Augustine of Hippo (342 - 430 AD, philosopher)
"You are thinking to construct some mighty fabric in height; first think of the foundation of humility. And how great soever a mass of building one may wish and design to place above it, the greater the building is to be, the deeper does he dig his foundation." (Sermons)
Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002, sociologist)
"The point of my work is to show that culture and education aren't simply hobbies or minor influences." (The Intellectual Class Struggle, 2001)
Giordano Bruno (1548-1600, philosopher)
"There are countless suns and countless Earths all rotating round their suns in exactly the same way as the seven planets of our system... Take comfort, the time will come when all men will see as I do." (Quoted in The Discovery of Nature by Albert W. Bettex)
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955, priest)
"...love is the threshold of another universe. Beyond the vibrations with which we are familiar, the rainbow-like range of its colors is still in full growth." (The Evolution of Chastity, 1934)
Claude von Clausewitz (1780-1831, army officer)
"Thus it has come about that our theoretical and critical literature, instead of giving plain, straightforward arguments in which the author at least always knows what he is saying and the reader what he is reading, is crammed with jargon ending at obscure crossroads where the author loses its readers." (On War, 1831)
Donald Davidson (1917-2003, philosopher)
"In quotation not only does language turn on itself, but it does so word by word and expression by expression, and this reflexive twist is inseparable from the convenience and universal applicability of the device. Here we already have enough to draw the interest of the philosopher of language." (Quotation, 1979)
Hermann Hesse (1877-1962, novelist)
"It seems to me, Govinda, that love is the most important thing in the world. It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect." (Siddhartha, 1922)
Marcel Proust (1871-1922, novelist)
"The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of eternal youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is." (In Search of Lost Time, Vol. V: The Captive, 1923 posthumous)
George Santanyana (1863-1952, philosopher)
"On fact, the whole machinery of our intelligence, our general ideas and laws, fixed and external objects, principles, persons, and good, are so many symbolic, algebraic expressions. They stand for experience; experience which we are incapable of retaining and surveying in its multitudinous immediacy. We should flounder hopelessly, like the animals, did we not keep ourselves afloat and direct our course by these intellectual devices." (The Sense of Beauty, 1896)
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859, diplomat)
"We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country." (The Old Regime and the Revolution, 1858)
