Philosophical Inquiry Quotes & Sayings

The mystery of creation was always between two, in an awareness that there was always both a 'thou'and and 'I'. — Laurens Van Der Post

That struggle was too strong,
hateful and long-lasting, which had come on the people,
dire wrack and ruin - the greatest of night-evils. — Burton Raffel

Give with a free hand, but give only of your own. — J.R.R. Tolkien

In philosophical inquiry, the human spirit, imitating the movement of the stars, must follow a curve which brings it back to its point of departure. To conclude is to close a circle. — Charles Baudelaire

The popular conception of any philosophical doctrine is necessarily imperfect, and very generally unjust. Lucretius is often alluded to as an atheistical writer, who held the silly opinion that the universe was the result of a fortuitous concourse of atoms readers are asked to consider how long letters must be shaken in a bag before a complete annotated edition of Shakespeare could result from the process; and after being reminded how much more complex the universe is than the works of Shakespeare, they are expected to hold Lucretius, with his teachers and his followers, in derision. A nickname which sticks has generally some truth in it, and so has the above view, but it would be unjust to form our judgment of a man from his nickname alone, and we may profitably consider what the real tenets of Lucretius were, especially now that men of science are beginning, after a long pause in the inquiry, once more eagerly to attempt some explanation of the ultimate constitution of matter. — Fleeming Jenkin

There are big questions science doesn't answer, such as why is there something rather than nothing? There can't be a scientific answer to that because it's the answer that precedes science. There are all sorts of questions like that that which at the periphery of scientic inquiry but which wiggle in the mind like worms: the question "what am I, what is this word 'I'"? Does it refer to anything? If you try to capture the "I", you don't capture it, you capture the object, in which case it's a nothing, but it's a nothing on which everything depends. But this nothing on which everything depends thinks of itself as free. This is a philosophical question that worries everyone, but you can't formulate it. — Roger Scruton

[T]he whole undertaking of philosophical inquiry requires a prior understanding of the conceptual system in which the undertaking is set. That is an empirical job for cognitive science and cognitive semantics ... Unless this job is done, we will not know whether the answers philosophers give to their questions are a function of the conceptualization built into the questions themselves. — George Lakoff

There's so much boldness in living life this way, and we did it all, and no one can take it away from us. — Diana Nyad

To the extent that philosophical positions both confuse us and close doors to further inquiry, they are likely to be wrong. — E. O. Wilson

It takes many years to build good reputations, but it takes a few minutes for their destruction. — Debasish Mridha

I realize that my ministry would someday come to an end. I am only one in a glorious chain of men and women God has raised up through the centuries to build Christ's church and take the Gospel everywhere. — Billy Graham

Wittgenstein imagined that the philosopher was like a therapist whose task was to put problems finally to rest, and to cure us ofbeing bewitched by them. So we are told to stop, to shut off lines of inquiry, not to find things puzzling nor to seek explanations. This is intellectual suicide. — Simon Blackburn

Liberal education intertwines the philosophical and rhetorical so that we learn how to learn, so that we continue both inquiry and cultural participation throughout our lives because learning has become part of who we are. — Michael S. Roth

There was nothing she could say to them
nothing would be heard or answered. What were the weapons, she thought, in a realm where reason was not a weapon any longer? It was a realm she could not enter. — Ayn Rand

The aggressive spirit, the offensive, is the chief thing everywhere in war, and the air is no exception. — Manfred Von Richthofen

I do not have it in for relativism. In many respects I find it a fascinating, even attractive, alternative. It engenders epistemological humility, defeats an arrogant pomposity in belief, even promotes a sort of democratic ideal in matters of knowledge. Perhaps its most comforting feature is that it requires no hard work at all in the matter of justifying beliefs. — David L. Wolfe

For we are inquiring not in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good, since otherwise our inquiry would have been of no use — Aristotle.

