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Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
3 weeks ago
Alas, our noble men of genius,...

Alas, our noble men of genius, Heaven's real messengers to us, they also rendered nearly futile by the wasteful time;-preappointed they everywhere, and assiduously trained by all their pedagogues and monitors, to "rise in Parliament," to compose orations, write books, or in short speak words, for the approval of reviewers; instead of doing real kingly work to be approved of by the gods!

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 3 weeks ago
Verily I say unto you, I...

Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

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8:10-12 (KJV) Said about the officer.
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
4 months 4 days ago
In ease of body and peace...

In ease of body and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.

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Chap. I.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
2 months 3 weeks ago
And though this may seem to...

And though this may seem to subtile a deduction of the Lawes of Nature, to be taken notice of by all men;whereof the most part are too busie in getting food, and the rest too negligent to understand; yet to leave all men unexcusable, they have been contracted into one easie sum, intelligble, even to the meanest capacity; and that is, Do not that to another, which thou wouldest not have done to thyselfe; which sheweth him, that he has no more to do in learning the Lawes of Nature, but, when weighing the actions of other men with his own, they seem too heavy, to put them into the other part of the balance, and his own into their place, that his own passions, and selfe love, may adde nothing to the weight; and then there is none of these Laws of Nature that will not appear unto him very reasonable.

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The First Part, Chapter 15, p. 79
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
1 month 1 week ago
The British state has defaulted on...

The British state has defaulted on its core functions while attempting to remake society.

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New Statesman, 9 October 2024
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 month 3 weeks ago
What is left when honor is...

What is left when honor is lost?

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Maxim 265
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 1 week ago
For my own part, I may...

For my own part, I may desire in general to be other than I am; I may condemn and dislike my whole form, and beg of Almighty God for an entire reformation, and that He will please to pardon my natural infirmity: but I ought not to call this repentance, methinks, no more than the being dissatisfied that I am not an angel or Cato. My actions are regular, and conformable to what I am and to my condition; I can do no better; and repentance does not properly touch things that are not in our power; sorrow does.. I imagine an infinite number of natures more elevated and regular than mine; and yet I do not for all that improve my faculties, no more than my arm or will grow more strong and vigorous for conceiving those of another to be so.

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Ch. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
4 months 4 days ago
Speaking generally, he holds dominion, to...

Speaking generally, he holds dominion, to whom are entrusted by common consent affairs of state - such as the laying down, interpretation, and abrogation of laws, the fortification of cities, deciding on war and peace, &c. But if this charge belong to a council, composed of the general multitude, then the dominion is called a democracy; if the council be composed of certain chosen persons, then it is an aristocracy ; and, if, lastly, the care of affairs of state, and, consequently, the dominion rest with one man, then it has the name of monarchy.

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Ch. 2, Of Natural Right
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
3 months 3 weeks ago
Nietzsche ... does not shy from...

Nietzsche ... does not shy from conscious exaggeration and one-sided formulations of his thought, believing that in this way he can most clearly set in relief what in his vision and in his inquiry is different from the run-of-the-mill.

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p. 50
Philosophical Maxims
Zeno of Citium
Zeno of Citium
3 months 1 week ago
A bad feeling is a commotion...

A bad feeling is a commotion of the mind repugnant to reason, and against nature.

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As quoted in Tusculanae Quaestiones by Cicero, iv. 6.
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 2 weeks ago
A thing, moderately good....
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Main Content / General
bell hooks
bell hooks
2 months 2 weeks 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
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 months 2 weeks ago
If a captive mind is unaware...

If a captive mind is unaware of being in prison, it is living in error. If it has recognized the fact, even for the tenth of a second, and then quickly forgotten it in order to avoid suffering, it is living in falsehood. Men of the most brilliant intelligence can be born, live and die in error and falsehood. In them, intelligence is neither a good, nor even an asset. The difference between more or less intelligent men is like the difference between criminals condemned to life imprisonment in smaller or larger cells. The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like a condemned man who is proud of his large cell.

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p. 69
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
1 week 4 days ago
The deepest thinking is humble. It...

The deepest thinking is humble. It is only concerned that the flame of truth which it keeps alive should burn with the strongest and purest heat; it does not trouble about the distance to which its brightness penetrates.

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Ch. XVI : Looking Backward and Forward, p. 257
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 1 day ago
As soon as it is held...

