"You can't be chasing 15 rabbits. Otherwise, the public mind cannot follow you." Brian Mulroney

I mean, right? He really gets it. Gotta limit it to like five or six, but wisdom often comes far too late.

I always thought this one was funny

"I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when one's opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

This one too:

"What if laughter were really tears"

ha

"But between theology and science there is a No Man's Land, exposed to attacks from both sides; this No Man's Land is philosophy."
Bertrand Russell

"The perceptions of dreamers and madmen, as perceptions, are just as good as those of others; the only objection to them is that, as their context is unusual, they are apt to give rise to fallacious inferences."
(a slightly paraphrased comment about the philosophy of Protagoras, from Bertrand Russell).

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.
-- Eric Hoffer, The True Believer (1951)

“It is the true believer’s ability to ‘shut his eyes and stop his ears’ to facts that do not deserve to be either seen or heard which is the source of his unequaled fortitude and constancy. He cannot be frightened by danger nor disheartened by obstacle nor baffled by contradictions because he denies their existence.”
Eric Hoffer

I don't know if I'd call it a favorite.. but I do find this Nietzsche quote to be intriguing.

To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities - I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not - that one endures."
(The Will to Power, p 481) — Nietzsche

Another from Russell. This one is very well-known, but it's a favorite of mine nonetheless:

"The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it."

Another infamous one:

Samuel Johnson (via James Boswell), in response to George Berkeley's idealism: "I refute it thus" (as he kicked a rock).

And a couple favorites from Donald Davidson:

"There is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. There is therefore no such thing to be learned, mastered, or born with. We must give up the idea of a clearly defined shared structure which language-users acquire and then apply to cases."

And

"Nothing in the world, no object or event, would be true or false if there were not thinking creatures."

Samuel Johnson (via James Boswell), in response to George Berkeley's idealism: "I refute it thus" (as he kicked a rock). — Terrapin Station

Don't you find it funny though that he thought he disproved idealism by kicking a mental rock with a mental foot? >:O

What I just said.

Hanover.

Someone ought to say in response to Samuel Johnson: "I refute it (realism) thus" (as they press on their eye and create a double-image)

"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use." Kierkegaard

"You are taking your sense of wonder, combining it with your inability to conceive of certain things, and demanding from everyone else that they remain as ignorant. That's not good."
― Kwalish Kid

“A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.”
― Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Hell isn't other people. Hell is yourself.”
― Ludwig Wittgenstein

"Stupidity has a knack of getting its way."
― Albert Camus

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
― Albert Camus

"We constantly create false positives. We touch wood for luck, we see faces in toasted cheese, fortunes in tea leaves. These provide a comforting illusion of meaning. This is the human condition in our bewildering and complex world. (and) In the irrational mindset, if you believe in the mystical pattern you have imposed on reality you call yourself 'spiritual'."
― Richard Dawkins

“All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.”
― Ambrose Bierce

“Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.”
― Ambrose Bierce

"Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you."
― Jean-Paul Sartre

“Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.”
― Aldous Huxley

"All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours."
― Aldous Huxley


Just a few...

Meow!

GREG

"Therefore they greatly deceive themselves, who declare and preach that the perfection of man consists in knowledge of the truth, and that all his woes proceed from false opinions and ignorance, and that the human race will at last be happy, when all or most people come to know the truth, and solely on the grounds of that, arrange and govern their lives. And these things are said by not far short of all philosophers both ancient and modern. . . . I am not unaware that the ultimate conclusion to be drawn from true and perfect philosophy is that we need not philosophize. From which we infer that, in the first place, philosophy is useless, for in order to refrain from philosophizing, there is no need to be a philosopher; in the second place it is exceedingly harmful, for the ultimate conclusion is not learned except at one’s own costs, and once learned, cannot be put into effect; as it is not in the power of man to forget the truths they know, and it is easier to rid oneself of any habit before that of philosophizing. Philosophy in short, hoping and promising at the beginning to cure our ills, is in the end reduced to a longing in vain to heal itself."

