School of Philosophy

The School of Philosophy is a charitable trust that offers courses in practical philosophy.

[School of Philosophy @SOPAuckland]

The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.

Arthur Schopenhauer
(1788 - 1860)
German philosopher

[School of Philosophy @SOPAuckland]

If full knowledge about the very base of our existence could be described as a circle, the best we can do is to arrive at a polygon.

Nicholas of Cusa
(1401 -1464)
Philosopher, scientist and mystic, later Cardinal & Bishop.

[School of Philosophy @SOPAuckland]

Love does not cause suffering: what causes it is the sense of ownership, which is love's opposite.

Antoine-Marie-Roger de Saint-Exupery
(1900 - 44)
French author

[School of Philosophy @SOPAuckland]

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

Kahlil Gibran
(1883 - 1931)
Lebanese poet, philosopher, and artist

[School of Philosophy @SOPAuckland]

For greatness after all, in spite of its name, appears to be not so much a certain size as a certain quality in human lives. It may be present in lives whose range is very small.

Phillips Brooks
(1835 - 1893)
American Bishop

[School of Philosophy @SOPAuckland]

Every life has its potentiality of greatness, and as it is impossible to be outside God, the best is consciously to dwell in Him.

Henri Frederic Amiel
(1821 - 1881)
Swiss philosopher

[School of Philosophy @SOPAuckland]

The divine in man is our sole ground for believing that there is anything divine in the universe outside of man. Man is the revealer of the divine.

Felix Adler
(1851 - 1933)
German-American philosopher

[School of Philosophy @SOPAuckland]

Everything in life is speaking in spite of it's apparent silence.

Hazrat Inayat Khan
(1882 - 1927)
Sufi mystic, teacher, poet, musician

[School of Philosophy @SOPAuckland]

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business.

Thomas Merton
(1915 - 1968)
American Trappist monk

[School of Philosophy @SOPAuckland]

The progress of the intellect is to the clearer vision of causes, which neglects surface differences. To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803 - 1882)

[School of Philosophy @SOPAuckland]

Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.

T.S. Eliot
(1888 - 1965)
Anglo-American poet and playwright

[School of Philosophy @SOPAuckland]

It is necessary to catch fire. It is necessary to see we are in the presence of something real - yes, real, but finely made, and very gentle, very delicate, and beautiful.

Maurice Nicholl
(1884 - 1953)
British psychiatrist, philosopher, teacher

[School of Philosophy @SOPAuckland]

One who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.

Mahatma Gandhi
(1869 - 1948)
Hindu lawyer, pacifist and political activist

[School of Philosophy @SOPAuckland]

The Vision that you glorify in your mind, the Ideal that you enthrone in your heart — this you will build your life by, this you will become.

James Allen
(1864 - 1912)
English author

[School of Philosophy @SOPAuckland]

Self-Observation is the knife that begins to separate, to remove, what you take as 'you', from what is real.

Maurice Nicholl
(1884 - 1953)
British psychiatrist, philosopher, teacher

[School of Philosophy @SOPAuckland]

Insight is an attempt to think in the present. ... insight is knowledge at first sight.

Abraham Joshua Heschel
(1907 - 1972 )
Jewish theologian

[School of Philosophy @SOPAuckland]

In this playhouse of infinite forms I have had my play, and here have I caught sight of him that is formless.

Rabindranath Tagore
(1861 - 1941)
Indian poet and writer

[School of Philosophy @SOPAuckland]

The Self is beyond good and evil, beyond all the suffering of the human Heart.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
The Upanishads are ancient Indian texts central to the Vedic philosophic tradition.

[School of Philosophy @SOPAuckland]

The will is free;
Strong is the soul, and wise, and beautiful;
The seeds of god-like power are in us still;
Gods are we, bards, saints, heroes, if we will!

Matthew Arnold
(1822 - 1888)
English poet and writer

[School of Philosophy @SOPAuckland]

Naught ever can be known in God: One and Alone
Is He. To know Him, Knower must be one with Known.

Angelus Silesius
pseudonym of Johannes Scheffler
(1624 –77)
German poet