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Joseph de Maistre
Joseph de Maistre
4 weeks 1 day ago
If you wish to extinguish that...

If you wish to extinguish that enthusiasm, which inspires great thoughts, and impels to noble enterprises;-if you wish to render men's hearts cold, and unfeeling; and to substitute egotism in the room of generous, and ardent, patriotism,-if you wish to do this, only take away from the people their faith, and make them philosophers.

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p. 61
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 2 weeks ago
When we leave you and assemble...

When we leave you and assemble together by ourselves, we talk freely about his sayings and doings, treating them with the respect which they deserve: in your presence deep silence is observed about him, and thus you lose that greatest of pleasures, the hearing the praises of your son, which I doubt not you would be willing to hand down to all future ages, had you the means of so doing, even at the cost of your own life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
5 months 2 days ago
The soldier is applauded who refuses...

The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war; is applauded by those whose own act and authority he disregards and sets at naught; as if the state were penitent to that degree that it hired one to scourge it while it sinned, but not to that degree that it left off sinning for a moment.

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Philosophical Maxims
Max Scheler
Max Scheler
3 months 3 weeks ago
Instead of defining the word, let...

Instead of defining the word, let us briefly characterize or describe the phenomenon. Ressentiment is a self-poisoning of the mind which has quite definite causes and consequences. It is a lasting mental attitude, caused by the systematic repression of certain emotions and affects which, as such, are normal components of human nature. Their repression leads to the constant tendency to indulge in certain kinds of value delusions and corresponding value judgments. The emotions and affects primarily concerned are revenge, hatred, malice, envy, the impulse to detract, and spite.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 3 days ago
The investigation....
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Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
5 months 1 day ago
Christian philosophers have found no difficulty...

Christian philosophers have found no difficulty in justifying imperialism, war, the capitalist system, the use of torture, the censorship of the press and ecclesiastical tyrannies of every sort, from the tyranny of Rome to the tyrannies of Geneva and New England.

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Ch. 14, p. 315 [2012 reprint]
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
3 months 3 weeks ago
It is questionable whether there does...

It is questionable whether there does not exist in man an obscure and blind will to make war; an impulse towards change, towards emergence from the familiarities of everyday life and from the stabilities of well-known conditions - something like a will to death as a will to annihilation and self-sacrifice, a vague enthusiasm for the upbuilding of a new world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 1 day ago
When angry, count ten before you...

When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 2 days ago
When any work seems to have...

When any work seems to have required immense force and labor to affect it, the idea is grand. Stonehenge, neither for disposition nor ornament, has anything admirable; but those huge rude masses of stone, set on end, and piled each on other, turn the mind on the immense force necessary for such a work. Nay, the rudeness of the work increases this cause of grandeur, as it excludes the idea of art and contrivance; for dexterity produces another sort of effect, which is different enough from this.

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Part II Section XII
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
"Neither this world, nor the next,...

"Neither this world, nor the next, nor happiness are for the being abandoned to doubt." - This point in the Gita is my death sentence.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 3 weeks ago
Get thee behind me, Satan: thou...

Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

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16:23 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
5 months 4 days ago
This proof can at most, therefore,...

This proof can at most, therefore, demonstrate the existence of an architect of the world, whose efforts are limited by the capabilities of the material with which he works, but not of a creator of the world, to whom all things are subject.

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A 627, B 655 (Physico-Theological Proof Impossible)
Philosophical Maxims
Sydney Smith
Sydney Smith
1 month 2 weeks ago
The English, generally remarkable for doing...

The English, generally remarkable for doing very good things in a very bad manner, seem to have reserved the maturity and plenitude of their awkwardness for the pulpit.

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Vol. I, ch. 3, p. 83
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 4 weeks ago
The future masters of technology will...

The future masters of technology will have to be lighthearted and intelligent. The machine easily masters the grim and the dumb.

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(p. 55)
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 1 day ago
The measure of action is the...

The measure of action is the sentiment from which it proceeds. The greatest action may easily be one of the most private circumstance.

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Goethe; or, The Writer
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 1 day ago
Some have made the love of...

Some have made the love of God the foundation of morality. This, too, is but a branch of our moral duties, which are generally divided into duties to God and duties to man. If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such being exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to-wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.

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Letter to Thomas Law
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 3 weeks ago
Take heed lest any man deceive...

Take heed lest any man deceive you: For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows. But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them. And the gospel must first be published among all nations. But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.

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13:5b-11 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
6 months 2 days ago
I have just now come from...

I have just now come from a party where I was its life and soul; witticisms streamed from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me, but I went away - yes, the dash should be as long as the radius of the earth's orbit ----------- and wanted to shoot myself.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
2 months 1 week ago
No doubt markets transmit information in...

No doubt markets transmit information in the way that Hayek claimed. But what reason is there to believe that - unlike any other social institution - they have a built-in capacity to correct their mistakes? History hardly supports the supposition. Moods of irrational exuberance and panic can, and often do, swamp the price-discovery functions of markets.

