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Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 4 days ago
I want death to…

I want death to find me planting my cabbages.

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Ch. 20. Of the Force of Imagination (tr. Donald M. Frame)
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
3 weeks 1 day ago
It is a universal revolution and...

It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
2 months 3 weeks ago
Writing is hard work. The fact...

Writing is hard work. The fact that I love doing it doesn't make it less hard work. People who love tennis will sweat themselves to exhaustion playing it, and the love of the game doesn't stop the sweating. The casual assumption that writers are unemployed bums because they don't go to the office and don't have a boss is something every writer has to live with. I have never known a writer who hasn't suffered as a result of this, hasn't resented it, and hasn't dreamed of murdering the next person who says "Boy, you've sure got it made. You just sit there and toss off a story or something whenever you feel like it."

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
1 month 2 days ago
How shall the dead arise, is...

How shall the dead arise, is no question of my faith; to believe only possibilities, is not faith, but mere philosophy.

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Section 48
Philosophical Maxims
Heraclitus
Heraclitus
2 months 2 weeks ago
Time is a game played beautifully...

Time is a game played beautifully by children.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
2 months 4 days ago
To turn one's eyes away from...

To turn one's eyes away from Jesus means to turn them to the Law.

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Chapter 2
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
1 month 3 weeks ago
Far from New England's blustering shore, new...

Far from New England's blustering shore,New England's worm her hulk shall bore,And sink her in the Indian seas,Twine, wine, and hides, and China teas.

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"Though All the Fates Should Prove Unkind", st. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
6 days ago
Do not commence your exercises in...

Do not commence your exercises in philosophy in those regions where an error can deliver you over to the executioner.

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C 16
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 1 day ago
This very second has vanished forever,...

This very second has vanished forever, lost in the anonymous mass of the irrevocable. It will never return. I suffer from this and I do not. Everything is unique - and insignificant.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
1 month 3 weeks ago
Be gentle with them, Timothy. They...

Be gentle with them, Timothy. They want to be free, but they don't know how. Teach them. Reassure them.

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Reported to be Huxley's last words to Timothy Leary, which Huxley whispered from his deathbed. Quoted in Leary, Timothy (1990) . "Life on a Grounded Space Colony".
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 3 weeks ago
A serious and good philosophical work...

A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.

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As quoted in "A View from the Asylum" in Philosophical Investigations from the Sanctity of the Press (2004), by Henry Dribble, p. 87
Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
3 weeks 3 days ago
Should it be proved that woman...

Should it be proved that woman is naturally weaker than man, from whence does it follow that it is natural for her to labour to become still weaker than nature intended her to be? Arguments of this cast are an insult to common sense, and savour of passion. The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is to be hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger, and though conviction may not silence many boisterous disputants, yet, when any prevailing prejudice is attacked, the wise will consider, and leave the narrow-minded to rail with thoughtless vehemence at innovation.

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Ch. 3
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 6 days ago
He is a dreamer...
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Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 week 4 days ago
We think in generalities, but we...

We think in generalities, but we live in detail. To make the past live, we must perceive it in detail in addition to thinking of it in generalities.

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"The Education of an Englishman" in The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 138 (1926), p. 192.
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
2 weeks 4 days ago
There is another significant involution of...

There is another significant involution of time and movement in space. It is constituted not only by directional tendencies-up and down for example-but by mutual approaches and retreatings. Near and far, close and distant, are qualities of pregnant, often tragic, import-that is, as they are experienced, not just stated by measurement of science. They signify loosening and tightening, expanding and contracting, separating and compacting, soaring and drooping, rising and falling; the dispersive, scattering, and the hovering and brooding, unsubstantial lightness and massive blow. Such actions and reaction are the very stuff out if which the objects and events we experience are made.

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p. 215
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
1 month 3 weeks ago
Since the state must necessarily provide...

Since the state must necessarily provide subsistence for the criminal poor while undergoing punishment, not to do the same for the poor who have not offended is to give a premium on crime.

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Book V, Chapter XI, §13
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 weeks 6 days ago
I hate tyranny, at least I...

I hate tyranny, at least I think I do; but I hate it most of all where most are concerned in it. The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny. If, as society is constituted in these large countries of France and England, full of unequal property, I must make my choice (which God avert!) between the despotism of a single person, or of the many, my election is made. As much injustice and tyranny has been practised in a few months by a French democracy, as in all the arbitrary monarchies in Europe in the forty years of my observation.

