novel the quality of genuine fiction, an art founded on the principle that human beings change. ----- "A Clockwork Orange Resucked" intro to first full American version 1986"

american intro introduction irony philosophical

Anthony Burgess

e4319ec

There is a coherence in things, a stability; something... is immune from change and shines out... in the face of the flowing, the fleeting, the spectral, like a ruby.

philosophical

Virginia Woolf

7900147

Because beyond their practical function, all gestures have a meaning that exceeds the intention of those who make them; when people in bathing suits fling themselves into the water, it is joy itself that shows in the gesture, notwithstanding any sadness the divers may actually feel. When someone jumps into the water fully clothed, it is another thing entirely: the only person who jumps into the water fully clothed is a person trying to drown; and a person trying to drown does not dive headfirst; he lets himself fall: thus speaks the immemorial language of gestures.

life philosophical

Milan Kundera

2b1a149

They can send death at once, but life is slower...

philosophical sci-fi

Ursula K. Le Guina K. Le Guin

8b55569

What the hell is instant? Nothing is instant. Instant rice takes five minutes, instant pudding in an hour.

philosophical realization

John Green

17d5d2f

Is Life itself a dream, I wonder?

life philosophical question

Lewis Carroll

8564f82

... the lofty mind of man can be imprisoned by the artifices of its own making.

christopher-marlowe faust faustian faustus grand-plans imprisionment imprison man mankind marlowe mind philosophical planning plans sad-but-true when-plans-go-wrong when-things-fall-apart

E.A. Bucchianeri

7fc2c12

Wandering is never waste, dear boy,' he said. 'While you wander you will find much to wonder about, and wonder is the first step to creation.

pearl-s-buck philosophical the-eternal-wonder

Pearl S. Buck

b3c01dd

There is justice in the world, Peter Lake, but it cannot be had without mystery.

mystery philosophical

Mark Helprin

b4236f5

Even our parents seemed to agree more and more with the television version of things, listening to the reporters' inanities as though they could tell us the truth about our own lives.

philosophical the-virgin-suicides

Jeffrey Eugenides

f5c76c2

God bless the lawn mower, he thought. Who was the fool who made January first New Year's Day? No, they should set a man to watch the grasses across a million Illinois, Ohio, and Iowa lawns, and on that morning when it was long enough for cutting, instead of ratchets and horns and yelling, there should be a great swelling symphony of lawn mowers reaping fresh grass upon the prairie lands. Instead of confetti and serpentine, people should throw grass spray at each other on the one day each year that really represents Beginning!

lawnmower new-year-s-day philosophical

Ray Bradbury

a1dfac6

While the churches, bringing the sweet smell of piety for the soul, came in prancing and farting like brewery horses in bock-beer time, the sister evangelism, with release and joy for the body, crept in. silently and greyly, with its head bowed and its face covered.

humor philosophical

John Steinbeck

e2b39c1

Over and over again I have said that there is no way out of the present impasse. If we were wide awake we would be instantly struck by the horrors which surround us ... We would drop our tools, quit our jobs, deny our obligations, pay no taxes, observe no laws, and so on. Could the man or woman who is thoroughly awakened possibly do the crazy things which are now expected of him or her every moment of the day?

philosophical

Henry Miller

a433d71

The child-like, gum-chewing naivete , the glamour rooted in despair, the self admiring carelessness, the perfected otherness, the wispiness, the shadowy, voyeuristic, vaguely sinister aura, the pale, soft-spoken magical presence, the skin and bones...

description philosophical quote warhol

Andy Warhol

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Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does:otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story. But in life? I sometimes wonder. Our attitudes and opinions change we develop new habits and eccentricities; but that's something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that the character peaks a little later ;between twenty and thirty, say. And after that we're just stuck with what we've got. We're on our own. If so, that would explain a lot of lives, wouldn't it? And also if this isn't too grand a word--our tragedy.

philosophical psychological the-sense-of-an-ending

Julian Barnes

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Would you ask a man who bags groceries if he fears death not because it is death but because there are still some interesting groceries he would like to bag?

humour philosophical

Don DeLillo

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Pick a man, any man. That man there. See him. That man hatless. You know his opinion of the world. You can read it in his face, in his stance. Yet his complaint that a man's life is no bargain masks the actual case with him. Which is that men will not do as he wishes them to. Have never done, never will do. That's the way of things with him and his life is so balked about by difficulty and become so altered of its intended architecture that he is little more than a walking hovel hardly fit to house the human spirit at all. Can he say, such a man, that there is no malign thing set against him? That there is no power and no force and no cause? What manner of heretic could doubt agency and claimant alike? Can he believe that the wreckage of his existence is unentailed? No liens, no creditors? That gods of vengeance and of compassion alike lie sleeping in their crypt and whether our cries are for an accounting or for the destruction of the ledgers altogether they must evoke only the same silence and that it is this silence which will prevail?

philosophical religious

Cormac McCarthy

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[The Void Which Binds] actual but unaccessible presence in our universe is one of the prime causes for our species elaborating myth and religion, for our stubborn, blind belief in extrasensory powers, in telepathy and precognition, in demons and demigods and resurrection and reincarnation and ghosts and messiahs and so many other categories of almost-but-not-quite satisfying bullshit.

philosophical satirical science-fiction

Dan Simmons

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O thanatos einai panta apo monos tou mia apodeixe eilikrineias.

