American Philosophy Quotes

...It would hardly be a waste of time if sometimes even the most advanced students in the cognitive sciences were to pay a visit to their ancestors. It is frequently claimed in American philosophy departments that, in order to be a philosopher, it is not necessary to revisit the history of philosophy. It is like the claim that one can become a painter without having ever seen a single work by Raphael, or a writer without having ever read the classics. Such things are theoretically possible; but the 'primitive' artist, condemned to an ignorance of the past, is always recognizable as such and rightly labeled as naïf. It is only when we consider past projects revealed as utopian or as failures that we are apprised of the dangers and possibilities for failure for our allegedly new projects. The study of the deeds of our ancestors is thus more than an atiquarian pastime, it is an immunological precaution. ~ Umberto Eco

The rats at the door had gone away. I drank another bottle of wine. To think I was once rich. I once had money. I had everything but something.

I used to think that all people desire to be cared for; some are so used to it that they take it for granted, others, who never feel it, desire it so much that they constantly
need it. So much in fact, that when they don't receive it they have outbursts, and in the end they wind up pushing away those people who in the end would have cared for them
as their heart desired within its innermost depths. So they are always alone, always on the edge of society, within it, but at the same time, apart from it. They are like spectators
watching with envy the dance of mankind, wishing for that one feeling that only another's love can bring. A whisper
that speaks to one and only one and says:

"You truly are worth something."

They never know that feeling that shines on some.

So they cease to expect and begin looking elsewhere for that…wonderful whisper of…

War.

Love almost seems like war.

The ancient Greeks used to say, 'Love as if you will one day hate.'

I used to think that meant something very
pessimistic, that love was not real.

But really, man is just an animal anyway.

It's not just about that though, the Greeks meant more. It's like, 'Live as if you will one day die.' Do not take
for gran ~ Michael Szymczyk

You must know where you came from yesterday, know where you are today, to know where you're going tomorrow." -Cree saying ~ Trace A. DeMeyer

To the untutored sage, the concentration of population was the prolific mother of all evils, moral no less than physical. He argued that food is good, while surfeit kills; that love is good, but lust destroys; and not less dreaded than the pestilence following upon crowded and unsanitary dwellings was the loss of spiritual power inseparable from too close contact with one's fellow-men. ~ Charles Alexander Eastman

Words summarize the American philosophy of life: Live and let live; Let's make a deal. 8 words summarize American foreign policy: We're better than you; Do it our way. ~ Gary North

My sense, although I don't remember discussing it with anyone, was that with the fall of France to the Nazis in June 1940, European civilization had collapsed. I also recalled that although both George Herbert Mead and John Dewey had been born in New England, they developed their distinctively American philosophy of pragmatism in Chicago. So thinking of my own New England roots, I decided to go to Chicago, which, seen through Carl Sandburg's eyes, was the opposite of European decadence: Hog Butcher for the World, Tool maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler, Stormy, husky, brawling. City of the Big Shoulders.7 ~ Grace Lee Boggs

Plato offers the amazing idea that contemplation of the way things really are is, in itself, a purifying process that can bring human beings into the only divinity there is. ~ Jennifer Michael Hecht

It's interesting that music in this country ... we sort of sold something to America with The Beatles and they sold something back. And we've never been afraid to embrace American style rock 'n' roll and make it our own over here. ~ Ricky Gervais

For me, writing is immortality. It is wisdom. It is never-ending. ~ Alecia Stone

We're all on death row, ultimately. Are you so stupid that don't see that? Sure, you kids in here, as enemies of the system, will assuredly die earlier than most. As well you should. But all of us everywhere have a one-way ticket to death. ~ James Patterson

The whole night I was thinking and dreaming to give you the most beautiful gift and that is my heart. ~ Debasish Mridha

Live earnestly and respond consciously with love. ~ Debasish Mridha

Many respected economists and statesmen believe our national debt is neither unwieldy nor a dangerous burden on the country. The trouble is that a vast majority of the American people think otherwise ... It violates basic American ideas of thrift and money management. These strong public feelings cannot be ignored forever. ~ Mo Udall

I think the zenith of popular songwriting to the United States of America was that period that started in the '20s and went into the '50s. It was the period of the great American standard song. ~ Linda Ronstadt

