Skip to main content
2 months 5 days ago

We are beggars: this is true.

0
0
Source
source
"The Last Written Words of Luther," Table Talk No. 5468, (16 February 1546), in Dr. Martin Luthers Werke (1909) as translated by James A. Kellerman, Band 85 (TR 5) 317-318
3 weeks 3 days ago

Every archetype is capable of endless development and differentiation. It is therefore possible for it to be more developed or less. In an outward form of religion where all the emphasis is on the outward figure (hence where we are dealing with a more or less complete projection) the archetype is identical with externalized ideas but remains unconscious as a psychic factor. When an unconscious content is replaced by a projected image to that extent, it is cut off from all participation in an influence on the conscious mind. Hence it largely forfeits its own life, because prevented from exerting the formative influence on consciousness natural to it; what is more, it remains in its original form - unchanged, for nothing changes in the unconscious.

0
0

One may dream of a culture where everyone bursts into laughter when someone says: this is true, this is real.

0
0
1 month 3 weeks ago

The sad truth of the matter is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either evil or good.

0
0
Source
source
The Life of the Mind (1978), "Thinking"
2 months 6 days ago

As Christ had recommended peace during the whole of his life, mark with what anxiety he enforces it at the approach of his dissolution. Love one another, says he; as I have loved you, so love one another; and again, my peace I give unto you, my peace I leave you. Do you observe the legacy he leaves to those whom he loves? Is it a pompous retinue, a large estate, or empire? Nothing of this kind. What is it then? Peace he giveth, his peace he leaveth; peace, not only with our near connections, but with enemies and strangers!

0
0
1 month 1 week ago

By Silence, the discretion of a man is known: and a fool, keeping Silence, seemeth to be wise.

0
0
1 month 3 weeks ago

The stronghold of the determinist argument is the antipathy to the idea of chance...This notion of alternative possibility, this admission that any one of several things may come to pass is, after all, only a roundabout name for chance.

0
0
Source
source
The Dilemma of Determinism (1884) p.153
2 months 6 days ago

Above all, every relation must be considered as suspicious, which depends in any degree upon religion, as the prodigies of Livy: And no less so, everything that is to be found in the writers of natural magic or alchemy, or such authors, who seem, all of them, to have an unconquerable appetite for falsehood and fable.

0
0
Source
source
Aphorism 29

...as the great Unitarian preacher Channing pointed out, that in France and Spain there are multitudes who have proceeded from rejecting Popery to absolute atheism, because "the fact is, that false and absurd doctrines, when exposed, have a natural tendency to beget skepticism in those who receive them without reflection. None are so likely to believe too little as those who have begun by believing too much." Here is, indeed, the terrible danger of believing too much. But no! the terrible danger comes from another quarter - from seeking to believe with the reason and not with the life.

0
0
1 month 2 weeks ago

Philosophers get attention only when they appear to be doing something sinister-corrupting the youth, undermining the foundations of civilization, sneering at all we hold dear. The rest of the time everybody assumes that they are hard at work somewhere down in the sub-basement, keeping those foundations in good repair. Nobody much cares what brand of intellectual duct tape is being used.

0
0
Source
source
"Philosophical Convictions." The Nation, June 14, 2004.
1 week 2 days ago

Optimism is an alienated form of faith, pessimism an alienated form of despair. If one truly responds to man and his future, ie, concernedly and "responsibly." one can respond only by faith or by despair. Rational faith as well as rational despair are based on the most thorough, critical knowledge of all the factors that are relevant for the survival of man.

0
0
Source
source
p. 483
1 month 3 weeks ago

We are never without a pilot. When we know not how to steer, and dare not hoist a sail, we can drift. The current knows the way, though we do not. The ship of heaven guides itself, and will not accept a wooden rudder.

0
0
Source
source
"The Sovereignty of Ethics", in The North America Review, no. 262 (May-June 1878) p. 407
2 months 2 weeks ago

Although the Law of Reason is common, the majority of people live as though they had an understanding of their own.

0
0
1 week 3 days ago

The case is a good example of what Van Vogt came to call "the violent man" or the "Right Man." He is a man driven by a manic need for self-esteem - to feel that he is a "somebody." He is obsessed by the question of "losing face," so will never, under any circumstances, admit that he might be in the wrong.

0
0
Source
source
p. 211
1 month 2 weeks ago

Men in their prayers beg the gods for health, not knowing that this is a thing they have in their own power. Through their incontinence undermining it, they themselves become, because of their passions, the betrayers of their own health.

0
0
1 month 3 weeks ago

The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less cocksure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable Mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend.

0
0
Source
source
Page 191
1 week 6 days ago

We believe we are rising because while keeping the same base inclinations (for instance: the desire to triumph over others) we have given them a noble object. We should, on the contrary, rise by attaching noble inclinations to lowly objects.

0
0
Source
source
La pesanteur et la grâce (1948), p. 61
2 months 5 days ago

To an atheist all writings tend to atheism: he corrupts the most innocent matter with his own venom.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. 12
3 weeks 2 days ago

Man is fulfilled only when he ceases to be man.

0
0
2 months 4 weeks ago

Dogmatics must be designed in this way. Above all, every science must vigorously lay hold of its own beginning and not live in complicated relations with other sciences. If dogmatics begins by wanting to explain sinfulness or by wanting to prove its actuality, no dogmatics will come out of it, but the entire existence of dogmatics will become problematic and vague.

0
0
2 weeks 6 days ago

Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

0
0
Source
source
Matthew 7:20 (KJV)
2 months 5 days ago

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.

0
0
1 month 4 weeks ago

The question was, whether, if the reformers of society and government could succeed in their objects, and every person in the community were free and in a state of physical comfort, the pleasures of life, being no longer kept up by struggle and privation, would cease to be pleasures.

0
0
Source
source
(pp. 145-146)
2 months 3 weeks ago

If you're going to write a story, avoid contemporary references. They date a story and they have no staying power.

0
0
3 weeks 6 days ago

As Being and Life are one and the same, so are Death and Nothingness one and the same. But there is no real Death and no real Nothing ness, as we have already said. There is, however, an Apparent Life, and this is the mixture of life and death, of being and nothingness.

0
0
Source
source
P. 4
1 month 2 days ago

If exclusive privileges were not granted, and if the financial system would not tend to concentrate wealth, there would be few great fortunes and no quick wealth. When the means of growing rich is divided between a greater number of citizens, wealth will also be more evenly distributed; extreme poverty and extreme wealth would be also rare.

0
0
Source
source
Article on Wealth

It appears to me to be indisputable that he who I am to-day derives, by a continuous series of states of consciousness, from him who was in my body twenty years ago. Memory is the basis of individual personality, just as tradition is the basis of the collective personality of a people. We live in memory, and our spiritual life is at bottom simply the effort of our memory to persist, to transform itself into hope, the effort of our past to transform itself into our future.

0
0
2 months 5 days ago

I have gathered a posy of other men's flowers, and nothing but the thread that binds them is mine own.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. 12: Of Physiognomy
1 month 4 weeks ago

In capitalist society spare time is acquired for one class by converting the whole life-time of the masses into labour-time.

0
0
Source
source
Vol. I, Ch. 17, Section IV, pg. 581.
1 month 4 weeks ago

The whole conception of God is a conception derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men. When you hear people in church debasing themselves and saying that they are miserable sinners, and all the rest of it, it seems contemptible and not worthy of self-respecting human beings. We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages. A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past, or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.

0
0
Source
source
"What We Must Do"
1 month 3 weeks ago

But when they have realized that it [society] rejects them forever, they themselves assume the ostracism of which they are victims so as not to leave the initiative to their oppressors.

0
0
Source
source
p. 65-6
1 month 3 weeks ago

Animals come when their names are called. Just like human beings.

0
0
Source
source
p. 67e
1 month 2 weeks ago

Human beings are social animals. We were social before we were human.

0
0
Source
source
Chapter 1, The Origins Of Altruism, p. 3
2 weeks 6 days ago

Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near: So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is. For the Son of Man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch. Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning: Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.

0
0
Source
source
13:28-37 (KJV)
2 months 5 days ago

Adam was created righteous, acceptable, and without sin. He had no need from his labor in the garden to be made righteous and acceptable to God. Rather, the Lord gave Adam work in order to cultivate and protect the garden. This would have been the freest of all works because they were done simply to please God and not to obtain righteousness. ... The works of the person who trusts God are to be understood in a similar manner. Through faith we are restored to paradise and created anew. We have no need of works in order to be righteous; however, in order to avoid idleness and so that the body might be cared for an disciplined, works are done freely to please God.

0
0
Source
source
pp. 73-74
4 weeks ago

When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.

0
0
1 month 3 weeks ago

As the brain-changes are continuous, so do all these consciousnesses melt into each other like dissolving views. Properly they are but one protracted consciousness, one unbroken stream.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. 9
2 weeks 6 days ago

Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.

0
0
Source
source
Revelation
1 week 3 days ago

Has not authority from time immemorial stamped every step of progress as treasonable?

0
0
2 months 2 weeks ago

When the Great Dao (Tao, perfect order) prevails, the world is like a Commonwealth State shared by all, not a dictatorship.

0
0
1 month 2 days ago

Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? And what can be done with a people who are their own masters if they are not submissive to the Deity?

0
0
Source
source
Chapter XVII.
1 month 3 weeks ago

What do I care about Jupiter? Justice is a human issue, and I do not need a god to teach it to me.

0
0
Source
source
Orestes, Act 2

Religion is usually nothing but a supplement to or even a substitute for education, and nothing is religious in the strict sense which is not a product of freedom.

0
0
Source
source
"Selected Aphorisms from the Athenaeum (1798)", Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms, Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, trans. (Pennsylvania University Press:1968) #233
1 week 3 days ago

Pettiness separates; breadth unites. Let us be broad and big. Let us not overlook vital things because of the bulk of trifles confronting us. A true conception of the relation of the sexes will not admit of conqueror and conquered; it knows of but one great thing: to give of one's self boundlessly, in order to find one's self richer, deeper, better. That alone can fill the emptiness, and transform the tragedy of woman's emancipation into joy, limitless joy.

0
0
1 month 2 days ago

If there ever are great revolutions there, they will be caused by the presence of the blacks upon American soil. That is to say, it will not be the equality of social conditions but rather their inequality which may give rise thereto.

0
0
Source
source
Book Three, Chapter XXI.
3 weeks 6 days ago

Unlike private enterprise which quickly modifies its actions to meet emergencies - unlike the shopkeeper who promptly finds the wherewith to satisfy a sudden demand - unlike the railway company which doubles its trains to carry a special influx of passengers; the law-made instrumentality lumbers on under all varieties of circumstances at its habitual rate. By its very nature it is fitted only for average requirements, and inevitably fails under unusual requirements.

0
0
Source
source
Vol. 3, Ch. VII, Over-Legislation
1 month 3 days ago

There is no man alone, because every man is a Microcosm, and carries the whole world about him.

0
0
Source
source
Section 10
2 weeks 6 days ago

Often it is only after immense intellectual effort, which may have continued over centuries, that humanity at last succeeds in achieving knowledge of a concept in its pure form, by stripping off the irrelevant accretions which veil it from the eye of the mind.

0
0
Source
source
Translation J. L. Austin (Oxford, 1950) as quoted by Stephen Toulmin, Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972) Vol. 1, p. 56.
1 month 3 weeks ago

Ignore death up to the last moment; then, when it can't be ignored any longer, have yourself squirted full of morphia and shuffle off in a coma. Thoroughly sensible, humane and scientific, eh?

0
0
2 weeks 4 days ago

My path was not the normal one of professors of philosophy. I did not intend to become a doctor of philosophy by studying philosophy (I am in fact a doctor of medicine) nor did I by any means, intend originally to qualify for a professorship by a dissertation on philosophy. To decide to become a philosopher seemed as foolish to me as to decide to become a poet. Since my schooldays, however, I was guided by philosophical questions. Philosophy seemed to me the supreme, even the sole, concern of man. Yet a certain awe kept me from making it my profession.

0
0

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia