Oswald Spengler Quotes

Do not imagine that what we have said of the insufficiency of our understanding and of its limited extent is an assertion founded only on the Bible: for philosophers likewise assert the same, and perfectly understand it,- without having regard to any religion or opinion.

Logic works, metaphysics contemplates.

Philosophy wasn't about facts, it was about ideas. My first essay title was something like: 'How can you know what other people are thinking?' I thought, 'Wow, what an amazing thing.' I really thought deeply for the first time.

To those who have exhausted politics, nothing remains but abstract thought.

Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy.

The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.

This means that no single logic is strong enough to support the total construction of human knowledge.

The dynamic element in my philosophy, taken as a whole, can be seen as an obstinate and untiring battle against the spirit of abstraction.

You can't do without philosophy, since everything has its hidden meaning which we must know.

Hard distinctions make bad philosophy.

About no subject is there less philosophizing than about philosophy.

Philosophy likes to keen common sense on the run.

Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

There is no philosophy without the art of ignoring objections.

Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.

Philosophy is easier than politics.

All human knowledge thus begins with intuitions, proceeds thence to concepts, and ends with ideas.

Intellectuals are people who manage the world in their head. They look at life and try to see some kind of truth, and if they cannot find it, they attempt to create it.

At any point, the sum total of human knowledge is not, 'Here's the world as it is perfectly,' it's, 'Here's the best we know so far and we're always willing to be proven wrong.'

I'm a liberal arts comedian and the definition of liberal arts is all spheres of human knowledge, coexisting, mixing and influencing each other.

We're not accustomed to judging things on philosophical importance.

Philosophy teaches you to think big.

Only the philosophical question is perennial, not the answers.

To create a healthy philosophy you should renounce metaphysics but be a good mathematician.