Quotes about intuition (556 quotes, page 6)

“Spinoza is the clear and luminous side of Modern philosophy. He is the negation of bourgeois mediation and of all the logical, metaphysical, and juridical fictions that organize its expansion. He is the attempt to determine the continuity of the revolutionary project of humanism. With Spinoza, philosophy succeeds for the first time in negating itself as a science of mediation. In Spinoza there is the sense of a great anticipation of the future centuries; there is the intuition of such a radical truth of future philosophy that it not only keeps him from being flattened onto seventeenth-century thought but also, it often seems, denies any confrontation, any comparison. Really, none of his contemporaries understands him or refutes him.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Antonio Negri, The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza's Metaphysics and Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991). Translated from the Italian by Michael Hardt. Originally published as L'anomalia selvaggia. Saggio su potere e potenza in Baruch Spinoza (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1981)
M - R

Time , Understanding , Future , Truth

“Spinoza is a highly systematic thinker, but still I do not think I can offer a single key for all things Spinozistic. Personally, one thing which got me excited about Spinoza is his philosophical boldness, i. e., his willingness to pursue philosophical exploration as far as he can, making very little concessions to commonly accepted beliefs and norms. In terms of content, I take his attempt to conceive of God, nature, and ethics in a manner that is free from anthropomorphism and anthropocentric illusions as one of the deepest elements of his philosophical thinking. A closely related issue is his advocacy of actual infinity (an issue that has been mostly neglected in recent literature). Finally, the very attempt to do philosophy systematically (rather than rely on fragmented and disassociated intuitions) and transparently (laying bare the logical structure of his arguments) commands my respect, indeed admiration.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Yitzhak Y. Melamed, Spinoza's Metaphysics and His Relationship to Hegel and the German Idealists, an interview by Richard Marshall (3:AM Magazine, 30 December 2017) https://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/spinozas-metaphysics-relationship-hegel-german-idealists/
M - R

God , Personality , Nature , Thinking

“The shortcoming thus acknowledged to attach to the content turns out at the same time to be a shortcoming in respect of form. Spinoza puts substance at the head of his system, and defines it to be the unity of thought and extension, without demonstrating how he gets to this distinction, or how he traces it back to the unity of substance. The further treatment of the subject proceeds in what is called the mathematical method. Definitions and axioms are first laid down: after them comes a series of theorems, which are proved by an analytical reduction of them to these unproved postulates. Although the system of Spinoza, and that even by those who altogether reject its contents and results, is praised for the strict sequence of its method, such unqualified praise of the form is as little justified as an unqualified rejection of the content. The defect of the content is that the form is not known as immanent in it, and therefore only approaches it as an outer and subjective form. As intuitively accepted by Spinoza without a previous mediation by dialectic, Substance, as the universal negative power, is as it were a dark shapeless abyss which engulfs all definite content as radically null, and produces from itself nothing that has a positive subsistence of its own.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences: The Logic
G - L, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Universe , Time , Mathematics

“The piety of philosophers is theory, pure intuition of the divinity, calm and gay in silent solitude. Spinoza is the ideal of the species. The religious state of the poet is more passionate and more communicative.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Friedrich Schlegel, Philosophical Fragments (1798)
S - Z

Passion , Solitude , Communication

“Decision-making based on emotional intuition, without the aid of reason to keep it in line, pretty much always sucks. You know who bases their entire lives on their emotions? Three-year-old kids. And dogs. You know what else three-year-olds and dogs do? Shit on the carpet.”

Mark Manson (1984) American writer and blogger

Source: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (2016), Chapter 2, “Happiness Is a Problem” (p. 35)

Dogs , Making love , Decision

“The progress of mathematics has been most erratic, and… intuition has played a predominant rôle in it. …It was the function of intuition to create new forms; it was the acknowledged right of logic to accept or reject these new forms, in whose birth in had no part.”

Tobias Dantzig (1884–1956) American mathematician

...the children had to live, so while waiting for logic to sanctify their existence, they throve and multiplied.
Number: The Language of Science (1930)

Birth , Mathematics , Parting

“P. Bernays has pointed out on several occasions that, since the consistency of a system cannot be proved using means of proof weaker than those of the system itself, it is necessary to go beyond the framework of what is, in Hilbert’s sense, finitary mathematics if one wants to prove the consistency of classical mathematics, or even that of classical number theory. Consequently, since finitary mathematics is defined as the mathematics in which evidence rests on what is intuitive, certain abstract notions are required for the proof of the consistency of number theory…. In the absence of a precise notion of what it means to be evident, either in the intuitive or in the abstract realm, we have no strict proof of Bernays’ assertion; practically speaking, however, there can be no doubt that it is correct…”

Paul Bernays (1888–1977) Swiss mathematician

Kurt Gödel (1958, CW II, p. 241) as cited in: Feferman, Solomon. " Lieber Herr Bernays!, Lieber Herr Gödel! Gödel on finitism, constructivity and Hilbert's program* http://math.stanford.edu/~feferman/papers/bernays.pdf." dialectica 62.2 (2008): 179-203.

