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Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
4 months ago
By relieving the brain of all...

By relieving the brain of all unnecessary work, a good notation sets it free to concentrate on more advanced problems, and in effect increases the mental power of the race..

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ch. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
5 months 1 week ago
A man's thinking goes on within...

A man's thinking goes on within his consciousness in a seclusion in comparison with which any physical seclusion is an exhibition to public view.

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Pt II, p. 189
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
5 months 6 days ago
A life without a holiday is...

A life without a holiday is like a long journey without an inn to rest at.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
5 months 2 weeks ago
Only that position can impart dignity...

Only that position can impart dignity in which we do not appear as servile tools but rather create independently within our circle.

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Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, L. Easton, trans. (1967), p. 38
Philosophical Maxims
Joseph de Maistre
Joseph de Maistre
1 month 2 weeks ago
Faith and patriotism are the two...

Faith and patriotism are the two great thaumaturges of this world. Both are divine; all their actions are prodigies. Do not go to them talking of examination, choice, or discussion; they will say that you blaspheme. They know only two words: submission and belief; with these two levers they raise the world. Even their errors are sublime. These two children of Heaven prove their origin to all eyes by creating and conserving; but if they unite, join their forces, and together take possession of a nation, they exalt it, they divinize it, and they increase its forces a hundred-fold.

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p. 88
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 months 2 weeks ago
People usually think that progress consists...

People usually think that progress consists in the increase of knowledge, in the improvement of life, but that isn't so. Progress consists only in the greater clarification of answers to the basic questions of life. The truth is always accessible to a man. It can't be otherwise, because a man's soul is a divine spark, the truth itself. It's only a matter of removing from this divine spark (the truth) everything that obscures it. Progress consists, not in the increase of truth, but in freeing it from its wrappings. The truth is obtained like gold, not by letting it grow bigger, but by washing off from it everything that isn't gold.

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Tolstoy's Diaries (1985) edited and translated by R. F. Christian. London: Athlone Press, Vol 2, p. 512
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 2 weeks ago
So far as it has gone,...

So far as it has gone, it probably is the most pure and defecated publick good which ever has been conferred on mankind.

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p. 463 On the Polish Constitution of May 3, 1791
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
5 months 2 weeks ago
The normal process of life contains...

The normal process of life contains moments as bad as any of those which insane melancholy is filled with, moments in which radical evil gets its innings and takes its solid turn. The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony. If you protest, my friend, wait till you arrive there yourself! ... Here on our very hearths and in our gardens the infernal cat plays with the panting mouse, or holds the hot bird fluttering in her jaws. Crocodiles and rattlesnakes and pythons are at this moment vessels of life as real as we are; their loathsome existence fills every minute of every day that drags its length along; and whenever they or other wild beasts clutch their living prey, the deadly horror which an agitated melancholiac feels is the literally right reaction on the situation.

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Lectures VI and VII, "The Sick Soul"
Philosophical Maxims
Al-Ghazali
Al-Ghazali
4 months 3 weeks ago
If you believe in the future...

If you believe in the future life and, instead of preparing for it, sell it in order to buy this world, then that is folly! You do not normally sell two things for one; how can you give up an endless life for a limited number of days.

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IV. The True Nature of Prophecy and the Compelling Need of All Creation for it, p. 67.
Philosophical Maxims
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
1 month 1 week ago
The Bolsheviks themselves will not want,...

The Bolsheviks themselves will not want, with hand on heart, to deny that, step by step, they have to feel out the ground, try out, experiment, test now one way now another, and that a good many of their measures do not represent priceless pearls of wisdom. Thus it must and will be with all of us when we get to the same point-even if the same difficult circumstances may not prevail everywhere.

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Chapter Six, "The Problem of Dictatorship"
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 months 2 weeks ago
In historical events great men -...

In historical events great men - so-called - are but labels serving to give a name to the event, and like labels they have the least possible connection with the event itself. Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own free will, is in an historical sense not free at all, but in bondage to the whole course of previous history, and predestined from all eternity.

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Bk. IX, ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Rorty
Richard Rorty
5 months 1 week ago
Truthfulness under oath is, by now,...

Truthfulness under oath is, by now, a matter of our civic religion, our relation to our fellow citizens rather than our relation to a nonhuman power.

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"John Searle on Realism and Relativism." Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers, Volume 3 (1998).
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 1 week ago
Boredom is a larval anxiety; depression,...

Boredom is a larval anxiety; depression, a dreamy hatred.

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Philosophical Maxims
Max Stirner
Max Stirner
2 months 2 days ago
Atheists keep up their scoffing at...

Atheists keep up their scoffing at the higher being, which was also honoured under the name of the 'highest' or être suprême, and trample in the dust one 'proof of his existence' after another, without noticing that they themselves, out of need for a higher being, only annihilate the old to make room for a new.

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Cambridge 1995, p. 38-39
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
5 months 2 weeks ago
There is but one indefectibly certain...

