10 Really Short Philosophical Pearls of Wisdom That Will Blow Your Mind

Enlightening quotes that will change the way you look at life.

Your influences matter.

What you read, what you see, the people you’re hanging out with matter.

Because eventually you become in what you read, see, and in a mix of the people you’re with.

That’s why your father told you about bad influences. It wasn’t because your long-haired friend had piercings, but because feelings, habits, and ways of thinking stick like a virus.

And you know something, your father was right (some old-School advice works). And that is that if you hang out with bums, you know what? You’ll become a bum.

I know I’m not your father. And don’t misunderstand. I do not intend to be one. But maybe I can introduce you to some friends so you can surround yourself with the right people.

I’ll share some of their best advice with you, and maybe some of it will resonate with you, and you’ll read one of their books.

Are you ready? Let’s get started.

1. Heraclitus

“No one bathes in the at the same river twice because everything changes in the river and in the one who bathes."

When I was a kid, I used to go to my mother's village in the summers. I remember the houses, the kids, the food, the smell of the countryside. But, you know what?

• The little countryside houses now are buildings
• The kids are adults.
• The food tasted different.
• The smell is worst because of the pollution.
• And I’m not the same person as 30 years ago.

It’s never the same river, nor the same swimmer. And that’s something to think about because the present moment is all you have.

I can’t go back to my childhood, and I would like to (at least for the summer). But now I know that life cycles never repeat the same way, so I enjoy my adulthood fully because I will never be forty years old again.

2. Sóren Kierkegaard

“Anguish is the vertigo of freedom.”

Fear is the bioproduct of all the things that matters :-) and that feeling of discomfort you experiment with when you get out of your comfort zone isn’t something bad: It’s your primal instinct awakening.

You are a human but also a beast.

And when you feel dizziness in your gut, it just means that the adrenaline is preparing your body for the unexpected, for the problems and adversities you will have to face, for the predators you will encounter in this new asphalt jungle.

You’ll learn to love that feeling. It’s your arachnid instinct, my little Spider-Man.

3. Baruch Spinoza

“All in nature are either things or actions. Now, good and evil are neither things nor actions. Therefore good and evil do not exist in nature.”

As we all can see in the wildlife of animals, there are no such thing as good or bad actions. Animals kill other animals to eat.

We kill animals to eat. Does that make us bad people?

We try to survive like all species on this planet.

Understanding this changes everything. The bad and the good are only intellectual constructs that serve as instruments of survival. And what is good today was bad yesterday, in the same way, that what is good today can be bad tomorrow, depending on the social needs of the future.

4. David Hume

“The beauty of things exists in the spirit that contemplates them”

When I was sixteen, I had a Spanish guitar. And I was always sad because I thought the guitar sounded bad. After all, my mother bought me the cheapest one.

And one day, a dude stole my guitar when I was going to rehearse with my punk band. And you know what happened?

I told him, “take it away. It’s broken,” and he stood up, opened the case, tuned the strings a bit, and made the guitar sound so good that it made my skin crawl.

The broken one was me, not the guitar.

It was me who didn’t know how to play the instrument.

This is the same thing that David Hume wants to tell us. It all depends on our perspective. You can think your life sucks, and someone else in your place would think you are fortunate.

Some people can see beauty everywhere and people who only see the ugliness that surrounds us.

Some people can play the guitar and people who can’t play it, but it has nothing to do with the guitar. So it has to do with the guitarist.

5. Immanuel Kant

“The wise man can change his mind. The fool, never.”

Do you know when you get old? When you think you know everything.

Not having the ability to change literally makes you rusty inside. Brain plasticity is something you have to train, or you lose it.

Think of all those older people who say the typical phrase, “with the age I am. I’m not going to change”.

Do you want to be like that? No.

Because everything that stops growing dies, don’t let your curiosity die, and you will keep your spirit young.

6. Arthur Schopenhauer

“Except humans, no being marvels at his own existence.”

Maybe animals know they are alive. I know this because every time I see my dog, I know he feels joy and sadness like everyone else. But animals don’t have thoughts complex enough to create art.

Only humans have the capacity to imagine and go beyond. That’s why I don’t think that Artificial Intelligence will end up displacing human beings because, at most, it can recombine the data entered in its memory (human data), but recombining is not creating.

Without our curiosity and capacity to be amazed by life, we would not have invented fire or computers.

7. Martin Heidegger

“Man acts as if he were the shaper and master of language, whereas, in fact, language remains the master of man.”

• Computer language creates the APPS.
• Emotional language creates and cures your fears.
• Nonverbal and verbal language makes you who you are.

That’s why precision in language is so important: every time you talk to someone, or yourself, or reflect, you use language, and that language makes you, not the other way around.

8. Friedrich Nietzsche

“What distinguishes truly original minds is not that they are the first to see something new, but that they can see as new what is old, known, seen and despised by all.”

Putting something old to new use is a gift. And it is becoming more important every day because we have to learn to recycle all the crap we’ve created to survive and not wipe out what little is left of the planet.

On the other hand, a mind capable of creating the life it wants through the things it has around it is much better than one that spends its life thinking about what it doesn’t have.

Use what you have and transform your reality. Imagination is your greatest superpower.

9. John Locke

“What worries you, enslaves you.”

What you repress grows. It is what Jung said about the shadow. And it does so because it becomes obsessive and recurrent in your mind.

Worrying about something is the quickest way to become obsessed with that something. And if you end up opening that door, it will be the end of you.

• The end of your happiness.
• The end of your peace of mind.
• The end of your free time.

Because you will live in fear and anguish because of that worry that has taken root inside you and grown to the size of an oak tree.

Do you a favor and free yourself from your worries.

10. Byung-Chul Han

“The inhabitant of the digital panopticon is both victim and actor. Therein lies the dialectic of freedom, which becomes evident as control.”

New technologies make us free and slaves at the same time. Every cell phone enslaves us through the information it collects from us.

Moreover, with the rise of social networks, you are fingered and canceled if you don’t follow the prevailing moral norm.

It’s the new inquisition.

We are all prisoners and guards simultaneously in this world of social networks.

That’s all, folks. I hope some of my philosopher friends have resonated with your way of being. See you in the next article.

Do you want to empower your life?

Subscribe to Medium using my affiliate link! so that you can enjoy all my articles, and together let’s make this year the year of your life.

There’s no additional cost to you, and I’ll receive a small commission — thanks for your support!