🕉️Week 2024-49: Rabindranath Tagore - Collected Quotes

"A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"Don't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple. (Rabindranath Tagore)

"Music fills the infinite between two souls." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"The fish in the water is silent, the animals on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing. But man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"The fundamental desire of life is the desire to exist." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"The higher nature in man always seeks for something which transcends itself and yet is its deepest truth; which claims all its sacrifice, yet makes this sacrifice its own recompense. This is man's dharma, man's religion, and man's self is the vessel which is to carry this sacrifice to the altar." (Rabindranath Tagore, "Sādhanā: The Realization of Life", 1913) 

"The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"The most important lesson that man can learn from his life is not that there is pain in this world, but that it depends upon him to turn it into good account, that it is possible for him to transmute it into joy... Man's freedom is never in being saved troubles, but it is the freedom to take trouble for his own good, to make the trouble an element in his joy [...] that in pain is symbolised the infinite possibility of perfection, the eternal unfolding of joy." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"The object of education is to give man the unity of truth. Formerly, when life was simple, all the different elements of man were in complete harmony. But when there came the separation of the intellect from the spiritual and the physical, the school education put entire emphasis on intellect and the physical side of man. We devote our sole attention to giving children information, not knowing that by this emphasis we are accentuating a break between the intellectual, physical, and the spiritual life... I believe in a spiritual world -  not as anything separate from this world -  but as its innermost truth. With the breath we draw we must always feel this truth, that we are living in God. Born in this great world, full of the mystery of the infinite, we cannot accept our existence as a momentary outburst of chance drifting on the current of matter toward an eternal nowhere. We cannot look upon our lives as dreams of a dreamer who has no awakening in all time. We have a personality to which matter and force are unmeaning unless related to something infinitely personal, whose nature we have discovered, in some measure, in human love, in the greatness of the good, in the martyrdom of heroic souls, in the ineffable beauty of nature which can never be a mere physical fact nor anything but an expression of personality." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"The picture of a flower in a botanical book is information; its mission ends with our knowledge. But in pure art it is a personal communication. And therefore until it finds its harmony in the depth of our personality it misses the mark. We can treat existence solely as a textbook furnishing us lessons, and we shall not be disappointed, but we know that there its mission does not end. For in our joy in it, which is an end in itself, we feel that it is a communication, the final response of our knowing but the response of our being." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"The progress of our soul is like a perfect poem. It has an infinite idea which once realised makes all movements full of meaning and joy. But if we detach its movements from that ultimate idea, if we do not see the infinite rest and only see the infinite motion, then existence appears to us a monstrous evil., impetuously rushing towards an unending aimlessness." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"The tendency in modern civilization is to make the world uniform... Let the mind be universal. The individual should not be sacrificed." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"Things are distinct not in their essence but in their appearance; in other words, in their relation to one to whom they appear. This is art, the truth of which is not in substance or logic, but in expression. Abstract truth may belong to science and metaphysics, but the world of reality belongs to art." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"Time is a wealth of change, but the clock in its parody makes it mere change and no wealth." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"Time is a wealth of change, but the clock in its parody makes it mere change and no wealth." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"To understand anything is to find in it something which is our own, and it is the discovery of ourselves outside us which makes us glad. This relation of understanding is partial, but the relation of love is complete. In love the sense of difference is obliterated and the human soul fulfills its purpose in perfection, transcending the limits of itself and reaching across the threshold of the infinite. Therefore love is the highest bliss that man can attain to, for through it alone he truly knows that he is more than himself, and that he is at one with the All." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"What is Art? It is the response of man's creative soul to the call of the Real." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"Whatever we treasure for ourselves separates us from others; our possessions are our limitations." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"Where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"With begging and scrambling we find very little, but with being true to ourselves we find a great deal more." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. Don't let yourself indulge in vain wishes." (Rabindranath Tagore)

🏛️Week 2024-27: Gottfried W Leibniz - Collected Quotes

“Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another. […] It is a good thing to proceed in order and to establish propositions (principles). This is the way to gain ground and to progress with certainty.” (Gottfried W Leibniz, 1670)

"When a rule is extremely complex, that which conforms to it passes for irregular (random)." (Gottfried Leibniz, "Discourse on Metaphysics", 1686)

"God makes nothing without order, and everything that forms itself develops imperceptibly out of small parts." (Gottfried W Leibniz, "Protogaea", 1693/1759)

"[...] nature has established patterns originating in the return of events, but only for the most part." (Gottfried W Leibniz [letter to Jacob Bernoulli], 1703)

"There are two kinds of truths: those of reasoning and those of fact. The truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible; the truths of fact are contingent and their opposites are possible." (Gottfried W Leibniz,  "Monadology", 1714)

"The helps offered to improve the mind consist in certain ways of thinking which facilitate thinking." (Gottfried W Leibniz)

"There is nothing waste, nothing sterile, nothing dead in the universe; no chaos, no confusions, save in appearance." (Gottfried W Leibniz)

"This is why the ultimate reason of things must lie in a necessary substance, in which the differentiation of the changes only exists eminently as in their source; and this is what we call God." (Gottfried W Leibniz)

🏛️Week 2023-49: Pierre T de Chardin - Collected Quotes

"Religion and science are the two conjugated faces of phases of one and the same act of complete knowledge - the only one which can embrace the past and future of evolution so as to contemplate, measure and fulfill them." (Pierre T de Chardin, "The Phenomenon of Man", 1955)

"Science, philosophy and religion are bound to converge as they draw nearer to the whole." (Pierre T de Chardin, "The Phenomenon of Man", 1955)

"The time has come to realise that an interpretation of the universe - even a positive one - remains unsatisfying unless it covers the interior as well as the exterior of things; mind as well as matter. The true physics is that which will, one day, achieve the inclusion of man in his wholeness in a coherent picture of the world." (Pierre T de Chardin, "The Phenomenon of Man", 1955)

"The world can no more have two summits than a circumference can have two centres." (Pierre T de Chardin, "The Divine Milieu", 1960)

"All that really matters is devotion to something bigger than ourselves." (Pierre T de Chardin)

"Driven by the force of love, the fragments of the world seek each other that the world may come into being." (Pierre T de Chardin)

"Historically, the stuff of the universe goes on becoming concentrated into ever more organized forms of matter." (Pierre T de Chardin)

"Life does not work by following a single thread, nor yet by fits and starts. It pushes forward its whole network at one and the same time." (Pierre T de Chardin)

"Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves." (Pierre T de Chardin)

"Some day, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we shall harness the energies of love. Then, for the second time in the history of the world, humankind will have discovered fire." (Pierre T de Chardin)

"The most satisfying thing in life is to have been able to give a large part of oneself to others." (Pierre T de Chardin)

"The universe as we know it is a joint product of the observer and the observed." (Pierre T de Chardin)

"To discover and know has always been a deep tendency of our nature." (Pierre T de Chardin)

"To our critical eyes, the threads of which the past is woven are, by nature, endless and indivisible. Scientifically speaking, we cannot grasp the absolute beginning of anything: everything extends backwards to be prolonged by something else." (Pierre T de Chardin)

"What is imponderable in the world is greater than what we can handle." (Pierre T de Chardin)

"We are not humans having a spiritual experience. Instead, we are spirits having a human experience." (Pierre T de Chardin)

🏛️Week 2023-48: Publilius Syrus - Collected Quotes

"A thing is worth whatever the buyer will pay for it." (Publilius Syrus)

"A wise man never refuses anything to necessity." (Publilius Syrus)

"Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm." (Publilius Syrus)

"Audacity augments courage; hesitation, fear." (Publilius Syrus)

"Avarice is as destitute of what it has as poverty is of what it has not." (Publilius Syrus)

"Each day should be passed as though it were our last." (Publilius Syrus)

"Friendship neither finds nor makes equals." (Publilius Syrus)

"From the errors of others, a wise man corrects his own." (Publilius Syrus)

"He gives twice who gives promptly." (Publilius Syrus)

"He is much to be dreaded who stands in dread of poverty." (Publilius Syrus)

"He who is shipwrecked twice is foolish to blame the sea." (Publilius Syrus)

"He who lives only for himself is truly dead to others." (Publilius Syrus)

"How unhappy is he who cannot forgive himself." (Publilius Syrus)

"If you wish to reach the highest, begin at the lowest." (Publilius Syrus)

"It is a bad plan that admits of no modification." (Publilius Syrus)

"It is more easy to get a favor from fortune than to keep it." (Publilius Syrus)

"It's a bad plan that can't be changed." (Publilius Syrus)

"Learn to see in another's calamity the ills which you should avoid." (Publilius Syrus)

"No man is happy unless he believes he is." (Publilius Syrus)

"No one knows what he can do until he tries." (Publilius Syrus)

"No one reaches a high position without daring." (Publilius Syrus)

"Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them." (Publilius Syrus)

"Speech is a mirror of the soul: as a man speaks, so he is." " (Publilius Syrus)

"The opportunity is often lost by deliberating." (Publilius Syrus)

"To do two things at once is to do neither." (Publilius Syrus)

"Unless you bear with the faults of a friend you betray your own." (Publilius Syrus)

"We die as often as we lose a friend." (Publilius Syrus)

"We may with advantage at times forget what we know." (Publilius Syrus)

"We must master our good fortune, or it will master us." (Publilius Syrus)

"What we fear comes to pass more speedily than what we hope." (Publilius Syrus)

"When you are at sea, keep clear of the land." (Publilius Syrus)

🏛️Week 2023-37: Henri-Frédéric Amiel - Collected Quotes

"An error is the more dangerous in proportion to the degree of truth which it contains." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1852)

"Common sense is the measure of the possible; it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1852)

"The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1856)

"To know how to suggest is the great art of teaching. To attain it we must be able to guess what will interest." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, 1864)

"Nature does at least what she can to translate into visible form the wealth of the creative formula. By the vastness of the abysses into which she penetrates, in the effort - the unsuccessful effort - to house and contain the eternal thought, we may measure the greatness of the divine mind." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1866)

"What we call little things are merely the causes of great things; they are the beginning, the embryo, and it is the point of departure which, generally speaking, decides the whole future of an existence. One single black speck may be the beginning of gangrene, of a storm, of a revolution." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1868)

"Pure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd; it must be communicated by contagion." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1875)

"Everything which is, is thought, but not conscious and individual thought. The human intelligence is but the consciousness of being. It is what I have formulated before: Everything is a symbol of a symbol, and a symbol of what? of mind." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, 1882)

""Time is but the measure of the difficulty of a conception. Pure thought has scarcely any need of time, since it perceives the two ends of an idea almost at the same moment." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, 1883)

"Time is but the space between our memories; as soon as we cease to perceive this space, time has disappeared." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry]  1884)

"Every situation is an equilibrium of forces; every life is a struggle between opposing forces working within the limits of a certain equilibrium." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1885)

"Understanding [...] must begin by saturating itself with facts and realities. [...] Besides, we only understand that which is already within us. To understand is to possess the thing understood, first by sympathy and then by intelligence. Instead of first dismembering and dissecting the object to be conceived, we should begin by laying hold of it in its ensemble. The procedure is the same, whether we study a watch or a plant, a work of art or a character." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1886)

