Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Philosophy
A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.
Bacon—Essays. Atheism.
Sublime Philosophy!
Thou art the patriarch’s ladder, reaching heaven;
And bright with beckoning angels—but alas!
We see thee, like the patriarch, but in dreams,
By the first step,—dull slumbering on the earth.
Bulwer-Lytton—Richelieu. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 4.
Beside, he was a shrewd philosopher,
And had read ev’ry text and gloss over
Whate’er the crabbed’st author hath,
He understood b’ implicit faith.
Butler—Hudibras. Pt. I. Canto I. L. 127.
Before Philosophy can teach by Experience, the Philosophy has to be in readiness, the Experience must be gathered and intelligibly recorded.
Carlyle—Essays. On History.
O vitæ philosophia dux! O virtutis indagatrix, expultrixque vitiorum! Quid non modo nos, sed omnino vita hominum sine et esse potuisset? Tu urbes peperisti; tu dissipatos homines in societatum vitæ convocasti.
O philosophy, life’s guide! O searcher-out of virtue and expeller of vices! What could we and every age of men have been without thee? Thou hast produced cities; thou hast called men scattered about into the social enjoyment of life.
Cicero—Tusc. Quæst. Bk. V. 2. 5.
The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.
Denis Diderot—Last Conversation.
The Beginning of Philosophy***is a Consciousness of your own Weakness and inability in necessary things.
Epictetus—Discourses. Bk. II. Ch. XI. St. 1.
Philosophy goes no further than probabilities, and in every assertion keeps a doubt in reserve.
Froude—Short Studies on Great Subjects. Calvinism.
This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey.
Goldsmith—The Good-Natured Man. Act I.
How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh, and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo’s lute,
And a perpetual feast of nectar’d sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns.
Milton—Mask of Comus. L. 476.
That stone,***
Philosophers in vain so long have sought.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. III. L. 600.
Se moquer de la philosophie c’est vraiment philosophe.
To ridicule philosophy is truly philosophical.
Pascal—Pensées. Art. VII. 35.
Philosophy is nothing but Discretion.
John Selden—Table Talk. Philosophy.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 5. L. 166. (“Our philosophy” in some readings.)
Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy.
Romeo and Juliet. Act III. Sc. 3. L. 55.
The philosopher is Nature’s pilot. And there you have our difference: to be in hell is to drift: to be in heaven is to steer.
Bernard Shaw—Man and Superman. Act III. L. 509.
La clarté est la bonne foi des philosophes.
Clearness marks the sincerity of philosophers.
Vauvenargues—Pensées Diverses. No. 372. Gilbert’s ed. 1857. Vol. I. P. 475.
The bosom-weight, your stubborn gift,
That no philosophy can lift.
Wordsworth—Presentiments.
Why should not grave Philosophy be styled.
Herself, a dreamer of a kindred stock,
A dreamer, yet more spiritless and dull?
Wordsworth—The Excursion. Bk. III.