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Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
4 months 6 days ago
The purpose of an encyclopedia is...

The purpose of an encyclopedia is to collect knowledge disseminated around the globe; to set forth its general system to the men with whom we live, and transmit it to those who will come after us, so that the work of preceding centuries will not become useless to the centuries to come; and so that our offspring, becoming better instructed, will at the same time become more virtuous and happy, and that we should not die without having rendered a service to the human race in the future years to come.

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Encyclopédie
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
4 months 3 weeks ago
Disease of the home and of...

Disease of the home and of the life comes about in the same way as that of the body.

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Freeman (1948), p. 170 Variant: Disease occurs in a household, or in a life, just as it does in a body.
Philosophical Maxims
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
1 month 1 week ago
It is almost always impossible to...

It is almost always impossible to evaluate at the time events which you have already experienced, and to understand their meaning with the guidance of their effects. All the more unpredictable and surprising to us will be the course of future events.

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Autobiographical sketch (1970), at Nobelprize.org
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 months 2 weeks ago
The terrible struggle of the thinking...

The terrible struggle of the thinking man and woman against political, social and moral conventions owes its origin to the family, where the child is ever compelled to battle against the internal and external use of force. The categorical imperatives: You shall! you must! this is right! that is wrong! this is true! that is false! shower like a violent rain upon the unsophisticated head of the young being and impress upon its sensibilities that it has to bow before the long established and hard notions of thoughts and emotions.

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Philosophical Maxims
Cisero
Cisero
5 months 2 weeks ago
I will speak in a low voice..

I will speak in a low voice, just so as to let the judges hear me. For men are not wanting who would be glad to excite that people against me and against every eminent man; and I will not assist them and enable them to do so more easily.

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Cicero, The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero; Translation by C.D. Yonge., 1856.
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
4 months 2 days ago
Your worst sin is that you...

Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
5 months 4 weeks ago
If anyone can be considered the...

If anyone can be considered the greatest writer who ever lived, it is Shakespeare.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
3 months 3 weeks ago
By MANNERS, I mean not here...

By MANNERS, I mean not here Decency of behaviour; as how one man should salute another, or how a man should wash his mouth, or pick his teeth before company, and such other points of the Small Morals; But those qualities of mankind that concern their living together in Peace and Unity. To which end we are to consider that the Felicity of this life consisteth not in the repose of a mind satisfied. For there is no such Finis ultimus (utmost aim) nor Summum Bonum (greatest good) as is spoken of in the books of the old Moral Philosophers. Nor can a man any more live whose desires are at an end than he whose Senses and Imaginations are at a stand.

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The First Part, Chapter 11, p. 47
Philosophical Maxims
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
1 month 4 weeks ago
You cannot endow even the best...

You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative; the jolliest steam-roller will not plant flowers.

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Ch. I: "Routineer and Inventor", p. 30.
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
4 months 6 days ago
There are three principal means of...

There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge available to us: observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination. Our observation of nature must be diligent, our reflection profound, and our experiments exact. We rarely see these three means combined; and for this reason, creative geniuses are not common.

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No. 15
Philosophical Maxims
Walter Kaufmann
Walter Kaufmann
2 months 1 day ago
Of faith and morals, one cannot...

Of faith and morals, one cannot speak honestly for long without hurting feelings. Therefore, most people speak dishonestly of the most important subjects. Many recent philosophers prefer not to speak of them at all. But in some situations honesty is incompatible with silence.

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Philosophical Maxims
Niels Bohr
Niels Bohr
1 month 1 week ago
It is not enough to be...

It is not enough to be wrong, one must also be polite.

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As quoted in The Genius of Science: A Portrait Gallery (2000) by Abraham Pais, p. 24
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
3 weeks ago
I am neither a German...

I am neither a German citizen nor do I believe in anything that can be described as a "Jewish faith." But I am a Jew and glad to belong to the Jewish people, though I do not regard it in any way as chosen.

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Philosophical Maxims
Max Stirner
Max Stirner
1 month 2 weeks ago
The workers have the most enormous...

The workers have the most enormous power in their hands, and if one day they became truly aware of it and used it, then nothing could resist them; they would only have to stop work and look upon the products of work as their own and enjoy them. This is the meaning of the labor unrest that is looming here and there. The state is founded on the-slavery of labor. If labor becomes free, the state is lost.

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Landstreicher 2017, p. 133
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
4 weeks ago
When thou art offended at any...

When thou art offended at any man's fault, forthwith turn to thyself and reflect in what manner thou doest error thyself... For by attending to this thou wilt quickly forget thy anger, if this consideration is also added, that the man is compelled; for what else could he do? or, if thou art able, take away from him the compulsion.

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X, 30
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 3 weeks ago
Why in the world shouldn't they...

Why in the world shouldn't they have regarded with awe and reverence that act by which the human race is perpetuated. Not every religion has to have St. Augustine's attitude to sex. Why even in our culture marriages are celebrated in a church, everyone present knows what is going to happen that night, but that doesn't prevent it being a religious ceremony.