"The art which is grand and yet simple is that which presupposes the greatest elevation both in artist and in public." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1893)

"The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man that it forms." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1893)

"Time is the supreme illusion. It is but the inner prism by which we decompose being and life, the mode under which we perceive successively what is simultaneous in idea." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1893)

"Our systems, perhaps, are nothing more than an unconscious apology for our faults, a gigantic scaffolding whose object is to hide from us our favorite sin." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1896)

"Analysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour springs and germinates no more." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel)

"Minds accustomed to analysis never allow objections more than half-value, because they appreciate the variable and relative elements which enter in." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel)

"No forms of error are so erroneous as those that have the appearance without the reality of mathematical precision." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel)

"Time and space are fragments of the infinite for the use of finite creatures." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel)

"To do easily what is difficult for others is the mark of talent. To do what is impossible for talent is the mark of genius." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel)

"Wisdom consists in rising superior both to madness and to common sense, and in lending one's self to the universal delusion without becoming its dupe." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel)

🏛️Week 2023-35: Hypatia of Alexandria - Collected Quotes

"All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final." ([attributed] Hypatia of Alexandria)

"Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fancies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them. In fact, men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth - often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable." ([attributed] Hypatia of Alexandria)

"He who influences the thinking of his time, influences all the moments that follow him. Leave your opinion for eternity." (Hypatia of Alexandria)

"In fact men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth - often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable." (Hypatia of Alexandria)

"Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond." (Hypatia of Alexandria)

"Life is growth, and the more we travel, the more truth we can understand. Understanding the things that surround us is the best preparation to understand the things that lie beyond." (Hypatia of Alexandria)

"Neoplatonism is progressive philosophy, and does not expect to state final conditions to men whose minds are finite. Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond." ([attributed] Hypatia of Alexandria)

"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all." (Hypatia of Alexandria)

"To rule by fettering the mind through fear of punishment in another world, is just as base as to use force. [...] Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all." ([attributed] Hypatia of Alexandria)

🏛️Week 2023-34: Sophocles - Collected Quotes

"A human being is only breath and shadow." (Sophocles, "Ajax the Locrian" ["Aias Locrus"], cca. 5 century BC) 

"A state is not a state if it belongs to one man." (Sophocles)

"All a man's affairs become diseased when he wishes to cure evils by evils." (Sophocles)

"All is disgust when one leaves his own nature and does things that misfit it." (Sophocles)

"Chance never helps those who do not help themselves." (Sophocles)

"Enemies' gifts are no gifts and do no good." (Sophocles)

"Evil gains work their punishment." (Sophocles)

"Fortune cannot aid those who do nothing." (Sophocles)

"Gratitude to gratitude always gives birth." (Sophocles)

"He who throws away a friend is as bad as he who throws away his life." (Sophocles)

"How dangerous can false reasoning prove!" (Sophocles)

"How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there's no help in the truth." (Sophocles)

"In a just cause the weak will beat the strong." (Sophocles)

"It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself, and no one else, has made it." (Sophocles)

"It is best to live however one can be." (Sophocles)

"It is terrible to speak well and be wrong." (Sophocles)

"Is anyone in all the world safe from unhappiness?" (Sophocles)

"Kindness gives birth to kindness." (Sophocles)

"Knowledge must come through action; you can have no test which is not fanciful, save by trial." (Sophocles)

"Man is not constituted to take pleasure in the same things always." (Sophocles)

"Men of ill judgment ignore the good that lies within their hands, till they have lost it." (Sophocles)

"Men should pledge themselves to nothing; for reflection makes a liar of their resolution." (Sophocles)

"Money is the worst currency that ever grew among mankind. This sacks cities, this drives men from their homes, this teaches and corrupts the worthiest minds to turn base deeds." (Sophocles)

"Much wisdom often goes with fewest words." (Sophocles)

"No great thing comes without a curse" Sophocles

"No lie ever reaches old age." (Sophocles)

"No treaty is ever an impediment to a cheat." (Sophocles)

"Not knowing anything is the sweetest life." (Sophocles)

"Not all things are to be discovered; many are better concealed." (Sophocles)

"Old age and the passage of time teach all things." (Sophocles)

"One must learn by doing the thing, for though you think you know it, you have no certainty until you try." (Sophocles)

"One who knows how to show and to accept kindness will be a friend better than any possession." (Sophocles)

"Our happiness depends on wisdom all the way." (Sophocles)

"Quick decisions are unsafe decisions." (Sophocles)

"Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud." (Sophocles)

"Rather throw away that which is dearest to you, your own life, than turn away a good friend." (Sophocles)

"The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves." (Sophocles)

"The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities." (Sophocles)

"There is a point at which even justice does injury." (Sophocles)

"There is no witness so terrible and no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwells within us." (Sophocles)

"To be doing good deeds is man's most glorious task." (Sophocles)

"To him who is in fear everything rustles." (Sophocles)

"To throw away an honest friend is, as it were, to throw your life away." (Sophocles)

"What fate can be worse than to know we have no one but ourselves to blame for our misfortunes!" (Sophocles)

"Wisdom is the most important part of happiness." (Sophocles)

"When a man has lost all happiness, he's not alive. Call him a breathing corpse." (Sophocles)

"When trouble ends even troubles please." (Sophocles)

"Whoever understands how to do a kindness when he fares well would be a friend better than any possession." (Sophocles)

"Why should a man fear, since chance is all in all for him, and he can clearly fore-know nothing? Best to live lightly as one can, unthinking." (Sophocles)

"Wise thinkers prevail everywhere." (Sophocles)

"You win the victory when you yield to friends." (Sophocles)

