Remy de Gourmont Quotes

In the world of knowledge, the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with effort.

Scientia is knowledge. It is only in the popular mind that it is equated with facts.

Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.

I believe in general in a dualism between facts and the ideas of those facts in human heads.

Philosophy is for the few.

The Russian yearning for the meaning of life is the major theme of our literature, and this is the real point of our intelligentsia's existence.

One of the worst muddles of this age is its confusing of the ideas behind combative and cognitive activity. Cognition is not fighting, but once someone knows a lot, he will have much to fight for.

Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind

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

I want to study philosophy. That fascinates me.

Man positively needs general ideas and convictions that will give a meaning to his life and enable him to find a place for himself in the universe.

[It's] troubling because it reminds us how difficult it is to prove anything. We like to pretend that our experiments define the truth for us. But that's often not the case. Just because an idea is true doesn't mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn't mean it's true. When the experiments are done, we still have to choose what to believe.

Ideas are so much flat psychological surface unless some mirrored matter gives them cognitive lustre. This is why as a pragmatistI have so carefully posited 'reality' ab initio, and why throughout my whole discussion, I remain an epistemologist realist.

Today the earth is populated with billions of people desperately hoping to “get somewhere,” but having no idea of where they’re going.

Man cannot live without some knowledge of the purpose of life. If he can find no purpose in life he creates one in the inevitability of death.

The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live.

The end of all knowledge should be in virtuous action.

What gives life its value if not its constant cry for self-transcendence?

A theory of personal resurrection or reincarnation of the individual is untenable when we but pause to consider the magnitude of the idea. On the contrary, I must believe that rather than the survival of all, we must look for survival only in the spirit of the good we have done in passing through.Once obsolete, an automobile is thrown to the scrap heap. Once here and gone, the human life has likewise served its purpose. If it has been a good life, it has been sufficient. There is no need for another.

Of all the things which man can do or make here below, by far the most momentous, wonderful, and worthy are the things we call books.

I find that I can have no enjoyment in the world but the continual drinking of knowledge. I find there is no worthy pursuit but the idea of doing some good for the world.

For us there is no ignorabimus, and in my opinion none whatever in natural science. In opposition to the foolish ignorabimus our slogan shall be: "We must know - we will know!"

Intellectual beauty is sufficient unto itself, and only for it rather than for the future good of humanity does the scholar condemn himself to arduous and painful labors.

Theories then are dangerous things.

The end of being is to know; and if you say, the end of knowledge is action,-why, yes, but the end of that action again, is knowledge.