philosophical truth

Graham Greene

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The same way a compact disk isn't responsible for what's recorded on it, that's how we are. You're about as free to act as a programmed computer. You're about as one-of-a-kind as a dollar bill

free-will freedom individualism individuality philosophical

Chuck Palahniuk

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Terrible times breed terrible things, my lord.

environment greed nurture philosophical philosophy rulers war

George R.R. Martin

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Sometimes, the best thing you can do is nothing. Catelyn

philosophical

George R.R. Martin

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What if he could see this, his own skull, yellow and eroded? Two centuries old. Would he still speak? Would he speak, if he could see it, the grinning, aged skull? What would there be for him to say, to tell the people? What message could he bring? What action would not be futile, when a man could look upon his own aged, yellowed skull?

philosophical

Philip K. Dick

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What is evil?' asked the Fiend

evil existential-questions philosophical

Joseph Delaney

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Some people, no matter how easy the path they are given on the walk of life, will find a way to mess it all up. Ray Levine was one of those people.

philosophical

Harlan Coben

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"Oh, people get used to so many things," said Vadesh, "if only they give them selves a chance."

human-nature philosophical robots thrill

Orson Scott Card

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Introspection does not need to be a still life. It can be an active alchemy.

introspection philosophical psychological psychology thoughtful

Anaïs Nin

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My thought is me: that's why I can't stop. I exist because I think...and I can't stop myself from thinking. At this very moment, it's frightful, if I exist, it is because I am horrified at existing. I am the one who pulls myself from the nothingness to which I aspire: the hatred, the disgust of existing, there are as many ways to make myself exist, to thrust myself into existence. Thoughts are born at the back of me, like sudden giddiness, I feel them being born behind my head...if I yield, they're going to come round in front of me, between my eyes, and I always yield, the thought grows and grows and there it is, immense, filling me completely and renewing my existence.

narrative philosophical

Jean-Paul Sartre

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L'amore e una faccenda intima strana e piena di contraddizioni, visto che non di rado amiamo qualcuno solo perche amiamo noi stessi, per egoismo, avidita, desiderio fisico, brama di dominare l'oggetto d'amore e asservirlo; o al contrario, per desiderio di asservirci e essere dominati dal nostro amante, e in fondo l'amore assomiglia all'odio e gli e piu prossimo di quanto non si pensi normalmente.

jewish love love-and-hate love-hurts love-quotes philosophical philosophy philosophy-of-life religion

Amos Oz

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"You're an unusual person," she said. "Bill didn't like you, but he never likes anything different. He's so--so prosaic. Don't you think that when a person gets older he should become--broadened in his outlook?"

philosophical

Philip K. Dick

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The people there were gods and midgets and knew themselves mortal and so the midgets walked tall so as not to embarrass the gods and the gods crouched so as to make the small ones feel at home.

philosophical

Ray Bradbury

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Night sometimes lends such tragic assistance to catastrophe.

philosophical sad-truth

Victor Hugo

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And everything was made of paper: sentences, pardons, pleas, bad records, demerits, proof of guilt, but never, it seemed, proof of innocence. If there were no paper, Carter felt, the entire judicial system would collapse and disappear.

paper philosophical

Patricia Highsmith

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Maybe God left it up to people to develop the ability to bring back Christ into their lives. Maybe God wanted us to invent our own savior when we were ready. When we need it most. Denny says maybe it's up to us to create our own messiah. To save ourselves.

philosophical religion

Chuck Palahniuk

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"How do you keep your emotions so under control, Nicolas? Even when you're doing things that have to bother you?" She glanced up at him to make certain her question hadn't upset him. "I don't do anything unless I believe it is necessary. If it's necessary then there's no reason for me to be bothered by it. The universe has a natural order. I do my best to flow with it and not try to control things outside of myself. The truth is, control is a myth. You can't control another person or even an event. You can only control yourself. So that's what I do."

meditative philosophical

Christine Feehan

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io, mio caro, non credo nell'amore universale. L'amore esiste in dosi modiche. Si possono amare forse cinque fra uomini e donne, dieci magari, talvolta financo quindici. E anche questo solo assai di rado. Ma se uno arriva e mi dice che ama tutto il Terzo mondo, o ama l'America Latina, o ama il sesso femminile, quello non e amore ma retorica. Pura demagogia. Slogan. Non siamo nati per amare piu di una manciata di persone.

human-nature humanity jewish jews love-hurts love-quotes philosophical philosophy society

Amos Oz

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Oliver, success is usually a feeling of mere relief, where failure is pain. Happiness, you see, lies in neither, but in sticking to a daily ritual and becoming absorbed in something useful. When the war is over, even the greatest warriors do not exult. They go back to their garden or kitchen or library -- or school -- and resume life. (as said by Mrs. Pearson)

philosophical

Adam Gopnik

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The problem, of course, was that people did not seem to understand the difference between right and wrong. They needed to be reminded about this, because if you left it to them to work out for themselves, they would never bother. They would just find out what was best for them, and then they would call that the right thing.

philosophical right-and-wrong

Alexander McCall Smith

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Everything engravers do gets printed opposite. The engraver has to be able to see it both ways.

opposites philosophical william-blake

Tracy Chevalier

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Then sense. Use your sense. Not all of us are born for greatness, but all of us have sense. Make use of it. Think. Think long and well.

philosophical thought-provoking

Richard Llewellyn