🏛️Week 2023-31: Heraclitus of Ephesus - Collected Quotes

"Everything flows and nothing stays. [...] You can't step twice into the same river." (Heraclitus of Ephesus)

"For those who are awake there is one common universe." (Heraclitus of Ephesus, "Fragments" [3.89], cca. 5th century)

"He who does not expect will not find out the unexpected, for it is trackless and unexplored." (Heraclitus of Ephesus)

"It should be known that war is universal, that strife is justice, and all things come into existence by strife and necessity." (Heraclitus of Ephesus)

"Much learning does not teach a man to have intelligence." (Heraclitus of Ephesus)

"Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony." (Heraclitus of Ephesus)

"The fairest order in the world is a heap of random sweepings." (Heraclitus of Ephesus)

"The real constitution of things is accustomed to hide itself." (Heraclitus of Ephesus)

"The road up and the road down is one and the same." (Heraclitus of Ephesus, "On the Universe", cca. 5th century)

"The greatest virtue is to be prudent, and wisdom is to speak the truth and with understanding to act according to nature. (Heraclitus of Ephesus, "Fragments" [75.112], cca. 5th century)

"There is one wisdom, to understand how reason steers everything through everything." (Heraclitus of Ephesus, "Fragments" [4.41], cca. 5th century)

"Time is like a river flowing endlessly through the universe." (Heraclitus of Ephesus)

"Unite whole and part, agreement and disagreement, accordant and discordant; from all comes one, and from one all." (Heraclitus of Ephesus)

🏛️Week 2023-29: Plutarch of Chaeronea - Collected Quotes

"For it was not so much that by means of words I came to a complete understanding of things, as that from things I somehow had an experience which enabled me to follow the meaning of words." (Plutarch of Chaeronea, "Lives")

"For to err in opinion, though it be not the part of wise men, is at least human." (Plutarch of Chaeronea, "Moralia" ["Morals"], cca. 1st century)

"If Nature be not improved by instruction, it is blind; if instruction be not assisted by Nature, it is maimed; and if exercise fail of the assistance of both, it is imperfect." (Plutarch of Chaeronea, "Moralia" ["Morals"], cca. 1st century)

"It is circumstance and proper measure that give an action its character, and make it either good or bad." (Plutarch of Chaeronea, "Life of Agesilaus II")

"Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech." (Plutarch of Chaeronea, "Moralia" ["Morals"], cca. 1st century)

"The generous mind adds dignity to every act, and nothing misbecomes it." (Plutarch of Chaeronea, "Lives")

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." (Plutarch of Chaeronea, "Moralia" ["Morals"], cca. 1st century)

"The two most powerful agencies in man's nature are reason and mind." (Plutarch of Chaeronea)

"To conduct great matters and never commit a fault is above the force of human nature." (Plutarch of Chaeronea, "Life of Fabius")

"Were it only to learn benevolence to humankind, we should be merciful to other creatures." (Plutarch of Chaeronea, "Lives")

"Wise men are able to make a fitting use even of their enmities." (Plutarch of Chaeronea, "Moralia" ["Morals"], cca. 1st century)

🏛️Week 2023-27: Democritus - Collected Quotes

"By convention sweet, by convention bitter; by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention color: but in reality, atoms and void." (Democritus)

"By desiring little, a poor man makes himself rich." (Democritus)

"Everything existing in the universe is the fruit of chance and necessity." (Democritus)

"Hope of ill gain is the beginning of loss." (Democritus)

"I would rather discover one true cause than gain the kingdom of Persia." (Democritus)

"If thou suffer injustice, console thyself; the true unhappiness is in doing it." (Democritus)

"It is better to destroy one's own errors than those of others." (Democritus)

"It is godlike ever to think on something beautiful and on something new." (Democritus)

"It is greed to do all the talking but not to want to listen at all." (Democritus)

"Men should strive to think much and know little." (Democritus)

"Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion." (Democritus)

"Neither art nor wisdom may be attained without learning."  (Democritus)

"No power and no treasure can outweigh the extension of our knowledge." (Democritus)

"Nothing is so easy as to deceive one's self; for what we wish, that we readily believe." (Democritus)

"Raising children is an uncertain thing; success is reached only after a life of battle and worry." (Democritus)

"The first principles of the universe are atoms and empty space; everything else is merely thought to exist." (Democritus)

"The wrongdoer is more unfortunate than the man wronged." (Democritus)

"There are many who know many things, yet are lacking in wisdom." (Democritus)

"Throw moderation to the winds, and the greatest pleasures bring the greatest pains." (Democritus)

🏛️Week 2023-26: Plotinus - Collected Quotes

"All things are filled full of signs, and it is a wise man who can learn about one thing from another." (Plotinus, "Enneads", cca. 270 AD)

"But if anyone despises the arts because they produce their works by imitating nature, we must tell him, first, that natural things are imitations too. Then he must know that the arts do not simply imitate what they see, but they run back up to the forming principles from which nature derives" (Plotinus, "Enneads", cca. 270 AD)

"Conscious apprehension seems to exist […] as happens in a mirror-image when the smooth and bright surface is peaceful." (Plotinus, "Enneads", cca. 270 AD)

“In the same way as regards the soul, when that kind of thing in us which mirrors the images of thought and intellect is undisturbed, we see them and know them in a way parallel to sense-perception, along with the prior knowledge that it is intellect and thought that are active. But when this is broken because the harmony of the body is upset, thought and intellect operate without an image, and then intellectual activity takes place without a mind-picture.” (Plotinus, “Enneads”, cca. 270 AD)

"On the assumption that all happens by Cause, it is easy to discover the nearest determinants of any particular act or state to trace it plainly to them." (Plotinus, "Enneads", cca. 270 AD)