Free inquiry entails recognition of civil liberties as integral to its pursuit, that is, a free press, freedom of communication, the right to organize opposition parties and to join voluntary associations, and freedom to cultivate and publish the fruits of scientific, philosophical, artistic, literary, moral and religious freedom. — Paul Kurtz

It's not just that there is a cooperative spirit of investigation there, where we all recognise that we are engaged in a common project of inquiry. It's also that the philosophers are well-versed in the relevant empirical data, and the scientists are well-versed in the more abstract issues which are typically the central focus of philosophical work. — Hilary Kornblith

Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel are in my opinion not philosophers; for they lack the first requirement of a philosopher, namely a seriousness and honesty of inquiry. They are merely sophists who wanted to appear to be rather than to be something. They sought not truth, but their own interest and advancement in the world. Appointments from governments, fees and royalties from students and publishers, and, as a means to this end, the greatest possible show and sensation in their sham philosophy-such were
the guiding stars and inspiring genii of those disciples of wisdom. And so they have not passed the entrance examination and cannot be admitted into the venerable company of thinkers for the human race.
Nevertheless they have excelled in one thing, in the art of beguiling the public and of passing themselves off for what they are not; and this undoubtedly requires talent, yet not philosophical. — Arthur Schopenhauer

The whole thrust of yogic philosophical and scientific inquiry has therefore been to examine the nature of being, with a view to learning to respond to the stresses of life without so many tremors and troubles. — B.K.S. Iyengar

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. — Sandy Nathan

and most profoundly personal philosophical inquiry that we can undertake. It is the question that defines us as human beings. The novel begins precisely at noon on July 20, — Thornton Wilder

To deny the existence of a God and more specifically the Creator God of Christianity is not based upon a philosophical issue, but rather a moral one. — R. Alan Woods

Asking himself how this had happened and what could be done about it, Peter came to understand that the roots of Western technological achievement lay in the freeing of men's minds. He grasped that it had been the Renaissance and the Reformation, neither of which had ever come to Russia, which had broken the bonds of the medieval church and created an environment where independent philosophical and scientific inquiry as well as wide-ranging commercial enterprise could flourish. He knew that these bonds of religious orthodoxy still existed in Russia, reinforced by peasant folkways and traditions which had endured for centuries. Grimly, Peter resolved to break these bonds on his return. — Robert K. Massie

Truths are as much a matter of questions as answers. — Ozzie Zehner

It is by no means certain that we advance our philosophical quest by reading Plato or Aristotle. It may increase our knowledge of history but not of the world. — Jostein Gaarder

We have to reconcile ourselves with philosophical questions in every field. Every field should be open to inquiry and knowledge. — Tariq Ramadan

The vibrations he felt in his sleep had nothing to do with his soul easing out of his body as he dreamily thought; they came solely from the weight and motion of the freight train rolling north to deliver fuel, furniture and other items having no relevance to Elijah's life or his dreaming. On the metal rail his arm itched like a nose with a feeling that something bad was about to happen. In another life the sound of the train would have been reminiscent of certain songs by Muddy Waters or even Bruce Springsteen but not in this one. In this life the sound stabbed viciously against the night exactly like a human being demonstrating flawless disrespect for the life of another human being.
from short story ELIJAH'S SKIN — Aberjhani

Who am I? What am I doing here? Who are these others? This trilogy of spiritual conundrums is as practical as it is philosophical. Mindful inquiry devoted to these three questions is as spiritual as it is material and as obvious as it is unanswerable. Knowledge isn't to comfort our souls; it is to enhance awareness - that is what some call an awakening. Some things have to be believed to be seen. Feelings articulate truth in ways that our brains cannot. We may have a sense about who we are, what our purpose is and how we relate to the rest of the world even without the vocabulary to articulate it. Recovery is visceral as much as it is intellectual. The Eleventh Step is our spiritual barometer, feeding back sensations, feelings and thoughts as we observe our life. — Joe C.