Source: Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (posthumous), p. 27
“Whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.”
Source: The Problems of Philosophy
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Bertrand Russell 562
logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and politi… 1872–1970Related quotes
“There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.”
Nihil tam absurde dici potest, quod non dicatur ab aliquo philosophorum.
Book II, chapter LVIII, section 119
Cf. René Descartes' "On ne sauroit rien imaginer de si étranger et si peu croyable, qu’il n’ait été dit par quelqu’un des philosophes [One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another]" (Le Discours de la Méthode, Pt. 2)
Variant: There is nothing so ridiculous that some philosopher has not said it.
Source: De Divinatione – On Divination (44 BC)
“There is nothing so absurd that it has not been said by some philosopher.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero
(-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman
Book II, chapter LVIII, section 119
Cf. René Descartes' "On ne sauroit rien imaginer de si étranger et si peu croyable, qu'il n'ait été dit par quelqu'un des philosophes [One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another]" (Le Discours de la Méthode, Pt. 2)
De Divinatione – On Divination (44 BC)
Original: (la) Nihil tam absurde dici potest, quod non dicatur ab aliquo philosophorum.
"The Teacher"
Winesburg, Ohio (1919)
Context: "You will have to know life," she declared, and her voice trembled with earnestness. She took hold of George Willard’s shoulders and turned him about so that she could look into his eyes. A passer-by might have thought them about to embrace. "If you are to become a writer you’ll have to stop fooling with words," she explained. "It would be better to give up the notion of writing until you are better prepared. Now it’s time to be living. I don’t want to frighten you, but I would like to make you understand the import of what you think of attempting. You must not become a mere peddler of words. The thing to learn is to know what people are thinking about, not what they say."
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
(1772–1829) German poet, critic and scholar
“Selected Aphorisms from the Athenaeum (1798)”, Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms, Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, trans. (Pennsylvania University Press:1968) #96
Athenäum (1798 - 1800)
Source: The Summing Up (1938), p. 223
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician
Bk. I, Ch. 5 http://books.google.com/books?id=q4JKAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Whoever+wishes+to+keep+a+secret+must+hide+from+us+that+he+possesses+one%22&pg=PA73#v=onepage
Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre (Journeyman Years) (1821–1829)