
Source: Striking Thoughts (2000), p. 42
Striking Thoughts (2000)
Source: Striking Thoughts (2000), p. 42
Source: 1970s, Meditations (1979), p. 105
Context: Meditation is the emptying of the mind of all thought, for thought and feeling dissipate energy. They are repetitive, producing mechanical activities which are a necessary part of existence. But they are only part, and thought and feeling cannot possibly enter into the immensity of life. Quite a different approach is necessary, not the path of habit, association and the known; there must be freedom from these. Meditation is the emptying of the mind of the known. It cannot be done by thought or by the hidden prompting of thought, nor by desire in the form of prayer, nor through the self-effacing hypnotism of words, images, hopes, and vanities. All these have to come to an end, easily, without effort and choice, in the flame of awareness.
“Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.”
A 51, B 75
Source: Critique of Pure Reason (1781; 1787)
Context: Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. The understanding can intuit nothing, the senses can think nothing. Only through their unison can knowledge arise.
Arun Shourie - The World of Fatwas Or The Sharia in Action (2012, Harper Collins)
“All human thought proceeds through words, so if words are askew, thought cannot proceed aright.”
On Confucian values.
The World's Religions (1991)
Context: All human thought proceeds through words, so if words are askew, thought cannot proceed aright. When Confucius says that nothing is more important than that a father be a father, that a ruler be a ruler, he is saying that we must know what we mean when we use those words. But equally important, the words must mean the right things. Rectification of Names is the call for a normative semantics--the creation of a language in which key nouns carry the meanings they should carry if life is to be well ordered.
Source: Wozu noch Philosophie? [Why still philosophy?] (1963), p. 9
“One thought cannot awake without awakening others.”
Ein Gedanke kann nicht erwachen, ohne andere zu wecken.
Aphorisms (1880/1893)
Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life (2002)
“Independent character is like independent thought, it cannot be developed without criticism.”
Source: The Revolution Betrayed (1936), Ch. 7