Leisure is the mother of Philosophy. – Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651

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

Get married, in any case. If you happen to get a good mate, you will be happy; if a bad one, you will become philosophical, which is a fine thing in itself. – Socrates, in Diogenes Laertius, Lives

When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics. – Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary