Edward Gibbon Quotes

What I always liked about Socrates was his insistence on questioning things for the sake of reaching some sort of clarity - even if it is only clarity about the gaps in our knowledge.

I am aware that a philosopher's ideas are not subject to the judgment of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavour to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God.

It is, I think, particularly in periods of acknowledged crisis that scientists have turned to philosophical analysis as a device for unlocking the riddles of their field. Scientists have not generally needed or wanted to be philosophers.

I would not say that I was, these days, a 'student' of philosophy, although in my youth I was quite deeply involved with certain aspects of the British pragmatists.

It should now be clear why the method of Philosophy is so different from that of the natural sciences. Experiments are not made, because they would be utterly useless.

I'm not sure what theory is, unless it's the pursuit of fundamental questions.

Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.

Indeed heresies are themselves instigated by philosophy.

I arrived from Harvard, where I had studied philosophy and the history of ideas, with a bias toward literature and formal thought.

We have to make philosophy itself an object of philosophical concern.

The word philosophy sounds high-minded, but it simply means the love of wisdom. If you love something, you don't just read about it; you hug it, you mess with it, you play with it, you argue with it.

Without philosophy, history is always for me dead and dumb.

The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.

Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and justification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical.

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.

The true function of philosophy is to educate us in the principles of reasoning and not to put an end to further reasoning by the introduction of fixed conclusions.

Since philosophy now criticizes everything it comes across, a critique of philosophy would be nothing less than a just reprisal.

The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, seek simplicity and distrust it.

Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.

Let philosophy resolutely aim to be as scientific as possible, but let her not forget her strong kinship with literature.

The great benefit of philosophy, which is also its great weakness, is that all its steps are taken in the spirit of doubt.

In general, I agree with Socrates that what democracies badly need is the examined life, and we need to think critically about ourselves.

That's something I learned as a philosophy major: The philosophy ethos is, always question, never rest.

Be attentive, feel nothing in vain, measure and compare: this is the whole law of philosophy.

Professional philosophers are usually only apologists: that is, they are absorbed in defending some vested illusion or some eloquent idea. Like lawyers or detectives, they study the case for which they are retained.