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Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
Two enemies - the same man...

Two enemies - the same man divided.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 3 weeks ago
His heart was as great as...

His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong.

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Greatness
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
3 weeks 1 day ago
The second failing of liberalism comes...

The second failing of liberalism comes directly out of the fact that it attempts to lower the horizons of politics. Liberal societies do not want to tell you how to live. They do not want to define "the good life" because that is the source of conflict, but as a result liberal societies tend not to satisfy these very deep human cravings for community, because... there's something wrong with the basic liberal premise that we all start... as self-interested individuals. We're not self-interested individuals.

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15:22
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
2 months 3 weeks ago
The development of the human mind...

The development of the human mind has practically extinguished all feelings, except a few sporadic kinds, like sound, colors, smells, warmth, etc., which now appear to be disconnected and separate.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 3 weeks ago
Democracy can hardly be expected to...

Democracy can hardly be expected to flourish in societies where political and economic power is being progressively concentrated and centralized. But the progress of technology has led and is still leading to just such a concentration and centralization of power.

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Chapter 3 (p. 19)
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Fourier
Charles Fourier
3 weeks 2 days ago
All repressed passion produces its counter-passion...

All repressed passion produces its counter-passion which is as malevolent as the natural passion would be beneficial.

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Le nouveau monde amoureux
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
3 months 2 weeks ago
We ought to regard the interests...

We ought to regard the interests of the state as of far greater moment than all else, in order that they may be administered well; and we ought not to engage in eager rivalry in despite of equity, nor arrogate to ourselves any power contrary to the common welfare. For a state well administered is our greatest safeguard. In this all is summed up: When the state is in a healthy condition all things prosper; when it is corrupt, all things go to ruin.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 4 days ago
It was truly very good reason...

It was truly very good reason that we should be beholden to God only, and to the favour of his grace, for the truth of so noble a belief, since from his sole bounty we receive the fruit of immortality, which consists in the enjoyment of eternal beatitude.... The more we give and confess to owe and render to God, we do it with the greater Christianity.

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Ch. 12
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 3 weeks ago
Much of the modern resistance to...

Much of the modern resistance to chastity comes from men's belief that they "own" their bodies - those vast and perilous estates, pulsating with the energy that made the worlds, in which they find themselves without their consent and from which they are ejected at the pleasure of Another!

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Letter XXI
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
2 months 3 weeks ago
As one of our Swiss friends...

As one of our Swiss friends put it: "Now every German tailor living in Japan, China, or Moscow feels that he has the German navy and all of Germany's power behind him. This proud consciousness sends him into an insane rapture: the German has finally lived to see the day when he can say with pride, relying on his own state, like an Englishman or an American, 'I am a German.' True, when the Englishman or American says 'I am an Englishman,' or 'I am an American,' he is saying 'I am a free man.' The German, however, is saying 'I am a slave, but my emperor is stronger than all other princes, and the German soldier who is strangling me will strangle all of you.'"

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 3 weeks ago
Let a man take time enough...

Let a man take time enough for the most trivial deed, though it be but the paring of his nails. The buds swell imperceptibly, without hurry or confusion; as if the short spring days were an eternity.

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Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 175
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Schlegel
Friedrich Schlegel
2 months 3 weeks ago
Honour is the mysticism of legality....

Honour is the mysticism of legality.

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Aphorism 77, of Ideas as translated in The Early Political Writings of the German Romantics (1996) edited by Frederick C. Beiser, p. 131
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
2 months 2 weeks ago
It is the furious longing to...

It is the furious longing to give finality to the Universe, to make it conscious and personal, that has brought us to believe in God, to wish that God may exist, to create God, in a word. To create Him, yes! This saying ought not to scandalize even the most devout theist. For to believe in God is, in a certain sense, to create Him, although He first creates us. It is He who is continually creating Himself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
2 months 3 weeks ago
Every other art,-as poetry, music, painting,-may...

Every other art,-as poetry, music, painting,-may be practised without the process showing forth the rules according to which it is conducted ;-but in the self-cognizant art of the philosopher, no step can be taken without declaring the grounds upon which it proceeds.

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p. 14
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 months 1 week ago
A Pharisee is someone who is...

A Pharisee is someone who is virtuous out of obedience to the Great Beast.

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p. 125
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
5 months 3 weeks ago
Empathy trap...do balance yourself....
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Main Content / General
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
4 months 3 weeks ago
Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and...

Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold. What does the scientist have to offer in exchange? Uncertainty! Insecurity!

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 months 3 weeks ago
If you are penitent, you love....

If you are penitent, you love. And if you love you are of God. All things are atoned for, all things are saved by love. If I, a sinner even as you are, am tender with you and have pity on you, how much more will God have pity upon you. Love is such a priceless treasure that you can redeem the whole world by it, and cleanse not only your own sins but the sins of others.

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Book II, Chapter 3 (trans. Constance Garnett) The Elder Zossima, speaking to a devout widow afraid of death
Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
3 months 3 weeks ago
You can't lead the people if...

You can't lead the people if you don't love the people. You can't save the people, if you don't serve the people.

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Hope on a Tightrope: Words and Wisdom (2008); also on "The Way I See It" Starbucks Coffee Cup #284
Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
3 months 2 weeks ago
Commit no lustfulness, so that harm...

Commit no lustfulness, so that harm and regret may not reach thee from thine own actions.

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
2 months 3 weeks ago
The Age of Empty Freedom ......

The Age of Empty Freedom ... does not know that man must first through labour, industry, and art, learn how to know; but it has a certain fixed standard for all conceptions, and an established Common Sense of Mankind always ready and at hand, innate within itself and there present without trouble on its part;-and those conceptions and this Common Sense are to it the measure of the efficient and the real. It has this great advantage over the Age of Science, that it knows all things without having learned anything; and can pass judgment upon whatever comes before it at once and without hesitation,-without needing any preliminary evidence:-'That which I do not immediately comprehend by the conceptions which dwell within me, is nothing,'-says Empty Freedom.

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p. 20
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
Even when he turns from religion,...

Even when he turns from religion, man remains subject to it; depleting himself to create false gods, he then feverishly adopts them; his need for fiction, for mythology triumphs over evidence and absurdity alike.

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Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
3 months 2 weeks ago
The years as they pass…..

The years as they pass plunder us of one thing after another.

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Book II, epistle ii, line 55
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 4 days ago
Men are most apt to believe...

Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.

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Book III, Ch. 11. Of Cripples
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
3 months 2 days ago
That Vulcan gave arrows unto Apollo...

That Vulcan gave arrows unto Apollo and Diana the fourth day after their Nativities, according to Gentile Theology, may pass for no blind apprehension of the Creation of the Sun and Moon, in the work of the fourth day.

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Opening lines of Ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
Every thought derives from a thwarted...

Every thought derives from a thwarted sensation.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
3 months 2 weeks ago
If we tried to rely entirely...

If we tried to rely entirely on reason, and pressed it hard, our lives and beliefs would collapse - a form of madness that may actually occur if the inertial force of taking the world and life for granted is somehow lost. If we lose our grip on that, reason will not give it back to us.

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"The Absurd" (1971), p. 20.
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 2 weeks ago
Get thee hence, Satan: for it...

Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

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4:10 (KJV) Said to Satan.
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
2 months 3 weeks ago
The education of the child must...

The education of the child must accord both in mode and arrangement with the education of mankind, considered historically. In other words, the genesis of knowledge in the individual, must follow the same course as the genesis of knowledge in the race. In strictness, this principle may be considered as already expressed by implication; since both being processes of evolution, must conform to those same general laws of evolution... and must therefore agree with each other. Nevertheless this particular parallelism is of value for the specific guidance it affords. To M. Comte we believe society owes the enunciation of it; and we may accept this item of his philosophy without at all committing ourselves to the rest.

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Philosophical Maxims
Anaxagoras
Anaxagoras
3 months 2 weeks ago
And since these things are so,...

And since these things are so, we must suppose that there are contained many things and of all sorts in the things that are uniting, seeds of all things, with all sorts of shapes and colours and savours.

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Frag. B 4, quoted in John Burnet's Early Greek Philosophy, (1920), Chapter 6.
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
3 months 3 weeks ago
In vain I sought relief from...

In vain I sought relief from my favourite books; those memorials of past nobleness and greatness from which I had always hitherto drawn strength and animation. I read them now without feeling, or with the accustomed feeling minus all its charm; and I became persuaded, that my love of mankind, and of excellence for its own sake, had worn itself out. I sought no comfort by speaking to others of what I felt. If I had loved any one sufficiently to make confiding my griefs a necessity, I should not have been in the condition.

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(pp. 134-135)
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
2 months 2 weeks ago
Pragmatism, in trying to turn experimental...

Pragmatism, in trying to turn experimental physics into a prototype of all science and to model all spheres of intellectual life after the techniques of the laboratory, is the counterpart of modern industrialism, for which the factory is the prototype of human existence, and which models all branches of culture after production on the conveyor belt.

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p. 50.
Philosophical Maxims
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Leibniz
4 months 1 day ago
Thus there is nothing waste, nothing...

Thus there is nothing waste, nothing dead in the universe; no chaos, no confusions, save in appearence. We might compare this to the appearence of a pond in the distance, where we can see the confused movement and swarming of the fish, without distinguishing the fish themselves.Thus we are that each living body has a dominante entelechy, which in case of an animal is the soul, but the members of this living body are full of other living things, plants and animals, of which each has in turn ita dominant entelechy or soul.

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Monadology (69-70).
Philosophical Maxims
Cisero
Cisero
4 months 2 weeks ago
We should never take pleasure in...

We should never take pleasure in causing pain to others, even to those who have wronged us, but rather strive to do good to all.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thales of Miletus
Thales of Miletus
3 months 1 week ago
Placing your stick at the end...

Placing your stick at the end of the shadow of the pyramid, you made by the sun's rays two triangles, and so proved that the pyramid [height] was to the stick [height] as the shadow of the pyramid to the shadow of the stick.

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W. W. Rouse Ball, A Short Account of the History of Mathematics
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
Love, a tacit agreement between two...