As soon as it is held that any belief, no matter what, is important for some other reason than that it is true, a whole host of evils is ready to spring up. Discouragement of inquiry, ... is the first of these, but others are pretty sure to follow. Positions of authority will be open to the orthodox. Historical records must be falsified if they throw doubt on received opinion. Sooner or later unorthodoxy will come to be considered a crime to be dealt with by the stake, the purge, or the concentration camp. I can respect the men who argue that religion is true and therefore ought to be believed, but I can only feel profound moral reprobation for those who say that religion ought to be believed because it is useful, and that to ask whether it is true is a waste of time.

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3 quoted from Why I Am Not a Muslim (1995), Ibn Warraq
Philosophical Maxims
Empedocles
Empedocles
3 months 2 weeks ago
What needs saying…

What needs saying is worth saying twice.

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fr. 25
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
4 months 2 weeks ago
For it still seemed to me...

For it still seemed to me that it is not we who sin, but some other nature sinned in us. And it gratified my pride to be beyond blame, and when I did anything wrong not to have to confess that I had done wrong. I loved to excuse my soul and to accuse something else inside me (I knew not what) but which was not I. But, assuredly, it was I, and it was my impiety that had divided me against myself. That sin then was all the more incurable because I did not deem myself a sinner.

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A. Outler, trans. (Dover: 2002), Book 5, Chapter 10, p. 77
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 4 weeks ago
What do you want to do...

What do you want to do with the [Communist] Party? A racing stable? What good is it to sharpen a knife every day if you never use it for slicing? A party is never more than a means. There is only one objective: power.

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Hoederer to Hugo, Act 5, sc. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months ago
While there are manners and compliments...

While there are manners and compliments we do not meet, we do not teach one another the lessons of honesty and sincerity that the brutes do, or of steadiness and solidity that the rocks do. The fault is commonly mutual, however; for we do not habitually demand any more of each other.

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p. 490
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
chanakya
chanakya
1 month 1 week ago
Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth, comes...

Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth, comes of Her own accord where fools are not respected, grain is well stored up, and the husband and wife do not quarrel.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months ago
This world is but canvas to...

This world is but canvas to our imaginations.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 months 3 weeks ago
If a false thought is so...

If a false thought is so much as expressed boldly and clearly, a great deal has already been gained.

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p. 86e
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
2 months 2 weeks ago
Reason as an organ for perceiving...

Reason as an organ for perceiving the true nature of reality and determining the guiding principles of our lives has come to be regarded as obsolete.

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p. 18.
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 months 2 weeks ago
In its solitariness the spirit asks,...

In its solitariness the spirit asks, What, in the way of value, is the attainment of life? And it can find no such value till it has merged its individual claim with that of the objective universe.

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Religion is world-loyalty. Religion in the Making (February 1926), Lecture II: "Religion and Dogma".
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 1 day ago
We thus have a kind of...

We thus have a kind of see-saw: first, pure persuasion leading to the conversion of a minority; then force exerted to secure that the rest of the community shall be exposed to the right propaganda; and finally a genuine belief on the part of the great majority, which makes the use of force again unnecessary.

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Ch. 9: Power over opinion
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Rorty
Richard Rorty
3 months 2 weeks ago
From Richard McKeon and Robert Brumsbaugh...

From Richard McKeon and Robert Brumsbaugh I learned to view the history of philosophy as a series, not of alternative solutions to the same problems, but of quite different sets of problems. From Rudolph Carnap and Carl Hempel I learned how pseudo-problems could be revealed as such by restarting them in the formal mode of speech. From Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss I learned how they could be so revealed by being translated into Whiteheadian or Hegelian terms.

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Preface
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 month 3 weeks ago
Every person I met believes if...

Every person I met believes if there is any disagreement between the Koran and science, then the Koran wins. It's just utterly deplorable. These are now British children who are having their minds stuffed with alien rubbish. Occasionally, my colleagues lecturing in universities lament having undergraduate students walk out of their classes when they talk about evolution. This is almost entirely Muslims.

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Dawkins attacks 'alien rubbish' taught in Muslim faith schools, Daily Mail
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
2 weeks 1 day ago
Tell me what to avoid, what...

Tell me what to avoid, what to seek, by what studies to strengthen my tottering mind, how I may rebuff the waves that strike me abeam and drive me from my course, by what means I may be able to cope with all my evils, and by what means I can be rid of the calamities that have plunged in upon me and those into which I myself have plunged. Teach me how to bear the burden of sorrow without a groan on my part, and how to bear prosperity without making others groan; also, how to avoid waiting for the ultimate and inevitable end, and to beat a retreat of my own free will, when it seems proper to me to do so.

