Philosophy Bits

Interesting and insightful quotes from humanity's greatest minds! Curated by: @suliqyre Instagram/Threads: @philosophybits Bluesky: @philosophybits.com Mastodon: @[email protected]

[philosophybits]

“To live alone one must be an animal or a god, says Aristotle. There is yet a third case: one must be both — a philosopher.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

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The reality of spirit is witnessed by the whole experience of mankind, by all its higher life. Denial of this reality is blindness and deafness to realities, the incapacity to distinguish of being, or incapacity to describe that which is distinguished. Spirit is otherwise real than the world of natural things. This reality is not proven, but evidenced by those who are capable of distinguishing qualities.

Nikolai Berdyaev, The Spirit and Reality

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“Knowledge of the heart must come from the heart — from and in its pains and longings, its emotional responses.”

— Martha Nussbaum, Love’s Knowledge

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Even if vanity does not completely overthrow the virtues, at any rate it shakes them all to the foundations.

François de La Rochefoucauld, Moral Reflections

[suliqyre]

Every artwork we encounter offers us an experience that can broaden our awareness of ourselves and the world around us. The artist is able to give us this gift because they are already aware enough to be capable of sharing their awareness.

The artist's awareness grows because they are paying attention. They are watching everything that is happening in and around them, as well as exploring the creations of other artists. They must observe and absorb everything, as they cannot know in advance what will be most important to their own art.

Awareness expands with each and every moment of sincere attention. And it is awareness that brings the intuitions that motivate the artist towards new forms of expression. Not only do they become more cognizant of the possibilities of their medium, they also become better capable of communicating their experiences through it.

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[philosophybits]

“Fanaticism never sleeps: it is never glutted: it is never stopped by philanthropy; for it makes a merit of trampling on philanthropy: it is never stopped by conscience; for it has pressed conscience into its service. Avarice, lust, and vengeance, have piety, benevolence, honour; fanaticism has nothing to oppose it.”

— Jeremy Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation

[thirdity]

“When I recite Shakespeare, my father is living in me. The people who have heard me will live in my voice, which is a reflection of a voice that was, perhaps, a reflection of the voice of its elders. The same may be said of music and of language. Language is a creation, it becomes a kind of immortality. I am using the Castilian language. How many dead Castilians are living within me?”

— Jorge Luis Borges, “Immortality”

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“Belief and doubt are not two forms of knowledge… for neither of them is a cognitive act; they are opposite passions. Belief is a sense for becoming, and doubt is a protest against any conclusion that goes beyond immediate sensation and knowledge.”

— Søren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments

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“No” and “yes” are short words requiring long thought.

Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom

[suliqyre]

To see the world is to love it. As I become more aware of the world and myself, the distinction between the two begins to blur. I cannot stop seeing myself as an entity separate from the world, but I can now also see myself as continuous with it.

In the same way, I start to see the experiences of others as not wholly separate from my experiences. Everything that happens to every other person also happens to me. Everything that others do is also something I do. Everything valuable in me is also valuable in others.

Seeing these continuities, I feel driven to respond to the needs of others just as I respond to my own needs. This is the necessity of compassion, which arises directly from awareness. Compassion towards others (and the world itself) requires nothing more than attention to experience, which itself creates awareness. As my awareness expands and deepens, I become capable of intuitively recognizing need and I feel more strongly the necessity of responding to it.

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[philosophybits]

“That books do not take the place of experience, and that learning is no substitute for genius, are two kindred phenomena; their common ground is that the abstract can never take the place of the perceptive.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation

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When the mind is inflated or derisive, full of arrogance and vanity, exceedingly jocose, evasive, or deceiving, when, seeming to advance oneself, it is only deprecating others, contemptuous and scornful, one should remain like a block of wood.

Śāntideva, Bodhicaryāvatāra, Crosby & Skilton tr. (5:49-50)

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“The more you let yourself go, the less others let you go.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche, Assorted Opinions and Maxims, 83

[thirdity]

“When you do something out of duty is there any love in it? In duty there is no love. The structure of duty in which the human being is caught is destroying him. So long as you are compelled to do something because it is your duty you don’t love what you are doing. When there is love there is no duty and no responsibility. […] Fear is not love, dependence is not love, jealousy is not love, possessiveness and domination are not love, responsibility and duty are not love, self-pity is not love, the agony of not being loved is not love, love is not the opposite of hate any more than humility is the opposite of vanity. So if you can eliminate all these, not by forcing them but by washing them away as the rain washes the dust of many days from a leaf, then perhaps you will come upon this strange flower which man always hungers after.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known

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“Do not be angry with me for speaking the truth; no man will survive who genuinely opposes you or any other crowd and prevents the occurrence of many unjust and illegal happenings in the city. A man who really fights for justice must lead a private, not a public, life if he is to survive for even a short time.”

— Socrates, in Plato’s Apology

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The social order is irreducibly that of the prince of this world. Our only duty with regard to the social is to try to limit the evil of it. [...] A society like the Church, which claims to be divine is perhaps more dangerous on account of the ersatz good which it contains than on account of the evil which sullies it. Something of the social labelled divine: an intoxicating mixture which carries with it every sort of licence. Devil disguised.

Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace

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“I construct my memories with my present. I am lost, abandoned in the present. I try in vain to rejoin the past: I cannot escape.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea