Skip to main content
Image removed.

Main navigation

☰ ˟
  • Home
  • Articulation
  • Contact
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
3 weeks 6 days ago
A man who has to be...

A man who has to be punctually at a certain place at five o'clock has the whole afternoon from one to five ruined for him already.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 163
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 weeks 2 days ago
Look at everything that exists, and...

Look at everything that exists, and observe that it is already in dissolution and change, and as it were putrefaction or dispersion, or that everything is so constituted in nature as to die.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
X, 18
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
3 months 2 weeks ago
The Republican form of government is...

The Republican form of government is the highest form of government; but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature - a type nowhere at present existing.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Vol. 3, Ch. XV, The Americans
Philosophical Maxims
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva
2 months 3 days ago
In the last 50 years agrotoxins...

In the last 50 years agrotoxins have spread and are pushing bees to extinction. The choices before humanity are clear, a Poison Free Future to save bees, farmers, our food and humanity. Or continue to use poisons, threatening our common future by walking blindly to extinction through the arrogance that we can substitute bees with artificial intelligence and robots... There is no substitute for the amazing biodiversity and gifts of bees. Let us together as diverse species and diverse cultures and through poison free organic food and farming, rejuvenate the biodiversity of our pollinators and restore their sacredness. We have the creative power to stop the sixth mass extinction and climate catastrophe without the need for these false technocratic solutions.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Poisons Mean Extinction: For Bees and Humanity article for Common Dreams
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 months 3 weeks ago
In America the majority raises formidable...

In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter XV, in a section titled Tryanny of the Majority.
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months 2 weeks ago
How does it become a man...

How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answered that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
5 months 5 days ago
You can live, provided you live;...

You can live, provided you live; that is, you can live for ever, provided you live a good life.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
229H:3:2
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
4 months 3 weeks ago
Most shocking of all is alledging...

Most shocking of all is alledging the Sacred Scriptures to favour this wicked practice. One would have thought none but infidel cavillers would endeavour to make them appear contrary to the plain dictates of natural light, and Conscience, in a matter of common Justice and Humanity; which they cannot be. Such worthy men, as referred to before, judged otherways; Mr. Baxter declared, the Slave-Traders should be called Devils, rather than Christians; and that it is a heinous crime to buy them.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Max Stirner
Max Stirner
1 month 5 days ago
If religion has put forward the...

If religion has put forward the proposition that we are all of us sinners, I set another against it: we are all of us perfect! Because, in each moment, we are all we can be, and never need to be more.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Landstreicher, p. 226
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
4 months 2 weeks ago
There is no history of mankind,...

There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world. But this, I hold, is an offence against every decent conception of mankind. It is hardly better than to treat the history of embezzlement or of robbery or of poisoning as the history of mankind. For the history of power politics is nothing but the history of international crime and mass murder (including it is true, some of the attempts to suppress them). This history is taught in schools, and some of the greatest criminals are extolled as heroes. 

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Vol 2, Ch. 25 "Has History any Meaning?" Variant: There is no history of mankind, there are only many histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world.
Philosophical Maxims
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
2 weeks 2 days ago
A brilliant man is his own...

A brilliant man is his own best company, unless he can find other company of the same sort.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months 4 weeks ago
Man is to be found in...

Man is to be found in reason, God in the passions.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
K 21
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
5 months 2 weeks ago
Scientific writing is abhorrently stylized and...

Scientific writing is abhorrently stylized and places a premium on poor quality.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 week 3 days ago
Charity is no...
0
⚖0
Main Content / General
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
4 months 4 weeks ago
There are and can be only...

There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. The one flies from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles, the truth of which it takes for settled and immovable, proceeds to judgment and to the discovery of middle axioms. And this way is now in fashion. The other derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all. This is the true way, but as yet untried.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Aphorism 19
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
3 months 1 week ago
In most cases, to be reasonable...

In most cases, to be reasonable means not to be obstinate, which in turn points to conformity with reality as it is. The principle of adjustment is taken for granted. When the idea of reason was conceived, it was intended to achieve more than the mere regulation of the relation between means and ends: it was regarded as the instrument for understanding the ends, for determining them.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 10.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
2 weeks 5 days ago
I allow nothing for losses by...

I allow nothing for losses by death, but, on the contrary, shall presently take credit four per cent. per annum, for their increase over and above keeping up their own numbers.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
On his profits from slavery as quoted in The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson, by Henry Wiencek, Smithsonian Magazine,
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
5 months 1 week ago
I am not concerned that I...

I am not concerned that I have no place; I am concerned how I may fit myself for one. I am not concerned that I am not known; I seek to be worthy to be known.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
2 weeks 5 days ago
It is an axiom in my...