-Leopardi, (OM 186–187)

Not a quote by a philosopher, but I've always loved this (used to be in my signature on the old pf.) I offer it as a counterpoint to Leopardi. All you have to do is stop seeking some ultimate truth, look around & lo! so many seals.

"In those high latitudes we found such quantities of seals and walruses that we simply did not know what to do with them.There were thousands and thousands lying there; we walked among them and hit them on the head, and laughed heartily in the abundance which God had created." - Jan Weizl

So many seals! And then you can hit them.

No, but so I actually like - & somewhat agree with - the Leopardi quote. But there's a hint of self-pity that rubs me the wrong way. And not just self-pity, but respecting oneself for having come to the impasse where one can pity oneself in such a way.

I would say that I agree with the overall sentiment that reason is a burden as much as it is a gift. And I would also agree that philosophy has a history of attempting to "solve" problems using reason, the same reason that was used to identify these problems to begin with. Wittgenstein would have thought that philosophy is meant to untangle ourselves from problems, whereas pessimists like Leopardi would have argued philosophy is the means in which these problems are brought forth into clarity.

But I think, at the same time, that there is some kind of non-hedonic satisfaction in acquiring truth, even if truth overall is a detriment to happiness. It's the thing that keeps us from wondering if we'd be doing a service to people like Leopardi by euthanizing them or something edgy like that.

Non-hedonic is too strong for me, but I see your point.

But we're not satisfied, leaving it at Leopardi's quote, are we? (I know I'm not)

"They do say that verbal insults hurt more than physical pain. They are, of course, wrong, as you will soon discover when I stick this toasting fork into your head." Blackadder.

According to Wikipedia he is also considered a philosopher, so I will go with that.

"There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal." -- Hayek.

"What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves." -- Hayek

"If socialists understood economics, they wouldn't be socialist." -- Hayek

“A metaphor is an affair between a predicate with a past and an object that yields while protesting”.
--Nelson Goodman

"The future is the only transcendental value for men without God." - Albert Camus

The "idolatry of tomorrow." in Cioran's words.

"To be is to be the value of a variable." - W. V. O. Quine

“On the day when it will be possible for woman to love not in her weakness but in her strength, not to escape herself but to find herself, not to abase herself but to assert herself, on that day love will become for her, as for man, a source of life and not of mortal danger. One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” Simone de Beauvoir

To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception; it is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or in eternity. For usually, whatever variations there may be, when there is talk of being deceived in love the one deceived is still related to love, and the deception is simply that it is not present where it was thought to be; but one who is self-deceived has locked himself out and continues to lock himself out from love. There is also talk about being deceived by life or in life; but he who self-deceptively cheated himself out of living - his loss is irredeemable. One who throughout his whole life has been deceived by life - for him the eternal can treasure rich compensation; but the person who has deceived himself has prevented himself from winning the eternal. He who because of love became sacrifice to human deceit - what has he really lost when in eternity it turns out that love endures; whereas the deception is no more!

But one who has ingeniously deceived himself by cleverly falling into the snare of cleverness, alas, even if throughout his entire life he has in his own conceit considered himself happy, what has he not lost when in eternity it appears that he deceived himself! In the temporal world a man may succeed in getting along without love; he may succeed in slipping through life without discovering the self-deception; he may have the terrible success, in his conceit, of becoming proud of it; but in eternity he cannot dispense with love and cannot escape discovering that he has lost everything. How earnest existence is, how terrible it is, precisely when in chastisement it permits the wilful person to counsel himself, permits him to live on proud of - being deceived - until finally he is permitted to verify that he has deceived himself in eternity!

The eternal does not let itself be mocked; it is rather that which does not need to use might but almightily uses a little mockery in order to punish the presumptuous in a terrible way [...] Need, to have need, and to be needy - how reluctantly a man wishes this to be said of him! And yet, we pay the highest compliment when we say of [...] a girl - 'it is a need for her to love'. Alas, even the most needy person who has ever lived - if he still has had love - how rich his life has been in comparison with him, the only really poor person, who lived out his life and never felt the need of anything! It is a girl's greatest riches that she needs the beloved — Søren Kierkegaard

To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception; it is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or in eternity. — Sören Kierkegaard

(Y)

All Christianity concentrates on the man at the cross-roads. The vast and shallow philosophies, the huge syntheses of humbug, all talk about ages and evolution and ultimate developments. The true philosophy is concerned with the instant. Will a man take this road or that? - that is the only thing to think about, if you enjoy thinking. The aeons are easy enough to think about, any can think about them. The instant is really awful: and it is because our religion has intensely felt the instant, that it has in literature dealt much with battle and in theology much with hell. It is full of danger, like a boy's book: it is at an immortal crisis — G.K. Chesterton

He who is virtuous experiences virtue, he who loses the way is lost. When you are at one with the Dao, the Dao welcomes you. When you are at one with virtue, the virtue is always there. When you are at one with loss, the loss is experienced willingly. He who does not trust enough, will not be trusted

[...]

When the Great Dao is forgotten, kindness and morality arise; when wisdom and intelligence are born, the great pretense begins; when there is no peace in the family, filial piety and devotion arise; when the country is confused and in chaos, the loyal ministers appear. Give up sainthood, renounce wisdom, and it will be a hundred times better for everyone. Give up kindness, renounce morality, and men will rediscover filial piety and love. Give up ingenuity, renounce profit, and bandits and thieves will disappear. These three are outward forms alone, they are not sufficient in themselves, it is more important to see the simplicity, to realise one's true nature

[...]

Do you think you can take over the Universe and improve it? I do not believe it can be done. The Universe is sacred, you cannot improve it. If you try to change it, you will ruin it. If you try to hold it, you will lose it. So sometimes things are ahead, and sometimes they are behind, sometimes breathing is hard, sometimes it comes easily, sometimes there is strength, and sometimes weakness, sometimes one is up, and sometimes down. Therefore the sage avoids extremes, excesses and complacency.

Whenever you advise a ruler in the way of Dao, counsel him not to use force to conquer the universe for this would only cause resistance. Thorn bushes spring up wherever the army has passed. Lean years follow in the wake of a great war. Just do what needs to be done. Never take advantage of power. Achieve results, but never glory in them. Achieve results, but never boast. Achieve results, but never be proud. Achieve results because this is the natural way. Achieve results but not through violence. Force is followed by loss of strength. This is not the way of Dao. That which goes against the Dao, comes to an early end.

[...]

If you delight in killing, you cannot fulfil yourself.

[...]

War is conducted like a funeral. When many people are being killed, they should be mourned in heartfelt sorrow. That is why a victory must be observed like a funeral

[...]

Once the whole is divided, the parts need names. There are already enough names. One must know when to stop. Knowing when to stop avoids trouble.

[...]

Perseverance is a sign of willpower. He who stays where he is endures. To die but not to perish is to be eternally present

[...]

A truly good man is not aware of his goodness, and is therefore good. A foolish man tries to be good, and is therefore not good. A truly good man, does nothing, yet leaves nothing undone. A foolish man is always doing, yet much remains to be done. When a truly kind man does something, he leaves nothing undone. When a just man does something, he leaves a great deal to be done. When a disciplinarian does something and no one responds, he rolls up his sleeves in an attempt to enforce order. Therefore when Dao is lost, there is goodness. When goodness is lost, there is kindness. When kindness is lost, there is justice. When justice is lost, there is ritual. Now ritual, is the husk of faith and loyalty. The beginning of confusion. — DaoDeJing

'Nothing matters very much. And very few things matter at all.'

I don't remember who said that, but somebody did, and it has always stuck with me.

Arthur Balfour