100+ Famous Philosophy Quotes That Inspire Deep Thinking

“The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.” – James A. Garfield

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought.” – Buddha

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” – Albert Einstein

“Know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” – Gospel of John

“We are twice armed if we fight with faith.” – Plato

“There are only two ways of telling the complete truth: anonymously and posthumously.” – Thomas Sowell

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” – Oscar Wilde

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.” – Winston Churchill

“Truth arises from doubt.” – Pierre Abelard

“The search for truth is more precious than its possession.” – Albert Einstein

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” – Aldous Huxley

“Falsehood takes the place of truth when it results in unblemished common good.” – Plato

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” – Socrates

“Knowledge is power.” – Francis Bacon

“Wisdom begins in wonder.” – Socrates

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” – Plutarch

“An unexamined life is not worth living.” – Socrates

“I think, therefore I am.” – René Descartes

“Doubt is the origin of wisdom.” – Augustine of Hippo

“To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.” – Benjamin Disraeli

“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” – Socrates

“The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.” – Albert Einstein

“He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.” – Lao Tzu

“All our knowledge begins with the senses.” – Immanuel Kant

“Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of one's desires, but by the removal of desire.” – Epictetus

“Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else.” – John Stuart Mill

“No man is free who is not master of himself.” – Epictetus

“The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.” – W.E.B. Du Bois

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” – George Orwell

“Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency.” – Maya Angelou

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Freedom lies in being bold.” – Robert Frost

“To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” – Nelson Mandela

“Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.” – George Bernard Shaw

“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.” – Immanuel Kant

“Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.” – Immanuel Kant

“Ethics is nothing other than reverence for life.” – Albert Schweitzer

“Virtue is knowledge.” – Socrates

“The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

“It is not enough to win; others must lose.” – Gore Vidal

“Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature.” – John Locke

“The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.” – Jeremy Bentham

“Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“When a man is denied the right to live honestly, he owes it to himself to become a criminal.” – Nelson Mandela

“Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.” – George Bernard Shaw

“Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.” – Potter Stewart

“To be is to be perceived.” – George Berkeley

“Existence precedes essence.” – Jean-Paul Sartre

“I think, therefore I am.” – René Descartes

“Being is the ground of all beings.” – Martin Heidegger

“Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.” – Democritus

“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” – Henri Bergson

“Life is not measured in years, but in the moments that take your breath away.” – Virginia Woolf

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“In order to understand existence, one must confront it.” – Søren Kierkegaard

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Being is light.” – Parmenides

“Know thyself.” – Inscription at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi

“The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action.” – John Dewey

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” – Carl Jung

“To thine own self be true.” – William Shakespeare

“The most fundamental thing about us is our capacity for self-transcendence.” – Viktor Frankl

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.” – Carl Jung

“The self is a relation that relates itself to itself.” – Søren Kierkegaard

“Identity is not a mask we wear; it is a story we live.” – bell hooks

“Each man is a volume if you knew how to read him.” – Charles Spurgeon

“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” – Carl Jung

“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” – Rumi

“Time is a river that carries me along, but I am the river.” – Jorge Luis Borges

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.” – Albert Einstein

“Eternity is not endless time, but a state of being.” – Meister Eckhart

“Time you enjoy wasting was not wasted.” – John Lennon

“The past has no power over the present moment.” – Eckhart Tolle

“Time is the school in which we learn, time is the fire in which we burn.” – Delmore Schwartz

“The future is not a result of choices among the alternative present, but a place that is created—created first in the mind and will.” – John Schaar

“The instant is the only time in which any action takes place.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Lost time is never found again.” – Benjamin Franklin

“Time is money.” – Benjamin Franklin

“The older I get, the more I realize the importance of the name I’m going to leave behind.” – Anthony D'Angelo

“Time is the wisest counselor of all.” – Pericles

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” – Lord Acton

“Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish.” – Anne Bradstreet

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.” – George Bernard Shaw

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Power is always dangerous. It attracts the worst and corrupts the best.” – Edward Abbey

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

“The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.” – Wole Soyinka

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” – Thomas Paine

“Authority is really the power to define reality.” – Karl Marx

“Obedience is the foundation of all authority.” – Cicero

“Power concedes nothing without a demand.” – Frederick Douglass

“Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.” – John C. Maxwell

“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” – Aristotle

“Where there is love there is life.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“Compassion is the ultimate expression of your highest self.” – Russell Simmons

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

“To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.” – David Viscott

“Love is the bridge between you and everything.” – Rumi

“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves.” – Thomas Merton

“Hate is a lack of imagination.” – Georges Bernanos

“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

“At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

“You cannot do kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” – Mark Twain

“Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Everyone dies, but not everyone truly lives.” – William Wallace (attributed)

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. One who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” – Mark Twain

“To fear death is to misunderstand life.” – Confucius

“Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.” – W.H. Auden

“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” – Marcus Aurelius

“We are all born mad. Some remain so.” – Samuel Beckett

“He who fears death will never do anything worthy of a living man.” – Seneca

“Death is the golden key that opens the palace of eternity.” – John Milton

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there.” – Steve Jobs

“Mortality is the fate of all, but immortality is the destiny of few.” – Unknown

“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.” – Thomas Campbell