43 Philosophical Quotes For Inspiration

Philosophy has always been a beacon of wisdom, offering profound insights into the human condition and the mysteries of existence. Whether you're navigating life's complexities or seeking a fresh perspective, the words of great philosophers can provide invaluable guidance and inspiration. In this collection, we've gathered 43 of the most thought-provoking philosophical quotes to inspire reflection and personal growth. These timeless pearls of wisdom are sure to ignite curiosity, challenge your thinking, and perhaps even lead you towards a deeper understanding of yourself and the world around you. Dive in and let these powerful words resonate with your soul.

1. “Were knowledge all, what were our needTo thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?” - Christopher Brennan

2. “One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.” - Kurt Vonnegut

3. “Lead the people with administrative injunctions and put them in their place with penal law, and they will avoid punishments but will be without a sense of shame. Lead them with excellence and put them in their place through roles and ritual practices, and in addition to developing a sense of shame, they will order themselves harmoniously” - Confucius

4. “Where is that man who has forgotten words that I may have a word with him?” - Chuang Tsu

5. “Apprentices Needed, Not DisciplesFor many, the knowledge of a Jesus, a Lao-tzu, a Buddha, or a Gandhi is complete and unassailable. But we do them and their vision a disservice when we follow them rather than using what they have taught to build upon as we strive toward our goal of a better society.” - William S. Coperthwaite

6. “A man who discovers his pants are on fire tends to have very little time to worry about somebody else's box of matches” - Jeff Lindsay

7. “If you have the power to change the world for the better, you should do it. That's why people who do nothing are idiots, but idiots who do nothing are life-savers.” - James McGregor

8. “There is such dissociation between what the eyes see and what the mind envisions. The final thought is just a matter of interpretation, coloured by our experiences.” - Anirban Bose

9. “Oliver, success is usually a feeling of mere relief, where failure is pain. Happiness, you see, lies in neither, but in sticking to a daily ritual and becoming absorbed in something useful. When the war is over, even the greatest warriors do not exult. They go back to their garden or kitchen or library -- or school -- and resume life.(as said by Mrs. Pearson)” - Adam Gopnik

10. “This first glance of a soul which does not yet know itself is like dawn in the heavens; it is the awakening of something radiant and unknown.” - Victor Hugo

11. “What people had had shed and left--a pair of shoes, a shooting cap, some faded skirts and coats in wardrobes--those alone kept the human shape and in the emptiness indicated how once they were filled and animated; how once hands were busy with hooks and buttons; how once the looking-glass had held a face; had held a world hollowed out in which a figure turned, a hand flashed, the door opened, in came children rushing and tumbling; and went out again. Now, day after day, light turned, like a flower reflected in water, its sharp image on the wall opposite. Only the shadows of the trees, flourishing in the wind, made obeisance on the wall, and for a moment darkened the pool in which light reflected itself; or birds, flying, made a soft spot flutter slowly across the bedroom floor.” - Virginia Woolf

12. “Devils so work that things which are not, appear to men as if they were real.” - Lactantius

13. “For the elements have the property of moving back to their place in a straight line, but they have no properties which would cause them to remain where they are, or to move other-wise than in a straight line, These rectilinear motions of these four elements when returning to their original place are are of two kinds, either centrifugal,vziz.>the motion of the air and the fire; or centripedal,viz.> the motion of the earth, and the water; and when the elements have reached their original place, they remain at rest.” - Moses Maimonides

14. “The fact is, that what de Sade was trying to bring to the surface of the conscious mind was precisely the thing that revolted that mind . . . From the very first he set before the consciousness things which it could not tolerate.” - George Bataille

15. “I got interested in the idea that love is often used as a kind of blanket explanation for things. I mean, battered wives, for instance: "Why did you go back to him?" "Oh, I loved him." "Why did you embezzle fifteen million pounds and run away to the other side of the world?" "Oh, well, because I was in love." All that and then you don't ask anything else. I thought if I just say, these people needed love and they found it, then it kind of explained it away. I wanted to look at their behaviour and how love can inspire the best and the very worst in human behaviour but love itself is not behaviour. So I avoided the word 'love' until the very end and it's the last word in the novel. I wanted to explore what people will do when they're in such terrible need of love. If there was a big idea then that was it. Then, of course, I hope that if it's a story worth reading it's the characters themselves who make you want to read it, not the big idea. I don't think a big idea drives a novel usually. Something else has to engage you on a much more kind of personal level. ” - Morag Joss

