When you're in the muck you can only see muck. If you somehow manage to float above it, you still see the muck but you see it from a different perspective. And you see other things too. That's the consolation of philosophy. - David Cronenberg The blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one's aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from it a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism. As a form, the blues is an autobiographical chronicle of personal catastrophe expressed lyrically. - Ralph Ellison

I very rarely read any fiction. I love biographies; I read about all kinds of people. I love theology and some philosophy. - Al Sharpton The human instinct for self-preservation is strong. I know, because mine pulls at me, too, like the needle on a compass. And everybody - I've been reading some philosophy - everybody seems to agree that the instinct and responsibility of all humans is to take care of themselves first. You have the right to self-defense. You have the right to survive, if you can. - Nancy Werlin

Why can't we simply borrow what is useful to us from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, especially Zen, as we borrow from Christianity, science, American Indian traditions and world literature in general, including philosophy, and let the rest go hang? Borrow what we need but rely principally upon our own senses, common sense and daily living experience. - Edward Abbey Rejoice always in all events, be thankful always for all things is a hard precept for human nature, though in my philosophy and religion a perfect duty. - John Adams Everything you have is to give. Thou art a phenomenon of philosophy and an unfortunate man. - Ernest Hemingway There is a constant suspicion that headache and giddiness are to be ascribed to philosophy, and hence all practising or making trial of virtue in the higher sense is absolutely stopped; for a man is always fancying that he is being made ill, and is in constant anxiety about the state of his body. - Plato Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, ca...

Dirk, this is Peace, Granola, Crystal, Chi, Aura, Tahini, and the twins, Yin and Yang," Duck said. ... "They had all of us one right after the other. Me while they were into the total surf scene when they lived in Malibu, Peace and Granola during their hippie-rebel phase, and then they got more into Eastern philosophy-you know, the twins Yin and Yang. - Francesca Lia Block Gandhi became my role model. I have always been interested in Eastern philosophy. Since early in my life I've been fascinated by India, and I have spent a great deal of time traveling in that country. - Bianca Jagger Last month, Dean Sheeter (whose name usually transports Franny when I mention it) approached me with his gracious smile and bull whip, and I am now lecturing to the faculty, their wives, and a few oppressively-deep type undergraduates every Friday on Zen and Mahayana Buddhism. A feat, I haven't a doubt, that will eventually earn me the Eastern Philosophy Chair in Hell. - J D Salinge...

It is one of the consolations of philosophy that the benefit of showing how to dispense with a concept does not hinge on dispensing with it. - Willard Van Orman Quine It is one of the consolations of philosophy that the benefit of showing how to dispense with a concept does not hinge on dispensing with it. - W V O Quine

When you're in the muck you can only see muck. If you somehow manage to float above it, you still see the muck but you see it from a different perspective. And you see other things too. That's the consolation of philosophy. - David Cronenberg The blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one's aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from it a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism. As a form, the blues is an autobiographical chronicle of personal catastrophe expressed lyrically. - Ralph Ellison