Nineteenth-century inventors of the steam engine used a physical theory which today is considered as scientifically false . In fact most of the inventors up to very recent times have been, for the most part, ignorant of the science of their day and have applied theories that have proved to be false. Moreover, even today a physical or chemical theory can change while its application continues untouched. The success of applied science, therefore, is no reason for accepting the infallibility of the scientific theories involved. There should be an intelligent and conscious criticism of science and its implications, both for those involved in the sciences, and most of all for those who are the recipients of the popularized versions of scientific theories. The philosophy of science has in certain cases tried to point to the lack of logical consistency in some scientific definitions and methods. But having surrendered itself to the fruits of the experimental and analytical methods, it cannot itself be an independent judge of modern science. ~ Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Pain does not differentiate between rich and poor or Christian and Buddhist. It brings the same feelings to everyone. ~ Debasish Mridha

A happy healthy soul; sacred life. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

I want to find the candidates who understand the principles of American exceptionalism and have the character, the courage, and the confidence to actually lead the greatest nation in the world. ~ Jim DeMint

Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it? ~ Bertrand Russell

Every child had a pretty good shot, to get at least as far as their old man got. But something happened on the way to that place. They threw an American flag in our face. ~ Billy Joel

If there were a party of those who aren't sure they're right, I'd belong to it.
~(Camus, as quoted by Tony Judt) ~ Albert Camus

I wish every American explored the importance of novel writing, identity, honesty, character and place in fresh-ass ways. ~ Kiese Laymon

You can only inspire others when your heart is ready to sing the song of love. ~ Debasish Mridha

The American people want peace. They have long since ceased to talk of a hard or a soft peace for Germany. ~ James F. Byrnes

Let them judge you
They will judge you and let them judge you. You just don't have to care. Let go of what others think about you and let yourself shine.
Do your thing and keep rolling because you got this. ~ Charles E Hudson

There is no future without a past, because what is to be cannot be imagined except as a form of repetition. ~ Siri Hustvedt

Because the myth that America is a Christian nation has led many to associate America with Christ, many now hear the good news of Jesus only as American news, capitalistic news, imperialistic news, exploitive news, antigay news, or Republican news. And whether justified or not, many people want nothing to do with any of it. ~ Gregory A. Boyd

Everything has changed in recent decades - the economy, technology, cultural attitudes, the demographics of the workforce, the role of women in society and the structure of the American family. It's about time our laws caught up. We watch 'Modern Family' on television, but we're still living by 'Leave It To Beaver' rules. ~ Thomas Perez

Advertising has always been the Peck's Bad Boy of American business urging us to buy things we probably don't need and often can't afford. ~ Andrew Hacker

Rise up and lift your sword, peaceful warrior. Keep it strong and steady. You've already lived and fought a thousand battles, and you're not here - again - to cower in fear and pain. ~ Anne Clendening

Fear is not the truth of life, but it is the truest fiction of our lives. ~ Debasish Mridha

Paine suffered then, as now he suffers not so much because of what he wrote as from the misinterpretations of others...

He disbelieved the ancient myths and miracles taught by established creeds. But the attacks on those creeds - or on persons devoted to them - have served to darken his memory, casting a shadow across the closing years of his life.

When Theodore Roosevelt termed Tom Paine a 'dirty little atheist' he surely spoke from lack of understanding. It was a stricture, an inaccurate charge of the sort that has dimmed the greatness of this eminent American. But the true measure of his stature will yet be appreciated. The torch which he handed on will not be extinguished. If Paine had ceased his writings with 'The Rights of Man' he would have been hailed today as one of the two or three outstanding figures of the Revolution. But 'The Age of Reason' cost him glory at the hands of his countrymen - a greater loss to them than to Tom Paine.

I was always interested in Paine the inventor. He conceived and designed the iron bridge and the hollow candle; the principle of the modern central draught burner. The man had a sort of universal genius. He was interested in a diversity of things; but his special creed, his first thought, was liberty.

Traducers have said that he spent his last days drinking in pothouses. They have pictured him as a wicked old man coming to a sorry end. But I am persuaded that Paine must have looked with magnanim ~ Thomas A. Edison

They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this Nation. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

I obviously disagree with the individuals who do not support rural America and do not support rural airports. Under their philosophy, maybe we shouldn't even be paving roads in rural America, because there are fewer people that drive on them. ~ Glenn Thompson

One may take the line that metaphorical devices are inevitable in the early stages of any science and that although we may look with amusement today upon the "essences," "forces," "phlogistons," and "ethers," of the science of yesterday, these nevertheless were essential to the historical process. It would be difficult to prove or disprove this. However, if we have learned anything about the nature of scientific thinking, if mathematical and logical researches have improved our capacity to represent and analyze empirical data, it is possible that we can avoid some of the mistakes of adolescence. Whether Freud could have done so is past demonstrating, but whether we need similar constructs in the future prosecution of a science of behavior is a question worth considering. ~ B.F. Skinner

