#philosophers

The tendency to gather and to breed philosophers in universities does not belong to ages of free and humane reflection: it is scholastic and proper to the Middle Ages and to Germany. ↗

— George Santayana

#belong #breed #does #free #gather

A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known. ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#appeared #known #led #man #obviously

That's why it's always worth having a few philosophers around the place. One minute it's all is truth beauty and is beauty truth, and does a falling tree in the forest make a sound if there's no one there to hear it, and then just when you think they're going to start dribbling one of 'em says, incidentally, putting a thirty-foot parabolic reflector on a high place to shoot the rays of the sun at an enemy's ships would be a very interesting demonstration of optical principles. ↗

— Terry Pratchett

#beauty

And usually [the philosopher] philosophizes either in order to resign himself to life, or to seek some finality in it, or to distract himself and forget his griefs, or for pastime and amusement. ↗

— Miguel de Unamuno

#life

It has always surprised me how little attention philosophers have paid to humor, since it is a more significant process of mind than reason. Reason can only sort out perceptions, but the humor process is involved in changing them. ↗

— Edward de Bono

#attention #changing #how #humor #involved

Philosophers and theologians have argued for centuries over the morality of targeted assassinations - a technique that the Israelis use with some frequency - without ever reaching anything approaching consensus. ↗

— Eric Alterman

#approaching #argued #assassinations #centuries #consensus

Philosophers are adults who persist in asking childish questions. ↗

— Isaiah Berlin

#childish #persist #philosophers #questions #who

Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today - but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all. ↗

— Isaac Asimov

#core #critics #crucial #essence #ever

St. Paul would say to the philosophers that God created man so that he would seek the Divine, try to attain the Divine. That is why all pre-Christian philosophy is theological at its summit. ↗

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

#created #divine #god #man #paul

We are not to give credit to the many, who say that none ought to be educated but the free; but rather to the philosophers, who say that the well-educated alone are free. ↗

— Epictetus

#credit #educated #free #give #many