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Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
5 months 2 weeks ago
Why in the world shouldn't they...

Why in the world shouldn't they have regarded with awe and reverence that act by which the human race is perpetuated. Not every religion has to have St. Augustine's attitude to sex. Why even in our culture marriages are celebrated in a church, everyone present knows what is going to happen that night, but that doesn't prevent it being a religious ceremony.

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Intentionality, and Romanticism (1997) by Richard Thomas Eldridge, p. 130
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
6 months 2 weeks ago
I wouldn't give an astrologer the...

I wouldn't give an astrologer the time of day.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
5 months 2 weeks ago
The human body is essentially something...

The human body is essentially something other than an animal organism.

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Letter on Humanism
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
4 months 3 days ago
I began to practice 'meditation', sitting...

I began to practice 'meditation', sitting cross-legged for hours, staring straight in front of me. The result was a sudden and total transformation of my inner-being. There was a sense of freedom from my personality -- from the being called Colin Wilson who was born in Leicester in 1931. I felt that 'he' was a series of responses and reactions, of ambitions and frustrations. But after half an hour of staring straight in front of me, of concentrating my attention 'at the root of my eyebrows', I felt in control of his responses and frustrations. This control brought such a sense of exhilaration and satisfaction that I often sneaked away from other people to spend just five minutes sitting cross-legged; when I was working as a labourer on a building site, I would find a quiet spot and, while the others were having a smoke, would sit in a position that could quickly be changed to an ordinary sitting posture if someone came by . . .

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p. 87
Philosophical Maxims
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
1 month 4 weeks ago
Such religion as there can be...

Such religion as there can be in modern life, every individual will have to salvage from the churches for himself.

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p. 397
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
5 months 1 week ago
The evidence of our own eyes...

The evidence of our own eyes makes it more plausible to believe that the world was not created by any god at all. If, however, we insist on believing in divine creation, we are forced to admit that the god who made the world cannot be all-powerful and all good. He must be either evil or a bungler.

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The God of Suffering? Project Syndicate, 2008
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
5 months 3 weeks ago
Opinions have caused….

Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours.

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Letter to Élie Bertrand, 5 January 1759
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
5 months 3 weeks ago
The world would be astonished if...

The world would be astonished if it knew how great a proportion of its brightest ornaments-of those most distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue-are complete sceptics in religion...

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(p. 45)
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
4 months 1 week ago
All journeys have secret destinations of...

All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.

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The Legend of the Baal-Shem (1955),1995 edition, p. 36
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 weeks 3 days ago
Every revolutionary...
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Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
5 months 3 weeks ago
After experience had taught me that...

After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else: whether, in fact, there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness.

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I, 1
Philosophical Maxims
Proclus
Proclus
5 months 4 days ago
The mathematician speculates the causes of...

The mathematician speculates the causes of a certain sensible effect, without considering its actual existence; for the contemplation of universals excludes the knowledge of particulars; and he whose intellectual eye is fixed on that which is general and comprehensive, will think but little of that which is sensible and singular.

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A Dissertation on the Doctrine of Ideas, &c.
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
4 months 3 days ago
When I was in my teens,...

When I was in my teens, I invented a term to describe them. I call it 'holiday consciousness' . . . because I often experienced this sense of optimism and wide-awakeness when setting out on a journey or a holiday. It was always the feeling that the world is self-evidently complex and beautiful, and that life is so obviously good that man's boredom and defeat is an absurdity . . . And then I used to ask: Why do men forget this so easily? And the answer seemed obvious: because the human will is so flabby and weak. Instead of being self-controlled, self-driven creatures, most men are little more than leaves on a stream, they drift along hoping for the best. I once wrote that men are like grandfather clocks driven by watchsprings.

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p. 75
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 months 2 weeks ago
All media exists to invest our...

All media exists to invest our lives with artificial perception and arbitrary values.

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(p. 199)
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
5 months 3 weeks ago
Whatever we may think or affect...

Whatever we may think or affect to think of the present age, we cannot get out of it; we must suffer with its sufferings, and enjoy with its enjoyments; we must share in its lot, and, to be either useful or at ease, we must even partake its character.

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"The Spirit of the Age, I", Examiner (9 January 1831), p. 20 Full text online
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
4 months 1 week ago
Ever since the first World War,...

Ever since the first World War, when the system of liberalism began to shape into the system of authoritarianism, a widespread opinion has blames Hegelianism for the ideological of the new system.

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P. 390
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
5 months 3 weeks ago
The labour-power is a commodity, not...

The labour-power is a commodity, not capital, in the hands of the labourer, and it constitutes for him a revenue so long as he can continuously repeat its sale; it functions as capital after its sale, in the hands of the capitalist, during the process of production itself.

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Vol. II, Ch. XIX, p. 384.
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
4 months 1 week ago
Touch me not; for I am...

Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.

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John 20:17 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
5 months 2 weeks ago
Appealing to his [Einstein's] way of...

Appealing to his [Einstein's] way of expressing himself in theological terms, I said: If God had wanted to put everything into the universe from the beginning, He would have created a universe without change, without organisms and evolution, and without man and man's experience of change. But he seems to have thought that a live universe with events unexpected even by Himself would be more interesting than a dead one.

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As quoted in Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes by Charles Hartshorne
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
4 months 1 week ago
For it is not the bare...

For it is not the bare Words, but the Scope of the writer that giveth true light, by which any writing is to bee interpreted; and they that insist upon single Texts, without considering the main Designe, can derive no thing from them clearly; but rather by casting atomes of Scripture, as dust before mens eyes, make everything more obscure than it is; an ordinary artifice of those who seek not the truth, but their own advantage.

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The Third Part, Chapter 43, p. 331
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
5 months 1 week ago
Beginning to reason is like stepping...

Beginning to reason is like stepping onto an escalator that leads upward and out of sight. Once we take the first step, the distance to be traveled is independent of our will and we cannot know in advance where we shall end.

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Chapter 4, Reason, p. 88
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 2 weeks ago
If just once you were depressed...

If just once you were depressed for no reason, you have been so all your life without knowing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
6 months 2 weeks ago
476 ... is usually taken as...

476 ... is usually taken as the date of the "fall of the Roman Empire." The date, however, is a false one. No one at this period of time considered that the Roman Empire had "fallen." Indeed, it still existed and was the most powerful realm in Europe. Its capital was at Constantinople and the Emperor was Zeno. It is only because we ourselves are culturally descended from the Roman west, that we tend to ignore the continued existence of the Roman Empire in the east.

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Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
4 months 1 week ago
Even to-day, in spite of some...

Even to-day, in spite of some signs which are making a tiny breach in that sturdy faith, even to-day, there are few men who doubt that motorcars will in five years' time be more comfortable and cheaper than to-day. They believe in this as they believe that the sun will rise in the morning. The metaphor is an exact one. For, in fact, the common man, finding himself in a world so excellent, technically and socially, believes that it has been produced by nature, and never thinks of the personal efforts of highly-endowed individuals which the creation of this new world presupposed. Still less will he admit the notion that all these facilities still require the support of certain difficult human virtues, the least failure of which would cause the rapid disappearance of the whole magnificent edifice.... These traits together make up the well-known psychology of the spoilt child. Chap.

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VI: The Dissection Of The Mass-Man Begins
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
5 months 1 week ago
"Young men," said Cæsar, "hear an...

"Young men," said Cæsar, "hear an old man to whom old men hearkened when he was young."

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Cæsar Augustus
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
5 months 2 weeks ago
The emotions I feel are no...

The emotions I feel are no more meant to be shown in their unadulterated state than the inner organs by which we live.

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pp. 31-32
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 4 weeks ago
Rejoice in the things that are...

Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
5 months 3 weeks ago
The language of excitement is at...

The language of excitement is at best but picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.

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Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 80
Philosophical Maxims
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
2 months 4 weeks ago
All art is autobiographical; the pearl...

All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster's autobiography.

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On the autobiographical nature of his films, in The Atlantic
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
2 months 2 weeks ago
The polarization has a number of...

The polarization has a number of different roots. The economic... fact that many working class voters have been left behind by the prosperity of globalization. ...The more important division is a cultural one ...the feeling on the part of many populist voters, that they are not being respected by the elites that are running the country... [H]ere, all of the identity issues... play themselves out.

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22:57
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 2 weeks ago
The bank mania is one of...

The bank mania is one of the most threatening of these imitations. It is raising up a moneyed aristocracy in our country which has already set the government at defiance, and although forced at length to yield a little on this first essay of their strength, their principles are unyielded and unyielding. These have taken deep root in the hearts of that class from which our legislators are drawn, and the sop to Cerberus from fable has become history. Their principles lay hold of the good, their pelf of the bad, and thus those whom the Constitution had placed as guards to its portals, are sophisticated or suborned from their duties.

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Letter to Josephus B. Stuart (May 10, 1817) ME 15:112; reported in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb (1904), vol. 15, p. 112
Philosophical Maxims
Antisthenes
Antisthenes
5 months 1 week ago
I have enough to eat till...

I have enough to eat till my hunger is stayed, to drink till my thirst is sated; to clothe myself withal; and out of doors not Callias there, with all his riches, is more safe than I from shivering; and when I find myself indoors, what warmer shirting do I need than my bare walls? what ampler greatcoat than the tiles above my head?

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iv. 34
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
5 months 2 weeks ago
Between the fine point of the...

Between the fine point of the brush and the steely gaze, the scene is about to yield up its volume.

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Las Meninas
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
5 months 2 weeks ago
At the core of all...

At the core of all well-founded belief, lies belief that is unfounded.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
5 months 3 weeks ago
The atheist who affects to reason,...

The atheist who affects to reason, and the fanatic who rejects reason, plunge themselves alike into inextricable difficulties. The one perverts the sublime and enlightening study of natural philosophy into a deformity of absurdities by not reasoning to the end. The other loses himself in the obscurity of metaphysical theories, and dishonours the Creator, by treating the study of his works with contempt. The one is a half-rational of whom there is some hope, the other a visionary to whom we must be charitable.

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A Discourse, &c. &c.
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
5 months 3 weeks ago
Truly, if the preservation of all...

Truly, if the preservation of all mankind, as much as in him lies, were every one's persuasion, as indeed it is every one's duty, and the true principle to regulate our religion, politicks and morality by, the world would be much quieter, and better natur'd than it is.

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Sec. 116
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 3 weeks ago
I don't care for the applause...

I don't care for the applause one gets by saying what others are thinking; I want actually to change people's thoughts. Power over people's minds is the main personal desire of my life; and this sort of power is not acquired by saying popular things.

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Letter to Lucy Martin Donnelly, February 10, 1916
Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
5 months 2 weeks ago
Nihilism is not overcome by arguments...

Nihilism is not overcome by arguments or analyses; it is tamed by love and care. Any disease of the soul must be conquered by a turning of one's soul.

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(p19)
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 months 2 weeks ago
The condition of life to which...

The condition of life to which people of the well-to-do classes are accustomed is that of an abundant production of various articles necessary for their comfort and pleasure, and these things are obtained only thanks to the existence of factories and works organized as at present. And, therefore, discussing the improvement of the workers' position, the men of science belonging to the well- to-do classes always have in view only such improvements as will not do away with the system of factory-production and those conveniences of which they avail themselves.

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Chapter V: Why Learned Economists Assert What Is False
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 2 weeks ago
We regret not having the courage...

We regret not having the courage to make such and such decision; we regret much more having made one - any one. Better no action than the consequences of an action.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
4 months 3 weeks ago
The world that I regard is...

The world that I regard is my selfe, it is the Microcosme of mine owne frame, that I cast mine eye on; for the other, I use it but like my Globe, and turne it round sometimes for my recreation. Men that look upon my outside, perusing onely my condition, and fortunes, do erre in my altitude; for I am above Atlas his shoulders.

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Section 12
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
4 months 3 weeks ago
After having thus successively taken each...

After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the government then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence: it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

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Book Four, Chapter VI.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
4 months 1 week ago
The possibility of peace, on whose...

The possibility of peace, on whose behalf many are working, might perhaps become actual because the technical advances in offensive weapons make the prospect of a European war so disastrous, and because, if the nations were at grips again, even the victorious aggressor would be ruined. But there still remains open the possibility of a new war which, more dreadful than any that have preceded it would make an end of contemporary Europeans.

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Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
4 months 2 weeks ago
Some words shall herein be capitalised...

Some words shall herein be capitalised when used, not as vernacular, but as terms defined. Thus an "idea" is the substance of an actual unitary thought or fancy; but "Idea," nearer Plato's idea of ἰδέα, denotes anything whose Being consists in its mere capacity for getting fully represented, regardless of any person's faculty or impotence to represent it.

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I
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 3 weeks ago
They who bow to the enemy...

They who bow to the enemy abroad will not be of power to subdue the conspirator at home.

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p. 18
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 3 weeks ago
The state is primarily an organization...

The state is primarily an organization for killing foreigners.

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Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind (1960), p. 83
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
4 months 3 days ago
I found Randi likable and plausible;...

I found Randi likable and plausible; the only thing that bothered me was the sweeping and intense nature of his skepticism. He was obviously working from the premise that all paranormal phenomena, without exception, are fakes or delusions. He seemed to take to take it for granted that all of us - there were also two women present - shared his opinions, and he made jovial, disparaging remarks about psychics and other such weirdos. I began to get the uncomfortable feeling of a Jew who has accidentally walked into a Nazi meeting, or a Jehovah's Witness at a convention of militant atheists. As a supposedly scientific psychic investigator, Randi struck me as being oddly fixed in his opinions.

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pp. 39-40
Philosophical Maxims
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham
5 months 3 weeks ago
I am at heart more of...

I am at heart more of a United-States-man than an Englishman.

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Letter to Andrew Jackson (14 June 1830), quoted in Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, Volume 4, ed. David Maydole Matteson (1929), p. 146
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
4 months 3 weeks ago
A fool with a heart and...

A fool with a heart and no sense is just as unhappy as a fool with sense and no heart.

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Part 1, Chapter 7
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 1 week ago
The great law of culture is:...

The great law of culture is: Let each become all that he was created capable of being.

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Richter.
Philosophical Maxims
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