Philosophical quotes that inspire...

speaking of super-K, check this out. his old man was reported to be quite religious and as obstinate as they come. very strict and demanding of the young lad. well the story goes that one time, K was instructed by his father to place second in some kind of test that was given to his class in school. not first, which he could have easily done, having been the brightest in his class… and not last, which he could have easily done by making no effort at all. no. being the best or the worst was too easy for the young soren, and the old man knew this. the challenge soren faced was to gauge the intelligence of the second brightest and then purposely place himself below him. think about how difficult that must have been.

i think this experience had a lasting impact on K and would eventually become a kind of ingredient to his maieutic method of philosophy. socrates, similarly but perhaps not with the same genuine modesty, played the role of the ignorant in the company of his interlocutors in order to prevent their intimidation… which would make them less trustworthy and willing to be led. it must have dawned on K after discovering this talent - he was quite capable of pretending to be more ignorant than he was - that this deception could actually be very useful in philosophical discourse. thus began his career as a philosophical midwife of sorts who never really asserts anything… but rather assists you in giving birth to your own thoughts.

it is always much easier to simply state and declare what you believe than it is to merely suggest what you believe… because it takes great skill to conceal the fact that you mean it, and instead present it as if you’ve only just considered it without much conviction.

if aristotle never mentioned this insight in his Rhetoric, he shoulda.

so g’head, give it a try. make me believe something you believe without directly insuring me that you believe it. make me believe that we discovered it together… while in fact you were leading me there the whole time.

Isn’t that simply called ‘a mood’?

That is why I don’t read such books, for I have enough moods of my own to deal and contend with. :wink:

Michio Kaku
Physicist

Kaku: “To become a theoretical physicist … you need to have a passionate love affair with the universe.”

“The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.”
Aristotle

I’m all in favor of the democratic principle that one idiot is as good as one genius, but I draw the line when someone takes the next step and concludes that two idiots are better than one genius.” …Leo Szilard

“Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.” - Oscar Wilde

Nietzsche: “I am utterly amazed, utterly enchanted! I have a precursor, and what a precursor! I hardly knew Spinoza.”

I am interested only in “nonsense”; only in that which makes no practical sense. I am interested in life only in its absurd manifestations.
Daniil Kharms

“What a funny girl you are,” he said. “You’ve got a bad case of penis envy.”
“So do most men,” she said sharply and he laughed. [ James Baldwin, Another Country ]

Always meet petulance with gentleness and perverseness with kindness. A gentle hand can lead even en elephant by a hair. Reply to thine enemy with gentleness.

Zoroaster

“Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.” -Aristotle

[b]People go through periods in their lives. I’d rather go through exclamation points.

Snoopy!!![/b]

“when the christian crusaders in the orient encountered the invincible order of assassins*, that order of free spirits par excellence, whose lowest ranks followed a rule of obedience the like of which no order of monks ever attained, they obtained in some way or other a hint concerning that symbol and watchword reserved for the highest ranks alone as their secretum: ‘nothing is true, everything is permitted.’ - very well, that was freedom of spirit; in that way the faith in truth was abrogated.” - nietzsche (the genealogy of morals)

  • an islamic sect, founded in the eleventh century. ‘as for the initiated, they knew the worthlessness of positive religion and morality; they believed in nothing…’ (encyclopedia britannica)

As-Salaam-Alaikum… and salami eggs and bacon.

The word assassins has an obscure but significant derivitive:

hashish derived from assassins from factsanddetails.com
Their name comes from the Arabic hashishiyya; the drug’s powers were thought to explain the Assassins’ oblivious bravery. The

You always get smoked up before sword play, bro. All original gangstas know that.

‘as for the initiated, they knew the worthlessness of positive religion and morality; they believed in nothing…’ (encyclopedia britannica)

Must be exhausting.

For correctness sake, they were called the hashashins.

Must have been really cranky hash though, the recent suff from the area is more soothing.
Although this is pretty generally the mindset.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NkMTXBKAWI[/youtube]

“I never met a person I didn’t like.”- Will Rogers

Rarely loved, sometimes feared, most often hated, but never forgotten.

  • excerpt from the eulogy at the funeral of a promethean

[b]There is more honor in accumulating little by little than in reaching for the sky and ending up flat on your face.
~Vatnsdæla Saga, c.7

A person should not agree today to what they’ll regret tomorrow.
~Bandamanna Saga, c.10

Bad counsel comes to a bad end.
~The Saga of Magnus Barefoot, c.6

One should warn even a dim-witted troll if he sits naked by a fire.
~Heitharvega Saga, c.14

It may go well at first, for those who try to lord it over others, but they may find things more difficult as time goes by.
~Guðmundur Jónsson

…and last but certainly not least…

No one is a total fool if he can be silent.
~The Saga of Grettir, chapter 88[/b]


Insight can make your life so much more effective over eyesight [ Chris Eubank ] so much wisdom contained in those eleven words

Voidness is that which stands right in the middle between this and that. The void is all-inclusive, having no opposite - there is nothing which it excludes or opposes. It is living void, because all forms come out of it and whoever realizes the void is filled with life and power and the love of all beings.

Bruce Lee