Philosophy Quotes

Questions about meaning, existence, and truth from thinkers who spent their lives searching for answers.

43879 quotes

Z
"Reality is far stranger than we imagine; our paradoxes are glimpses of truth."
Zeno of Elea
Z
"The logical contradictions we encounter are not failures of logic, but revelations about being."
Zeno of Elea
Z
"If things move, they must move either through place or not through place—both are impossible."
Zeno of Elea
Z
"The concept of the many necessarily leads to self-contradiction."
Zeno of Elea
Z
"If a thing exists, it must be without parts, for parts would imply it is composed of others."
Zeno of Elea
Z
"The very nature of space and time may render motion logically impossible."
Zeno of Elea
Z
"The infinite series of half-distances cannot be completed, yet we observe things traversing them."
Zeno of Elea
Z
"Being cannot come to be, for it would have to come from non-being, which does not exist."
Zeno of Elea
Z
"The existence of the many is logically impossible; therefore, only the one can be."
Zeno of Elea
Z
"The world of becoming that we experience is perhaps only the shadow of the world of being."
Zeno of Elea
Z
"The very concept of becoming implies a logical contradiction that no metaphysics can resolve."
Zeno of Elea
Z
"If things truly are many, each must be infinite in quantity and infinite in size."
Zeno of Elea
Z
"The infinite divisibility of space and time reveals that motion is logically incoherent."
Zeno of Elea
Z
"If motion occurs, there must be an instant when the moving object is between positions—yet no such instant can exist."
Zeno of Elea
Z
"To move is to be in a place and not in a place simultaneously—an impossibility."
Zeno of Elea
Z
"The infinite series of divisions in any distance proves that traversal is logically impossible."
Zeno of Elea
H
"Big and small are relative to the observer's perspective."
Heraclitus
H
"The soul is boundless in its depth."
Heraclitus
H
"Good and evil, sickness and health, are interdependent."
Heraclitus
H
"Wholeness is made up of parts that are in constant opposition."
Heraclitus
H
"The uncreated universe is eternal and infinite."
Heraclitus
H
"The arrow in flight is at rest."
Heraclitus
H
"What is sacred is so by the power of agreement."
Heraclitus
H
"Waking life and sleep are the same river, viewed from different shores."
Heraclitus
H
"The logos is universal, though most live as though it were private."
Heraclitus
H
"The eternal flow cannot be grasped by static thought."
Heraclitus
H
"What lies below supports what lies above."
Heraclitus
H
"The soul lives in constant desire and constant satisfaction."
Heraclitus
H
"To be human is to be in a state of questioning."
Heraclitus
H
"The universe is a conscious entity, and so are we."
Heraclitus