“That is why I don't believe much in what Mr. Descartes said: "I think, therefore I am." I think, therefore I'm lost in my thinking. I'm not there.”
More from Thich Nhat Hanh on Philosophy
“The truth is that everything contains everything else. We cannot just be, we can only inter-be.”
“I am a continuation like the rain is the continuation of the cloud.”
“Things cannot stay the same because they are influenced by everything else, everything that is not itself.”
“Just because we do not perceive something, it is not correct to say it does not exist.”
“Emptiness is not the opposite of existence. It is not nothingness or annihilation.”
“Direct experience is the only way.”
“A person who looks at the table and can see the universe is a person who can see the way.”
“[A]ll the methods in the search for truth should be looked on as means rather than as ends in themselves or as absolute truth.”
“Birth is okay and death is okay, if we know that they are only concepts in our mind. Reality transcends both birth and death.”
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.”