Sophie's World Quotes
"Nothing can come out of nothing." — Parmenides
"Everything flows, nothing stands still." — Heraclitus
"The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder." — Unnamed philosopher
"Man cannot live by bread alone." — Unnamed philosopher
"We are the white rabbit being pulled out of the hat." — Unnamed philosopher
"Nature is built up of tiny invisible blocks, each of which was eternal and immutable." — Democritus
"Everything that exists had always existed." — Parmenides
"All natural processes can be explained as the interaction between different elements and various natural forces." — Empedocles
"It was not purely by chance that Empedocles chose earth, air, fire, and water as nature’s 'roots.'" — Unnamed philosopher
"Sophie decided not to say anything about the silk scarf."
"Wisest is she who knows she does not know..."
"One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing."
"The stupidest thing she knew was for people to act like they knew all about things they knew absolutely nothing about."
"A philosopher is someone who recognizes that there is a lot he does not understand, and is troubled by it."
"The most subversive people are those who ask questions."
"The trees in the countryside can teach me nothing."
"It is not pleasant to decline a young lady’s invitation to coffee, but sometimes it is a matter of necessity."
"The ability to give birth is a natural characteristic."
"A philosopher knows that in reality he knows very little."
"The strangest thing of all was the silk scarf, of course."
"A chicken’s egg has the potentiality to become a chicken. This does not mean that all chicken’s eggs become chickens—many of them end up on the breakfast table."
"The "form" of a thing, then, says something about its limitation as well as its potentiality."
"It is the form of the stone to fall to the ground."
"Aristotle held that there were different types of cause in nature. Altogether he named four different causes."
"It rains because plants and animals need rainwater in order to grow."
"We say that food and water are necessary conditions of life for man and beast."
"We distinguish between things made of stone, things made of wool, and things made of rubber."
"Aristotle wanted to do a thorough clearing up in nature’s ‘room.’"
"Everything in nature belongs to different categories and subcategories."
"Aristotle divides ‘living things’ into two different categories."
"Aristotle’s categories are clear and simple."
"There is a decisive difference between a living and a nonliving thing."
"Aristotle's criterion is the object’s characteristics, or more specifically what it can do or what it does."
"Man grows and absorbs nourishment like plants, he has feelings and the ability to move like animals."
"Aristotle imagined the movement of the stars and the planets guiding all movement on Earth."
"Aristotle called this the ‘first mover,’ or ‘God.’"
"Man’s ‘form’ comprises a soul, which has a plant-like part, an animal part, and a rational part."
"The ethics of both Plato and Aristotle contain echoes of Greek medicine."
"Aristotle describes three good forms of constitution."
"Aristotle’s views on women were incomplete in some way."
"Aristotle could not have had much practical experience regarding the lives of women and children."
"Aristotle’s erroneous view of the sexes was doubly harmful."
"The church thus inherited a view of women that is entirely without foundation in the Bible."
"We distinguish between vegetable, animal, and human."
"Aristotle’s logic was based on the correlation of terms."
"Aristotle demonstrated a number of laws governing conclusions or proofs that were valid."
"From time to time it can be necessary to clarify our concepts."
"Aristotle’s explanation of the way we discern things in the world."
"Only living things have the potentiality for change."
"Man has a specific characteristic peculiar to humans, and that is the ability to think rationally."
"Aristotle believes that God created the world as it is so that all His creatures could live in it."
"Aristotle’s view of society emphasized the undesirability of cultivating extremes."
"The undesirability of cultivating extremes is also expressed in Aristotle’s view of society."
"Aristotle says that man is by nature a ‘political animal.’"
"Aristotle held that there are three forms of happiness."
"Man can only achieve happiness by using all his abilities and capabilities."
"Aristotle emphasized that all three criteria must be present at the same time for man to find happiness and fulfillment."
"The distinction between ‘form’ and ‘substance’ plays an important part in Aristotle’s explanation of the way we discern things in the world."
"We put cows in cowsheds, horses in stables, pigs in pigsties, and chickens in chicken coops."
"Aristotle tried to show that everything in nature belongs to different categories and subcategories."
"Sophie had an irresistible desire to clear up."
"Our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee."
"The good will is God’s work; the evil will is the falling away from God’s work."
"Going only part of the way is not the same as going the wrong way."
"Measure what can be measured, and make measurable what cannot be measured."
"Know thyself, O divine lineage in mortal guise!"
"Man was bold enough to be himself again. There was no longer anything to be ashamed of."
"We do not live in our own time alone; we carry our history within us."
"Life is both sad and solemn. We are let into a wonderful world, we meet one another here, greet each other—and wander together for a brief moment. Then we lose each other and disappear as suddenly and unreasonably as we arrived."
"Not until she was standing at the Main Square waiting for the second bus did she begin to wonder why she had been lucky enough to find the coin just when she needed it."
"Sophie shivered. She felt a chill run down her spine."
"Sometimes they are so closely intertwined that it is impossible to untangle them."
"All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players."
"But if you have a round orange, you can’t ‘think’ it is square."
"Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion."
"I’m not the same today as I was when I was four years old. My temperament and how I see myself alter from one minute to the next."
"The perception of the ego is in reality a long chain of simple impressions that you have never experienced simultaneously."
"The mind is ‘a kind of theater, where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, slide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations.’"
"There is nothing of which I can say ‘this is mine,’ said Buddha, and nothing of which I can say ‘this is me.’"
"Decay is inherent in all compound things. Work out your own salvation with diligence."
"To prove religious faith by human reason was rationalistic claptrap."
"He only accepted what he had perceived through his senses. He held all other possibilities open."
"You have experienced that one event comes after the other, but you have not experienced that the other event happens because of the first one."
"The laws of nature are neither reasonable nor unreasonable, they simply are."
"The expectation that the white billiard ball will move when it is struck by the black billiard ball is therefore not innate."
"Acting responsibly is not a matter of strengthening our reason but of deepening our feelings for the welfare of others."
"Many of the Nazis were exceedingly clear-headed. It is not unusual to find ice-cold calculation behind the most callous decisions."
"Aristotle held that nothing exists in consciousness that has not first been experienced by the senses."
"The soul yearns to fly home on the wings of love to the world of ideas. It longs to be freed from the chains of the body."
"Everything is so fresh after a summer storm like that. It was as if even her childhood had been washed away with the storm."
"Material reality was not the only thing Berkeley was questioning. He was also questioning whether ‘time’ and ‘space’ had any absolute or independent existence."
"We cannot expect to understand what we are. Maybe we can comprehend a flower or an insect, but we can never comprehend ourselves."
"The difference between man and woman is like that between animals and plants."
"The truth is this same process, since there are no criteria beyond the historical process itself that can determine what is the most true or the most reasonable."
"If Christianity had appealed to our reason, and not to other sides of us, it would not be a question of faith."
"The important thing is not what you may think is precisely right or wrong. What matters is that you choose to have an opinion at all on what is right or wrong."
"If you fall into the water, you have no theoretical interest in whether or not you will drown."
"Eight plus four is twelve. We can be absolutely certain of this. That’s an example of the sort of ‘reasoned truth’ that every philosopher since Descartes had talked about."
"He who does not find his place within the state is therefore an unhistorical person."
"But others make a new leap to the religious stage. They take the ‘jump into the abyss’ of Faith’s ‘seventy thousand fathoms.’"