Philosophical Ideals Quotes

When the Constituent Assembly engaged men of letters to research the penal code in order to repeal the death penalty, even for the condemned, did they imagine that after four years of a revolution enlightened by philosophical ideals, the French would, without cease, kill their fellow citizens?

The Lives of Great Men are more oft' at variance with their profess'd Phillosophies than consistent with 'em.

I think [Karl] Marx, Pope John XXIII or Rosa Luxemburg [had achieved the mode of existence].But it would be useless to look at a list of illustrious names.

Universalism as an ideal is as old as nay, is probably much more ancient than the Christian ideal.

Daily meditation keeps me sane. I memorize prayers or poems that express my highest spiritual ideals, and quietly, word for word, go through the prayer first thing in the morning. Julian of Norwich or St. Francis or the compassionate Buddha. It's called passage meditation. You internalize the perennial philosophies.

God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: 'This is my country.'

Justice, truth, and beauty are sisters and comrades. With three such beautiful words we have no need to look for any others.

Ideals we do not make. We discover, not invent, them.

Values exist in a transcendental realm, beyond space and time. They can neither be fought for, nor destroyed.

Truth and right are above utility in all realms of thought and action.

No philosopher's stone of a constitution can produce golden conduct from leaden instincts.

America has shown how a free people can found a democracy shorn of all the terrors which for so many ages haunted the dreams of philosophers.