"[...] so external sensation is the image of this perception of the soul, which is in its essence truer and is a contemplation of forms alone without being affected. From these forms, from which the soul alone receives its lordship over the living being, come reasonings, and opinions and noetic acts; and this is precisely where ‘we’ are." (Plotinus, "Enneads", cca. 270 AD)

"The noetic act is without parts and has not, so to speak, come out into the open, but remains unobserved within, but the verbal expression unfolds its content and brings it out of the noetic act into the image making power, and so shows the noetic act as if in a mirror, and this is how there is conscious apprehension and persistence and memory of it." (Plotinus, "Enneads", cca. 270 AD)

"You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty superior to reason, by entering into a state in which you are your finite self no longer." (Plotinus, "Enneads", cca. 270 AD)

"Beauty is rather a light that plays over the symmetry of things than that symmetry itself." (Plotinus)

"Knowledge has three degrees - opinion, science, illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense; of the second, dialectic; of the third, intuition." (Plotinus)

"We must close our eyes and invoke a new manner of seeing […] a wakefulness that is the birthright of us all, though few put it to use." (Plotinus)

🏛️Week 2023-12: Baltasar Gracian - Collected Quotes

 "A prudent man will think more important what fate has conceded to him, than what it has denied." (Baltasar Gracian)

"Advice is sometimes transmitted more successfully through a joke than grave teaching." (Baltasar Gracian)

"Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult, and difficult as if they were easy; in the one case that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other that it may not be dismayed." (Baltasar Gracian)

"Do not be held a cheat, even though it is impossible to live today without being one. Let your greatest cunning lie in covering up what looks like cunning." (Baltasar Gracian)

"Friends are a second existence." (Baltasar Gracian)

"Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil. 'Tis the sole remedy against misfortune, the very ventilation of the soul." (Baltasar Gracian)

"He who finds Fortune on his side should go briskly ahead, for she is wont to favor the bold." (Baltasar Gracian)

"If you are wise, live as you can; if you cannot, live as you would." (Baltasar Gracian)

"It is a great piece of skill to know how to guide your luck, even while waiting for it." (Baltasar Gracian)

"Knowledge without courage is sterile." (Baltasar Gracian)

"Nothing arouses ambition so much as the trumpet clang of another's fame." (Baltasar Gracian)

"One must pass through the circumference of time before arriving at the center of opportunity."(Baltasar Gracian)

"One who was adored by all in prosperity is abhorred by all in adversity." (Baltasar Gracian)

"Some are satisfied to stand politely before the portals of Fortune and to await her bidding; better those who push forward, who employ their enterprise, who on the wings of their worth and valor seek to embrace luck, and to effectively gain her favor." (Baltasar Gracian)

"Sometimes it proves the highest understanding not to understand." (Baltasar Gracian)

"Surfeits of happiness are fatal." (Baltasar Gracian)

"The greatest wisdom often consists in ignorance." (Baltasar Gracian)

"The heaven of the envied is hell for the envious." (Baltasar Gracian)

"The wise man does at once what the fool does finally." (Baltasar Gracian)

"There is no wilderness like a life without friends; friendship multiplies blessings and minimizes misfortunes; it is a unique remedy against adversity, and it soothes the soul." (Baltasar Gracian)

🏛️Week 2023-11: Francóis de La Róchefoucald - Collected Quotes

"A man who finds no satisfaction in himself, seeks for it in vain elsewhere." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"A man's happiness or unhappiness depends as much on his temperament as on his destiny." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy they are who already possess it." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"Boredom ... causes us to neglect more duties than does interest." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"Friendship is only a reciprocal conciliation of interests." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"Great men’s success should always be measured against the means they used to reach it." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"Hope is the last thing that dies in man." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"I always say to myself, what is the most important thing we can think about at this extraordinary moment." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"If we have not peace within ourselves, it is in vain to seek it from outward sources." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"If we resist our passions, it is more from their weakness than from our strength." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"In great affairs we ought to apply ourselves less to creating chances than to profiting from those that are offered." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"In jealousy there is more of self-love than love." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"Interest speaks all sorts of tongues, and plays all sorts of parts, even that of disinterestedness." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"It is as proper to have pride in oneself as it is ridiculous to show it to others." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"Love’s greatest miracle is the curing of coquetry." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"Nothing is so infectious as example." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"One forgives to the degree that one loves." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"Perfect courage means doing unwitnessed what we would be capable of with the world looking on." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"The confidence which we have in ourselves gives birth to much of that which we have in others." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"The intellect is always fooled by the heart." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"The passions are the only orators which always persuade." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"The prospect of being pleased tomorrow will never console me for the boredom of today." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"The virtues and the vices are all put in motion by interest." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald, "Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims", 1665)

"There are more defects in temperament than in the mind." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"There are no accidents so unlucky from which clever people are not able to reap some advantage, and none so lucky that the foolish are not able to turn them to their own disadvantage." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"Though men pride themselves on their great actions, often they are not the result of any great design, but of chance." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"To establish oneself in the world, one has to do all one can to appear established." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"True eloquence consists of saying all that should be said, and that only." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"We are never so happy or so unhappy as we think." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"We do not wish ardently for what we desire only through reason." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"We often forgive those who bore us, but can't forgive those whom we bore." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"We promise according to our hopes, and perform according to our fears." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"We should not judge a man’s merits by his qualities, but by the use he makes of them."  (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"We should scarcely desire things ardently if we were perfectly acquainted with what we desire." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended." Francóis de La Róchefoucald

"What causes us to like new acquaintances is not so much weariness of our old ones, or the pleasure of change, as disgust at not being sufficiently admired by those who know us too well, and the hope of being admired more by those who do not know so much about us." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