Sense , Mathematics

“It is not to be supposed that she was, or that any one, at the age at which I first saw her, could be, all that she afterwards became. Least of all could this be true of her, with whom self-improvement, progress in the highest and in all senses, was a law of her nature; a necessity equally from the ardour with which she sought it, and from the spontaneous tendency of faculties which could not receive an impression or an experience without making it the source or the occasion of an accession of wisdom. Up to the time when I first saw her, her rich and powerful nature had chiefly unfolded itself according to the received type of feminine genius. To her outer circle she was a beauty and a wit, with an air of natural distinction, felt by all who approached her: to the inner, a woman of deep and strong feeling, of penetrating and intuitive intelligence, and of an eminently meditative and poetic nature.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)
Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/185/mode/1up p. 185

Nature , Intelligence , Making love , Time

“Our intuition gets obscured by the fears and beliefs that we have erected in front of it. When we lose trust in our intuitive knowledge, we begin to close down that channel of information by ignoring it. The good news is, though we may shut out the messages we receive from the higher self, the higher self continues to give them, so it is impossible to completely lose the ability to be intuitive.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Knowledge , Self-confidence , Fear

“To truly listen for intuition means to listen with all of your senses. You may hear the answer, or see the answer. You may just "know" the answer. You may get a physical sensation such as a chill or hot flash or feel the answer emotionally.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Sense , Feeling

“In any case it is evident that there is a psychology as well as a sociology of handwriting. Tremendously complicated as the problem of diagnosis of individual traits from those tiny strokes of the pen appears, it is yet a legitimate problem of science; for the more progress psychology makes, the more evident it becomes that there is not a mode of expression which is not rooted to its finest detail in the complex psycho-physical organism. Meanwhile, it is fortunate that the task of identifying graphic signs should not be left wholly to the intuitions of the graphologist. Experimental work that seeks to induce variation in writing through a control of outer conditions must in time correlate certain definite variations in conditions with variation in such aspects of writing as size, speed, accuracy in alignment, inequality of control and the like.”

June Downey (1875–1932) American psychologist

August 1909, Popular Science Monthly Volume 75, Article:"The Varificational Factor in Handwriting", p. 150-151
about Handwriting

Time , Speed , Problem , Appearance

“The great enigma of anthropology can be phrased like this: All over the world, humans are born with the same cognitive and physical apparatus, and yet they grow into distinctly different persons and groups, with different societal types, beliefs, technologies, languages and notions about the good life. Differences in innate endowments vary within each group and not between them, so that musicality, intelligence, intuition and other qualities that vary from person to person are quite evenly distributed globally.”

Thomas Hylland Eriksen (1962) Norwegian social anthropologist and professor

Source: What is Anthropology? (2nd ed., 2017), Ch. 1 : Why Anthropology?

Personality , Intelligence , Music , World

“But the mighty computer is stupid. Thinking with the speed of light but unable to cross the gaps of intuition.”

Robert Silverberg book The World Inside

Source: The World Inside (1971), Chapter 7 (p. 483)

Light , Thinking , Speed , Stupidity

“[O]ur purpose is to give a presentation of geometry... in its visual, intuitive aspects. With the aid of visual imagination we can illuminate the manifold facts and problems... beyond this, it is possible... to depict the geometric outline of the methods of investigation and proof, without... entering into the details... In this manner, geometry being as many-faceted as it is and being related to the most diverse branches of mathematics, we may even obtain a summarizing survey of mathematics as a whole, and a valid idea of the variety of problems and the wealth of ideas it contains. Thus a presentation of geometry in large brushstrokes... and based on the approach through visual intuition, should contribute to a more just appreciation of mathematics by a wider range of people than just the specialists.”

David Hilbert Geometry and the Imagination

Preface
Geometry and the Imagination (1952)

Imagination , Wealth , People , Problem

“In mathematics, as in any scientific research, we find two tendencies... [T]he tendency toward abstraction seeks to crystallize the logical relations inherent in the maze of material in a systematic and orderly manner. On the other hand, the tendency toward intuitive understanding fosters a more immediate grasp of the objects... a live rapport with them... which stresses the concrete meaning of their relations. ...[I]ntuitive understanding plays a major role in geometry. ...[S]uch concrete intuition is of great value not only for the research worker, but... for anyone who wishes to study and appreciate the results of research in geometry.”

David Hilbert Geometry and the Imagination

Preface
Geometry and the Imagination (1952)

Relation ships , Study , Mathematics , Understanding

“This will bring about a complete transformation of society: a new livingness will characterize our relationships and institutions; a new freedom and sense of joy will replace the present fear. Above all else, mankind will come to realize that living is an art, based on certain laws, requiring the function of the intuition for correct expression.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

The Art of Living: Living within the Laws of Life (2006)

Law , Freedom , Art , Joy

“Relationships are the crucible of the transformative process. They are bound to alter, given the individual's greater willingness to risk, trust in intuition, sense of wider connection with others, recognition of cultural conditioning.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

Source: The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Twelve, Human Connections: Relationships Changing, p. 387

Sense

“It is, of course, men who are more likely to inhibit themselves for the sake of appearing to be sensible and dependable.[…] If pressed, I will agree that more women than men wish to appear wonderfully sensitive and intuitive, and may stop being realistic […] in order to deceive themselves and other people. On the other hand, women in general tend to be more realistic and yet in certain matters more open-minded than men, more ready to resist that pressure of opinion. They are less likely to be put into blinkers by ideas.
Moreover […] as a rule the average woman notices far more than the average man; she has a better eye for detail than he has; she makes a more alert witness.”

J.B. Priestley (1894–1984) English writer

Source: Man and Time (1964), Ch. 8, p. 182

Dependency , People , Appearance , Idea

“I feel a spiritual sense, and that sense is a connection between generations. Some of the lyrics are about connecting intuitively with Mother Earth, sometimes with our evil nature, sometimes with our goodness. I love to connect with my ancestors. Also, I need to express these concerns that are a part of my generation.”

Lila Downs (1968) Mexican American singer-songwriter

On striking a balance between traditional and contemporary issues in “Lila Downs Reminds Us of the Strength Women Bring to Latin America and its History” https://sheshredsmag.com/lila-downs-14/ in She Shreds (2018 May 3)
Music and culture

Nature , Parting , Sense , Love