There is but one indefectibly certain truth, and that is the truth that pyrrhonistic scepticism itself leaves standing, - the truth that the present phenomenon of consciousness exists.

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The Will to Believe, 1897
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
5 months 2 weeks ago
Man has his own inclinations and...

Man has his own inclinations and a natural will which, in his actions, by means of his free choice, he follows and directs. There can be nothing more dreadful than that the actions of one man should be subject to the will of another; hence no abhorrence can be more natural than that which a man has for slavery. And it is for this reason that a child cries and becomes embittered when he must do what others wish, when no one has taken the trouble to make it agreeable to him. He wants to be a man soon, so that he can do as he himself likes.

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Part III : Selection on Education from Kant's other Writings, Ch. I Pedagogical Fragments, # 62
Philosophical Maxims
William Whewell
William Whewell
1 month 2 weeks ago
When common words are appropriated as...

When common words are appropriated as technical terms, their meaning and relations in common use should be retained as far as can conveniently be done.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
4 months 1 week ago
Do not judge according to appearance,...

Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.

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(John 7:24) (NASB) Variant translation: Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment. (NIV)
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
4 months 1 week ago
Hegel's theological discussion repeatedly asks what...

Hegel's theological discussion repeatedly asks what the true relation is between the individual man and a state that no longer satisfies his capacities but exists rather as an 'estranged' institution from which the active political interest of the citizens has disappeared. Hegel defined this state with almost the same categories as those of eighteenth century liberalism: the state rests on the consent of the individuals, it circumscribes their rights and duties and protects its members from those internal and external dangers that might threaten the perpetuation of the whole.

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P. 32
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
4 months 1 week ago
That science is incapable of solving...

That science is incapable of solving in its own way those fundamental questions is no sufficient reason for slighting them.

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p. 14
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
5 months 2 weeks ago
May we not return….

May we not return to those scoundrels of old, the illustrious founders of superstition and fanaticism, who first took the knife from the altar to make victims of those who refused to be their disciples?

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Letter to Frederick II of Prussia (December 1740), published in Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, Vol. 7 (1869), edited by Georges Avenel, p. 105; as translated by Richard Aldington
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 months 2 weeks ago
Nobody can doubt that the entire...

Nobody can doubt that the entire range of applied science contributes to the very format of a newspaper. But the headline is a feature which began with the Napoleonic Wars. The headline is a primitive shout of rage, triumph, fear, or warning, and newspapers have thrived on wars ever since.

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p. 7
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
5 months 3 weeks ago
Let the public good overcome all...

Let the public good overcome all private and selfish regards of every kind and degree; though in truth, even private and selfish regards, and every man's own interest, will be best promoted by the preservation of peace.

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Philosophical Maxims
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam
3 months 3 weeks ago
Philosophy was never just ontotheology, and...

Philosophy was never just ontotheology, and even when philosophers were concerned with ontotheology, they were concerned with much more than that. That is the first reason that the idea of a fundamental "crisis" in philosophy and of the "end of philosophy" is deeply mistaken. And if the questions of philosophy are indeed "unsettleable," in the sense that they will always be with us, that is a wonderful thing, not something to be regretted.

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Science and Philosophy
Philosophical Maxims
Julius Evola
Julius Evola
1 month 3 weeks ago
In dealing with relationships, not only...

In dealing with relationships, not only man-to-man, but also State-to-State and race-to-race, it is necessary to be able to conceive again of that obedience which does not humiliate but exalts, that command or leadership which commits one to superiority and a precise responsibility.

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p. 117
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 months 2 weeks ago
Older cliches are retrieved both as...

Older cliches are retrieved both as inherent principles that inform the new ground and new awareness, and as archetypal nostalgia figures with transformed meaning in relation to the new ground.

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p. 105
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 1 week ago
This poor amphibious Pope too gives...

This poor amphibious Pope too gives loaves to the Poor; has in him more good latent than he is himself aware of. His poor Jesuits, in the late Italian Cholera, were, with a few German Doctors, the only creatures whom dastard terror had not driven mad: they descended fearless into all gulfs and bedlams; watched over the pillow of the dying, with help, with counsel and hope; shone as luminous fixed stars, when all else had gone out in chaotic night: honour to them!

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 2 weeks ago
If we owe to it [civil...

If we owe to it [civil society] any duty, it is not subject to our will. Duties are not voluntary. Duty and will are even contradictory terms. Now though civil society might be at first a voluntary act (which in many cases it undoubtedly was) its continuance is under a permanent standing covenant, coexisting with the society; and it attaches upon every individual of that society, without any formal act of his own. This is warranted by the general practice, arising out of the general sense of mankind.

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p. 442
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
4 months 1 week ago
If any man will come after...

If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.

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16:24-28 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
2 months 1 day ago
Take your fill….

Take your fill when the cask is first opened and when it is nearly spent, but midways be sparing: it is poor saving when you come to the lees.