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Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
3 months 2 weeks ago
False men and shams talk big...

False men and shams talk big and do nothing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
2 months 1 week ago
This is the Outsider's extremity. He...

This is the Outsider's extremity. He does not prefer not to believe; he doesn't like feeling that futility gets the last word in the universe; his human nature would like to find something it can answer to with complete assent. But honesty prevents his accepting a solution that he cannot reason about.

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Chapter Five, The Pain Threshold
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 months 1 week ago
Practice justice in word and deed,...

Practice justice in word and deed, and do not get in the habit of acting thoughtlessly about anything.

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As quoted in Divine Harmony: The Life and Teachings of Pythagoras by John Strohmeier and Peter Westbrook.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
Knowledge, having irritated and stimulated our...

Knowledge, having irritated and stimulated our appetite for power, will lead us inexorably to our ruin.

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Philosophical Maxims
Paracelsus
Paracelsus
2 weeks 1 day ago
What else is the help of...

What else is the help of medicine than love?

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 3 weeks ago
4 ways...

4 ways: Agnosticism, Relativism, Amorality, Morality. 

1) I don't know. 2) Everybody is different. 3) Do whatever you can. 4) Do what you should.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 months ago
A king is history's slave. Bk....

A king is history's slave.

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Bk. IX, ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
1 month 1 week ago
The biology of suffering in intelligent...

The biology of suffering in intelligent agents is a deep underlying source of existential risk - and one that can potentially be overcome.

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"Unsorted Postings", pre-2014
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months ago
The South may keep her pine-apples,...

The South may keep her pine-apples, and we will be content with our strawberries, which are, as it were, pine-apples with "going a-strawberrying" stirred into them, infinitely enhancing their flavor.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months ago
Force is the midwife of every...

Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic power.

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Vol. I, Ch. 31, pg. 824
Philosophical Maxims
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
1 week 4 days ago
From time immemorial man has been...

From time immemorial man has been made in such a way that his vision of the world, so long as it has not been instilled under hypnosis, his motivations and scale of values, his actions and intentions are determined by his personal and group experience of life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alan Watts
Alan Watts
1 week 4 days ago
Zen does not confuse spirituality with...

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes. Paraphrase of original text which reads "It does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

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The Way of Zen, Pt. 2, Ch. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
4 months 1 week ago
If women get tired and die...

If women get tired and die of bearing, there is no harm in that; let them die as long as they bear; they are made for that.

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-- Essays, quoted in Luther On "Woman"
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
Three in the morning. I realize...

Three in the morning. I realize this second, then this one, then the next: I draw up the balance sheet for each minute. And why all this? Because I was born. It is a special type of sleeplessness that produces the indictment of birth.

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Philosophical Maxims
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze
2 months 1 week ago
Nietzsche's break with Schopenhauer rests on...

Nietzsche's break with Schopenhauer rests on precisely this point; it is a matter of knowing whether the will is unitary or multiple.

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p. 7
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
Obviously God was a solution, and...

Obviously God was a solution, and obviously none so satisfactory that will ever be found again.

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months ago
Instinct is blind;-a consciousness without insight....

Instinct is blind;-a consciousness without insight. Freedom, as the opposite of Instinct, is thus seeing, and clearly conscious of the grounds of its activity.

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p. 7
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
3 weeks ago
All great peoples are conservative; slow...

All great peoples are conservative; slow to believe in novelties; patient of much error in actualities; deeply and forever certain of the greatness that is in law, in custom once solemnly established, and now long recognized as just and final.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emperor Julian
Emperor Julian
1 week 2 days ago
As for the beauty of the...

As for the beauty of the gods, not even Hermes tried to describe it in his tale; he said that it transcended description, and must be comprehended by the eye of the mind; for in words it was hard to portray and impossible to convey to mortal ears. Never indeed will there be or appear an orator so gifted that he could describe such surpassing beauty as shines forth on the countenance of the gods.

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Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
2 months 2 weeks ago
Revolutionary feminism embraces men who are...

Revolutionary feminism embraces men who are able to change, who are capable of responding mutually in a subject-to-subject encounter where desire and fulfillment are in no way linked to coercive subjugation. This feminist vision of the sexual imaginary is the space few men seem able to enter.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
2 months 1 week ago
Those who will not worship at...

Those who will not worship at the shrine of money, need not hope for recognition. On the other hand, they will also not have to think other people's thoughts or wear other people's political clothes. They will not have to proclaim as true that which is false, nor praise that as humanitarian which is brutal.

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Philosophical Maxims
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