#philosophic

The letter is only an aid to philosophical communication, the actual essence of which consists in arousing a particular train of thought. Someone speaking thinks and produces—someone listening reflects—and reproduces. Words are a deceptive medium for what is already though—unreliable vehicles of a particular, specific stimulus. The true teacher is a guide. If the pupil genuinely desires truth it requires only a hint to show him how to find what he is seeking. Accordingly the representation of philosophy consists purely of themes—of initial propositions—principles. It exists only for autonomous lovers of truth. The analytical exposition of the theme is only for those who are sluggish or unpracticed. The latter must learn thereby how to fly and keep themselves moving in a particular direction. Attentiveness is a centripetal force. The effective relation between that which is directed and the object of direction begins with the given direction. If we hold fast to this direction we are apodictically certain of reaching the goal that has been set. True collaboration in philosophy then is a common movement toward a beloved world—whereby we relieve each other in the most advanced outpost, a movement that demands the greatest effort against the resisting element within which we are flying. ↗

— Novalis

#communication

No matter how many plans you make or how much in control you are, life is always winging it. ↗

— Carroll Bryant

#life-and-living #philosophical #philosophy-of-life #spontaneity #death

And how do I know that the hate of death is not like a man who has lost his home when young and does not know where his home is to return to? ↗

— Zhuangzi

#death

If Christ is God, He cannot sin, and if suffering was a sin in and by itself, He could not have suffered and died for us. However, since He took the most horrific death to redeem us, He showed us in fact that suffering and pain have great power. ↗

— E.A. Bucchianeri

#cross #death #death-and-dying #god #good-friday

Name none of the fallen, for they stand in our place, and stand there still in each moment of our lives. Let my death hold no glory, and let me die forgotten and unknown. Let it not be said that I was one among the dead to accuse the living." ~Duiker, pg. 353 Malazan Book of the Fallen, Deadhouse Gates ↗

— Steven Erikson

#death

Ο θάνατος είναι πάντα από μόνος του μια απόδειξη ειλικρίνειας. ↗

— Graham Greene

#philosophical #truth #death

Birth pushes, death pulls; only you can slow the time between. ↗

— Jack Sanger

#death

Things have a life of their own," the gypsy proclaimed with a harsh accent. "It's simply a matter of waking up their souls. ↗

— Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

#life

Dreams are doorways into other dimensions that you forget how to open once you’re awake. ↗

— R.M. ArceJaeger

#dreams

I shall try to persuade first the Rulers and soldiers, and then the rest of the community, that the upbringing and education we have given them was all something that happened to them only in a dream. In reality they were fashioned and reared, and their arms and equipment manufactured, in the depths of the earth, and Earth herself, their mother, brought them up, when they were complete, into the light of day; so now they must think of the land in which they live as their mother and protect her if she is attacked, while their fellow citizens they must regard as brothers born of the same mother earth…. That is the story. Do you know of any way of making them believe it?” “Not in the first generation,” he said, “but you might succeed with the second, and later generations. ↗

— Plato

#dreams