“What is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance?”
More from Henry David Thoreau on Philosophy
“Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows.”
“What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.”
“I would remind my countrymen that they are to be men first, and Americans only at a late and convenient hour.”
“We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven”
“We are more of the earth,Farther from heaven these days.”
“A man thinking or working will always be alone, let him be where he will.”
“Man is an animal who more than any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances.”
“If we would aim at perfection in any thing, simplicity must not be overlooked.”
“The boy gathers materials for a temple, and then when he is thirty, concludes to build a woodshed”
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.”
Others on Philosophy
Ludwig Wittgenstein
22 quotes“The logic of the world is prior to all truth and falsehood.”
Christopher Hitchens
22 quotes“How much vanity must be concealed – not too effectively at that – in order to pretend that one is the personal object of...”
Nietzsche
22 quotes“One does not hate as long as one has a low esteem of someone, but only when one esteems him as an equal or a superior.”
Carl Jung
21 quotes“The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.”
Immanuel Kant
20 quotes“Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.”
Heraclitus
19 quotes“All things flow nothing abides.”
H. L. Mencken
17 quotes“We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.”
C.S. Lewis
15 quotes“[Consciousness] is either inexplicable illusion, or else revelation.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
14 quotes“Consciousness is man's greatest misfortune, still I know that man loves it and will not exchange it for any satisfaction...”
Samuel Beckett
14 quotes“The end is in the beginning and yet you go on.”
Napoleon
14 quotes“Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.”
Isaac Asimov
13 quotes“Society is much more easily soothed than one's own conscience.”