Philosophy cannot teach the state what it should be, but only how it, the ethical universe, is to be known.
Philosophy cannot be taught; it is the application of the sciences to truth.[La philosophie ne s’apprend pas ; la philosophie est la réunion des sciences acquises au génie qui les applique.]
Only one word more concerning the desire to teach the world what it ought to be. For such a purpose philosophy at least always comes too late.
One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes.
Nanny’s philosophy of life was to do what seemed like a good idea at the time, and do it as hard as possible. It had never let her down.
My desire and wish is that the things I start with should be so obvious that you wonder why I spend my time stating them. This is what I aim at, because 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.
Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.
Moral philosophy and political economy both condemn the individual who consumes without producing; who fills a place on the earth but does not shed upon it either good or evil, – for evil is sometimes good the meaning of which is not at once made manifest.[La morale et l’économie politique repoussent également l’individu qui consomme sans produire, qui tient une place sur terre sans répandre autour de lui ni bien ni mal; car le mal est sans doute un bien dont les résultats ne se manifestent pas immédiatement.]
Life does not agree with philosophy: there is no happiness which is not idleness and only the useless is pleasurable.[Жизнь расходится с философией: счастья нет без праздности, доставляет удовольствие только то, что не нужно.]
It is not the concern of philosophy to produce religion in any individual.
It is a mania common to philosophers of all eras to deny what is, and to explain what is not.[C’est une manie commune aux philosophes de tous les âges de nier ce qui est, et d’expliquer ce qui n’est pas.]
In history, we are concerned with what has been and what is; in philosophy, however, we are concerned not with what belongs exclusively to the past or to the future, but with that which is, both now and eternally — in short, with reason.