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Line 5 This quote is often directly attributed to Seneca, but he is referring to lines 368-369 of Works and Days by the Greek poet Hesiod, (translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White)
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 3 weeks ago
I know well what I am...

I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.

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Book III, Ch. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
6 months 2 weeks ago
One must have a good memory...
One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises one makes.
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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
5 months 2 weeks ago
Every story of conversion is the...

Every story of conversion is the story of a blessed defeat.

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Foreword to Joy Davidman's Smoke on the Mountain, 1954
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
4 months 1 week ago
We can never legitimately cut loose...

We can never legitimately cut loose from our archetypal foundations unless we are prepared to pay the price of a neurosis, any more than we can rid ourselves of our body and its organs without committing suicide.

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J.B. Priestley, Times Literary Supplement, London
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
3 months 5 days ago
Those who compare the age in...

Those who compare the age in which their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in imagination, may talk of degeneracy and decay; but no man who is correctly informed as to the past, will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present.

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Vol. I, ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
6 months 2 weeks ago
Life is, after all, not a...
Life is, after all, not a product of morality.
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Philosophical Maxims
Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
3 months 1 week ago
This "knowing what to do"... is...

This "knowing what to do"... is a matter of having the right purpose, the purpose appropriate to the situation in hand... The one who "knows what to do" is the one on whom you can rely to make the best shot at success, whenever success is possible.

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"Knowledge and Feeling" (p. 35)
Philosophical Maxims
Auguste Comte
Auguste Comte
4 months 3 weeks ago
And now I have explained the...

And now I have explained the series of social and intellectual conditions by which the discovery of sociological laws, and consequently the foundation of Positivism, was fixed for the precise date at which I began my philosophical career: that is to say, one generation after the progressive dictatorship of the Convention, and almost immediately after the fall of the retrograde tyranny of Bonaparte.

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p. 71
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
4 months 1 week ago
Judge not, that ye be not...

Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

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(Matthew 7:1-2) (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
6 months 2 weeks ago
Tolerance and apathy are the last...

Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ian Hacking
Ian Hacking
3 months 3 weeks ago
Until the seventeenth century there was...

Until the seventeenth century there was no concept of evidence with which to pose the problem of induction!

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Chapter 4, Evidence, p. 31.
Philosophical Maxims
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee
2 months 4 weeks ago
The human race's prospects of survival...

The human race's prospects of survival were considerably better when we were defenceless against tigers than they are today when we have become defenceless against ourselves.

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"Man and Hunger: The Perspectives of History", Speech to the World Food Congress (4 June 1963)
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
10 months 1 week ago
A common goal...
Issue:

Because of subgrouping, physical separation, different types of genetics and other cultural factors, as well as limited isolation people subjectively deviate from their universal human necessity. They become aware of it when they are exposed to difference regularly.

Solution:

With controlled information delivery, as well as a clear ideological goal like universality, we can clear away the noise of chaos to understand deterministic goals directly.

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Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
4 months 3 weeks ago
Men sometimes submit to shame, to...

Men sometimes submit to shame, to tyranny, to conquest, but they never long suffer anarchy. There is no people so barbarous that they escape this general law of humanity.

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Second letter on Algeria (1837), Travels in Algeria p. 38
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
3 months 5 days ago
To have been a Sovereign, yet...

To have been a Sovereign, yet the champion of liberty,-a revolutionary leader, yet the supporter of social order, is the peculiar glory of William. Till his accession the British Constitution was in its Chaos. It had contained, from a very remote period, the simple elements of an harmonious government. But they were in a state not of amalgamation, but of conflict,-not of equilibrium but of alternate elevation and depression. The tyranny of Charles the first produced civil war and anarchy. Tyranny had now again produced resistance and revolution. And, but for the wisdom of the new King, it seems probable that the same cycle of misery would have been again described.

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'Essay on the Life and Character of King William III' (1822), written for the Greaves Historical Prize at Cambridge, quoted in The Times Literary Supplement (1 May 1969), p. 469
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 2 weeks ago
Music is the poor man's Parnassus....

Music is the poor man's Parnassus.

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Poetry and Imagination
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
4 months 1 week ago
The same, without such opinion, DESPAIRE....

The same, without such opinion, DESPAIRE.

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The First Part, Chapter 6, p. 25
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
5 months 3 weeks ago
It is not the pleasure of...

It is not the pleasure of curiosity, nor the quiet of resolution, nor the raising of the spirit, nor victory of wit, nor faculty of speech that are the true ends of knowledge, but it is a restitution and reinvesting, in great part, of man to the sovereignty and power, for whensoever he shall be able to call the creatures by their true names, he shall again command them.

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Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature (ca. 1603), in Works, Vol. I, p. 83; The Works of Francis Bacon (1819), Vol. 2, p. 133
Philosophical Maxims
Paracelsus
Paracelsus
2 months 1 day ago
What we should be after death,...

What we should be after death, we have to attain in life, i.e. holiness and bliss. Here on earth the Kingdom of God begins.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
4 months 2 weeks ago
The deceiver...
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