Philosophy in 40 ideas Quotes

“Hegel proposed that the world makes progress only by lurching from one extreme to another and generally requires three moves before the right balance on any issue can be found. He reminds us that big overreactions are eminently compatible with events broadly moving forward in the right direction. The dark moments of history aren’t the end; they are a challenging, but (in some ways) necessary, part of an antithesis that will eventually locate a wiser point of synthesis. With Hegel in mind, we must strive to be patient with the zigzag course of events.”
― The School of Life, Philosophy in 40 Ideas: Lessons for life

“One can (and frequently should) retreat into oneself even while lacking the option of fleeing the crowded city. We may not need an actual hut; just a version of a hut in our minds.”
― The School of Life, Philosophy in 40 Ideas: Lessons for life

“Away from others, we have a chance to reacquaint ourselves with our deeper thoughts and less socially compromised ways of thinking.”
― The School of Life, Philosophy in 40 Ideas: Lessons for life

“It is not shameful to need repair; a mended bowl is a symbol of hope that we too can be put together again and still be loved despite our evident flaws.”
― The School of Life, Philosophy in 40 Ideas: Lessons for life

“Wu wei means ‘not making an effort’, or going with the flow, but does not in any way imply laziness or sloth. It suggests an intentional surrender of the will based on a wise recognition of the need, at points, to accede to, rather than protest against, the demands of reality.”
― The School of Life, Philosophy in 40 Ideas: Lessons for life

“Compassion is a learnable skill, and we need to direct it as much towards those we are tempted to dismiss and detest as to those we love.”
― The School of Life, Philosophy in 40 Ideas: Lessons for life

“THE FIRST AND CENTRAL ‘NOBLE TRUTH’ of the Buddha is that life is unavoidably about suffering. The Buddha continually seeks to adjust our expectations so we will know what awaits us: sex will disappoint us, youth will disappear, money won’t spare us pain. For the Buddha, the wise person should take care to grow completely at home with the ordinary shambles of existence.”
― The School of Life, Philosophy in 40 Ideas: Lessons for life

“Confucius identified five central virtues that make us good: compassion (ren), ritual propriety (li), justice (yi), knowledge (zhi) and integrity (xin). Crucially, Confucius felt that these five had to be worked on over a whole lifetime. He told his followers: ‘At fifteen, I had my mind bent on intellectual learning. At thirty, I was busy and practical. At forty, I had no doubts. At fifty, I started to learn. At sixty, my ear was an obedient organ for the reception of truth. At seventy, I had learnt to follow the five virtues.’ In other words, training to be good takes a lot of time.”
― The School of Life, Philosophy in 40 Ideas: Lessons for life

“Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, summed up in a playful, but bleakly realistic and exasperated, outburst in his masterpiece, Either/Or: ‘Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or don’t hang yourself, you’ll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the essence of all philosophy.’ We deserve pity; we will make disastrous decisions, but we can – says Kierkegaard – be consoled by a bitter truth: we have no better options, for the conditions of existence are intrinsically rather than accidentally frustrating.”
― The School of Life, Philosophy in 40 Ideas: Lessons for life

“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.’ So wrote the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who urged us to recognise that everything that human beings do will be slightly wonky, because we are as much creatures of passion and erroneous instinct as of reason and noble intelligence.”
― The School of Life, Philosophy in 40 Ideas: Lessons for life

“At moments of panic, before an important speech or a much-anticipated date, we should run Montaigne’s phrase through our febrile, underconfident minds and remind ourselves that no one, however outwardly poised, is more than a few hours away from a poignantly modest and vulnerable moment.”
― The School of Life, Philosophy in 40 Ideas: Lessons for life

“We should not expect too much from the human race, Augustine implies; we’ve been somewhat doomed from the outset. That can be a redemptive thought to keep in mind.”
― The School of Life, Philosophy in 40 Ideas: Lessons for life

“We become weepy and furious, says Stoicism, not simply because our plans have failed, but because they have failed and we strongly expected them not to. Therefore, thought Seneca, the task of philosophy is to disappoint us gently before life has a chance to do so violently.”
― The School of Life, Philosophy in 40 Ideas: Lessons for life

“The Ancient Greeks resolutely did not believe that the purpose of life was to be happy; they proposed that it was to be fulfilled. What distinguishes happiness from fulfilment is pain. It is eminently possible to be fulfilled and, at the same time, under pressure, suffering physically or mentally, overburdened and in a tetchy mood.”
― The School of Life, Philosophy in 40 Ideas: Lessons for life

“The wise know how to laugh at the constant collisions between the noble way they would like things to be, and the demented way they often turn out.”
― The School of Life, Philosophy in 40 Ideas: Lessons for life

“As an antidote, Socrates advocated the regular, careful examination of our minds. He recommended systematically asking ourselves, ideally in the company of a patient and thoughtful friend, questions like: what are my priorities? What do I really fear? What do I truly want? Investigating and interpreting our thoughts and feelings was, and remains, the essence of what it means to be a philosopher.”
― The School of Life, Philosophy in 40 Ideas: Lessons for life