Skip to main content
Image removed.

Main navigation

☰ ˟
  • Home
  • Articulation
  • Contact
  • Shop
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
6 days ago
An arrow has one motion and...

An arrow has one motion and the mind another. Even when pausing, even when weighing conclusions, the mind is moving forward, toward its goal. (Hays translation) VIII, 60

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks 3 days ago
Rejoice in the things....
0
⚖0
Main Content / General
Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
3 months 1 week ago
Supreme power rests in the will...

Supreme power rests in the will of all or of the majority.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
4 months 1 week ago
The perfection of a thing does...

The perfection of a thing does not annul its existence, but, on the contrary, asserts it. Imperfection, on the other hand, does annul it ; therefore we cannot be more certain of the existence of anything, than of the existence of a being absolutely infinite or perfect-that is, of God. For inasmuch as his essence excludes all imperfection, and involves absolute perfection, all cause for doubt concerning his existence is done away, and the utmost certainty on the question is given. This, I think, will be evident to every moderately attentive reader.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Part I, Prop. XI
Philosophical Maxims
William Whewell
William Whewell
1 week 1 day ago
The Science of Hydrostatics depends upon...

The Science of Hydrostatics depends upon the Fundamental Principle that 'fluids press equally in all directions'. This Principle necessarily results from the conception of a Fluid, as a body of which the parts are perfectly moveable in all directions. For since the Fluid is a body, it can transmit pressure; and the transmitted pressure is equal to the original pressure, in virtue of the Axiom that Reaction is equal to Action. That the Fundamental Principle is not derived from experience, is plain both from its evidence and from its history.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 1 week ago
Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and...

Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth - the soil and the labourer.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Vol. I, Ch. 15 (last sentence), pg. 556.
Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
4 months 4 weeks ago
We must consider both the ultimate...

We must consider both the ultimate end and all clear sensory evidence, to which we refer our opinions; for otherwise everything will be full of uncertainty and confusion.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
5 months 1 week ago
An old proverb fetched from the...

An old proverb fetched from the outward and visible world says: "Only the man that works gets the bread." Strangely enough this proverb does not aptly apply in that world to which it expressly belongs. For the outward world is subjected to the law of imperfection, and again and again the experience is repeated that he too who does not work gets the bread, and that he who sleeps gets it more abundantly than the man who works. In the outward world everything is made payable to the bearer, this world is in bondage to the law of indifference, and to him who has the ring, the spirit of the ring is obedient, whether he be Noureddin or Aladdin, and he who has the world's treasure, has it, however he got it.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 5 days ago
Eternity is absence.

Eternity is absence.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 1 week ago
What's sauce for the gander is...

What's sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Introduction, p. 37.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month ago
At bottom, as was said above,...

At bottom, as was said above, we are to consider Luther as a Prophet Idol-breaker; a bringer-back of men to reality. It is the function of great men and teachers.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Sydney Smith
Sydney Smith
3 weeks 2 days ago
He has spent all his life...

He has spent all his life in letting down empty buckets into empty wells; and he is frittering away his age in trying to draw them up again.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Vol. I, ch. 9, p. 310
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
2 months 4 days ago
Is there anything in life so...

Is there anything in life so disenchanting as attainment?

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The Suicide Club, The Adventure of the Hansom Cabs.
Philosophical Maxims
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
2 weeks 3 days ago
If compelled to indicate my religion...

If compelled to indicate my religion on an immigration blank, I might be tempted to put down the word "Taoist," to the amazement of the customs officer who probably never heard of it.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The Wisdom of Laotse (1948), Introduction, p. 15
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 1 week ago
Whenever a separation is made between...

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Letter to M. de Menonville
Philosophical Maxims
Will Durant
Will Durant
4 weeks ago
India will teach us the tolerance...

India will teach us the tolerance and gentleness of mature mind, understanding spirit and a unifying, pacifying love for all human beings.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months 2 weeks ago
If an angel were ever to...

If an angel were ever to tell us anything of his philosophy I believe many propositions would sound like 2 times 2 equals 13.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
B 44
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 1 week ago
Whatever we know without inference is...

Whatever we know without inference is mental.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948), p. 224
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
3 months 2 weeks ago
We vainly accuse the fury of...

We vainly accuse the fury of guns, and the new inventions of death; it is in the power of every hand to destroy us, and we are beholden unto every one we meet he doth not kill us.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Section 44
Philosophical Maxims
Leszek Kołakowski
Leszek Kołakowski
1 month 1 day ago
It seems to us that the...

It seems to us that the past is our property. Well, on the contrary - we are its property, because we are not able to make changes in it, while it fills the whole of our existence.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Original: "Otóż przeciwnie - to my jesteśmy jej własnością, ponieważ nie jesteśmy w stanie dokonać w niej zmian, ona natomiast wypełnia całość naszego istnienia." Klucz niebieski albo opowieści biblijne zebrane ku pouczeniu i przestrodze
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 week 2 days ago
Our liberty depends on the freedom...

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Letter to Dr. James Currie (28 January 1786) Lipscomb & Bergh 18:ii
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 1 week ago
We are at war with a...

We are at war with a system, which, by it's essence, is inimical to all other Governments, and which makes peace or war, as peace and war may best contribute to their subversion. It is with an armed doctrine that we are at war. It has, by it's essence, a faction of opinion, and of interest, and of enthusiasm, in every country. To us it is a Colossus which bestrides our channel. It has one foot on a foreign shore, the other upon the British soil. Thus advantaged, if it can at all exist, it must finally prevail.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 19
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
4 months 3 days ago
Water and navigation had that role...

Water and navigation had that role to play. Locked in the ship from which he could not escape, the madman was handed over to the thousand-armed river, to the sea where all paths cross, and the great uncertainty that surrounds all things. A prisoner in the midst of the ultimate freedom, on the most open road of all, chained solidly to the infinite crossroads. He is the Passenger par excellence, the prisoner of the passage. It is not known where he will land, and when he lands, he knows not whence he came. His truth and his home are the barren wasteland between two lands that can never be his own. One thing is certain: the link between water and madness is deeply rooted in the dream of the Western man.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Part One: 1. Stultifera Navis
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month ago
A mystic bond of brotherhood makes...

A mystic bond of brotherhood makes all men one.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Essays, Goethe's Works.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 5 days ago
No one commits suicide for external...

No one commits suicide for external reasons, only because of inner disequilibrium. Under similar adverse circumstances, some are indifferent, some are moved, some are driven to suicide.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Henry George
Henry George
1 week 1 day ago
I am firmly convinced, as I...

I am firmly convinced, as I have already said, that to effect any great social improvement, it is sympathy rather than self-interest, the sense of duty rather than the desire for self-advancement, that must be appealed to. Envy is akin to admiration, and it is the admiration that the rich and powerful excite which secures the perpetuation of aristocracies.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 21 : Conclusion
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
1 month 4 days ago
We need a good alternative to...

We need a good alternative to Trumpism. There is a majority in favor of that, but... the other party is really not providing that alternative in a very clear way.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
46:46:00
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 1 week ago
Of what I am, I know...

Of what I am, I know no more than that I am, but here no tie is necessary between subject and object. My own being is this tie, I am at once the subject knowing, and the object known of; and this reflection or return of the knowledge on itself is what I designate by the term I, if I have any determinate meaning.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 50
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 week 2 days ago
As to the species of exercise,...

As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body, and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks. Never think of taking a book with you.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
3 months 1 week ago
There is no sin, and there...

There is no sin, and there can be no sin on all the earth, which the Lord will not forgive to the truly repentant! Man cannot commit a sin so great as to exhaust the infinite love of God. Can there be a sin which could exceed the love of God?

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book II, ch. 3 (trans. Constance Garnett) The Elder Zossima, speaking to a devout widow afraid of death
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 1 week ago
People who live in society have...

People who live in society have learned how to see themselves in mirrors as they appear to their friends. I have no friends. Is that why my flesh is so naked?

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Diary entry of Friday (2 February)
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
4 months 1 week ago
Nothing contributes more to nourish elevation...

Nothing contributes more to nourish elevation of sentiments in a people, than the large and free character of their habitations.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
(p. 55)
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 5 days ago
It is a great force, and...

It is a great force, and a great fortune, to be able to live without any ambition whatever. I aspire to it, but the very fact of so aspiring still participates in ambition.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month ago
No Dilettantism in this Mahomet; it...

No Dilettantism in this Mahomet; it is a business of Reprobation and Salvation with him, of Time and Eternity: he is in deadly earnest about it! Dilettantism, hypothesis, speculation, a kind of amateur-search for Truth, toying and coquetting with Truth: this is the sorest sin. The root of all other imaginable sins. It consists in the heart and soul of the man never having been open to Truth; - "living in a vain show." Such a man not only utters and produces falsehoods, but is himself a falsehood. The rational moral principle, spark of the Divinity, is sunk deep in him, in quiet paralysis of life-death.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 1 week ago
African audiences cannot accept our passive...

African audiences cannot accept our passive consumer role in the presence of film.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
(p. 44)
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 months 3 weeks 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
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
5 months 1 week ago
It was a purely Christian satisfaction...

It was a purely Christian satisfaction to me that if ordinarily there was no one else there was one who in action tried a little to do the doctrine about loving the neighbor, alas, one who precisely by his act also received a frightful into what an illusion Christendom is and indeed, particularly later, also into how the common people let themselves be seduced by wretched journalists, whose striving and fighting for equality can only lead, if it leads to anything, since it is in the service of the lie, to making the elite, in self-defense, proud of their aloofness from the common man, and the common man brazen in his rudeness.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 1 week ago
I do not understand! I understand...

I do not understand! I understand nothing! I cannot understand nor do I want to understand! I want to believe! To Believe!

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Act 1
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 1 week ago
I have at last come to...

I have at last come to the end of the Faerie Queene: and though I say "at last", I almost wish he had lived to write six books more as he had hoped to do - so much have I enjoyed it.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
On Edmund Spenser's long poem in a letter to Arthur Greeves (7 March 1916), published in The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
4 months 1 week ago
The public use of a man's...

The public use of a man's reason must be free at all times, and this alone can bring enlightenment among men...

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva
1 month 3 weeks ago
Properties perceived in nature will depend...

Properties perceived in nature will depend on how one looks and how one looks depends on the economic interest one has in the resources of nature. The value of profit maximization is thus linked to reductionist systems, while the value of life and the maintenance of life is linked to holistic and ecological systems.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
4 months 3 weeks ago
But if one should…

But if one should guide his life by true principles, man's greatest riches is to live on a little with contented mind; for a little is never lacking.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book V, lines 1117-1119 (tr. Rouse)
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 1 week ago
Without the aid of trained emotions...

Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism. I had sooner play cards against a man who was quite skeptical about ethics, but bred to believe that 'a gentleman does not cheat,' than against an irreproachable moral philosopher who had been brought up among sharpers. In battle it is not syllogisms that will keep the reluctant nerves and muscles to their post in the third hour of the bombardment.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 week 2 days ago
A little patience, and we shall...

A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
From a letter to John Taylor (June 1798), after the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Simmel
Georg Simmel
2 weeks 5 days ago
Money expresses all qualitative differences of...

Money expresses all qualitative differences of things in terms of "how much?" Money, with all its colorlessness and indifference, becomes the common denominator of all values; irreparably it hollows out the core of things, their individuality, their specific value, and their incomparability. All things float with equal specific gravity in the constantly moving stream of money. All things lie on the same level and differ from one another only in the size of the area which they cover.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
2 months 4 days ago
A woman can earn her pardon...

A woman can earn her pardon for a good year of disobedience by a single adroit submission.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The Rajah's Diamond, Story of the Bandbox.
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 4 days ago
I must plunge into the water...

I must plunge into the water of doubt again and again.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 7 : Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 119
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Schmitt
Carl Schmitt
1 week 1 day ago
That the state is an entity...

That the state is an entity and in fact the decisive entity rests upon its political character.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
2 months 3 weeks ago
I spoke after Sasha, for an...

I spoke after Sasha, for an hour. I discussed the farce of a government undertaking to carry democracy abroad by suppressing the last vestiges of it at home. I took up the contention of Judge Mayer that only such ideas are permissible as are "within the law." Thus he had instructed the jurymen when he had asked them if they were prejudiced against those who propagate unpopular ideas. I pointed out that there had never been an ideal, however humane and peaceful, which in its time had been considered "within the law." I named Jesus, Socrates, Galileo, Giordano Bruno. "Were they 'within the law"?" I asked. "And the men who set America free from British rule, the Jeffersons and the Patrick Henrys? The William Lloyd Garrisons, the John Browns, the David Thoreaus and Wendell Phillipses-were they within the law?"

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
chapter 45
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
3 months 2 weeks ago
We find that everything that makes...

We find that everything that makes up difference and number is pure accident, pure show, pure constitution. Every production, of whatever kind, is an alteration, but the substance remains always the same, because it is only one, one divine immortal being.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
  • Load More

User login

  • Create new account
  • Reset your password

Social

☰ ˟
  • Main Feed
  • Philosophical Maxims

Civic

☰ ˟
  • Propositions
  • Issue / Solution

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