My definition [of a philosopher] is of a man up in a balloon, with his family and friends holding the ropes which confine him to earth and trying to haul him down. – Louisa May Alcott, in Life, Letters, and Journals, ed. E.D. Cheney, 1889

Many talk like philosophers yet live like fools. – Proverb

Real philosophy seeks rather to solve than to deny. – Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

The natural philosophers are mostly gone. We modern scientists are adding too many decimals. – Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)