Philosophy & Thought: Deep Quotes

Delve into deep reflections that probe meaning, identity, ethics, and reality. These curated quotations from philosophers, writers, and thinkers invite sustained attention, encouraging careful reading and open-ended inquiry. Use them to slow the pace, unsettle assumptions, and frame conversation. Whether you seek a concise spark for journaling or a line to anchor meditation, these thoughts emphasize clarity over noise, depth over haste, and wonder over certainty.

Similar topics:Ethics & Morality Free Will & Fate Reason & Logic Truth Wisdom

"Everything is politics"

Thomas Mann, Writer

Thomas Mann

"It is not possible to eat me without insisting that I sing praises of my devourer?"

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Novelist

Fyodor Dostoevsky

"There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls"

George Carlin, Comedian

George Carlin

"There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender... identity is performatively constituted by the very 'expressions' that are said to be its results"

Judith Butler, Philosopher

Judith Butler

"Language is a virus from outer space"

William S. Burroughs, Writer

William S. Burroughs

"I am against nature. I don't dig nature at all. I think nature is very unnatural. I think the truly natural things are dreams, which nature can't touch with decay"

Bob Dylan, Musician

Bob Dylan

"Words are loaded pistols"

Jean-Paul Sartre, Philosopher

Jean-Paul Sartre

"Germany is a great nation only because its people have so much Polish blood in their veins"

Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher

Friedrich Nietzsche

"Hell is empty and all the devils are here"

William Shakespeare, Dramatist

William Shakespeare

"Pick a flower on Earth and you move the farthest star"

Paul Dirac, Physicist

Paul Dirac

"The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions"

Susan Sontag, Author

Susan Sontag

"Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy"

Martin Heidegger, Philosopher

Martin Heidegger

"If the dream is a translation of waking life, waking life is also a translation of the dream"

Rene Magritte, Artist

Rene Magritte

"If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite"

William Blake, Poet

William Blake

"The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over"

Hunter S. Thompson, Journalist

Hunter S. Thompson

"The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization"

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Philosopher

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them"

James A. Baldwin, Author

James A. Baldwin

"Transparency is not the same as looking straight through a building: it's not just a physical idea, it's also an intellectual one"

Helmut Jahn, Architect

"It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge"

Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher

Friedrich Nietzsche

"If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you"

Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher

Friedrich Nietzsche

"The savage in man is never quite eradicated"

Henry David Thoreau, Author

Henry David Thoreau

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"

Charles Dickens, Novelist

Charles Dickens

"I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone"

Rainer Maria Rilke, Poet

"Today, if you are not confused, you are not thinking clearly"

Irene Peter, Writer

"The distinguishing characteristics of mind are of a subjective sort; we know them only from the contents of our own consciousness"

Wilhelm Wundt, Psychologist

Wilhelm Wundt

"I am now convinced that theoretical physics is actually philosophy"

Max Born, Mathematician

Max Born

"In real life, there are names that surprise us because they don't seem to suit the person at all"

Krzysztof Kieslowski, Director

Krzysztof Kieslowski

"If science fiction is the mythology of modern technology, then its myth is tragic"

Ursula K. Le Guin, Writer

Ursula K. Le Guin

"Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man"

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Novelist

Fyodor Dostoevsky

"Living in an age of advertisement, we are perpetually disillusioned. The perfect life is spread before us every day, but it changes and withers at a touch"

J.B. Priestley, Writer

J.B. Priestley

"He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool"

Albert Camus, Philosopher

Albert Camus

"The cars we drive say a lot about us"

Alexandra Paul, Actress

Alexandra Paul

"Chaos is the score upon which reality is written"

Henry Miller, Writer

Henry Miller

"I cannot walk through the suburbs in the solitude of the night without thinking that the night pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memory does"

Jorge Luis Borges, Poet

Jorge Luis Borges

"Through the Thou a person becomes I"

Martin Buber, Philosopher

Martin Buber

"There is something very basic to the sense of listening. The sense of hearing is the only one that operates totally from vibrations, without other physical or chemical reactions to receive the sensations"

Henry Reed, Poet

Henry Reed

"I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should"

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Writer

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

"The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages"

Virginia Woolf, Author

Virginia Woolf

"One does not inhabit a country; one inhabits a language. That is our country, our fatherland - and no other"

Emile M. Cioran, Philosopher

Emile M. Cioran

"Clearly, then, the city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo"

Desmond Morris, Scientist

Desmond Morris

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