The philosopher spends in becoming a man the time which the ambitious man spends in becoming a personage.

Ethical metaphysics is fundamentally an attempt, however disguised, to give legislative force to our own wishes.

For the learning of every virtue there is an appropriate discipline, and for the learning of suspended judgment the best discipline is philosophy.

Philosophers, for the most part, are constitutionally timid, and dislike the unexpected. Few of them would be genuinely happy as pirates or burglars. Accordingly they invent systems which make the future calculable, at least in its main outlines.

At best, the true philosopher can fulfil his mission very imperfectly, which is to pilot himself, or at most a few voluntary companions who may find themselves in the same boat.

Philosophers are as jealous as women; each wants a monopoly of praise.

Philosophy has a fine saying for everything.-For Death it has an entire set.

That's why I love philosophy: no one wins.

The various opinions of philosophers have scattered through the world as many plagues of the mind as Pandora's box did those of the body; only with this difference, that they have not left hope at the bottom.

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.