Famous Quotes & Sayings

William James

Religion, therefore, as I now ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine. Since the relation may be either moral, physical, or ritual, it is evident that out of religion in the sense in which we take it, theologies, philosophies, and ecclesiastical organizations may secondarily grow.

William James

The gist of the matter is this: Every impression that comes in from without, be it a sentence which we hear, an object of vision, or an effluvium which assails our nose, no sooner enters our consciousness than it is drafted off in some determinate direction or other, making connection with the other materials already there, and finally producing what we call our reaction. The particular connections it strikes into are determined by our past experiences and the 'associations' of the present sort of impression with them.

William James

Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits.

William James

The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.

William James

There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.

William James

Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake.

William Gilmore Simms

Philosophy has its bugbears, as well as superstition.

William Gilmore Simms

Philosophy is reason with the eyes of the soul.

William Gilbert

Philosophy is for the few.

Will Cuppy

My philosophy of life can be summed up in four words: It can't be helped.

Will Ferrell

Personal philosophy: Clothing optional

Will Durant

A history of civilization shares the presumptuousness of every philosophical enterprise: it offers the ridiculous spectacle of a fragment expounding the whole. Like philosophy, such a venture has no rational excuse, and is at best but a brave stupidity; but let us hope that, like philosophy, it will always lure some rash spirits into its fatal depths.

Will Durant

In its youth a people produce mythology and poetry; in its decadence, philosophy and logic.

Will Durant

Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt -- particularly to doubt one's cherished beliefs, one's dogmas and one's axioms.

Will Durant

Philosophy is harmonized knowledge making a harmonious life; it is the self-discipline which lifts us to serenity and freedom. Knowledge is power, but only wisdom is liberty.

Will Durant

Science without philosophy, facts without perspective and valuation, cannot save us from havoc and despair. Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.

Will Durant

It is true that even across the Himalayan barrier India has sent to the west, such gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy and fables, hypnotism and chess, and above all numerals and the decimal system.

Will Durant

There is no real philosophy until the mind turns around and examines itself.

Will Durant

Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.

Sarah Palin

If any vegans came over for dinner, I could whip them up a salad, then explain my philosophy on being a carnivore: If God had not intended for us to eat animals, how come He made them out of meat?

Sarah Brightman

Philosophy changes day by day.

Sarah Ban Breathnach

My philosophy is very simple: when in doubt, take a bath.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Whenever philosophy has taken into its plan religion, it has ended in skepticism; and whenever religion excludes philosophy, or the spirit of free inquiry, it leads to willful blindness and superstition.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In philosophy equally as in poetry it is the highest and most useful prerogative of genius to produce the strongest impressions of novelty, while it rescues admitted truths from the neglect caused by the very circumstance of their universal admission.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In wonder all philosophy began, in wonder it ends, and admiration fill up the interspace; but the first wonder is the offspring of ignorance, the last is the parent of adoration.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

A religion, that is, a true religion, must consist of ideas and facts both; not of ideas alone without facts, for then it would be mere Philosophy; - nor of facts alone without ideas, of which those facts are symbols, or out of which they arise, or upon which they are grounded: for then it would be mere History.

Salma Hayek

There is an Arabic writer who wrote philosophy and poetry and who brought all religions and all the world together.

Salman Rushdie

My father decided that he was such a admirer of Ibn Rushd's philosophy, thinking that he changed the family name to Rushdie. I realized why my father was so interested in him, because he was really an incredibly modernizing voice inside our Islamic culture.

Rudy Vallee

The sweetest things in life to you were just loaned, so how can you lose what you've never owned.

Whitney Houston

When you're feeling full of doubt and fear has got you in a bind, love will save the day.

Whitney Houston

There can be miracles when you believe.

Wangari Maathai

As I swept the last bit of dust, I made a covenant with myself: I will accept. Whatever will be, will be. I have a life to lead. I recalled words a friend had told me, the philosophy of her faith. "Life is a journey and a struggle," she had said. "We cannot control it, but we can make the best of any situation." I was indeed in quite a situation. It was up to me to make the best of it.

Wayne Huizenga

Our philosophy has been to be fiscally conservative, so we can be operationally aggressive. We're not using borrowed money to grow. So we'll put up a store just to get there before the competition. If it doesn't work, we'll close it and lose a little equity. It won't kill us.