Skip to main content

Main navigation

☰ ˟
  • Home
  • Articulation
  • Free Books
  • Contact
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
4 months 2 weeks ago
Attention consists of suspending our thought,...

Attention consists of suspending our thought, leaving it detached, empty, and ready to be penetrated by the object; it means holding in our minds, within reach of this thought, but on a lower level and not in contact with it, the diverse knowledge we have acquired which we are forced to make use of.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
5 months 4 weeks ago
A man who belongs to some...

A man who belongs to some communist or revolutionary society wills certain concrete ends, which imply the will to freedom, and that freedom is willed in community. We will freedom for freedom's sake, and in and through the particular circumstances. And in thus willing freedom, we discover that it depends entirely upon the freedom of others and that the freedom of others depends upon our own.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
pp. 51-52
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
4 months 2 weeks ago
Life is complex in its expression,...

Life is complex in its expression, involving more than percipience, namely desire, emotion, will, and feeling. ... identification of rhythm as the causal counterpart of life; wherever there is some life, only perceptible to us when the analogies are sufficiently close ... The rhythm is then the life, in the sense in which it can be said to be included within nature.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 197
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
5 months 4 weeks ago
For the moment, the jazz is...

For the moment, the jazz is playing; there is no melody, just notes, a myriad of tiny tremors. The notes know no rest, an inflexible order gives birth to them then destroys them, without ever leaving them the chance to recuperate and exist for themselves.... I would like to hold them back, but I know that, if I succeeded in stopping one, there would only remain in my hand a corrupt and languishing sound. I must accept their death; I must even want that death: I know of few more bitter or intense impressions.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
4 months 2 weeks ago
When all these things are lacking...

When all these things are lacking there is no culture; there is in the strictest sense of the word, barbarism. And let us not deceive ourselves, this is what is beginning to appear in Europe under the progressive rebellion of the masses. The traveller who arrives in a barbarous country knows that in that territory there are no ruling principles to which it is possible to appeal. Properly speaking, there are no barbarian standards. Barbarism is the absence of standards to which appeal can be made.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chap. VIII: The Masses Intervene In Everything, And Why Their Intervention Is Solely By Violence
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
3 months 3 weeks ago
The judge is condemned…

The judge is condemned when the guilty is absolved.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Maxim 407 Adopted by the original Edinburgh Review magazine as its motto.
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
5 months 3 weeks ago
A religious symbol does not rest...

A religious symbol does not rest on any opinion. And error belongs only with opinion. One would like to say: This is what took place here; laugh, if you can.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 7 : Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 123
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
5 months 4 weeks ago
What would really satisfy us would...

What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like, "What does it matter so long as they are contented?" We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven - a senile benevolence who, as they say, "liked to see young people enjoying themselves" and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, "a good time was had by all".

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
2 months 3 weeks ago
I have found a paper of...

I have found a paper of mine among some others in which I call architecture 'petrified music.' Really there is something in this; the tone of mind produced by architecture approaches the effect of music.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Conversations with Eckermann (23 March 1829) - Often quoted as "Architecture is frozen music."
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 4 weeks ago
My new trade of nail-making is...

My new trade of nail-making is to me in this country what an additional title of nobility or the ensigns of a new order are in Europe.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson, by Henry Wiencek, Smithsonian Magazine,
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
6 months 2 weeks ago
The superior man, when resting...

The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come. When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin. When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come. Thus his person is not endangered, and his States and all their clans are preserved.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
3 months 3 weeks ago
An atheist is just somebody who...

An atheist is just somebody who feels about Yahweh the way any decent Christian feels about Thor or Baal or the golden calf. As has been said before, we are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Richard Dawkins on militant atheism,
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 4 weeks ago
How can he [today's writer] be...

How can he [today's writer] be honored, when he does not honor himself; when he loses himself in the crowd; when he is no longer the lawgiver, but the sycophant, ducking to the giddy opinion of a reckless public.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Goethe; or, The Writer
Philosophical Maxims
L.P. Jacks
L.P. Jacks
1 month 3 weeks ago
A master in the art of...

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Education through Recreation (1932), p. 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
7 months ago
A friend is one soul abiding...

A friend is one soul abiding in two bodies. p. 188; also reported in various sources as:Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies. A true friend is one soul in two bodies. Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies. What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Alan Watts
Alan Watts
2 months 1 week ago
The prevalent sensation of oneself as...