It is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the State to effect, and on a general plan.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Letter to George Washington
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
4 months 3 weeks ago
What would become of history, had...

What would become of history, had we not a dependence on the veracity of the historian, according to the experience, what we have had of mankind?

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
§ 8.18
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
3 months 3 weeks ago
Wandering in a vast..

Wandering in a vast forest at night, I have only a faint light to guide me. A stranger appears and says to me: "My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly." This stranger is a theologian.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Number VIII
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
3 months 4 days ago
The main importance of Francis Bacon's...

The main importance of Francis Bacon's influence does not lie in any peculiar theory of inductive reasoning which he happened to express, but in the revolt against second-hand information of which he was a leader.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 months 2 weeks ago
Everything comes in time to him...

Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Bk. X, ch. 16
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
Life creates itself in delirium and...

Life creates itself in delirium and is undone in ennui.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
3 months 2 weeks ago
A jealous lover...

A jealous lover of human liberty, deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that, if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him. Ch. II; Variants or variant translations of this statement have also been attributed to Bakunin: The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth. A boss in Heaven is the best excuse for a boss on earth, therefore If God did exist, he would have to be abolished.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
2 months 5 days ago
To a person uninstructed in natural...

To a person uninstructed in natural history, his country or sea-side stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences (1854) p. 29
Philosophical Maxims
Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin
3 months 1 week ago
Few new truths have ever won...

Few new truths have ever won their way against the resistance of established ideas save by being overstated. 

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in Communications and History : Theories of Knowledge, Media and Civilization (1988) by Paul Heyer, p. 125
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
3 months 2 weeks ago
Unity is the great goal toward...

Unity is the great goal toward which humanity moves irresistibly. But it becomes fatal, destructive of the intelligence, the dignity, the well-being of individuals and peoples whenever it is formed without regard to liberty, either by violent means or under the authority of any theological, metaphysical, political, or even economic idea. That patriotism which tends toward unity without regard to liberty is an evil patriotism, always disastrous to the popular and real interests of the country it claims to exalt and serve. Often, without wishing to be so, it is a friend of reaction - an enemy of the revolution, i.e., the emancipation of nations and men.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
4 months 1 week ago
When Demaratus was asked whether he...

When Demaratus was asked whether he held his tongue because he was a fool or for want of words, he replied, "A fool cannot hold his tongue."

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Of Demaratus
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
4 months 2 weeks ago
In France at least, the history...

In France at least, the history of science and thought gives pride of place sciences, sciences of the necessary, all close to philosophy: one can observe in their history the almost uninterrupted emergence of truth and pure reason. The other disciplines, however - those, for example, that concern living beings, languages, or economic facts - are considered too tinged with empirical thought, too exposed to the vagaries of chance or imagery to age old traditions and external events, for it to be supposed that their history could be anything other irregular. At most, they are expected to provide evidence of a state of mind, an intellectual fashion, a mixture of archaism and bold conjecture, of intuition and blindness. But what if empirical knowledge, at a given time and in a given culture, did possess a well defined regularity.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Foreword to the English edition
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 1 week ago
Certainly the Art of Writing is...

Certainly the Art of Writing is the most miraculous of all things man has devised.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
4 months 1 week ago
By Thy perfect Intelligence, O MazdaThou...

By Thy perfect Intelligence, O MazdaThou didst first create us having bodies and spiritual consciences,And by Thy Thought gave our selves the power of thought, word, and deed.Thus leaving us free to choose our faith at our own will.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ahunuvaiti Gatha; Yasna 31, 11.
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
3 months 2 weeks ago
It was not only that I...

It was not only that I could not become spiteful, I did not know how to become anything; neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. Now, I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot become anything seriously, and it is only the fool who becomes anything.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Part 1, Chapter 1
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 2 weeks ago
Life seems to me essentially passion,...

Life seems to me essentially passion, conflict, rage... It is only intellect that keeps me sane; perhaps this makes me overvalue intellect against feeling.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell in 1912, as quoted in Clark The life of Bertrand Russell (1976), p. 174
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
1 month 1 week ago
Behold... the only... rule we can...

Behold... the only... rule we can follow: when a phenomenon appears... as the cause of another, we regard it as anterior. ...Therefore by cause... we define time; but...how do we recognize which is the cause and which the effect? We assume... the anterior fact, the antecedent, is the cause of the... consequent. It is then by time that we define cause. ...Shall we escape from this vicious circle?

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
3 months 2 weeks ago
By striving to do the impossible,...

