Karl Jaspers Quotes

I think, when people hear the word 'philosophy,' they think of Plato and a bunch of people sitting around in their robes pontificating about life and how it should be. But really, somebody who is an active philosopher should not only be thinking of these things but putting them into practice.

I discovered that the study of past philosophers is of little use unless our own reality enters into it. Our reality alone allows the thinker's questions to become comprehensible.

Without philosophy, history is always for me dead and dumb.

The history of philosophy is not, like the history of the sciences, to be studied with the intellect alone. That which is receptive in us and that which impinges upon us from history is the reality of man's being, unfolding itself in thought.

Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.

Philosophy is not just about talking or lecturing or even reading long, dense books. In fact, it is something men and women of action use - and have used throughout history - to solve their problems and achieve their greatest triumphs. Not in the classroom but on the battlefield, in the forum, and at court.

I've been through a lot. I've thought a lot about life, and I've spent a lot of time studying history and science.

History should be written as philosophy.

I'm not sure what theory is, unless it's the pursuit of fundamental questions.

The knife of historical relativism... which has cut to pieces all metaphysics and religion must also bring about healing.

We have to make philosophy itself an object of philosophical concern.

Philosophy can only be approached with the most concrete comprehension.

I have a long-term interest in the humanities.

Instead of art I have taught philosophy. Though technique for me is a big word, I never have taught how to paint. All my doing was to make people to see.

The word philosophy sounds high-minded, but it simply means the love of wisdom. If you love something, you don't just read about it; you hug it, you mess with it, you play with it, you argue with it.

The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.

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.

As a universal history of philosophy, the history of philosophy must become one great unity.

If philosophy is to be a valuable part of life, we have to appreciate it for its own sake, and not just for what it's done for us lately.

Philosophy as practice does not mean its restriction to utility or applicability, that is, to what serves morality or produces serenity of soul.

In philosophy if you aren't moving at a snail's pace you aren't moving at all.

A philosopher is, no doubt, entitled to examine even those distinctions that are to be found in the structure of all languages... in that case, such a distinction may be imputed to a vulgar error, which ought to be corrected in philosophy.

Since philosophy now criticizes everything it comes across, a critique of philosophy would be nothing less than a just reprisal.

My reading of philosophy and history is desultory; I know so much and yet so little.

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.