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Intentionality, and Romanticism (1997) by Richard Thomas Eldridge, p. 130
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 4 weeks ago
Since Sputnik, the earth has been...

Since Sputnik, the earth has been wrapped in a dome-like blanket or bubble. Nature ended.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
5 months 2 days ago
Landlords... grow richer, as it were...

Landlords... grow richer, as it were in their sleep, without working, risking, or economizing.

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Book V, Chapter 1, Section 5
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
5 months 2 days ago
But, in my state of mind,...

But, in my state of mind, this appearance of superiority to illusion added to the effect which Bentham's doctrines produced on me, by heightening the impression of mental power, and the vista of improvement which he did open was sufficiently large and brilliant to light up my life, as well as to give a definite shape to my aspirations.

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(p. 67)
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
3 months 2 weeks ago
Action is the pointer...

Action is the pointer which shows the balance. We must not touch the pointer but the weight.

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p. 97
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
5 months 3 days ago
Lying... is so ill a quality,...

Lying... is so ill a quality, and the mother of so many ill ones that spawn from it, and take shelter under it, that a child should be brought up in the greatest abhorrence of it imaginable. It should be always spoke of before him with the utmost detestation, as a quality so wholly inconsistent with the name and character of a gentleman, that no body of any credit can bear the imputation of a lie; a mark that is judg'd in utmost disgrace, which debases a man to the lowest degree of a shameful meanness, and ranks him with the most contemptible part of mankind and the abhorred rascality; and is not to be endured in any one who would converse with people of condition, or have any esteem or reputation in the world.

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Sec. 131
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
Losing love is so rich a...

Losing love is so rich a philosophical ordeal that it makes a hairdresser into a rival of Socrates.

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Philosophical Maxims
Sydney Smith
Sydney Smith
1 month 2 weeks ago
Never give way to melancholy; resist...

Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach.

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Vol. I, ch. 10, p. 372
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
5 months 1 day ago
The Quaestor turned back the pages...

The Quaestor turned back the pages until he found himself among the Pensées. "We are not satisfied," he read, "with the life we have in ourselves and our own being; we want to live an imaginary life in other people's idea of us. Hence all our efforts are directed to seeming what we are not. We labor incessantly to preserve and embellish this imaginary being, and neglect that which is really ours." The Quaestor put down the book, ... and ruefully reflected that all his own troubles had arisen from this desire to seem what in fact he was not. To seem a man of action, when in fact he was a contemplative; to seem a politician, when nature had made him an introspective psychologist; to seem a wit, which God had intended him for a sage.

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"Variations on a Philosopher" in Themes and Variations (1943), p. 2
Philosophical Maxims
William Whewell
William Whewell
1 month 1 day ago
Man, servant and interpreter of Nature,...

Man, servant and interpreter of Nature, does and understands only as much as he has observed of the order of Nature, either in reality or in mind; he neither knows nor can do more.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
2 months 3 weeks ago
A woman loves to be obeyed...

A woman loves to be obeyed at first, although afterwards she finds her pleasure in obeying.

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The Suicide Club, Story of the Physician and the Saratoga Trunk.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 3 weeks ago
A great man shows his greatness...

A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.

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Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
3 months 4 weeks ago
The woman who fights against her...

The woman who fights against her father still has the possibility of leading an instinctive, feminine existence, because she rejects only what is alien to her. But when she fights against the mother she may, at the risk of injury to her instincts, attain to greater consciousness, because in repudiating the mother she repudiates all that is obscure, instinctive, ambiguous, and unconscious in her own nature.

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"Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype" (1939). In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. P. 186
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
3 months 4 weeks ago
Friends, the soil is poor, we...

Friends, the soil is poor, we must sow seeds in plenty for us to garner even modest harvests.

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Motto
Philosophical Maxims
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei
1 month 3 weeks ago
I esteem myself happy to have...

I esteem myself happy to have as great an ally as you in my search for truth. I will read your work ... all the more willingly because I have for many years been a partisan of the Copernican view because it reveals to me the causes of many natural phenomena that are entirely incomprehensible in the light of the generally accepted hypothesis. To refute the latter I have collected many proofs, but I do not publish them, because I am deterred by the fate of our teacher Copernicus who, although he had won immortal fame with a few, was ridiculed and condemned by countless people (for very great is the number of the stupid).

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Letter to Johannes Kepler (1596), as quoted in The Story of Civilization : The Age of Reason Begins, 1558-1648 (1935) by Will Durant, p. 603
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
6 months 2 days ago
Be attentive therefore, according to the...

Be attentive therefore, according to the instruction of the Gospel, to learn obedience from the lily and the bird. Be not affrighted, do no despair, when thou comparest thy life with these teachers. There is nothing to despair about, for indeed thou shalt learn from them; and the Gospel first comforts thee by telling thee that God is the God of patience, and then it adds: 'Thou shalt learn from the lilies and the birds, learn to be absolutely obedient like the lilies and the birds, learn not to serve two masters; for no man can serve two masters, he must either ... or.

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Philosophical Maxims
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