F. H. Bradley Quotes:

The one self- knowledge worth having is to know one's own mind.

source: - "Aphorisms". Book by F. H. Bradley, No. 8, 1930.

Topics: Acceptance, Self, Mind

The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring. And that is not happiness.

Topics: Happiness, Secret, Admire, Admiring, Achieving Happiness

We say that a girl with her doll anticipates the mother. It is more true, perhaps, that most mothers are still but children with playthings.

source: - "Aphorisms". Book by F. H. Bradley, No. 23, 1930.

Topics: Girl, Mother, Children

Religion is rather the attempt to express the complete reality of goodness through every aspect of our being.

Topics: Reality, Goodness, Aspect

It is by a wise economy of nature that those who suffer without change, and whom no one can help, become uninteresting. Yet so it may happen that those who need sympathy the most often attract it the least.

Topics: Wise, Suffering, Needs

There are persons who, when they cease to shock us, cease to interest us.

source: - "Aphorisms". Book by F. H. Bradley (Aphorism No. 20), 1930.

Topics: Gossip, Shock, Interest

One said of suicide, As long as one has brains one should not blow them out. And another answered, But when one has ceased to have them, too often one cannot.

source: - "Aphorisms". Book by F. H. Bradley, 1930.

Topics: Suicide, Suicidal, Blow

His mind is so open - so open that ideas simply pass through it.

Topics: Sarcastic, Ideas, Mind

True penitence condemns to silence. What a man is ready to recall he would be willing to repeat.

source: - "Aphorisms". Book by F. H. Bradley (Aphorism No. 10), 1930.

Topics: Men, Silence, Would Be, Penitence

There are those who so dislike the nude that they find something indecent in the naked truth.

Topics: Naked, Dislike

Another occupation might have been better.

Topics: Occupation, Might, Might Have Been

The world is the best of all possible worlds, and everything in it is a necessary evil.

source: - 'Appearance and Reality' (1893) preface (on optimism)

Topics: Evil, Optimism, World, Necessary Evil

It is good to know what a man is, and also what the world takes him for. But you do not understand him until you have learnt how he understands himself.

source: - F.H. Bradley, Carol Keene (1999). “F.H. Bradley: Miscellaneous Writings”, Thoemmes

Topics: Men, World

My external sensations are no less private to my self than are my thoughts or my feelings. In either case my experience falls within my own circle, a circle closed on the outside; and, with all its elements alike, every sphere is opaque to the others which surround it [] In brief, regarded as an existence which appears in a soul, the whole world for each is peculiar and private to that soul.

source: - "Only a great writer can share the suffering of Auschwitz" by Andrew Brown, www.theguardian.com. June 9, 2014.

Topics: Fall, Self, Circles

I can myself conceive of nothing else than the experienced.

The man whose nature is such that by one path alone his chief desire will reach consummation will try to find it on that path, whatever it may be, and whatever the world thinks of it; and if he does not, he is contemptible.

source: - "Francis Herbert Bradley". Journal of Philosophy, 1925.

Topics: Men, Thinking, Desire

I will begin with the self-styled "Christian" party, who profess to base their morality on the New Testament. But whether it is really more Christian to follow or to ignore the teachings of the Gospels I shall not discuss.

Topics: Christian, Party, Teaching

The deadliest foe to virtue would be complete self-knowledge.

source: - F.H. Bradley, Carol Keene (1999). “F.H. Bradley: Miscellaneous Writings”, Thoemmes

Topics: Self, Would Be, Virtue

The hunter for aphorisms on human nature has to fish in muddy water, and he is even condemned to find much of his own mind.

source: - "Aphorisms". Book by F. H. Bradley, 1930.

Topics: Water, Mind, Hunters

The cost of a thing is what I call life which has to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.

Topics: Running, Long, Entrepreneur, Saving Time

Up to a certain point every man is what he thinks he is.

source: - F.H. Bradley, Carol Keene (1999). “F.H. Bradley: Miscellaneous Writings”, Thoemmes

Topics: Crazy, Men, Thinking

Eclecticism - every truth is so true that any truth must be false.

Topics: Fake People, People, Fake

Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived. It is a pity that this is still the only knowledge of their wives at which some men seem to arrive.

source: - "Aphorisms". Book by F. H. Bradley, no. 94, 1930.

Topics: Men, Wife, Pity, Adam And Eve

Where everything is bad it must be good to know the worst.

Topics: Worst, Be Good

The man who has ceased to fear has ceased to care.

source: - "Aphorisms". Book by F. H. Bradley, No. 63., 1930.

Topics: Fear, Men, Care

But when one has ceased to have them, too often one cannot.

Our live experiences, fixed in aphorisms, stiffen into cold epigrams. Our heart's blood, as we write it, turns to mere dull ink.

Topics: Writing, Heart, Blood, Cold Heart

Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct.

source: - Appearance and Reality (1893) preface

Topics: Believe, Reason, Instinct

Reason teaches us that what is good is good for something, and that what is good for nothing is not good at all.

Topics: Reason, Goodness, Teach

The force of the blow depends on the resistance. It is sometimes better not to struggle against temptation. Either fly or yield at once.

source: - "Aphorisms". Book by F. H. Bradley, No. 75, 1930.

Topics: Struggle, Blow, Yield, Resisting Temptation, Resisting

An aphorism is true where it has fixed the impression of a genuine experience.

Topics: Aphorism, Genuine, Fixed

The propriety of some persons seems to consist in having improper thoughts about their neighbors.

Topics: Neighbor, Propriety, Persons

Eclecticism. Every truth is so true that any truth must be false.

source: - "Aphorisms". Book by F. H. Bradley (Aphorism No. 6), 1930.

Topics: Fake People, Truth, People