The prevalent sensation of oneself as a separate ego enclosed in a bag of skin is a hallucination which accords neither with Western science nor with the experimental philosophy-religions of the East - in particular the central and germinal Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism. This hallucination underlies the misuse of technology for the violent subjugation of man's natural environment and, consequently, its eventual destruction. We are therefore in urgent need of a sense of our own existence which is in accord with the physical facts and which overcomes our feeling of alienation from the universe.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
4 months 2 weeks ago
Logical empiricism holds the view, notwithstanding...

Logical empiricism holds the view, notwithstanding some its assertions, that the forms of knowledge and consequently the relations of man to nature and to other men never change. According to rationalism, too, all subjective and objective potentialities are rooted in insights which the individual already possesses, but rationality uses existing objects as well as the active inner striving and ideas of man to construct standards for the future. In this regard, it is not so closely associated with the present order as is empiricism.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 148.
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
5 months 4 weeks ago
Suppose that I wish to deserve...

Suppose that I wish to deserve the title of "robber of remorse" and that I place in myself all the townspeople's repentence?

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Orestes to Electra, Act 2
Philosophical Maxims
Humphry Davy
Humphry Davy
1 month 4 weeks ago
Nothing is so fatal to the...

Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete, and that there are no new worlds to conquer.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
In David Knight, Humphry Davy: Science & Power (1998) p. 87
Philosophical Maxims
Cisero
Cisero
6 months 2 weeks ago
"Do not blame Caesar, blame the...

Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the 'new, wonderful good society' which shall now be Rome, interpreted to mean 'more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
This is also from the 1965 essay by Justice Millard Caldwell. It is not clear if this is based in any specific dialogue.
Philosophical Maxims
Alan Watts
Alan Watts
2 months 1 week ago
A person who thinks all the...

A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. So he loses touch with reality, and lives in a world of illusion.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 month 3 weeks ago
There is a limit to the...

There is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don't use it to free yourself it will be gone and never return.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
(Hays translation) II, 4
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
4 months 3 weeks ago
Wherefore think ye evil in your...

Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
9:4-6 (KJV) Said to some scribes.
Philosophical Maxims
Susan Neiman
Susan Neiman
3 months 2 weeks ago
How do we remember the parts...

How do we remember the parts of our histories we'd rather forget?

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Repression and revision are always options.
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
2 months ago
It is not you talking. Nor...

It is not you talking. Nor is it your race only which shouts within you, for all the innumerable races of mankind shout and rush within you: white, yellow, black. Free yourself from race also; fight to live through the whole struggle of man.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
4 months 4 weeks ago
Thus poetry, regarded as a vehicle...

Thus poetry, regarded as a vehicle of thought, is especially impressive partly because it obeys all the laws of effective speech, and partly because in so doing it imitates the natural utterances of excitement.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Pt. I, sec. 6, "The Effect of Poetry Explained"
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
5 months 4 weeks ago
When memory begins to decay, proper...

When memory begins to decay, proper names are what go first ...[C]ommon qualities and names have contracted an infinitely greater number of associations ...than the names of most of the persons ...Their memory is better organized. ...'Organization' means numerous associations; and the more numerous the associations, the greater the number of paths of recall. For the same reason... words... which form the grammatical framework of all our speech, are the very last to decay.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 16
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
7 months 2 days ago
Where there is happiness, there is...
Where there is happiness, there is found pleasure in nonsense. The transformation of experience into its opposite, of the suitable into the unsuitable, the obligatory into the optional (but in such a manner that this process produces no injury and is only imagined in jest), is a pleasure; ...
0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 2 weeks ago
All greatness is unconscious, or it...

All greatness is unconscious, or it is little and naught.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Leszek Kołakowski
Leszek Kołakowski
2 months 3 weeks ago
Culture, when it loses its sacred...

Culture, when it loses its sacred sense, loses all sense. With the disappearance of the sacred, which imposed limits to the perfection which could be attained by the profane, arises one of the most dangerous illusions of our civilization-the illusion that there are no limits to the changes that human life can undergo, that society is 'in principle' an endlessly flexible thing, and that to deny this flexibility and this perfectibility is to deny man's total autonomy and thus to deny man himself.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The Revenge of the Sacred in Secular Culture
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 4 weeks ago
Your reason is now mature enough...

Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object religion. In the first place divest yourself of all bias in favour of novelty & singularity of opinion. Indulge them in any other subject rather than that of religion. It is too important, & the consequences of error may be too serious. On the other hand shake off all the fears & servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Scan of the original page at The Library of Congress.
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
5 months ago
The use of force alone is...

The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Joseph de Maistre
Joseph de Maistre
1 month 3 weeks ago
What are we, weak and blind...

