In it he proves that all things are true and states how the truths of all contradictions may be reconciled physically, such as for example that white is black and black is white; that one can be and not be at the same time; that there can be hills without valleys; that nothingness is something and that everything, which is, is not. But take note that he proves all these unheard-of paradoxes without any fallacious or sophistical reasoning.

What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind.

Real philosophy seeks rather to solve than to deny.

One may summon his philosophy when they are beaten in battle, not till then.

Tell me what gives a man or woman their greatest pleasure and I'll tell you their philosophy of life.

To philosophize is only another way of being afraid and leads hardly anywhere but to cowardly make-believe.

There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it.

Philosophy is a bully that talks loud when the danger is at a distant; but, the moment she is pressed hard by an enemy, she is nowhere to be found and leaves the brunt of the battle to be fought by her steady, humble comrade, religion.

I have tried too in my time to be a philosopher; but, I don't know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in.

If you set your heart upon philosophy, you must straightway prepare yourself to be laughed at and mocked by many who will say Behold a philosopher arisen among us! or How came you by that brow of scorn? But do you cherish no scorn, but hold to those things which seem to you the best, as one set by God in that place. Remember too, that if you abide in those ways, those who first mocked you, the same shall afterwards reverence you; but if you yield to them, you will be laughed at twice as much as before.

As an example of just how useless these philosophers are for any practice in life there is Socrates himself, the one and only wise man, according to the Delphic Oracle. Whenever he tried to do anything in public he had to break off amid general laughter. While he was philosophizing about clouds and ideas, measuring a flea's foot and marveling at a midge's humming, he learned nothing about the affairs of ordinary life.

Philosophy goes no further than probabilities, and in every assertion keeps a doubt in reserve.

The courage of the truth is the first condition of philosophic study.

I know that you, ladies and gentlemen, have a philosophy, each and all of you, and that the most interesting and important thing about you is the way in which it determines the perspective in your several worlds.

All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine in the three following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to !. What may I hope?

If this is philosophy it is at any rate a philosophy that is not in its right mind.

When philosophers try to be politicians they generally cease to be philosophers.

Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself.

Philosophy is doubt.

Every philosophy is the philosophy of some stage of life.

The origins of disputes between philosophers is, that one class of them have undertaken to raise man by displaying his greatness, and the other to debase him by showing his miseries.

Apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there?

Reason, progress, unselfishness, a wide historical perspective, expansiveness, generosity, enlightened self-interest. I had heard it all my life, and it filled me with despair.

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.

When he who hears does not know what he who speaks means, and when he who speaks does not know what he himself means, that is philosophy.

Philosophy is the product of wonder.

A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.

Being a philosopher, I have a problem for every solution.