What is your favourite philosophy quote and why does it speak to you?

[Defective]

I would love to hear what everyone's favourite philosophy quote is and why it speaks to you personally, also what your interpretation of it is!

My all time favourite is 'the unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates, because I value personal growth and evaluation above all else, and I truly believe examining your life constantly and making changing improves your quality of life and helps you reach your full potential (which is vital to my happiness).

I am also a big fan of some Rumi quotes about the universe 'do not feel lonely, the entire universe is within you', because we are all made out of the same stuff and are essentially the conscious universe, and I think that is beautiful and profound.

Excited to read your responses! <3

 

[John K]

I would love to hear what everyone's favourite philosophy quote is and why it speaks to you personally, also what your interpretation of it is!

Hi and welcome to the forum @Defective

I don't have any one favourite philosophical quote, but tend to focus on themes - facets of crystals of spirituality of philosophy. The three quotes above caught my eye in seeking to answer your question.

This first - the Rumi quote - is something I have lived for a long time. The inner journey is one of great adventure - by no means does it mean we cut ourselves off from the world but it's how we can truly see. It's where the magic of spirit and life in all things can be seen.

The second quote by Vonnegut I love. I've always been on the edge of things and I was born on the edge of the world and its people, figuratively speaking. I'm an outsider looking in, but I can see beyond to the shining stars and the wild places of the spirit that many others don't seem to see. We are all different of course, but other infj people seem to have a similar sort of experience, even though if may show in different ways.

The last one by St Augustine is an important one for me. It's the sort of lesson I've learned with advancing years - that patience is so very important. Many things are possible, but not necessarily at the moment of initial inception and first exercise of our powers of choice or desire. The chances of the world are like the waves on a lake, or on the sea. As you wait, and watch, the patterns are constantly shifting and changing - there often comes a time and season when the circumstances are just right and then you can act and achieve what you want. You have to be vigilant though, and persistent as well as patient, or the chance will pass you by and you will have to carry on waiting or give up.

 

[Elder]

I passed this by a day or two ago and I'm glad it popped up again.



I am more of a daisy or a violet than a rose or lily. Our culture tends to celebrate the biggest and brightest. I am happiest when I live smaller. I value the celebration of all the gifts and beauty that fills the world, big or small.



I really, genuinely believe that we all posses gifts and talents that are integral to the world. I want to be alive, and part of what helps me feel alive is helping others come alive.

 

[Rit4lin]

I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you

 

[Matty]

A fool contributes nothing worth hearing and takes offense at everything.
Aristotle

Edit. Missed why it speaks to me.

I get annoyed with my own propensity to be prideful. I like the quote from Aristotle because it reminds me not to focus on my achievements (things not worth hearing about), but rather, focus on the future and insights into things. It also helps me to be more dismissive of the offense I feel at people's faults, because offense isn't constructive, but only indulges resentment.

 

[Cornerstone]

I'm sure I've posted this before, and I'm not sure it counts as philosophy as such, but it's a passage from C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce

“Son,'he said,' ye cannot in your present state understand eternity...That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, "No future bliss can make up for it," not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say "Let me have but this and I'll take the consequences": little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why...the Blessed will say "We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven, : and the Lost, "We were always in Hell." And both will speak truly.”

I'm not sure why I like this so much or why it has stayed with me for so many years. I think maybe it requires the rest of the book for context but maybe not. There have been times when I have been happy where I realised that it would not have been possible to get to that point without what went before and so those memories really did become transformed into necessary evils rather than meaningless suffering.

I'm very much back in the 'let me have this and I'll take the consequences' stage again though so maybe this thread has come at the right time to bring this way of thinking back to the forefront. Although not as bad as I have been in recent years.

 

[Mindhoverer]

“Man is born free but everywhere is in chains.” by Rousseau is my favorite. It is a concise saying that summarizes human life in toto. We are obligated to be free but tons of social structure and obligations forces us and makes us thinks and function in shackles.

 

[niar]

Ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα

In other words ''be humble, sit down''.

 

[John K]