Hippolyte Taine Quotes

Poets are the sense, philosophers the intelligence of humanity.

Science and literature give me answers. And they ask me questions I will never be able to answer.

The history of thought may be summed up in these words: it is absurd by what it seeks and great by what it finds.

In other philosophies, my questions would get answered to some degree, but then I would have a follow-up question and there would be no answer. The logic would dead-end. In Scientology you can find answers for anything you could ever think to ask. These are not pushed off on you as, 'This is the answer, you have to believe in it.' In Scientology you discover for yourself what is true for you.

It is a proof of philosophical mediocrity, today, to look for a philosophy.

The book exists for us perchance which will explain our miracles and and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered. These same questions that disturb and puzzle and confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men; not one has been omitted; and each has answered them, according to his ability, by his words and his life.

He could dismiss several schools of philosophy by shifting slightly in his chair or toting his whisky glass.

The business of philosophy is to circumnavigate human nature.

Philosophy is the sum total of all that you know and what you decide is valuable.

What is it to be a philosopher? Is it not to be prepared against events?

Philosophy cannot be taught; it is the application of the sciences to truth.

Ever since Kant divorced reason from reality, his intellectual descendants have been diligently widening the breach.

Said the master: "Where does your question come from?"

Philosophy is in fact a quest for wisdom based in sophia; that quest for wisdom has everything to do with a love of wisdom.

The problem of restoring integration and co-operation between man's beliefs about the world in which he lives and his beliefs about values and purposes that should direct his conduct is the deepest problem modern life. It is the problem of any philosophy that is not isolated from life.

Are you a philosopher? Where's your sponge?

Philosophy takes as her aim the state of happiness...she shows us what are real and what are only apparent evils. She strips men's minds of empty thinking, bestows a greatness that is solid and administers a check to greatness where it is puffed up and all an empty show; she sees that we are left no doubt about the difference between what is great and what is bloated.

Only fools and philosophers waste time on the unknowable.

We thought philosophy ought to be patient and unravel people's mental blocks. Trouble with doing that is, once you've unravelled them, their heads fall off.

The way towards 'wisdom' or towards 'freedom' is the way towards your inner being. This is the simplest definition of metaphysics.

Information is endlessly available to us; where shall wisdom be found?

Anyone who can look me in the eye and say they prefer the story of Moses or Jesus or Mohammed to the life of Socrates is intellectually defective.

Philosophy is fundamentally about how you come to terms with living your life and trying to do it in a wise manner, and, for me, that means decently and compassionately and courageously and so forth.

For myself, I am interested in science and in philosophy only because I want to learn something about the riddle of the world in which we live, and the riddle of man's knowledge of that world. And I believe that only a revival of interest in these riddles can save the sciences and philosophy from an obscurantist faith in the expert's special skill and in his personal knowledge and authority.

There's simply no philosophizing without a love of wisdom, absolutely.