Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution
Collected Works, Vol. 33, pp. 227–36.
Collected Works
As quoted in The Literary Digest (18 October 1902)
Context: Posterity will one day laugh at the foolishness of modern materialistic philosophers. The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. I pray while I am engaged at my work in the laboratory.
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution
Collected Works, Vol. 33, pp. 227–36.
Collected Works
“New York: Prison towers and modern posters for soap and whiskey. Pittsburgh: Abandon it.”
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)
On New York and Pittsburgh, The New York Times (27 November 1955)
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher
Matthew Stewart, The Courtier and the Heretic (2006)
Context: According to the seventeenth-century way of thinking, an atheist was by definition a decadent. If there was no God (or, at least, no providential, rewarding-and-punishing God of the sort worshipped in all the traditional religions), the reasoning went, then everything is permitted. So a non-beliver would be expected to indulge in all manner of sensual stimulation... to lie, cheat, and steal...
Spinoza, according to all seventeenth-century interpreters, rejected all the traditional ideas about God; he was indesputably a heretic. Yet his manner of living was humble and apparently free of vice. Then, as now, the philosopher seemed a living oxymoron: he was an ascetic sensualist, a spiritual materialist, a sociable hermit, a secular saint. How could his life have been so good, the critics asked, when his philosophy was so bad?<!--p.73
“To decide to become a philosopher seemed as foolish to me as to decide to become a poet.”
Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) German psychiatrist and philosopher
Louis Althusser book Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays
Source: Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (1968), "Philosophy as a Revolutionary Weapon", p. 6
“One day I would be a better hand at the game. One day I would learn how to laugh.”
Hermann Hesse book Steppenwolf
Source: Steppenwolf (1927), p. 218
Context: One day I would be a better hand at the game. One day I would learn how to laugh. Pablo was waiting for me, and Mozart too.
Jacob Aagaard (1973) Danish-born Scottish chess grandmaster
"Are chess players intelligent?" Quality Chess Blog (6 October 2010) http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/blog/?p=630
Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living
Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 13
“God weeps with us so that we may one day laugh with him.”
Jürgen Moltmann (1926) German Reformed theologian
“Ideal goals are a menace in themselves, as much in more modern philosophers as in Plato.”
Moses I. Finley (1912–1986) American historian
Source: Democracy Ancient And Modern (Second Edition) (1985), Chapter 1, Leaders and Followers, p. 6