81 Great Quotes from Famous Philosophers and Inspiring Thinkers

Philosophy continues to be important and exploring the different philosophical thoughts has benefits. Read a collection of great quotes from philosophers, thinkers, and writers.

Dear Spirited Earthling,

World Philosophy Day is celebrated on the third Thursday of November every year. The day is dedicated to promoting the importance of philosophy as a discipline, encouraging critical thinking and reflection, and fostering dialogue and understanding between different cultures and perspectives. Philosophy has played a significant role in shaping our society, and its influence continues to be felt today.

Why Philosophy Continues to be Important

The study of philosophy has had a profound impact on our society. From the early Eastern philosophers to the ancient Greeks to the present day, philosophers have explored the nature of reality, the meaning of life, and the relationship between the individual and society. Their ideas and insights have shaped our culture, politics, and morality. Philosophy provides us with the tools to analyse and evaluate different ideas and beliefs, and to make informed decisions about our lives. Simply, philosophy:

• Promotes Critical Thinking: Philosophy nurtures critical thinking and the ability to ask fundamental questions. Philosophers (and those who are interested in it) question assumptions and are willing to challenge the status quo. There is an analytical approach to big, complex problems, concepts, and arguments. With logical reasoning, comes the considerations of different perspectives.

• Shapes Our Values: Philosophy has contributed to the development of ethical and moral frameworks that guide our decisions and actions, emphasising the importance of virtues, ethics, and justice. Philosophy challenges individuals to think critically about moral dilemmas, ethical principles, and the consequences of one’s actions. This promotes thoughtful decision-making and consideration of the ethical implications of one's choices. There are thinkers like John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau who have played significant roles in shaping democratic principles and human rights, contributing to the world's political philosophy.

• Explores the Human Experience: Philosophers from different traditions have contemplated the human experience, addressing questions about the meaning of life, the nature of reality, and the essence of existence. Philosophers are often driven by a deep curiosity about the world and a willingness to consider new ideas. This open-mindedness fosters a broader perspective and a receptivity to different viewpoints. Through the study of different philosophical traditions and perspectives, individuals can develop greater empathy and a deeper understanding of diverse worldviews, cultures, and belief systems.

• Promotes Cross-Cultural and Interdisciplinary Exchange: Philosophy has facilitated cross-cultural understanding, promoting empathy and cooperation among diverse societies by offering insights into different worldviews and belief systems. Philosophy frequently intersects with other fields, such as science, ethics, politics, and psychology. Engaging with these intersections encourages holistic thinking and the application of philosophical reasoning to real-world problems.

Benefits of Exploring Philosophy

As mentioned above, philosophy strengthens critical thinking and reflection and fosters dialogue and understanding between different perspectives. This intellectual growth is a great benefit to studying philosophy. Philosophy can help you understand the world, and to make sense of your place in it. This moral guidance provides a foundation for decision-making that brings a happier, better, fuller life. Philosophy encourages embracing the full human experience. This can lead to personal growth through self-awareness, self-reflection, and self-discovery - ultimately promoting self-improvement.

81 Quotes to Remember from Philosophers

A collection of great quotes from philosophers, thinkers, and writers from Eastern Philosophy, Stoicism, Naturalism, and Romanticism.

1.      “No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.” ~ Buddha

2.      "The mind is everything. What you think you become." ~ Buddha

3.      “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” ~ Buddha

4.      “To a mind that is still, the entire universe surrenders.” ~ Chuang Tzu

5.      “Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.” ~ Chuang Tzu

6.      “Wherever you go, go with all your heart.” ~ Confucius

7.      “The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.” ~ Confucius

8.      “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” ~ Lao Tzu

9.      “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” ~ Lao Tzu

10.  “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” ~ Lao Tzu

11.  “By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” ~ Confucius

12.  “Look within! The secret is inside you.” ~ Hui-Neng

13.  “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

14.  “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

15.  “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

16.  “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~ Rumi

17.  “Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.” ~ Rumi

18.  “Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.” ~ Rumi

19.  “Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

20.  “To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

21.  “Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

22.  “Flow with whatever may happen, and let your mind be free: Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.” ~ Zhuangzi

23.  “The wise man knows that it is better to sit on the banks of a remote mountain stream than to be emperor of the whole world.” ~ Zhuangzi

24.  “I begin to speak only when I’m certain what I’ll say isn’t better left unsaid.” ~ Cato

25.  “How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?” ~ Epictetus

26.  "It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters." ~ Epictetus

27.  “Don’t seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will—then your life will flow well.” ~ Epictetus

28.  “That’s why the philosophers warn us not to be satisfied with mere learning, but to add practice and then training. For as time passes we forget what we learned and end up doing the opposite, and hold opinions the opposite of what we should.” ~ Epictetus