By striving to do the impossible, man has always achieved what is possible. Those who have cautiously done no more than they believed possible have never taken a single step forward.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in The Explorers (1996) by Paolo Novaresio ISBN 1-55670-495-X
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 1 week ago
“What man among you with 100...

“What man among you with 100 sheep, on losing one of them, will not leave the 99 behind in the wilderness and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when he has found it, he puts it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he gets home, he calls his friends and his neighbors together, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous ones who have no need of repentance.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Luke 15: 4-7
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
1 month 3 weeks ago
The populist rant about greedy banks...

The populist rant about greedy banks that is being loudly ventilated in Congress is a distraction from the true causes of the crisis. The dire condition of America's financial markets is the result of American banks operating in a free-for-all environment that these same American legislators created. It is America's political class that, by embracing the dangerously simplistic ideology of deregulation, has responsibility for the present mess.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 2 weeks ago
God cannot give us a happiness...

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book II, Chapter 3, "The Shocking Alternative"
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 2 weeks ago
The hot radio medium used in...

The hot radio medium used in cool or nonliterate cultures has a violent effect, quite unlike its effect, say in England or America, where radio is felt as entertainment.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
(p. 30)
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 2 weeks ago
These labourers, who must sell themselves...

These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Section 1, Paragraph 30
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 2 weeks ago
Every commodity is compelled to chose...

Every commodity is compelled to chose some other commodity for its equivalent.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Vol. I, Ch. 1, Section 3, pg. 65.
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 6 days ago
Glorious is the risk! - καλος...

Glorious is the risk! - καλος γαρ ο κινδυνος, glorious is the risk that we are able to run of our souls never dying ... Faced with this risk, I am presented with arguments designed to eliminate it, arguments demonstrating the absurdity of the belief in the immortality of the soul; but these arguments fail to make any impression on me, for they are reasons and nothing more than reasons, and it is not with reasons that the heart is appeased. I do not want to die - no; I neither want to die nor do I want to want to die; I want to live for ever and ever and ever. I want this "I" to live - this poor "I" that I am and that I feel myself to be here and now, and therefore the problem of the duration of my soul, of my own soul, tortures me.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 2 weeks ago
On condition that you protect my...

On condition that you protect my rights, I will protect your rights. How, then, does some party obtain the right to claim the protection of the other? Evidently, by actually protecting the rights of the other. But if this is so, no party will ever obtain a strictly legal claim to the protection of the other.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
P. 220
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 2 weeks ago
Advertising is the greatest art form...

Advertising is the greatest art form of the twentieth century.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
quoted in Advertising Age, Sep. 3, 1976
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months 4 weeks ago
The pleasures of the imagination are...

The pleasures of the imagination are as it were only drawings and models which are played with by poor people who cannot afford the real thing.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
C 38
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
3 months 2 weeks ago
All evil results from the non-adaptation...

All evil results from the non-adaptation of constitution to conditions. This is true of everything that lives. Does a shrub dwindle in poor soil, or become sickly when deprived of light, or die outright if removed to a cold climate? it is because the harmony between its organization and its circumstances has been destroyed.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Part I, Ch. 2 : The Evanescence of Evil, § 1
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
2 months 2 weeks ago
It seems as if marriage were...

It seems as if marriage were the royal road through life, and realised, on the instant, what we have all dreamed on summer Sundays when the bells ring, or at night when we cannot sleep for the desire of living. They think it will sober and change them. Like those who join a brotherhood, they fancy it needs but an act to be out of the coil and clamour for ever. But this is a wile of the devil's. To the end, spring winds will sow disquietude, passing faces leave a regret behind them, and the whole world keep calling and calling in their ears. For marriage is like life in this - that it is a field of battle, and not a bed of roses.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Virginibus Puerisque, Ch. 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
1 month 4 weeks ago
A created thing is never invented...

A created thing is never invented and it is never true: it is always and ever itself.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Creation
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
4 months 3 weeks ago
But the Jews are so hardened...

But the Jews are so hardened that they listen to nothing; though overcome by testimonies they yield not an inch. It is a pernicious race, oppressing all men by their usury and rapine. If they give a prince or magistrate a thousand florins, they extort twenty thousand from the subjects in payment. We must ever keep on guard against them.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
863
Philosophical Maxims
  • Load More

User login

  • Create new account
  • Reset your password

Social

☰ ˟
  • Main Feed
  • Philosophical Maxims

Civic

☰ ˟
  • Propositions
  • Issue / Solution

Users

☰ ˟
  • All users
  • Historical Figures

Who's new

  • Søren Kierkegaard
  • Jesus
  • Friedrich Nietzsche
  • VeXed
  • Slavoj Žižek

Who's online

There are currently 0 users online.

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia