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4 months 3 weeks ago

The class of the wholly propertyless, who are obliged to sell their labor to the bourgeoisie in order to get, in exchange, the means of subsistence for their support. This is called the class of proletarians, or the proletariat.

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6 months 1 day ago

A man is a god in ruins.

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Prospects
1 month 3 weeks ago

As the entire middle class, the bourgeois and petty bourgeois intelligentsia, boycotted the Soviet government for months after the October Revolution and crippled the railroad, post and telegraph, and educational and administrative apparatus, and, in this fashion, opposed the workers government, naturally all measures of pressure were exerted against it. These included the deprivation of political rights, of economic means of existence, etc., in order to break their resistance with an iron fist. It was precisely in this way that the socialist dictatorship expressed itself, for it cannot shrink from any use of force to secure or prevent certain measures involving the interests of the whole.

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4 months 2 weeks ago

More than a century ago, in 1804, in Letter XC of that series that constitutes the immense monody of his Obermann, Sénancour wrote the words which I have put at the head of this chapter - and of all the spiritual descendants of the patriarchal Rousseau, Sénancour was the most profound and intense; of all the men of heart and feeling that France has produced, not excluding Pascal, he was the most tragic. "Man is perishable. That may be; but let us perish resisting, and if it is nothingness that awaits us, do not let us so act that it shall be a just fate." Change this sentence from it negative to the positive form - "And if it is nothingness that awaits us, let us so act that it shall be an unjust fate" - and you get the firmest basis of action for the man who cannot or will not be a dogmatist.

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6 months 2 weeks ago

Listen widely to remove your doubts and be careful when speaking about the rest and your mistakes will be few. See much and get rid of what is dangerous and be careful in acting on the rest and your causes for regret will be few. Speaking without fault, acting without causing regret: 'upgrading' consists in this.

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6 months 2 days ago

Certainly one may, with as much reason and decency, plead for murder, robbery, lewdness, and barbarity, as for this practice: They are not more contrary to the natural dictates of Conscience, and feelings of Humanity; nay, they are all comprehended in it.

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2 months 1 week ago

It is a cliché that the modern scientific vision has desacralized the world, and the world desacralized by scientific knowledge has become one of the existential elements that make up modern man, all the more so to the degree that he is "civilized." Ever since he has been subject to compulsory education, his mind has been stuffed with "positive" scientific notions; he cannot avoid seeing in a soulless light everything that surrounds him, and therefore acts destructively. What, for example, could the symbol of the sunset of a dynasty, like the Japanese, mean to him when he knows scientifically what the sun is: merely a star, at which one can even fire missiles.

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p. 138
6 months 1 day ago

Philosophy stands in the same relation to the study of the actual world as masturbation to sexual love.

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The German Ideology, International Publishers, ed. Chris Arthur, p. 103.
2 months 1 day ago

It is not you talking, but innumerable ancestors talking with your mouth. It is not you who desire, but innumerable generations of descendants longing with your heart. Your dead do not lie in the ground. They have become birds, trees, air. You sit under their shade, you are nourished by their flesh, you inhale their breathing. They have become ideas and passions, they determine your will and your actions. Future generations do not move far from you in an uncertain time. They live, desire, and act in your loins and your heart. In this lightning moment when you walk the earth, your first duty, by enlarging your ego, is to live through the endless march, both visible and invisible, of your own being.

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4 months 2 weeks ago

Man is said to be a reasoning animal. I do not know why he has not been defined as an affective or feeling animal. Perhaps that which differentiates him from other animals is feeling rather than reason. More often I have seen a cat reason than laugh or weep. Perhaps it weeps or laughs inwardly - but then perhaps, also inwardly, the crab resolves equations of the second degree.

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3 months 4 weeks ago

Electric technology is directly related to our central nervous systems, so it is ridiculous to talk of "what the public wants" played over its own nerves.

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(p. 68)
6 months 2 days ago

The little honesty that exists among authors is discernible in the unconscionable way they misquote from the writings of others.

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2 months 3 weeks ago

In fact, the old Marxist distinctions between productive and unproductive labor, as well as that between productive and reproductive labor, which were always dubious, should now be completely thrown out.

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135
5 months 4 weeks ago

Kant stated that he had "found it necessary to deny knowledge to make room for faith," but all he had "denied" was knowledge of things that are unknowable, and he had not made room for faith but for thought.

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p. 63

A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.

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From a letter to John Taylor (June 1798), after the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts
5 months 3 weeks ago

The logical picture of the facts is the thought.

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(3) Original German: Das logische Bild der Tatsachen ist der Gedanke.
4 months 3 weeks ago

Glory - once achieved, what is it worth?

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2 months 1 week ago

But let us now dismiss these poetical fictions; because with what is divine they have mingled much of human alloy; and let us now consider what the deity has declared concerning himself and the other gods. The region surrounding the Earth has its existence in virtue of birth. From whom then does it receive its eternity and imperishability, if not from him who holds all things together within defined limits, for it is impossible that the nature of bodies (material) should be without a limit, inasmuch as they cannot dispense with a Final Cause, nor exist through themselves.

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6 months 1 day ago

I once received a letter from an eminent logician, Mrs. Christine Ladd Franklin, saying that she was a solipsist, and was surprised that there were no others. Coming from a logician, this surprise surprised me.

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Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948), Part III, chapter II, "Solipsism", p. 196
2 months 3 weeks ago

A person who is shallow aspires to depth; one who is ugly aspires to beauty; one who is narrow aspires to breadth; one who is poor aspires to wealth; one who is humble aspires to esteem. Whatever one lacks in oneself he must seek outside.

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Sources of Chinese Tradition (1999), vol. 1, p. 181
6 months 2 weeks ago

Any one thing in the creation is sufficient to demonstrate a Providence to an humble and grateful mind.

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Book I, ch. 16,7.
2 months 3 weeks ago

Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.

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Freedom and the control of men (1955/1956) American Scholar, 25 (1), 47-65
6 months 2 weeks ago

The light will not shame you, if it shows you your own ugliness, and that ugliness so offends you that you perceive the beauty of the light.

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First Homily, as translated by John Burnaby (1955), p. 262
4 months 3 weeks ago

Never to have occasion to take a position, to make up one's mind, or to define oneself - there is no wish I make more often.

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6 months 2 weeks ago

To those whose talents are above mediocrity, the highest subjects may be announced. To those who are below mediocrity, the highest subjects may not be announced.

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3 months 4 weeks ago

Invention is the mother of all necessities.

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3 months 4 weeks ago

Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which humans communicate than by the content of the communication.

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(p. 23)
2 months 1 week ago

And the simple step of a simple courageous man is not to partake in falsehood, not to support false actions! Let THAT enter the world, let it even reign in the world - but not with my help. But writers and artists can achieve more: they can CONQUER FALSEHOOD! In the struggle with falsehood art always did win and it always does win! Openly, irrefutably for everyone! Falsehood can hold out against much in this world, but not against art. And no sooner will falsehood be dispersed than the nakedness of violence will be revealed in all its ugliness - and violence, decrepit, will fall.

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6 months 4 days ago

What would become of history, had we not a dependence on the veracity of the historian, according to the experience, what we have had of mankind?

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§ 8.18
4 months 3 weeks ago

The skepticism which fails to contribute to the ruin of our health is merely an intellectual exercise.

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5 months 4 weeks ago

No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society.

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Chapter II, Section 17, pg. 102
6 months 2 days ago

The adjective is the enemy of the substantive.

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Variants: The adjective is the enemy of the noun. Quote attributed in Arthur Schopenhauer (translated by Mrs Rudolf Dircks), Essays of Schopenhauer (2004), Kessinger Publishing, p. 31
5 months 1 week ago

Abstain from animals.

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Symbol 39
1 month 2 weeks ago

Science is international but its success is based on institutions, which are owned by nations. If therefore, we wish to promote culture we have to combine and to organize institutions with our own power and means.

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4 months 3 weeks ago

What anxiety when one is not sure of one's doubts or wonders: are these actually doubts?

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6 months 2 days ago

To hold a pen is to be at war.

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Letter to Jeanne-Grâce Bosc du Bouchet, comtesse d'Argental (4 October 1748)
5 months 4 weeks ago

As to [General Douglas] Macarthur, I don't feel in a position to have clear opinions about anyone I know only from newspapers. You see, whenever they deal with anyone (or anything) I know myself, I find they're always a mass of lies & misunderstandings: so I conclude they're no better in the places where I don't know.

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Letter to Mrs. Mary Van Deusen, April 30, 1951. Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, vol. 3, "Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy", 1950-1963. p. 114.
4 months 3 weeks ago

Freedom can be manifested only in the void of beliefs, in the absence of axioms, and only where the laws have no more authority than a hypothesis.

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4 months 3 weeks ago

Professional philosophers are usually only apologists: that is, they are absorbed in defending some vested illusion or some eloquent idea. Like lawyers or detectives, they study the case for which they are retained.

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pp. 48-49
3 months 4 weeks ago

Writing turned a spotlight on the high, dim Sierras of speech; writing was the visualization of acoustic space. It lit up the dark.

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(p. 14)
2 months 3 weeks ago

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.

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6 months 4 weeks ago

It is surely better to be wronged than to do wrong.

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2 months 2 weeks ago

Most of our literature and social philosophy after 1850 was the voice of freedom against authority, of the child against the parent, of the pupil against the teacher. Through many years I shared in that individualistic revolt. I do not regret it; it is the function of youth to defend liberty and innovation, of the old to defend order and tradition, and of middle age to find a middle way. But now that I too am old, I wonder whether the battle I fought was not too completely won. Let us say humbly but publicly that we resent corruption in politics, dishonesty in business, faithlessness in marriage, pornography in literature, coarseness in language, chaos in music, meaninglessness in art.

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"The Second Sexual Revolution", Time magazine,
4 months 2 weeks ago

Error is the price we pay for progress.

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5 months 3 weeks ago

To be a Christian - a follower of Jesus Christ - is to love wisdom, love justice, and love freedom.

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(p172)
3 months 3 weeks ago

Reading Decline of the West I learned that in Spengler's view ours was a Faustian civilization and that we, the Jews, were Magians, the survivors and representatives of an earlier type, totally incapable of comprehending the Faustian spirit that had created the great civilization of the West. ... What Magians were to Faustians, Faustians might very well be to Americans.

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Part I, p. 26

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