29.  “When someone is properly grounded in life, they shouldn’t have to look outside themselves for approval.” ~ Epictetus

30.  “Think of the life you have lived until now as over and, as a dead man, see what’s left as a bonus and live it according to Nature. Love the hand that fate deals you and play it as your own, for what could be more fitting?” ~ Marcus Aurelius

31.  “If it is not right, do not do it, if it is not true, do not say it.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

32.  “In your actions, don’t procrastinate. In your conversations, don’t confuse. In your thoughts, don’t wander. In your soul, don’t be passive or aggressive. In your life, don’t be all about business.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

33.  “No person has the power to have everything they want, but it is in their power not to want what they don’t have, and to cheerfully put to good use what they do have.” ~ Seneca

34.  “If a man knows not which port he sails, no wind is favourable.” ~ Seneca

35.  “People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.” ~ Seneca

36.  “What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him.” ~ Viktor Frankl

37.  “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” ~ Viktor Frankl

38.  “Man conquers the world by conquering himself.” ~ Zeno of Citium

39.  "The source from which existing things derive their existence is also that to which they return at their destruction." ~ Anaximander

40.  “In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.” ~ Aristotle

41.  “The physician heals, Nature makes well.” ~ Aristotle

42.  “If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is Nature’s way.” ~ Aristotle

43.  “The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.” ~ Charles Darwin

44.  “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” ~ Charles Darwin

45.  “The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.” ~ Galileo Galilei

46.  “I've loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.” ~ Galileo Galilei

47.  "In wilderness is the preservation of the world." ~ Henry David Thoreau

48.  “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

49.  “It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?” ~ Henry David Thoreau

50.  “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” ~ Heraclitus

51.  “The meaning of the river flowing is not that all things are changing so that we cannot encounter them twice but that some things stay the same only by changing.” ~ Heraclitus

52.  “The only thing that is constant is change.” ~ Heraclitus

53.  “The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny - it is the light that guides your way.” ~ Heraclitus

54.  “In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” ~John Muir

55.  “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” ~John Muir

56.  “There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.” ~ Linda Hogan

57.  "There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar." ~ Lord Byron

58.  “My religion is nature. That’s what arouses those feelings of wonder and mysticism and gratitude in me.” ~ Oliver Sacks

59.  “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” ~ Rachel Carson

60.  "Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

61.  “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

62.  “Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

63.  “The earth laughs in flowers.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

64.  “The world is wonderful because it is a creation of God.” ~ Thales of Miletus

65.  “It is difficult to know yourself; it is easy to give advice to others.” ~ Thales of Miletus

66.  "We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are." ~ Anaïs Nin

67.  "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

68.  "Art is the daughter of freedom." ~ Friedrich Schiller

69.  "Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion." ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

70.  “Trust your heart rather than your head.” ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

71.  “Why should we build our happiness on the opinions of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?” ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

72.  "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." - John Keats

73.  "Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful." ~ Mary Shelley

74.  "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched—they must be felt with the heart." ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

75.  "The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions—the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss or a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment, and the countless infinitesimals of pleasurable and genial feeling." ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

76.  "Imagination is the living power and prime agent of all human perception." ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

77.  "The spiritual is the parent of the practical." ~ Thomas Carlyle

78.  “To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour." ~ William Blake

79.  “The best portion of a good man's life: his little, nameless unremembered acts of kindness and love.” ~ William Wordsworth

80.  “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” ~ William Wordsworth

81.  “Rest and be thankful.” ~ William Wordsworth

A great podcast to learn more about philosophy and the different themes is Philosophize This! (Spotify and Apple). The book Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder provides an introduction to the different philosophical thinking in a fictional setting.

Do you have a favourite quote from a philosopher? Comment below, and share some of your favourite thinkers and their quotes.

Spirited Earthling is more than just a blog – it's a gathering place for kindred spirits drawn by an interest in self-discovery, the appeal of self-care, and a desire for a deeper connection to the world. Written and created for curious minds and spiritual hearts seeking meaning in everyday life, this blog aims to help you curate your wholesome personal growth with free weekly ideas and affordable resources for sale.

As you navigate your personal growth journey using the words and ideas shared here, consider sharing this blog with someone looking for inspiration or motivation on their own journey. We are all spirited earthlings, and can lift each other together with mindful, connected living.

Best wishes, warmest regards

Jordan

---

Follow our Pinterest Boards for more words and quotes inspiration - The Power of Words and Inspiring Quotes and Sayings.

---

Connect with Spirited Earthling on your favourite social platforms and say hello 🌻

Join our Telegram group for a link to the new blog post of the week  ♡