For the establishment, philosophy is both an elitist and an idealist discipline: In high school, it is a compulsory subject; at university, they teach the idealist line. They are conducting a conversation with themselves.
In a certain sense the past is far more real, or at any rate more stable, more resilient than the present. The present slips and vanishes like sand between the fingers, acquiring material weight, only in its recollection.
The true function of philosophy is to educate us in the principles of reasoning and not to put an end to further reasoning by the introduction of fixed conclusions.
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love.
Our knowledge is a little island in a great ocean of nonknowledge.
I have never felt that anything really mattered but knowing that you stood for the things in which you believed and had done the very best you could.
Instead of worrying about what could go wrong, change your thoughts to what could go right. When you change the negative thought into a positive one, it eliminates the negative one.
Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.
One wants to live, of course, indeed one only stays alive by virtue of the fear of death, but I think, as I thought then, that it is better to die violently and not too old.
This is philosophy, Fool. I have never had time to study such things.’ ‘No, Fitz, this is life. And no one has time not to think of such things. Each creature in the world should consider this thing, every moment of the heart’s beating. Otherwise, what is the point of arising each day?
It’s only water, she said.Tell that to a drowning man, Giddon said.
I began to feel that all the people I’d ever known who had died or left me had not in fact gone away, but continued to live on inside me just as this man’s wife lived on inside him.
‘Punk rock’ is a word used by dilettantes and heartless manipulators about music that takes up the energies, the bodies, the hearts, the souls, the time and the minds of young men who give everything they have to it.
I’ve always hated the “Who are you? question. This is a philosophical inquiry. Answering that question is why we’re on earth. You can’t answer it in thirty seconds or in an elevator.
Love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure, and commitment offers one of the great luxuries of life: time. Marriage is not the end of romance, it is the beginning.
Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft were written by men.
The worst pain … isn’t the pain you feel at the time, it’s the pain you feel later on when there’s nothing you can do about it, They say that time heals all wounds, But we never live long enough to test that theory …
Some pirates achieved immortality by great deeds of cruelty or derring-do. Some achieved immortality by amassing great wealth. But the captain had long ago decided that he would, on the whole, prefer to achieve immortality by not dying.
The world is on fire; time is a bomb.Ten thousand years are not enoughWhen so much remains to be done
Hunters will tell you that a moose is a wily and ferocious forest creature. Nonsense. A moose is a cow drawn by a three-year-old.
Impostors and fake people have the same fate, time is not their best friend, it exposes them to reveal who they truly are. It is just a matter of time the mask falls off.
Inevitably it follows that anyone with an independent mind must become ‘one who resists or opposes an authority or established convention’: a rebel. …And if enough people come to agree with—and follow—the REBEL, we now have a DEVIL. Until, of course, still more people agree. And then, finally, we have … GREATNESS.
Perhaps it would be simpler if you just did what you’re told and didn’t try to understand things.
Death comes to me again, a girlin a cotton slip, barefoot, giggling.It’s not so terrible she tells me,not like you think, all darknessand silence. There are windchimesand the smell of lemons, some daysit rains, but more often the air is dryand sweet. I sit beneath the staircasebuilt from hair and bone and listento the voices of the living. I like it,she says, shaking the dust from her hair,especially when they fight, and when they sing.
It is not the beauty of a building you should look at; its the construction of the foundation that will stand the test of time.
When you work out or you’re doing anything active, it’s more fun as a group. You may lose track of the time, and the next thing you know, you’re working out for two hours because you’re having fun.
Time is the only immortal Currency – back then, now and in the Future.
The problem with doing nothing is that you never know when you’re finished.
In order to write the book you want to write, in the end you have to become the person you need to become to write that book.
I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life—achieving a sense of peace within oneself.
Eternity means Now. Everything contained in one pointless point is an eternal Now. Now, it is Nothing.Infinity means Nowhere. Everything contained in one spotless “spot” is Infinity. Infinity is Nothing.
It was the essence of life to disbelieve in death for one’s self, to act as if life would continue forever. And life had to act also as if little issues were big ones. To take a realistic attitude toward life and death meant that one lapsed into unreality. Into insanity. It was ironic that the only way to keep one’s sanity was to ignore that one was in an insane world or to act as if the world were sane.
I take no pride in hopeless longing; I wouldn’t hold a stillborn aspiration. I’d want to have it, to make it, to live it.
A thousand years ago five minutes wereEqual to forty ounces of fine sand.Outstare the stars. Infinite foretime andInfinite aftertime: above your headThey close like giant wings, and you are dead.
What did he have to mope about, really? What more did he want?…Love. Purpose. Those are the things that you can’t plan for. Those are the things that just happen. And what if they don’t happen? Do you spend your whole life pining for them? Waiting to be happy?
Thinking of death–strange, beautiful, terrible and a long way off–made me feel happier than ever.
Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
We are not people who touch each other carelessly; every point of contact between us feels important, a rush of energy and relief.
Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die.
Oddly enough, my favorite genre is not fiction. I’m attracted by primary sources that are relevant to historical questions of interest to me, by famous old books on philosophy or theology that I want to see with my own eyes, by essays on contemporary science, by the literatures of antiquity.
It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;—it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.
The little things of life, sweet and excellent in their place, must not be the things lived for; the highest must be sought and followed; the life of heaven must be begun here on earth.
Of all knowledge, the wise and good seek mostly to know themselves.
They couldn’t keep Death out, but while she was in she had to act like a lady.
The new industries are brainy industries and so-called knowledge workers tend to like to be near other people who are the same. Think of the City of Hollywood. People cluster. This means you have winning regions, such as London and Cambridge, and losing regions. The people who want to be top lawyers in Sunderland are hoovered up by London.
The basic philosophy of stoicism is that you have nothing real external to your own consciousness, that the only thing real is in fact your consciousness.
Ô, Wanderess, WanderessWhen did you feel your most euphoric kiss? Was I the source of your greatest bliss?
The heart is like a woman, and the head is like a man, and although man is the head of woman, woman is the heart of man, and she turns man’s head because she turns his heart.
O weep for Adonis – He is dead. Peace. He is not dead he doth not sleep – he hath wakened from the dream of life
War is not just the business of death, it is the antitheses of life.
That is a dream also; only he has remained asleep, while you have awakened; and who knows which of you is the most fortunate?
I believe our philosophy of conscious capitalism will eventually be widely adopted primarily because it is a better way to do business, and it creates more total value in the world for all of its stakeholders.
All great conversions are born from the sudden revelation of life’s meaninglessness. Nothing could be more moving or more impressive than this sudden apprehension of the void of existence.
There is a very popular opinion that choosing life is inherently superior to choosing death. This belief that life isinherently preferable to death is one of the most widespread superstitions. This bias constitutes one of the most obstinate mythologies of the human species.
Usually time alters and affects everything, but when someone you love dies time cannot change that, no amount of time will ever change that, so time stops having any meaning.
There is no remedy for death—or birth—except to hug the spaces in between. Live loud. Live wide. Live tall.