16. “Aures habent et non audient` - `They have ears but hear not” - Jules Verne

17. “Don´t count the days. Make the days count.” - ali

18. “Socrates: Have you noticed on our journey how often the citizens of this new land remind each other it is a free country? Plato: I have, and think it odd they do this.Socrates: How so, Plato?Plato: It is like reminding a baker he is a baker, or a sculptor he is asculptor.Socrates: You mean to say if someone is convinced of their trade, they haveno need to be reminded.Plato: That is correct.Socrates: I agree. If these citizens were convinced of their freedom, they would not need reminders.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

19. “What kind of God do you believe in? my answer is easy: I believe in a magnificent God” - Elizabeth Gilbert

20. “Lifes like a painters palette, just when you've got everything worked out the colours change” - Benny Bellamacina

21. “One needs to properly possess only a couple of great thoughts--they shed light on many stretches whose illumination one would never have believed in.” - Georg Simmel

22. “Aquellos de espíritu superior entienden la justicia. Los ordinarios, el beneficio.” - Confucius

23. “You can't see the world from somebody else's point of view and not be changed.” - Lena Coakley

24. “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

25. “Some people remember the sixties better than others do. Some weren't even there, some who were there were not really there, and some who were not really there were "really there".” - Tom Hays

26. “Please, God,' Ruth would pray, 'don't let me be competitive. Let me realize what a privilege it is to study. Let me remember that knowledge must be pursued for its own sake and please, please stop me wanting to beat Verena Plackett in the exams.'She prayed hard and she meant what she said. But God was busy that autumn as the International Brigade came back, defeated, from Spain, Hitler's bestialities increased, and sparrows everywhere continued to fall.” - Eva Ibbotson

27. “Sometimes the hardest journeys are the ones that begin with little hope. But we need to take them anyway.” - Richard Finney

28. “Everything you know gained from experience” - Jostein Gaarder

29. “It is absurd to hold that a man should be ashamed of an inability to defend himself with his limbs, but not ashamed of an inability to defend himself with speech and reason; for the use of rational speech is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs.” - Aristotle

30. “It all begins with goodness in the heart.” - Bjorn Street

31. “There are no endings, only beginnings that have been reborn.” - Little Tiger and the Year of the Dragon D. Byron Patterson

32. “Night sometimes lends such tragic assistance to catastrophe.” - Victor Hugo

33. “Jealousy is that pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally beloved by the person whom he entirely loves.” - Joseph Addison

34. “Always take a compliment, even if it’s not yours” - Benny Bellamacina

35. “If there are damned souls in Hell, it is because men blind themselves.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

36. “Depression is a red herring," said Nariman. "I think a lot about the past, it's true. But at my age, the past is more present than the here and now. and there is not much percentage in the future.” - Rohinton Mistry

37. “ I always see the light at the end of the tunnel before I enter the cave” - Stanley Victor Paskavich

38. “If even a dog's tooth is truly worshipped it glows with light. The venerated object is endowed with power, that is the simple sense of the ontological proof. And if there is art enough a lie can enlighten us as well as the truth. What is the truth anyway, that truth? As we know ourselves we are fake objects, fakes, bundles of illusions. Can you determine exactly what you felt or thought or did?” - Iris Murdoch

39. “I charge thee, fling away ambition. By that sin fell the angels.” - William Shakespeare

40. “I have also figured out that for many people death is a difficult subject, not at all as simple as it is for me.” - Maija Haavisto

41. “We all have our safe places, where none are invited. They are lonely rooms full of the musk of memory. Sanctuary rather than adventure.” - Basith

42. “There's only one thing you can do: Toss your pebble in the river, watch it ripple, and know you have moved the ocean.” - K.M. Douglas

43. “Peace becomes a fantasy when egos are promoted and facts distorted.” - Duop Chak Wuol