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Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 5 days ago
It must have been in his...

It must have been in his teens, perhaps rather early, that he and his elder brother John, with William Bell (afterwards of Wylie Hill, and a noted drover) and his brother, all met in the kiln at Eelief to play cards. The corn was dried then at home. There was a fire, therefore, aud perhaps it was both heat and light. The boys had played, perhaps, often enough for trifling stakes, and always parted in good humor. One night they came to some disagreement. My father spoke out what was in him about the folly, the sinfulness, of quarreling over a perhaps sinful amusement. The earnest mind persuaded other minds. They threw the cards into the fire, and (I think the younger Bell told my brother James) no one of the four ever touched a card again through life. My father certainly never hinted at such a game since I knew him. I cannot remember that I, at that age, had any such force of belief. Which of us can?

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Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
1 month 2 weeks ago
What a strange machine man is!...

What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams.

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Ch. 23
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
4 months 1 week ago
Show me what thou truly lovest,...

Show me what thou truly lovest, what thou seekest and strivest for with thy whole heart when thou hopest to attain to true en joyment of thyself-and thou hast thereby shown me thy Life. What thou lovest, in that thou livest. This very Love is thy Life, the root, the seat, the central point of thy being. All other emotions within thee have life only in so far as they are governed by this one central emotion.

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P. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 months 1 week ago
Saying that what we call our...

Saying that what we call our "selves" consist only of our bodies and that reason, soul, and love arise only from the body, is like saying that what we call our body is equivalent to the food that feeds the body. It is true that my body is only made up of digested food and that my body would not exist without food, but my body is not the same as food. Food is what the body needs for life, but it is not the body itself. The same thing is true of my soul. It is true that without my body there would not be that which I call my soul, but my soul is not my body. The soul may need the body, but the body is not the soul.

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p. 12
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
3 months 3 weeks ago
Where the frontier of science once...

Where the frontier of science once was is now the centre.

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As quoted in A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1991) edited by Alan Lindsay Mackay, p. 153
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
5 months 2 weeks ago
When we run over libraries, persuaded...

When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

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Section 12 : Of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy Pt. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 2 weeks ago
Every man is a new method....

Every man is a new method.

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"The Natural History of Intellect", p. 28
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
4 months 2 weeks ago
I am a sick man…

I am a sick man... I am a wicked man. An unattractive man.

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Part 1, Chapter 1
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 4 weeks ago
No one ever saw Cato change,...

No one ever saw Cato change, no matter how often the state changed: he kept himself the same in all circumstances-in the praetorship, in defeat, under accusation, in his province, on the platform, in the army, in death.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
5 months 1 week ago
We live together, we act on,...

We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstacies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude.

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Page 159
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 month 1 week ago
One man prays thus: How shall...

One man prays thus: How shall I be able to lie with that woman? Do thou pray thus: How shall I not desire to lie with her? Another prays: How shall I be released from this? Another prays: How shall I not desire to be released? Another thus: How shall I not lose my little son? Thou thus: How shall I not be afraid to lose him? In fine, turn thy prayers this way, and see what comes.

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IX, 40
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
1 month 4 days ago
The most beautiful fate of...

The most beautiful fate of a physical theory is to point the way to the establishment of a more inclusive theory, in which it lives on as a limiting case.

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(1917) as quoted by , The Advancement of Science, and Its Burdens: the Jefferson Lecture and Other Essays (1986)
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
5 months 2 weeks ago
The language of excitement is at...

The language of excitement is at best but picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.

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Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 80
Philosophical Maxims
Hermann Weyl
Hermann Weyl
1 month 3 weeks ago
In the field of philosophy Kant...

In the field of philosophy Kant was the first to take the next decisive step towards the point of view that not only the qualities revealed by the senses, but also space and spatial characteristics have no objective significance in the absolute sense; in other words, that space, too, is only a form of our perception.

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Introduction
Philosophical Maxims
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
1 month 1 week ago
Every right of suffrage, like any...

Every right of suffrage, like any political right in general, is not to be measured by some sort of abstract scheme of "justice," or in terms of any other bourgeois-democratic phrases, but by the social and economic relationships for which it is designed. The right of suffrage worked out by the Soviet government is calculated for the transition period from the bourgeois-capitalist to the socialist form of society, that is, it is calculated for the period of the proletarian dictatorship. But, according to the interpretation of this dictatorship which Lenin and Trotsky represent, the right to vote is granted only to those who live by their own labor and is denied to everyone else.

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Chapter Five, "The Question of Suffrage"
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
6 months 2 days ago
The perfection of the effect demonstrates...

The perfection of the effect demonstrates the perfection of the cause, for a greater power brings about a more perfect effect. But God is the most perfect agent. Therefore, things created by Him obtain perfection from Him. So, to detract from the perfection of creatures is to detract from the perfection of divine power.

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III, 69, 15
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
6 months 2 weeks ago
That body is heavier than another...

That body is heavier than another which, in an equal bulk, moves downward quicker.

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Philosophical Maxims
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
2 months 3 weeks ago
The punctuation of anniversaries is terrible,...

The punctuation of anniversaries is terrible, like the closing of doors, one after another between you and what you want to hold on to.

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Diary entry on the first anniversary of the kidnapping and death of her son Charles Augustus Lindbergh III (1 March 1932)
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
6 months 2 days ago
Nothing is in the intellect that...

Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses.

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q. 2, art. 3, arg. 19 This is known as the Peripatetic axiom.
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 month 1 week ago
Why dost thou not pray... to...

Why dost thou not pray... to give thee the faculty of not fearing any of the things which thou fearest, or of not desiring any of the things which thou desirest, or not being pained at anything, rather than pray that any of these things should not happen or happen?

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IX, 40
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
5 months 2 weeks ago
Metaphysics has as the proper object...

Metaphysics has as the proper object of its enquiries three ideas only: God, freedom, and immortality.

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B 395
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
5 months 2 weeks ago
The notion that truths external to...

The notion that truths external to the mind may be known by intuition or consciousness, independently of observation and experience, is, I am persuaded, in these times, the great intellectual support of false doctrines and bad institutions. By the aid of this theory, every inveterate belief and every intense feeling, of which the origin is not remembered, is enabled to dispense with the obligation of justifying itself by reason, and is erected into its own all-sufficient voucher and justification. There never was such an instrument devised for consecrating all deep-seated prejudices.

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(pp. 225-226)
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 4 weeks ago
You have, dearest Serene, things that...

You have, dearest Serene, things that can protect tranquility, things that restore it, things that resist creeping escapes. Be it known, however, that none of these things is sufficient for those who hold a feeble matter, unless a constant concern surrounds the slipping mind.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 5 days ago
A Parliament speaking through reporters to...

A Parliament speaking through reporters to Buncombe and the twenty-seven millions, mostly fools.

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Latter Day Pamphlets, No. 6.
Philosophical Maxims
Leszek Kołakowski
Leszek Kołakowski
2 months 6 days ago
It would be silly, of course,...

It would be silly, of course, to be either 'for' or 'against' modernity tout court, not only because it is pointless to try to stop the development of technology, science, and economic rationality, but because both modernity and antimodernity may be expressed in barbarous and antihuman terms.

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"Modernity on Endless Trial"
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
5 months 2 weeks ago
But if the labourers could live...

But if the labourers could live on air they could not be bought at any price.

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Vol. I, Ch. 24, Section 4, pg. 657.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 2 weeks ago
This enterprise is for the young;...

This enterprise is for the young; for those who can follow it up, and bear it through to its consummation. It shall have all my prayers, & these are the only weapons of an old man.

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Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
4 months 1 week ago
There is rarely a creative man...

There is rarely a creative man who does not have to pay a high price for the divine spark of his greatest gifts...the human element is frequently bled for the benefit of the creative element and to such an extent that it even brings out the bad qualities, as for instance, ruthless, naive egoism (so-called "auto-eroticism"), vanity, all kinds of vices-and all this in order to bring to the human I at least some life-strength, since otherwise it would perish of sheer inanition.

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Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
5 months 1 day ago
For many, as Cranton tells us,...

For many, as Cranton tells us, and those very wise men, not now but long ago, have deplored the condition of human nature, esteeming life a punishment, and to be born a man the highest pitch of calamity; this, Aristotle tells us, Silenus declared when he was brought captive to Midas.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 2 weeks ago
In former days, men sold themselves...

In former days, men sold themselves to the Devil to acquire magical powers. Nowadays they acquire those powers from science, and find themselves compelled to become devils. There is no hope for the world unless power can be tamed, and brought into the service, not of this or that group of fanatical tyrants, but of the whole human race, white and yellow and black, fascist and communist and democrat; for science has made it inevitable that all must live or all must die.

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Ch. 2: Leaders and Followers
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 month 1 week ago
Where have they gone, the brilliant,...

Where have they gone, the brilliant, the insightful ones, the proud?

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(Hays translation) VIII, 25
Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
5 months 1 week ago
Let us now consider whether justice...

Let us now consider whether justice requires the toleration of the intolerant, and if so under what conditions. There are a variety of situations in which this question arises. Some political parties in democratic states hold doctrines that commit them to suppress the constitutional liberties whenever they have the power. Again, there are those who reject intellectual freedom but who nevertheless hold positions in the university. It may appear that toleration in these cases is inconsistent with the principles of justice, or at any rate not required by them.

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p. 216
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
4 months 4 days ago
Man must not only make himself:...

Man must not only make himself: the weightiest thing he has to do is to determine what he is going to be. He is causa sui to the second power.

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As quoted in Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, p. 155
Philosophical Maxims
Max Stirner
Max Stirner
1 month 4 weeks ago
For the state it is indispensable...

For the state it is indispensable that nobody have an own will; if one had, the state would have to exclude (lock up, banish, etc.) this one; if all had, they would do away with the state. (...) The own will of me is the state's destroyer; it is therefore denounced by the state as 'self-will'. Own will and the state are powers in deadly hostility, between which no 'perpetual peace' is possible. As long as the state asserts itself, it represents own will, its ever-hostile opponent, as unreasonable, evil; and the latter lets itself be talked into believing this.

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Cambridge 1995, p. 174, 175
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
1 month 4 weeks ago
All this talk: the state should...

All this talk: the state should do this or that, ultimately means: the police should force consumers to behave otherwise than they would behave spontaneously.

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Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
4 months 1 week ago
Wherever ideas come together they tend...

Wherever ideas come together they tend to weld into general ideas; and whenever they are generally connected, general ideas govern the connection; and these general ideas are living feelings spread out.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 months 5 days ago
There are some defeats....
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Main Content / General
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 months 1 week ago
The attitude of the ruling classes...

The attitude of the ruling classes to the laborers is that of a man who has felled his adversary to the earth and holds him down, not so much because he wants to hold him down, as because he knows that if he let him go, even for a second, he would himself be stabbed, for his adversary is infuriated and has a knife in his hand. And therefore, whether their conscience is tender or the reverse, our rich men cannot enjoy the wealth they have filched from the poor as the ancients did who believed in their right to it. Their whole life and all their enjoyments are embittered either by the stings of conscience or by terror.

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Chapter V, Contradiction Between our Life and our Christian Conscience
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 month 1 week ago
In the morning, when thou art...

In the morning, when thou art sluggish at rousing thee, let this thought be present; "I am rising to a man's work."

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Meditations. v. 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 1 week ago
In the fact of being born...

In the fact of being born there is such an absence of necessity that when you think about it a little more than usual, you are left-ignorant how to react-with a foolish grin

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
3 months 4 weeks ago
Une âme ... n'est pas faite...

The soul was not made to dwell in a thing; and when forced to it, there is no part of that soul but suffers violence.

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in The Simone Weil Reader, p. 155
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
4 months 2 weeks ago
Pursue Virtue virtuously...

Pursue Virtue virtuously.

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These words also appear in Christian Morals, Part I, Section I
Philosophical Maxims
Will Durant
Will Durant
2 months 3 days ago
India was the motherland of our...

India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages: she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
3 months 3 weeks ago
Global rationality, the rationality of neoclassical...

Global rationality, the rationality of neoclassical theory, assumes that the decision maker has a comprehensive, consistent utility function, knows all the alternatives that are available for choice, can compute the expected value of utility associated with each alternative, and chooses the alternative that maximizes expected utility. Bounded rationality, a rationality that is consistent with our knowledge of actual human choice behavior, assumes that the decision maker must search for alternatives, has egregiously incomplete and inaccurate knowledge about the consequences of actions, and chooses actions that are expected to be satisfactory (attain targets while satisfying constraints).

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Simon (1997, p. 17); As cited in: Gustavo Barros (2010, p. 460).
Philosophical Maxims
Julius Evola
Julius Evola
1 month 3 weeks ago
The Americans' "open-mindedness", which is sometimes...

The Americans' "open-mindedness", which is sometimes cited in their favor, is the other side of their interior formlessness. The same goes for their "individualism". Individualism and personality are not the same: the one belongs to the formless world of quantity, the other to the world of quality and hierarchy. The Americans are the living refutation of the Cartesian axiom, "I think, therefore I am": Americans do not think, yet they are. The American "mind", puerile and primitive, lacks characteristic form and is therefore open to every kind of standardization.

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American "Civilization" (1945) · Excerpts
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
4 months 1 week ago
Here then is what we understand...

Here then is what we understand by these words: "the equalization of the classes." It would perhaps have been better to say suppression of the classes, the unification of society by the abolition of economic and social inequality. But we have also demanded the equalization of the individuals, and it is there especially that we attract all the thunderbolts of outraged eloquence from our adversaries. One has made use of that part of our proposition to prove in a conclusive manner that we are nothing but communists.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 1 week ago
...all of the philosophers put together...

...all of the philosophers put together are not worth a single saint.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
5 months 1 week ago
In any race between human numbers...

In any race between human numbers and natural resources, time is against us.

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Chapter 12 (p. 113)
Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
2 months 3 weeks ago
No amount of happiness enjoyed by...

No amount of happiness enjoyed by some organisms can notionally justify the indescribable horrors of Auschwitz. [...] Nor can the fun and games outweigh the sporadic frightfulness of pain and despair that occurs every second of every day. For there's nothing inherently wrong with non-sentience or [...] non-existence; whereas there is something frightfully and self-intimatingly wrong with suffering.

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2.7 Why Be Negative?
Philosophical Maxims
Hermann Weyl
Hermann Weyl
1 month 3 weeks ago
The introduction of numbers as coordinates...

The introduction of numbers as coordinates by reference to the particular division scheme of the open one dimensional continuum is an act of violence whose only practical vindication is the special calculatory manageability of the ordinary number continuum with its four basic operations. The topological skeleton determines the connectivity of the manifold in the large.

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Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science (1949), p. 90
Philosophical Maxims
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