63 Quotes by Walter Kaufmann

Words signify man’s refusal to accept the world as it is.

Thirdly, even if we assume that the world is governed by purpose, we need only add that this purpose – or, if there are several, at least one of them – is not especially intent on preventing suffering, whether it is indifferent to suffering or actually rejoices in it.

The only theism worthy of our respect believes in God not because of the way the world is made but in spite of that. The only theism that is no less profound than the Buddha’s atheism is that represented in the Bible by Job and Jeremiah.

There is thus a certain plausibility to Nietzsche’s doctrine, though it is dynamite. He maintains in effect that the gulf separating Plato from the average man is greater than the cleft between the average man and a chimpanzee.

Job’s forthright indictment of the injustice of this world is surely right. The ways of the world are weird and much more unpredictable than either scientists or theologians generally make things look.

Reason may not always tell us what to believe, but it can help us on what we shouldn’t believe.

No one system reveals the entire truth; at best, each organizes one point of view or perspective. We must consider many perspectives, and a philosopher should not imprison his thought in one system.

A system must necessarily be based on premises that by its very nature it cannot question.

When it is founded on decision, love is no longer an unreliably moving passion, but the fulfillment to which alone real Being reveals itself.