Philosophy is an explanation of life and a distillation of its highest knowledge.
The purpose of philosophy is to expel illusion from the mind and correct error. Truth will then appear of itself.
If you ask what is philosophy, the answer must begin with what it is not. It is not about guesses and speculations, not about beliefs produced by human wishes nor superstitions produced by human traditions.
Philosophy cannot be taught by lectures alone: life in the larger sense is also its classroom. Its best teachers come without prepared notes, without programmed courses, but with the catalytic power to inspire ideas and deeds.
The would-be philosopher should not feel bound by labels, categories, and other fences which people want to put on others simply because they themselves live quite willingly surrounded by such fences and cannot understand someone who refuses to do so. Philosophy is a path which ends in the pathless--a way to the inner freedom which comes with truth.
To bring a well-informed and well-educated mind to bear upon all questions, to keep feeling in proper balance with reasoning, to deny the ego its insatiable demand for rulership--this gives a man poise, frees him from lamentable prejudice, and imparts perspective to his conclusions.
To those who can see, this is the truest way of improving humanity, for it treats both first causes and final effects.
The social value of philosophy is its ennoblement of human relations.
Philosophy does not want to escape life but to fulfil it.