What are we, weak and blind human beings! And what is that flickering light we call Reason? When we have calculated all the probabilities, questioned history, satisfied every doubt and special interest, we may still embrace only a deceptive shadow rather than the truth. What decree has He pronounced on the king, on his dynasty, on his family, on France, and on Europe? Where and when will the troubles end, and by how many misfortunes must we purchase our tranquillity? Is it to build that He has overthrown, or are our hardships to last forever? Alas! A dark cloud hides the future and no eye can penetrate its shadows.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter VIII, p. 76
Philosophical Maxims
Sir Thomas Browne
Sir Thomas Browne
5 months 5 days ago
That children dream not the first...

That children dream not the first half year, that men dream not in some countries, with many more, are unto me sick men's dreams, dreams out of the Ivory gate, and visions before midnight.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
6 months 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.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 2: Leaders and Followers
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
6 months ago
We cannot always choose the vocation...

We cannot always choose the vocation to which we believe we are called. Our social relations, to some extent, have already begun to form before we are in a position to determine them.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, L. Easton, trans. (1967), p. 37
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
6 months 1 week ago
A wise man sees as much...

A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
6 months 1 week ago
Animals destitute of reason live with...

Animals destitute of reason live with their own kind in a state of social amity. Elephants herd together; sheep and swine feed in flocks; cranes and crows take their flight in troops; storks have their public meetings to consult previously to their emigration, and feed their parents when unable to feed themselves; dolphins defend each other by mutual assistance; and everybody knows, that both ants and bees have respectively established by general agreement, a little friendly community.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
2 months 3 weeks ago
There is a left wing version...

There is a left wing version of this longing for community... because in a liberal society we never move as quickly as we should towards full equality, and therefore there are many marginalized groups who feel that the liberal society is... hypocritical, that it's promising an equality of recognition, and of rights, but it is not delivering... and therefore the very concept of liberal universalism is challenged in favor of a definition of rights that is tied to the specific groups.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
18:44
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
4 months 2 weeks ago
The direction of society has been...

The direction of society has been taken over by a type of man who is not interested in the principles of civilisation. Not of this or that civilisation but - from what we can judge to-day - of any civilisation. ...The type of man dominant to-day is a primitive one, a Naturmensch rising up in the midst of a civilised world.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chap.IX: The Primitive and the Technical
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 4 weeks ago
It is rare that the public...

It is rare that the public sentiment decides immorally or unwisely, and the individual who differs from it ought to distrust and examine well his own opinion.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Letter to William Findley, Washington (21 March 1801); published in Thomas Jefferson - A chronology of his thoughts (2002) by Jerry Holmes, p. 175
Philosophical Maxims
Georges Sorel
Georges Sorel
2 months 1 week ago
Existing social conditions favour the production...

Existing social conditions favour the production of an infinite number of acts of violence and there has been no hesitation in urging the workers not to refrain from brutality when this might do them service.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 183
Philosophical Maxims
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
3 months 1 week ago
If I'm a cruel satirist at...

If I'm a cruel satirist at least I'm not a hyprocrite: I never judge what other people do. Neither a politician nor a priest, I never censor what others do. Neither a philospher nor a psychiatrist, I never bother trying to analyze or resolve my fears and neuroses.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"Hypocrisy"
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
6 months 1 week ago
Libraries are as the shrine where...

Libraries are as the shrine where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
6 months 1 day ago
Where is the prince…

Where is the prince sufficiently educated to know that for seventeen hundred years the Christian sect has done nothing but harm?

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great (New York: Brentano's, 1927), transl. Richard Aldington, letter 160 from Voltaire to Frederick II of Prussia, 6 April 1767
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
3 months 6 days ago
In ancient Europe, Stoics asserted that...

In ancient Europe, Stoics asserted that a slave could be freer than a master who suffers from self-division. In China, Daoists imagined a type of sage who responded to the flow of events without weighing alternatives. Disciples of monotheistic faiths have believed something similar: freedom, they say, is obeying God's will. What those who follow these traditions want most is not any kind of freedom of choice. Instead, what they long for is freedom from choice.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The Faith of Puppets: The Freedom of the Marionette (p. 6-7)
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 day ago
Everywhere and at all......
0
⚖0
Main Content / General
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
3 months 2 weeks ago
Men are never so likely to...

Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 248
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 3 weeks ago
Our place is somewhere between being...

Our place is somewhere between being and nonbeing - between two fictions.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
5 months 4 days ago
The main business of religions is...

The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book One, Chapter V.
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

  • Enzo Soltani
  • Søren Kierkegaard
  • Jesus
  • Friedrich Nietzsche
  • VeXed

Who's online

There are currently 0 users online.

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia