#phil

If you're gonna burn a bridge behind you, make sure you've crossed it first. ↗

— Quentin R. Bufogle

#philosophy #wisdom #life

The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next. ↗

— Ursula K. Le Guin

#future #philosophy #life

Mankind flung its advance agents ever outward, ever outward. Eventually it flung them out into space, into the colorless, tasteless, weightless sea of outwardness without end. It flung them like stones. ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#philosophy #science #life

Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse ↗

— Joseph Brodsky

#human #life #philosophy #wisdom #life

A philosopher knows that in reality he knows very little. That is why he constantly strives to achieve true insight. Socrates was one of these rare people. He knew that he knew nothing about life and about the world. And now comes the important part: it troubled him that he knew so little. ↗

— Jostein Gaarder

#life

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust. ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#life

A man could be a lover and defender of the wilderness without ever in his lifetime leaving the boundaries of asphalt, powerlines, and right-angled surfaces. We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to set foot in it. We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope; without it the life of the cities would drive all men into crime or drugs or psychoanalysis. ↗

— Edward Abbey

#nature #philosophy #life

Despair is the price one pays for setting oneself an impossible aim. It is, one is told, the unforgivable sin, but it is a sin the corrupt or evil man never practices. He always has hope. He never reaches the freezing-point of knowing absolute failure. Only the man of goodwill carries always in his heart this capacity for damnation. ↗

— Graham Greene

#life #philosophy #life

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. ↗

— Terry Pratchett

#life

Deep down, all the while, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a sailor in distress, she kept casting desperate glances over the solitary waster of her life, seeking some white sail in the distant mists of the horizon. She had no idea by what wind it would reach her, toward what shore it would bear her, or what kind of craft it would be – tiny boat or towering vessel, laden with heartbreaks or filled to the gunwhales with rapture. But every morning when she awoke she hoped that today would be the day; she listened for every sound, gave sudden starts, was surprised when nothing happened; and then, sadder with each succeeding sunset, she longed for tomorrow. ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#life