Moses Mendelssohn Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“The state has physical power and uses it when necessary; the power of religion is love and beneficence.”

“I fear that, in the end, the famous debate among materialists, idealists, and dualists amounts to a merely verbal dispute that is more a matter for the linguist than for the speculative philosopher.”

“The principal axiom in their theory was: Everything can be proved, and everything can be disproved; and in the process, one must profit as much from the folly of others, and from his own superiority, as he can.”

“We would be able neither to remember nor to reflect nor to compare nor to think, indeed, we would not even be the person who we were a moment ago, if our concepts were divided among many and were not to be encountered somewhere together in their most exact combination.”

“You know how much I am inclined to explain all disputes among philosophical schools as merely verbal disputes or at least to derive them originally from verbal disputes.”

“When Socrates was about 30, and his father was long dead, he was still pursuing the art of sculpture, but from necessity, and without much inclination.”