Philosophy Quotes

"Common sense is the sense of the masses, the passive and mechanical sense."

"Everyone is a philosopher, though in different ways and to different degrees."

"Tradition is the illusion of permanence in a world of constant change."

"Consciousness is not something that exists in the individual mind but in social practice."

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

"The principle of utility is the foundation of the following observations."

"Natural rights is simple nonsense."

"The use of the term 'natural' is apt to be attended by consequences that are mischievous."

"The notion of natural rights is one of those ideas whose tendency is pernicious."

"The human condition is a state of perpetual necessity."

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it."

"The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general."

"The consciousness of men does not determine their being, but, on the contrary, their social being determines their consciousness."

"All social life is essentially practical."

"The purpose of philosophy is to interpret reality and change it."

"Ideas are not spontaneously born in individual brains; they are products of society."

"The best philosophers were those who understood history."

"The economic base determines the political and ideological superstructure."

"Thought becomes independent when society ceases to need its revolutionary services."

"The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances changes the meaning of democracy."

"All forms of power eventually become their own enemies."

"The subject is not given to us, we have to create ourselves as subjects, and we can do this only through self-discipline and ethical practice."

"We should not ask what we are, but rather how we came to be what we are, and what other possibilities remain."

"What we call universal reason is only the particularity of Western thought made to seem necessary and inevitable."

"The human is not a category but a recent invention, one that may yet be surpassed."

"The human subject is not a fixed essence but a becoming, perpetually formed and reformed by historical forces."

"The natural man seeks comfort; the civilized man seeks both comfort and meaning."

"A nation that abandons its principles for expediency has lost the thing most worth preserving."

"The great struggles of history are not between good and evil, but between different visions of the good."

"In the conduct of nations, as in the conduct of men, honor is the highest of all virtues."