There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers. William James

• philosophy

The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it. Bertrand Russell

• philosophy

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. Rene Descartes

• philosophy
• doubt

To learn is not to know; there are the learners and the learned. Memory makes the one, philosophy the other. Alexandre Dumas

• education
• philosophy

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Of what use is a philosopher who never offends anybody? Diogenes

• philosophy

It takes a lot of intellectual contortion to deny the obvious, but never underestimate the contortions of an intellectual. Steven Landsburg

• intellect
• philosophy

Many philosophers—particularly amateur philosophers, and ancient philosophers—share a dangerous instinct: If you give them a question, they try to answer it. Eliezer Yudkowsky

• science
• philosophy
• reason

If you cannot examine your thoughts, you have no choice but to think them, however silly they may be. Richard Mitchell

• thought
• reason
• philosophy

The principle that observation is the judge imposes a severe limitation to the kind of questions that can be answered. They are limited to questions that you can put this way: “If I do this, what will happen?” There are ways to try it and see. Questions like, “Should I do this?” and “What is the value of this?” are not of the same kind. Richard Feynman

• science
• philosophy

This is the source.

Throughout all the ages, men have been trying to fathom the meaning of life. They realize that if some direction or some meaning could be given to the whole thing, to our actions, then great human forces would be unleashed. So, very many answers have been given to the question of the meaning of it all. But they have all been of different sorts. And the proponents of one idea have looked with horror at the actions of the believers of another—horror because from a disagreeing point of view all the great potentialities of the race were being channeled into a false and confining blind alley. In fact, it is from the history of the enormous monstrosities that have been created by false belief that philosophers have come to realize the fantastic potentialities and wondrous capacities of human beings. The dream is to find the open channel. What, then, is the meaning of it all? What can we say today to dispel the mystery of existence? If we take everything into account, not only what the ancients knew, but also all those things that we have found out up to today that they didn't know, then I think that we must frankly admit that we do not know. But I think that in admitting this we have probably found the open channel. Admitting that we do not know, and maintaining perpetually the attitude that we do not know the direction necessarily to go, permit a possibility of alteration, of thinking, of new contributions and new discoveries for the problem of developing a way to do what we want ultimately, even when we do not know what we want. Richard Feynman

• science
• religion
• philosophy
• doubt

This is the source.