A creative element is surely present in all great systems, and it does not seem possible that all sympathy or fundamental attitudes of will can be entirely eliminated from any human philosophy.

Liberalism regards life as an adventure in which we must take risks in new situation, in which there is no guarantee that the new will always be the good or the true, in which progress is a precarious achievement rather than inevitability.

Cruel persecutions and intolerance are not accidents, but grow out of the very essence of religion, namely, its absolute claims.

The picture which the philosopher draws of the world is surely not one in which every stroke is necessitated by pure logic.

It has generally been assumed that of two opposing systems of philosophy, e.g., realism and idealism, one only can be true and one must be false; and so philosophers have been hopelessly divided on the question, which is the true one.

It is not impossible to think that the minds of philosophers sometimes act like those of other mortals, and that, having once been determined by diverse circumstances to adopt certain views, they then look for and naturally find reasons to justify these views.

This open eye for possible alternatives which need to be scrutinized before we can determine which is the best grounded is profoundly disconcerting to all conservatives and to almost all revolutionaries.

Law is a formless mass of isolated decisions.

Lastly, literature and philosophy both allow past idols to be resurrected with a frequency which would be truly distressing to a sober scientist.

The method of exposition which philosophers have adopted leads many to suppose that they are simply inquiries, that they have no interest in the conclusions at which they arrive, and that their primary concern is to follow their premises to their logical conclusions.

If religion cannot restrain evil, it cannot claim effective power for good.

Again, both literature and philosophy work by appealing to certain reigning idols.

In thus pointing out certain respects in which philosophy resembles literature more than science, I do not mean, of course, to imply that it would be well for philosophy if it ceased to aim at scientific rigor.

Liberalism is an attitude rather than a set of dogmas - an attitude that insists upon questioning all plausible and self-evident propositions, seeking not to reject them but to find out what evidence there is to support them rather than their possible alternatives.

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

If a philosophic theory is once ruled out of court, no one can tell when it will appear again.

To be sure, the vast majority of people who are untrained can accept the results of science only on authority.

Literature and philosophy both allow past idols to be resurrected with a frequency which would be truly distressing to a sober scientist.

Conservatism clings to what has been established, fearing that, once we begin to question the beliefs that we have inherited, all the values of life will be destroyed.

Liberalism, on the other hand, regards life as an adventure in which we must take risks in new situations, in which there is no guarantee that the new will always be the good or the true, in which progress is a precarious achievement rather than inevitability.

A creative element is surely present in all great systems, and it does not seem possible that all sympathy or fundamental attitudes of will can be entirely eliminated from any human philosophy.

Cruel persecutions and intolerance are not accidents, but grow out of the very essence of religion, namely, its absolute claims.

When he was twenty-three or twenty-four my father began to learn German and read philosophy in his spare hours, which did not look as though he were destined to remain long on board ship!

I am now convinced that theoretical physics is actually philosophy.

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.

Philosophy finds it an easy matter to vanquish past and future evils, but the present are commonly too hard for it.

In Hungary, acting is a career for which one fits himself as earnestly as one studies for a degree in medicine, law, or philosophy.

I'm working harder than ever now, and I'm putting on my pants the same as I always have. I just get up every day and try to do a little better than the day before, and that is to run a great restaurant with great food, great wine, and great service. That's my philosophy.

It's clear to me that there is no good reason for many philosophy books to sound as complicated as they do.

Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains.

I'd like to do policy and I'd like to do philosophy, I'd like to be able to get into the depth, into the meat of the argument - that's the kind of stuff I want to do.

Aphorisms are the true form of the universal philosophy.

We live in a world in which politics has replaced philosophy.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

I have two children. I have a daughter 29, and a daughter four. They are 25 years apart, so you speak about generations and I must tell you, I have a philosophy and that is every 25 years I'm going to sire another child.

What is your aim in philosophy? To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.

Even if we don't know it or aren't aware of it, politics and philosophy are really what make our up lives.

There is no religion in which everyday life is not considered a prison; there is no philosophy or ideology that does not think that we live in alienation.

In philosophy, it is not the attainment of the goal that matters, it is the things that are met along the way.

Punk rock really came out of N.Y. as a philosophy before the groups were ever recorded. I had a kind-of intellectual interest in the idea of creating a new scene that could be a grassroots thing.

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

When truth has no burning, then it is philosophy, when it gets burning from the heart, it becomes poetry.

It's almost like a lot of black people in America, a lot of young black men, are born with this cloud over their heads. It's their penitentiary cloud, this philosophy we all have, that it's harder for us.

Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.

The proverbial philosophy of a people helps us to understand more about them than any other kind of literature.

However, while the Nazi barbarians and their collaborators threatened the entire world, I could not accept his philosophy and, after several earlier attempts, was finally accepted into the Canadian Infantry Corps during the last year of World War II.

Kant introduced the concept of the negative into philosophy. Would it not also be worthwhile to try to introduce the concept of the positive into philosophy?

My philosophy was, if I just do good work, someone will like it enough to employ me. It never made me famous. And I'm way, way too old now, mate. That boat's sailed.

I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time.