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Letter to Captain Thomas Mercer (26 February 1790), quoted in Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VI: July 1789-December 1791 (1967), p. 96
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
2 months 4 weeks ago
The reasons and purposes for habits...
The reasons and purposes for habits are always lies that are added only after some people begin to attack these habits and to ask for reasons and purposes. At this point the conservatives of all ages are thoroughly dishonest: they add lies.
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Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
1 month 3 weeks ago
Justice is what love looks like...

Justice is what love looks like in public.

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Brother West (2009), p. 232
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 1 day ago
The ideal being? An angel ravaged...

The ideal being? An angel ravaged by humor.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
6 days ago
Be wary of passing the judgment:...

Be wary of passing the judgment: obscure. To find something obscure poses no difficulty: elephants and poodles find many things obscure.

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E 36
Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
1 week 3 days ago
Black women control the world. We...

Black women control the world. We are through being discriminated against.

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Communion: The Female Search for Love (2002) ISBN 0-06-093829-3
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
2 weeks 5 days ago
To those who hold abstractly to...

To those who hold abstractly to Hegel's political philosophy, Hobhouse replies that the very fact of class society, the patent influence of class interests on the state, renders it impossible to designate the state as expressive of the real will of individuals as a whole. 'Wherever a community is governed by one class or one race, the remaining class or race is permanently in the position of having to take what it can get.'

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P. 396
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
1 month 3 weeks ago
The art of music is good,...

The art of music is good, for the reason, among others, that it produces pleasure; but what proof is it possible to give that pleasure is good? If, then, it is asserted that there is a comprehensive formula, including all things which are in themselves good, and that whatever else is good, is not so as an end, but as a mean, the formula may be accepted or rejected, but is not a subject of what is commonly understood by proof.

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Ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
1 week 5 days ago
One could count on one's fingers...

One could count on one's fingers the number of scientists in the entire world who have a general idea of the history and development of their own particular science; there is not one who is really competent as regards sciences other than his own. As science forms an indivisible whole, one may say that there are no longer, strictly speaking, any scientists, but only drudges doing scientific work. . . .

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p. 13 (as quoted in On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God (1968), p.1)
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
1 month 1 day ago
Americans cleave to the things of...

Americans cleave to the things of this world as if assured that they will never die,... They clutch everything but hold nothing fast, and so lose grip as they hurry after some new delight. ... Death steps in in the end and stops him before he has grown tired of this futile pursuit of that complete felicity which always escapes him. At first sight there is something astonishing in this spectacle of so many lucky men restless in the midst of abundance. But it is a spectacle as old as the world; all that is new is to see a whole people performing in it.

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Book Two, Chapter XIII.
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
3 weeks 5 days ago
Germany is now a field of...

Germany is now a field of cadavers, soon she will be a paradise.

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Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
1 month 2 weeks ago
There are two sentences inscribed upon...

There are two sentences inscribed upon the Delphic oracle, hugely accommodated to the usages of man's life: "Know thyself," and "Nothing too much;" and upon these all other precepts depend.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson
2 weeks 5 days ago
The open society...

The open society is one that is deemed in principle to embrace all humanity.

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Chapter IV
Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
3 weeks 3 days ago
How can a rational being be...

How can a rational being be ennobled by anything that is not obtained by its own exertions?

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Ch. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
3 weeks 5 days ago
I would rather be a devil...

I would rather be a devil in alliance with truth, than an angel in alliance with falsehood.

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Philosophical Maxims
Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch
2 weeks 4 days ago
The chief requirement of the good...

The chief requirement of the good life... is to live without any image of oneself.

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The Bell (1958), ch. 9; 2001, p. 119.
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 3 weeks ago
Since he is unable to be...

Since he is unable to be the beloved, he will become the lover.

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p. 90
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
2 months 3 weeks ago
But the greatest thing by far...

But the greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.

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Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
1 month 3 weeks ago
Well, as you know, I was...

Well, as you know, I was blessed to do over a hundred events for my dear brother [Bernie Sanders]. And this is the first time I've had a chance to publicly endorse him again, but yes, indeed. I'll be in his corner that we're going to win this time. And it has to do with the Martin Luther King like criteria of assessing a candidate namely the issues of militarism, poverty, materialism, and racism, xenophobia in all of its forms that includes any kind of racism as you know against black people, brown people, yellow people, anybody, Arabs, Muslims, Jews, Palestinians, Kashmirians, Tibetans and so forth. So that there's no doubt that the my dear brother Bernie stands shoulders above any of the other candidates running in the Democratic primary when it comes to that Martin Luther King-like standards or criteria.

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Quoted in: Cornel West on Bernie, Trump, and Racism, The Intercept, Mehdi Hasan,
Philosophical Maxims
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
6 months 2 days ago
Cyphered message

The symptom is not only a cyphered message, it is at the same time a way for the subject to organize his enjoyment - that is why, even after the completed interpretation, the subject is not prepared to renounce his symptom.

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Philosophical Maxims
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam
4 days ago
If reason is both transcendent and...

If reason is both transcendent and immanent, then philosophy, as culture-bound reflection and argument about eternal questions, is both in time and eternity. We don't have an Archimedean point; we always speak the language of a time and place; but the rightness and wrongness of what we say is not just for a time and a place.

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Why reason can't be naturalized
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
2 weeks 5 days ago
The secret thoughts of a man...

The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, prophane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame, or blame...

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The First Part, Chapter 8, p. 34
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
2 weeks 5 days ago
Operational analysis ... cannot raise the...

Operational analysis ... cannot raise the decisive question whether the consent itself was not the work of manipulation-a question for which the actual state of affairs provides ample justification. The analysis cannot raise it because it would transcend its terms toward transitive meaning-toward a concept of democracy which would reveal the democratic election as a rather limited democratic process. Precisely such a non-operational concept is the one rejected by the authors as "unrealistic" because it defines democracy on too articulate a level as the clear-cut control of representation by the electorate-popular control as popular sovereignty.

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p. 116
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
2 weeks 3 days ago
In the presence of God himself...

In the presence of God himself man stands always like a solitary tree in the wilderness.

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p. 95
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
1 month 4 weeks ago
Les médecins administrent des médicaments dont...

Doctors are men who prescribe medicine of which they know little, to human beings of whom they know less, to cure diseases of which they know nothing.

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Note: This attribution to Voltaire appears in Strauss' Familiar Medical Quotations (1968), p. 394, and in publications as early as 1956
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
2 weeks 5 days ago
As also the great number of...

As also the great number of Corporations; which are as it were many lesser Common-wealths in the bowels of a greater, like wormes in the entrayles of a natural man.

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The Second Part, Chapter 29, p. 174
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
2 weeks 3 days ago
If the subjectivist view hold true,...

If the subjectivist view hold true, thinking cannot be of any help in determining the desirability of any goal in itself. The acceptability of ideals, the criteria for our actions and beliefs, the leading principles of ethics and politics, all our ultimate decisions are made to depend upon factors other than reason. They are supposed to be matters of choice and predilection, and it has become meaningless to speak of truth in making practical, moral or esthetic decisions.

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pp. 7-8.
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 month 1 week ago
Hear gladly!

Hear gladly!

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 3 weeks ago
He needs no library, for he...

He needs no library, for he has not done thinking; no church, for he is himself a prophet; no statute book, for he hath the Lawgiver; no money, for he is value itself; no road, for he is at home where he is.

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December 26, 1839
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
1 month 2 weeks ago
Some of Singer's critics call him...

Some of Singer's critics call him a Nazi and compare his proposals to Hitler's schemes for eliminating the unwanted, the unfit and the disabled. But...Singer is no Hitler. He doesn't want state-sponsored killings. Rather, he wants the decision to kill to be made by you and me. Instead of government-conducted genocide, Singer favors free-market homicide.

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Dinesh D'Souza, "Atheism and Child Murder," in Townhall (12 May 2008).
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
2 months 1 week ago
If thou shouldst say, 'It is...

If thou shouldst say, 'It is enough, I have reached perfection,' all is lost. For it is the function of perfection to make one know one's imperfection.

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Quoted by Aldous Huxley, in The Perennial Philosophy (1945)
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 4 days ago
Marriage, a market which has nothing...

Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
1 month 3 weeks ago
Pacifists ought to enter more deeply...

Pacifists ought to enter more deeply into the aesthetical and ethical point of view of their opponents. ... So long as antimilitarists propose no substitute for war's disciplinary function, no moral equivalent of war, analogous, as one might say, to the mechanical equivalent of heat, so long they fail to realize the full inwardness of the situation. And as a rule they do fail. The duties, penalties, and sanctions pictured in the utopias they paint are all too weak and tame to touch the military-minded.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 weeks 6 days ago
The arrogance of age must submit...

The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.

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Letter to Frances Burney
Philosophical Maxims
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