Philosophy Quotes

"Moral principles without economic understanding lead to policies that harm those they aim to help."

"Those who attempt to engineer society often engineer their own downfall."

"The evolution of social institutions is more important than any single person's intentions."

"Nature has placed mankind under two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure."

"The principle of utility recognizes the subjection of all things to the interests of the greatest number."

"Principles are not propositions; they are phenomena."

"Pain and pleasure are the only realities in ethics."

"Morality and legislation are but different branches of the same science."

"When pleasure and pain are in balance, indifference reigns."

"What is the source of all moral obligation? The principle of utility."

"Every action is the pursuit of pleasure or the avoidance of pain."

"When we speak of natural rights, we speak in abstractions."

"In matters of morality and legislation, consequences are everything."

"Philosophy is the love of wisdom."

"Philosophy begins in wonder."

"I think, therefore I am... a machine."

"Materialism is the key to understanding human nature."

"The mind is a product of matter in motion."

"Society exists because cooperation serves individual interest."

"The mind is the greatest marketplace of ideas and commerce."

"In every person lies the potential for great good or great harm."

"Esse est percipi"

"To be is to be perceived"

"All the choir of heaven and furniture of earth - in a word all those bodies which compose the frame of the world - have not any subsistence without a mind"

"If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?"

"Matter is a senseless, inactive substance"

"The world is my representation"

"To be is either to be a substance or to be a mode of a substance"

"Knowledge and wonder are the first and last emotions of philosophy"

"There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not said it"