Philosophy on presence

“Confine yourself to the present.”

“Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life.”

“Life is long, if you know how to use it.”

“Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.”

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”

“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.”

“If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.”

“Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.”

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.”

“Knowing whether or not one can live without appeal is all that interests me.”

“The essential nature (concerning the soul) cannot be corporeal, yet it is also clear that this soul is present in a particular bodily part, and this one of the parts having control over the rest (heart).”

“Music directly represents the passion of the soul. If one listens to the wrong kind of music, he will become the wrong kind of person.”

“There are three lines of life which stand out prominently to view: the life of pleasure, the political life, and the life of reflection.”

“Now the mass of mankind are plainly... choosing a life like that of brute animals... (Bk. 1, Chapter III)”

“There is no meat to be regarded as pure in three ways: not premeditated, not asked for, and not impelled; therefore, refrain from eating meat.”

“In all things, there is neither male nor female.”

“Emotion is the chief source of all becoming-conscious. There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion.”

“Metaphysical assertions, however, are statements of the psyche, and are therefore psychological. ... Whenever the Westerner hears the word psychological, it always sounds to him like only psychological.”

“All ordinary expression may be explained causally, but creative expression which is the absolute contrary of ordinary expression, will be forever hidden from human knowledge.”

“I am not concerned that I have no place; I am concerned how I may fit myself for one. I am not concerned that I am not known; I seek to be worthy to be known.”

“There is no body but eats and drinks. But they are few who can distinguish flavors.”

“Sincerity is that whereby self-completion is effected, and its way is that by which man must direct himself.”

“Sincerity is the end and beginning of things; without sincerity there would be nothing. On this account, the superior man regards the attainment of sincerity as the most excellent thing.”

“Things have their root and their branches. Affairs have their end and their beginning. To know what is first and what is last will lead near to what is taught in the Great Learning.”

“In vain, therefore, should we pretend to determine any single event, or infer any cause or effect, without the assistance of observation and experience.”

“All that had thus far counted as limit, as measuring determination, proved itself here but artificial”

“There is nothing to life that has value, except the degree of power—assuming that life itself is the will to power.”

“The stronger becomes master of the weaker, in so far as the latter cannot assert its degree of independence — here there is no mercy, no forbearance, even less a respect for laws.”

“The quest for philosophical beginnings is idle, for everywhere in all beginnings we find only the crude, the unformed, the empty and the ugly. What matters in all things is the higher levels.”

“But now I see I was not plucked for naught, / And after in life's vase / Of glass set while I might survive, / But by a kind hand brought / Alive / To a strange place.”

“Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.”

“Change is the only constant. There is nothing permanent except change.”

“The living and the dead are always changing places (fr. 78)... not only to the souls that have become water, but to those that have become fire and are now guardian spirits.”

“The concept of space, therefore, is a pure intuition, being a singular concept, not made up by sensations, but itself the fundamental form of all external sensation.”

“A whole from necessary substances is impossible. The whole, therefore, of substances is a whole of contingent things, and the world consists essentially of only contingent things.”

“The real nature of the present revealed itself: it was what exists, all that was not present did not exist.”

“Who can exhaust a man? Who knows a man's resources?”

“All that I know about my life, it seems, I have learned in books.”

“But, if it will help ease your irritated souls, please know, dearly departed, that you have ruined our lives.”

“Want keeps pace with dignity. Destitute of the lawful means of supporting his rank, his dignity presents a motive for malversation, and his power furnishes the means.”

“Secrecy is an instrument of conspiracy; it ought not, therefore, to be the system of a regular government.”

“But there is only one thing which gathers people into seditious commotion, and that is oppression.”

“The boundaries of the species, whereby men sort them, are made by men.”

“Religion, which should most distinguish us from the beasts, and ought most particularly elevate us, as rational creatures, above brutes, is that wherein men often appear most irrational, and more senseless than beasts.”

“Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature: these are the spur and reins whereby all mankind are set on work, and guided.”

“It might be plausibly maintained, that in almost every one of the leading controversies, past or present, in social philosophy, both sides were in the right in what they affirmed, though wrong in what they denied.”

“Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion, necessary to the working of the representative government, cannot exist.”

“He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.”

“When men lack a sense of awe, there will be disaster.”

“One of the most difficult of the philosopher's tasks is to find out where the shoe pinches.”

“Though a state of affairs that would contravene the laws of physics can be represented by us spatially, one that would contravene the laws of geometry cannot. (3.0321)”

“The difficulty in philosophy is to say no more than we know.”

“The aim of philosophy is to erect a wall at the point where language stops anyway.”

“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.”

“When there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence… I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than to remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour.”

“There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.”

“Waste not the remnant of thy life in those imaginations touching other folk, whereby thou contributest not to the common weal.”

“Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. (Hays translation)”

“Many the lumps of frankincense on the same altar; one falls there early and another late, but it makes no difference.”

“Perception and knowledge could never be the same.”

“No multitude is able to acquire any art whatsoever. Then if there is a kingly art, neither the collective body of the wealthy nor the whole people could ever acquire this science of statesmanship.”

“You want to know whether I can make a long speech, such as you are in the habit of hearing; but that is not my way.”

“We cannot know his legendary head with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso is still suffused with brilliance from inside, like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low, gleams in all its power.”

“I could give you no advice but this: to go into yourself and to explore the depths where your life wells forth.”

“The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.”

“Would you know what makes men greedy for the future? It is because no one has yet found himself.”

“There are many people who reach their conclusions about life like schoolboys; they cheat their master by copying the answer out of a book without having worked out the sum for themselves.”

“Of all Discourse, governed by desire of Knowledge, there is at last an End, either by attaining, or by giving over.”

“From whence it follows, that were the publique and private interest are most closely united, there is the publique most advanced.”

“Now I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.”