Phil > Phil's Quotes

“The Wilderness holds answers to more questions than we have yet learned to ask.”
― Nancy Newhall

“He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside,
He came to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same words: "Follow thou me!" and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.”
― Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede

“Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.”
― Lao Tsu, Tao Teh Ching

“Religion is what an individual does with his solitariness.”
― Alfred North Whitehead

“True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being...
This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont, to be called Lord God παντοκρατωρ or Universal Ruler.”
― Isaac Newton, The Principia : Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy

“To make science the arbiter of metaphysics is to banish not only God from the world but also love, hate, meaning”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“The political and intellectual orders remain permanently distinct from the spiritual. They follow their own ends, they obey their own laws, and in doing so they support the cause of religion by the discovery of truth and the upholding of right. They render this service by fulfilling their own ends independently and unrestrictedly, not by surrendering them for the sake of spiritual interests. Whatever diverts government and science from their own spheres, or leads religion to usurp their domains, confounds distinct authorities, and imperils not only political right and scientific truths, but also the cause of faith and morals. A government that, for the interests of religion, disregards political right, and a science that, for the sake of protecting faith, wavers and dissembles in the pursuit of knowledge, are instruments at least as well adapted to serve the cause of falsehood as to combat it, and never can be used in furtherance of the truth without that treachery to principle which is a sacrifice too costly to be made for the service of any interest whatever.”
― John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, The History of Freedom and Other Essays

“I am no more fundamentalist when I say evolution is true than when I say it is true that New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere. We believe in evolution because the evidence supports it, and we would abandon it overnight if new evidence arose to disprove it. No real fundamentalist would ever say anything like that.”
― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

“My students, alas, usually lack the confidence to acknowledge what would be their most precious asset for learning: their ignorance.”
― Mark Edmundson, Why Teach?: In Defense of a Real Education

“Nice people made the best Nazis. My mom grew up next to them. They got along, refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused on happier things than “politics.” They were lovely people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away. You know who weren’t nice people? Resisters.”
― Naomi Shulman