Dive into our collection of philosophical quotes, each a doorway to deeper insights. Click on any quote to explore its full context, the ideas behind it, and the historical forces that shaped its meaning. Start your journey into the minds of great thinkers and discover conversations worth having.

• Man is condemned to be free
  Jean Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism: We are left alone, without excuse. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does. Read more…
• Leisure is the mother of philosophy
  Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Chapter XLVI: …men lived upon grosse Experience; there was no Method; that is to say, no Sowing, nor Planting of Knowledge by it self, apart from the Weeds, and common Plants of Errour and Conjecture: And the cause of it being the want of leasure from procuring the necessities of life, and defending themselves against their neighbours, it was impossible, till the erecting of great Common-wealths, it should be otherwise. Leasure is the mother of Philosophy; and Common-wealth, the mother of Peace, and Leasure: Where first were great and flourishing Cities, there was first the study of Philosophy. Read more…
• No man’s knowledge can go beyond his experience
  John Locke, An Essay of Human Understanding (Book 2, Chapter 1, Section 19): Consciousness is the perception of what passes in a man’s own mind. Can another man perceive that I am conscious of anything, when I perceive it not myself? No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience. Wake a man out of a sound sleep, and ask him what he was that moment thinking of. If he himself be conscious of nothing he then thought on, he must be a notable diviner of thoughts that can assure him that he was thinking. May he not, with more reason, assure him he was not asleep? Read more…
• I think, therefore I am
  René Descartes, Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences. Part IV: But immediately upon this I observed that, whilst I thus wished to think that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus thought, should be somewhat; and as I observed that this truth, I think, therefore I am (COGITO ERGO SUM), was so certain and of such evidence that no ground of doubt, however extravagant, could be alleged by the sceptics capable of shaking it, I concluded that I might, without scruple, accept it as the first principle of the philosophy of which I was in search. Read more…
• The unexamined life is not worth living
  Socrates, The Apology: I say again that daily to discourse about virtue, and of those other things about which you hear me examining myself and others, is the greatest good of man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living, you are still less likely to believe me. Yet I say what is true, although a thing of which it is hard for me to persuade you. Read more…