"When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald)

🏛️Week 2023-08: Jean de La Bruyère - Collected Quotes

"A vain man finds it wise to speak good or ill of himself; a modest man does not talk of himself." (Jean de La Bruyère)

"Children have neither a past nor a future. Thus they enjoy the present, which seldom happens to us." (Jean de La Bruyère)

"Everything has been said, and we are more than seven thousand years of human thought too late." (Jean de La Bruyère)

"He who has lived a day has lived an age." (Jean de La Bruyère)

"Love and friendship exclude each other." (Jean de La Bruyère)

"Making a book is a craft, like making a clock; it needs more than native wit to be an author." (Jean de La Bruyère)

"Man has but three events in his life: to be born, to live, and to die. He is not conscious of his birth, he suffers at his death and he forgets to live." (Jean de La Bruyère)

"Out of difficulties grow miracles." (Jean de La Bruyère)

"Profound ignorance makes a man dogmatic. The man who knows nothing thinks he is teaching others what he has just learned himself; the man who knows a great deal can't imagine that what he is saying is not common knowledge, and speaks indifferently." (Jean de La Bruyère)

"The best way to get on in the world is to make people believe it’s to their advantage to help you." (Jean de La Bruyère)

"The exact contrary of what is generally believed is often the truth." (Jean de La Bruyère)

"The most exquisite pleasure is giving pleasure to others." (Jean de La Bruyère)

"The people have little intelligence." (Jean de La Bruyère)

"The regeneration of society is the regeneration of society by individual education." (Jean de La Bruyère)

"The shortest and best way to make your fortune is to let people see that it is in their interests to promote yours." (Jean de La Bruyère)

"The wise person often shuns society for fear of being bored." (Jean de La Bruyère)

"There are certain people who so ardently and passionately desire a thing, that from dread of losing it they leave nothing undone to make them lose it." (Jean de La Bruyère)

"There is no business in the world so troublesome as the pursuit of fame: life is over before you have hardly begun your work." (Jean de La Bruyère)

"Those who make the worst use of their time most complain of its brevity." (Jean de La Bruyère)

"Two persons cannot long be friends if they cannot forgive each other's little failings." (Jean de La Bruyère)

"We must laugh before we are happy, for fear of dying without having laughed at all." (Jean de La Bruyère)

🏛️Week 2023-4: Thales of Miletus - Collected Quotes

"A multitude of words is no proof of a prudent mind." (Thales of Miletus)

"All things are from water and all things are resolved into water." (Thales of Miletus)

"Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing." (Thales of Miletus)

"Hope is the only good that is common to all men; those who have nothing else possess hope still." (Thales of Miletus)

"Nothing is more active than thought, for it travels over the universe, and nothing is stronger than necessity for all must submit to it." (Thales of Miletus)

"Place is the greatest thing, as it contains all things." (Thales of Miletus)

"The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself." (Thales of Miletus)

"There are three attributes for which I am grateful to Fortune: that I was born, first, human and not animal; second, man and not woman; and third, Greek and not barbarian." (Thales of Miletus)

"What is the sagest of all? It is a time, because it opens all." (Thales of Miletus)

🏛️Week 2023-3: Pythagoras of Samos - Collected Quotes

"All was numbers." (Pythagoras of Samos, cca. 6th century BC)

"Animals share with us the privilege of having a soul." (Pythagoras of Samos, cca. 6th century BC)

"Be silent or let thy words be worth more than silence." (Pythagoras of Samos, cca. 6th century BC)

"Choose always the way that seems the best, however rough it may be; custom will soon render it easy and agreeable." (Pythagoras of Samos, cca. 6th century BC)

"Do not say a little in many words but a great deal in a few." (Pythagoras of Samos, cca. 6th century BC)

"everything changes, nothing is lost" (Pythagoras of Samos, cca. 6th century BC)

"Geometry is knowledge of the eternally existent."  (Pythagoras of Samos, cca. 6th century BC)

"Hearing and keeping silence, you become a wise man. The beginning of wisdom is silence." (Pythagoras of Samos, cca. 6th century BC)

"Number is the ruler of forms and ideas, and the cause of gods and demons." (Pythagoras of Samos, cca. 6th century BC)

"Number rules the universe." (Pythagoras of Samos, cca. 6th century BC)

"Number was the substance of all things." (Pythagoras of Samos, cca. 6th century BC)

"The first elements of wisdom: you should study to reflect and to lose your ability to chat." (Pythagoras of Samos, cca. 6th century BC)

"The learning of many things does not teach intelligence […]." (Pythagoras of Samos, cca. 6th century BC)

"There is geometry in the humming of the strings; there is music in the spacing of the spheres." (Pythagoras of Samos, cca. 6th century BC)

🏛️Week 2023-2: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Collected Quotes

"One does not get to know that one exists until one rediscovers oneself in others." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1775)

"The imagination lurks as the most powerful foe. It has an irresistible affinity for the absurd. Even cultured individuals are subject to this impulse to a high degree. It  is hostile to all civilized life and it confronts our decorous society with a reversion to the innate rudeness of the savage and his love of grimaces." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Annals", 1805)

"Genuine works of art carry their own aesthetic theory implicit within them and suggest the standards according to which they are to be judged." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1808)

"The highest gift we have received from God and nature is life, the rotating movement of the monad about itself, knowing neither pause nor rest. The impulse to nurture this life is ineradicably implanted in each individual, although its specific nature remains a mystery to ourselves and to Others." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "On Theory of Color", 1810)

"The modern age has a false sense of superiority because of the great mass of data at its disposal. But the valid criterion of distinction is rather the extent to which man knows how to form and master the material at his command." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "On Theory of Color", 1810)