Love, a tacit agreement between two unhappy parties to overestimate each other. p. 111, first American edition

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1970
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
4 months 6 days ago
They [theologians] will explain to...

They [theologians] will explain to you how Christ was formed in the Virgin's womb; how accident subsists in synaxis without domicile in place. The most ordinary of them can do this. Those more fully initiated explain further whether there is an instans in Divine generation; whether in Christ there is more than a single filiation; whether 'the Father hates the Son' is a possible proposition; whether God can become the substance of a woman, of an ass, of a pumpkin, or of the devil, and whether, if so, a pumpkin could preach a sermon, or work miracles, or be crucified. And they can discover a thousand other things to you besides these. They will make you understand notions, and instants, formalities, and quiddities, things which no eyes ever saw, unless they were eyes which could see in the dark what had no existence.

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as quoted by Froude ibid.,
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 week 5 days ago
Of all these experiences that seem...

Of all these experiences that seem so frightful, none is insuperable. Separate trials have been over- come by many: fire by Mucius, crucifixion by Regulus, poison by Socrates, exile by Rutilius, and a sword-inflicted death by Cato; therefore, let us also overcome something.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 weeks 4 days ago
Every pitifulest whipster that walks within...

Every pitifulest whipster that walks within a skin has had his head filled with the notion that he is, shall be, or by all human and divine laws ought to be, 'happy.' His wishes, the pitifulest whipster's, are to be fulfilled for him; his days, the pitifulest whipster's, are to flow on in an ever-gentle current of enjoyment, impossible even for the gods. The prophets preach to us, Thou shalt be happy; thou shalt love pleasant things, and find them. The people clamor, Why have we not found pleasant things? ...God's Laws are become a Greatest Happiness Principle. There is no religion; there is no God; man has lost his soul.

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Bk. III, ch. 4.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
3 months 3 weeks ago
It seems to me certain that...

It seems to me certain that more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness.

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p. 368
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 3 weeks ago
The position of the revolutionary party...

The position of the revolutionary party in Germany is certainly difficult at the moment, but, with some critical analysis of the circumstances, clear nevertheless. As to the "governments," it is obvious from every point of view, if only for the sake of Germany's existence, that the demand must be put to them not to remain neutral, but, as you rightly say, to be patriotic. But the revolutionary point is to be given to the affair simply by emphasising the antagonism to Russia more strongly than the antagonism against Boustrapa.

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Letter to Friedrich Engels (18 May 1859), quoted in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Selected Correspondence, 1846-1895 (1943), p. 122
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
4 months 1 day ago
But though there be naturally a...

But though there be naturally a wide difference in point of delicacy between one person and another, nothing tends further to encrease and improve this talent, than practice in a particular art, and the frequent survey or contemplation of a particular species of beauty.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 3 weeks ago
Government is a contrivance of human...

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom.

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Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
4 months 2 weeks ago
He that in his studies wholly...

He that in his studies wholly applies himself to labour and exercise, and neglects meditation, loses his time, and he that only applies himself to meditation, and neglects labour and exercise, only wanders and loses himself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
If I used to ask myself,...

If I used to ask myself, over a coffin, "what good did it do the occupant to be born?" I now put the same question about anyone alive.

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Philosophical Maxims
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
5 days ago
I feel, like all modern Americans,...

I feel, like all modern Americans, no consciousness of sin and simply do not believe in it. All I know is that if God loves me only half as much as my mother does, he will not send me to Hell. That is a final fact of my inner consciousness, and for no religion could I deny its truth.

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p. 407
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
4 months 4 weeks ago
Pardon me, my friends, I have...
Pardon me, my friends, I have ventured to paint my happiness on the wall.
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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 3 weeks ago
...the French business is no light...

...the French business is no light or trivial thing, or such as has commonly occurd in the course of political Events. At present the whole political State of Europe hinges upon it. On the Continent there is little doubt; every thing will take is future shape and colour from the good or ill success of the Duke of Brunswick. In my opinion, it is the most important crisis that ever existed in the World. ... My poor opinion is, that these principles...cannot possibly be realized in practice in France, without an absolute certainty and that at no remote period, of overturning the whole fabrick of the British Constitution.

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Letter to the Foreign Secretary, Lord Grenville (19 September 1792), quoted in P. J. Marshall and John A. Woods (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VII: January 1792-August 1794 (1968), pp. 218-219
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
3 months 4 weeks ago
The goal to be reached is...

The goal to be reached is the mind's insight into what knowing is. Impatience asks for the impossible, wants to reach the goal without the means of getting there. The length of the journey has to be borne with, for every moment is necessary, ... because by nothing less could that all-pervading mind ever manage to become conscious of what itself is - for that reason, the individual mind, in the nature of the case, cannot expect by less toil to grasp what its own substance contains.

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Preface (J. B. Baillie translation), § 29
Philosophical Maxims
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
5 days ago
Life after all is made up...

Life after all is made up of eating and sleeping, of meeting and saying good-by to friends, of reunions and farewell parties, of tears and laughter, of having a haircut once in two weeks, of watering a potted flower and watching one's neighbor fall off his roof.

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p. 202
Philosophical Maxims
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