F. H. Bradley Quotes on Nature
F. H. Bradley, the leading British absolute idealist, held that the natural world of separate, related things is not ultimate reality, and the quotes gathered here present that view. For Bradley the world as ordinarily experienced, a manifold of distinct things in relation, is a world of appearance; behind it lies a single, all-encompassing reality, one system whose contents he held to be nothing but sentient experience. Reality, on this view, is one and unchanging, and it is appearance that lends the world its diversity. Bradley's temper was also sharply unillusioned, as in his ironic remark on optimism, that the world is the best of all possible ones and everything in it a necessary evil. Drawn largely from Appearance and Reality and his aphorisms, these passages present the natural world of relations as appearance rather than final truth; the most condensed formulations are marked as attributed.
Quotes
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Attributed to F. H. Bradley:
“The Absolute is one system, and its contents are nothing but sentient experience.”
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Attributed to F. H. Bradley:
“The world of relations is a world of appearance.”
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Attributed to F. H. Bradley:
“Reality is one and unchanging; it is appearance that gives the world its diversity.”
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“Of Optimism I have said that "The world is the best of all possible worlds, and everything in it is a necessary evil.”
Appearance and Reality , preface (1893). -
“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.”
Reported by Brand Blanshard in 'Francis Herbert Bradley', Journal of Philosophy (1925). -
“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.”
Aphorisms(1930) | No. 22.