If tomorrow all the things were gone
I'd worked for all my life,
And I had to start a new one
with just my children and my wife,
I'd thank my lucky stars
to be living here today,
'Cause the flag still stands for freedom
and they can't take that away.
And I'm proud to be an American
where at least I know I'm free, ~ Lee Greenwood

We will have to work around the world with less than ideal governments. The government in Saudi Arabia is not a democracy, but we will have to work with them. The government in Jordan is not perfect, but we will have to work with them. But anti-American dictators like [Bashar] Assad, who help Hezbollah, who helped get those IEDs into Iraq, if they go, I will not shed a tear. ~ Marco Rubio

In this America, too, the Christian teaching that every human soul is unique and precious has been stressed, by the prophets of self-fulfillment and gurus of self-love, at the expense of the equally important teaching that every human soul is fatally corrupted by original sin. Absent the latter emphasis, religion becomes a license for egotism and selfishness, easily employed to justify what used to be considered deadly sins. The result is a society where pride becomes 'healthy self-esteem', vanity becomes 'self-improvement', adultery becomes 'following your heart', greed and gluttony become 'living the American dream'. ~ Ross Douthat

When you come to look into this argument from design, it is a most astonishing thing that people can believe that this world, with all the things that are in it, with all its defects, should be the best that omnipotence and omniscience have been able to produce in millions of years. I really cannot believe it. Do you think that, if you were granted omnipotence and omniscience and millions of years in which to perfect your world, you could produce nothing better than the Ku Klux Klan or the Fascists? Moreover, if you accept the ordinary laws of science, you have to suppose that human life and life in general on this planet will die out in due course: it is a stage in the decay of the solar system; at a certain stage of decay you get the sort of conditions of temperature and so forth which are suitable to protoplasm, and there is life for a short time in the life of the whole solar system. You see in the moon the sort of thing to which the earth is tending -- something dead, cold, and lifeless. ~ Bertrand Russell

My parents didn't raise me to be religious. The closest we come to worship is the Trinity of Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. ~ Laurie Anderson

You can change someone's life by showing gratitude and giving sincere appreciation. ~ Debasish Mridha

I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harm's way. ~ John Paul Jones

You are nothing but what you think. That is existentialism. ~ Debasish Mridha

The American who has been confined, in his own country, to the sight of buildings designed after foreign models, is surprised on entering York Minster or St. Peter's at Rome, by the feeling that these structures are imitations also,
faint copies of an invisible archetype. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's a historical phenomenon that in 250 years, a nation could move from a colony into the most prosperous nation of the world and the leader of the world. It is indeed an achievement, a tribute to the talent of the American nation, the American people and an optimal political and economic system. ~ Vladimir Putin

A smile is the expression of ecstasy of life. ~ Debasish Mridha

Settling other people's land is an American tradition. ~ Ariel Gore

I hear echoes in your prose, echoes that run back to stuffy English drawing rooms and American universities. Is that what Canadians aspire to sound like?" She had taken a cigarette without appearing to watch what she was doing, and lighted it from a box of kitchen matches. I needed a cigarette myself, but was too wrapped up in what was being said to me to attempt to smoke. Gertrude blew a large smoke ring across the gap between us and watched it drift towards the ceiling. ~ Howard Engel

Give yourself wherever you can, whenever you can. You will have more to give and share again and again. ~ Debasish Mridha

It is so simple, to be happy think happiness. ~ Debasish Mridha

Be as peaceful as a dancing spring flower. ~ Debasish Mridha

State philosophy reposes on a double identity: of the thinking subject, and of the concepts it creates and to which it lends its own presumed attributes of sameness and constancy. The subjects, its concepts, and also the objects in the world to which the concepts are applied have a shared, internal essence: the self-resemblance at the basis of identity. Representational thought is analogical; its concern is to establish a correspondence between these symmetrically structured domains. The faculty of judgment is the policeman of analogy, assuring that each of these terms is honestly itself, and that the proper correspondences obtain. In thought its end is truth, in action justice. The weapons it wields in their pursuit are limitive distribution (the determination of the exclusive set of properties possessed by each term in contradistinction to the others: logos, law) and hierarchical ranking (the measurement of the degree of perfection of a term's self-resemblance in relation to a supreme standard, man, god, or gold: value, morality). The modus operandi is negation: x = x = not y. Identity, resemblance, truth, justice, and negation. The rational foundation for order. The established order, of course: philosophers have traditionally been employees of the State. The collusion between philosophy and the State was most explicitly enacted in the first decade of the nineteenth century with the foundation of the University of Berlin, which was to become the model of higher learning th ~ Gilles Deleuze

Problems are very complicated when you don't know the solutions. ~ Debasish Mridha

A goal is important, but what you become to achieve that goal is much more important. ~ Debasish Mridha