"As soon as we proceed from the principle that knowledge and faith are not designed to cancel each other out but rather to supplement each other, we are on the right path pointing to just solutions." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1813)

"Faith is a sacred vessel in which each individual is prepared to sacrifice his feeling, his reason, his imagination, to the best of his ability. In the case of knowledge exactly the opposite holds true, I said. Not that one knows but what one knows, how well and how much one knows, is what counts. That is why knowledge is a subject for argument, inasmuch as it may be corrected, expanded, and concealed. Knowledge begins with isolated facts; it is endless and formless, and we can at most dream of grasping it as a totality. Hence it is diametrically opposed to faith." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "The Autobiography", 1814)

"Idea and experience will never coincide in the center. Only art and action can effect a synthesis." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1816) 

"When all is said and done, nothing suits the theater except what also makes a symbolic appeal to the eyes a significant action suggesting an even more significant one." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Shakespeare and No End", 1816)

"That which is formed is straightway transformed again, and if we would to some degree arrive at a living intuition of Nature, we must on our part remain forever mobile and plastic, according to her own example." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Morphology", 1817)

"As we contemplate the edifice of the universe, in its vastest extension, in its minutest divisibility, we cannot resist the notion that an idea underlies the whole, according to which God and Nature creatively interact forever and ever. Intuition, contemplation, reflection give us an approach to these mysteries, We are emboldened to venture upon ideas; in a more modest mood we fashion concepts that might bear some analogy to those primal beginnings." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Doubts and Resignation", 1820)

"Even in the sciences, mere knowing is of no avail. It is always a matter of doing." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Maxims and Reflections", 1822)

"General concepts and great conceit are always poised to make a terrible mess of things." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Maxims and Reflections", 1822)

"The most foolish of all errors is for young people to believe that they lose their originality by accepting the truths which have already been accepted by their predecessors." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Maxims and Reflections", 1822)

"When Nature begins to reveal her manifest mystery to a man, he feels an irresistible longing for her worthiest interpreter art." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Maxims and Reflections", 1823)

"Truth is like a torch, but of gigantic proportions. It is all we can do to grope our way with dazzled eyes, in fear even of getting scorched." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Maxims and Reflections", 1824)

"Man was not born to solve the problems of the universe, but rather to seek to lay bare the heart of the problem and then confine himself within the limits of what is amenable to understanding." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1825)

"The true, which is identical with the divine, transcends our grasp as such. We perceive it only as reflection, parable, symbol, in specific and related manifestations.  We become aware of it as life that defies comprehension, and for all that we cannot renounce the wish to comprehend. " (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Essay on Meteorology", 1825)

"Error finds ceaseless repetition in deed, for which reason one must never tire of repeating the truth in words." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Maxims and Reflections", 1826)

"Knowing is possible only when one knows little. As one comes to experience more, one gets gradually assailed by doubts. [...] No phenomenon can be explained, taken merely by itself. Only many, surveyed in their connection, and methodically arranged, finally yield something that can pass for theory." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1828)

"The greatest art, both in teaching and in life itself, consists in transforming the problem into a postulate." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1928)

"For truth is simple and without fuss, whereas error affords opportunity for dissipating time and energy." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1829)

"Man must cling to the belief that the incomprehensible is comprehensible. Else he would give up investigating. " (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Maxims and Reflections", 1829)  

"To concentrate on a craft is the best procedure. For the person of inferior gifts it will always remain a craft. The more gifted person  will raise it to an art. And as for the man of highest endowment, in doing one thing he does all things; or, to put it less paradoxically, in the one thing that he does properly, he sees a symbol of all things that are done right. " (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1829)

"'Nature does nothing for nothing' is an old Philistine saying. She is eternally alive, prodigal and extravagant in her workings, to keep the infinite ever present, because nothing can endure without change." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1831)

"The desire to explain what is simple by what is complex, what is easy by what is difficult, is a calamity affecting the whole body of science, known, it is true, to men of insight, but not generally admitted." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Maxims and Reflections", 1833)

"With the growth of knowledge our ideas must from time to time be organized afresh. The change takes place usually in accordance with new maxims as they arise, but it always remains provisional. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Maxims and Reflections", 1833)

"Nothing hurts a new truth more than an old error." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Sprüche in Prosa", 1840)

"All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) 

"Everything is simpler than one can imagine, at the same time more involved than can be comprehended." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

"In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

"In tearing down a position, all false arguments carry weight; not so in building up. Only the truth is constructive." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Maxims and Reflections" [posthumous])

"It requires a much higher organ to seize upon truth than it does to defend error." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Maxims and Reflections" [posthumous])

"Nature, despite her seeming diversity, is always a unity, a whole; and thus, when she manifests herself in any part of that whole, the rest must serve as a basis for that particular manifestation, and the latter must have a relationship to the rest of the system." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

"No phenomenon can be explained in and of itself; only many comprehended together, methodically arranged, in the end yield something that could be regarded as theory." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

"That is the way of youth and life generally, that we usually come to understand the strategy only after the campaign is over. " (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "The Autobiography",  [posthumous])

"The highest happiness of man as a thinking being is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere what is unknowable." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Maxims and Reflections" [posthumous])

"The orbits of certainties touch one another; but in the interstices there is room enough for error to go forth and prevail." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

"The tissue of the world is built from necessities and randomness; the intellect of men places itself between both and can control them; it considers the necessity and the reason of its existence; it knows how randomness can be managed, controlled, and used." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

"Thinking by analogy is not to be despised. Analogy has this merit, that it does not settle things - does not pretend to be conclusive. On the other hand, that induction is pernicious which, with a preconceived end in view, and working right forward for only that, drags in its train a number of unshifted observations, both false and true." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

"Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but not more so than beholding." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Maxims and Reflections", [posthumous])

🏛️Week 2023-01: Leonardo da Vinci - Collected Quotes

"All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions." (Leonardo da Vinci, [notebooks] 1480-1519)

"Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason." (Leonardo da Vinci)

"Experience does not feed investigators on dreams, but always proceeds from accurately determined first principles, step by step in true sequence to the end." (Leonardo da Vinci)

"He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast." (Leonardo da Vinci)

"Inequality is the cause of all local movements." (Leonardo da Vinci)

"Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind." (Leonardo da Vinci)

"Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets." (Leonardo da Vinci)

"Mechanics is the paradise of mathematical science, because by means of it one comes to the fruits of mathematics." (Leonardo da Vinci)

"Nature is economical and her economy is quantitative." (Leonardo da Vinci)

"[…] no human inquiry can be called science unless it pursues its path through mathematical exposition and demonstration." (Leonardo da Vinci)

"Science is the observation of things possible." (Leonardo da Vinci)

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." (Leonardo da Vinci)

"The grandest pleasure is the joy of understanding." (Leonardo da Vinci)

"There is no certainty where one can neither apply any of the mathematical sciences nor any of those which are connected with the mathematical sciences." (Leonardo da Vinci)

"There is no higher or lower knowledge, but one only, flowing out of experimentation." (Leonardo da Vinci)

"Those who condemn the supreme certainty of mathematics feed on confusion, and can never silence the contradictions of the sophistical sciences which lead to eternal quackery." (Leonardo da Vinci)

"To me it seems that all sciences are vain and full of errors that are not born of Experience, mother of all certainty […] that is to say, that do not at their origin, middle or end, pass through any of the five senses." (Leonardo da Vinci)

🏛️Week 2022-43: Blaise Pascal - Collected Quotes

"Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth." (Blaise Pascal, "Pensées", 1670)

"Education produces natural intuitions, and natural intuitions are erased by education." (Blaise Pascal, "Pensées", 1670)

"Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed." (Blaise Pascal, "Pensées", 1670)

"Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere." (Blaise Pascal, "Pensées", 1670)

"Symmetry is what we see at a glance; based on the fact that there is no reason for any difference, and based also on the face of man; whence it happens that symmetry is only wanted in breadth, not in height or depth." (Blaise Pascal, "Pensées", 1670)

"Take away probability, and you can no longer please the world; give probability, and you can no longer displease it." (Blaise Pascal, "Thoughts", 1670)

"We know that there is an infinite, and we know not its nature. As we know it to be false that numbers are finite, it is therefore true that there is a numerical infinity. But we know not of what kind; it is untrue that it is even, untrue that it is odd; for the addition of a unit does not change its nature; yet it is a number, and every number is odd or even (this certainly holds of every finite number). Thus, we may quite well know that there is a God without knowing what He is." (Blaise Pascal, "Pensées", 1670)

"We see neither justice nor injustice which does not change its nature with change in climate. Three degrees of latitude reverse all jurisprudence: a meridian decides the truth." (Blaise Pascal, "Pensées", 1670)

"What is man in nature? A Nothing in comparison with the Infinite, an All in comparison with the Nothing, a mean between nothing and everything. Since he is infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes, the end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from him in an impenetrable secret; he is equally incapable of seeing the Nothing from which he was made, and the Infinite in which he is swallowed up." (Blaise Pascal, "Pensées", 1670) 

"The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me." (Blaise Pascal)

"We are generally more effectually persuaded by reasons we have ourselves discovered than by those which have occurred to others." (Blaise Pascal)

🏛️Week 2022-42: Immanuel Kant - Collected Quotes

"God put a secret art into the forces of Nature so as to enable it to fashion itself out of chaos into a perfect world system." (Immanuel Kant, "Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens", 1755)

"It is presumed that there exists a great unity in nature, in respect of the adequacy of a single cause to account for many different kinds of consequences." (Immanuel Kant, "Theoretical Philosophy", 1755-1770)

"The sublime must always be great; the beautiful can also be small. The sublime must be simple; the beautiful can be adorned or ornamented. A great height is just as sublime as a great depth, except that the latter is accompanied with the sensation of shuddering, the former with one of wonder. Hence the latter feeling can be the terrifying sublime, and the former the noble." (Immanuel Kant, "Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime", 1764)

"All thought must, directly or indirectly, by way of certain characters, relate ultimately to intuitions, and therefore, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us." (Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason", 1781)

"Our knowledge springs from two fundamental sources of the mind; the first is the capacity of receiving representations (receptivity for impressions), the second is the power of knowing an object through these representations (spontaneity [in the production] of concepts)." (Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason", 1781)

"There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience." (Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason", 1781)

"Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. The understanding can intuit nothing, the senses can think nothing. Only through their unison can knowledge arise." (Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason", 1781)

"Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination." (Immanuel Kant, "Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Ethics", 1785)

"Each according to his own way of seeing things, seek one goal, that is gratification." (Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Judgment", 1790)

"We assume a common sense as the necessary condition of the universal communicability of our knowledge, which is presupposed in every logic and every principle of knowledge that is not one of skepticism." (Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Judgment", 1790)

"One says of a person who has travelled much, that he has seen the world. to the knowledge of the world than just seeing it. Whoever wants to must draw up a plan beforehand and must not just regard the world senses." (Immanuel Kant, "Physische Geographie" [Physical Geography], 1802)

"[…] there is a God precisely because Nature itself, even in chaos, cannot proceed except in an orderly and regular manner." (Immanuel Kant)