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David Hume
David Hume
4 months 3 days ago
There is an inconvenience which attends...

There is an inconvenience which attends all abstruse reasoning. That it may silence, without convincing an antagonist, and requires the same intense study to make us sensible of its force, that was at first requisite for its invention. When we leave our closet, and engage in the common affairs of life, its conclusions seem to vanish, like the phantoms of the night on the appearance of the morning; and 'tis difficult for us to retain even that conviction, which we had attain'd with difficulty.

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Part 1, Section 1
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 3 weeks ago
Let's not beat around the bush;...

Let's not beat around the bush; I love life, that's my real weakness. I love it so much that I am incapable of imagining what is not life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
2 months 4 weeks ago
With a higher moral nature will...

With a higher moral nature will come a restriction on the multiplication of the inferior.

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The Principles of Biology, Vol. II (1867), Part VI: Laws of Multiplication, ch. 8: Human Population in the Future
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
2 months 1 week ago
When we resist impermanence, the self...

When we resist impermanence, the self intensifies.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 4 weeks ago
I can imagine no man who...

I can imagine no man who will look with more horror on the End than a conscientious revolutionary who has, in a sense sincerely, been justifying cruelties and injustices inflicted on millions of his contemporaries by the benefits which he hopes to confer on future generations: generations who, as one terrible moment now reveals to him, were never going to exist. Then he will see the massacres, the faked trials, the deportations, to be all ineffaceably real, an essential part, his part, in the drama that has just ended: while the future Utopia had never been anything but a fantasy.

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
4 months 2 weeks ago
An unjust law is no law...

An unjust law is no law at all.

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On Free Choice Of The Will, Book 1, and 5
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
2 months 3 weeks ago
Man consists in Truth. If he...

Man consists in Truth. If he exposes Truth, he exposes himself. If he betrays Truth, he betrays himself. We speak not here of lies, but of acting against Conviction.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
4 months 1 day ago
Wealth is like sea-water; the more...

Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become.

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E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 347
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 months 4 days ago
The Indian knew how to live...

The Indian knew how to live without wants, to suffer without complaint, and to die singing.

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Chapter I.
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
2 months 1 week ago
People do not go into the...

People do not go into the company of their fellow-creatures for what would seem a very sufficient reason, namely, that they have something to say to them, or something that they want to hear from them; but in the vague hope that they may find something to say.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 1 week ago
God's justice and His power are...

God's justice and His power are inseparable; 'tis in vain we invoke His power in an unjust cause. We are to have our souls pure and clean, at that moment at least wherein we pray to Him, and purified from all vicious passions; otherwise we ourselves present Him the rods wherewith to chastise us; instead of repairing anything we have done amiss, we double the wickedness and the offence when we offer to Him, to whom we are to sue for pardon, an affection full of irreverence and hatred. Which makes me not very apt to applaud those whom I observe to be so frequent on their knees, if the actions nearest to the prayer do not give me some evidence of amendment and reformation

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Ch. 56. Of Prayers, tr. Cotton, rev. W. Carew Hazlitt, 1877
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 month 3 weeks ago
To this day, and in quarters...

To this day, and in quarters where they should know better, Darwinism is widely regarded as a theory of 'chance'.It is grindingly, creakingly, crashingly obvious that, if Darwinism were really a theory of chance, it couldn't work. You don't need to be a mathematician or physicist to calculate that an eye or a haemoglobin molecule would take from here to infinity to self-assemble by sheer higgledy-piggledy luck. Far from being a difficulty peculiar to Darwinism, the astronomic improbability of eyes and knees, enzymes and elbow joints and the other living wonders is precisely the problem that any theory of life must solve, and that Darwinism uniquely does solve.

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Chapter 3, "The Message from the Mountain" (p. 77)
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
4 months 2 days ago
A country cannot subsist well without...

A country cannot subsist well without liberty, nor liberty without virtue.

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As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tryon Edwards, p. 301.
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
2 months 1 week ago
For Jung, the 'psychic world' (i.e....

For Jung, the 'psychic world' (i.e. the world of the mind) was an independent reality, and it was possible to travel there and make the acquaintance of its inhabitants.

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p. 164
Philosophical Maxims
John Searle
John Searle
2 months 2 days ago
I once had a conversation with...

I once had a conversation with a famous French philosopher who's a friend of mine. And I said to him, "Why the hell do you write so badly? Pourquoi tu écris si mal?" ... And this was Michel Foucault. He was a very smart guy and wrote a lot of very good stuff but in general he just wrote badly. When you heard him give a lecture in Berkeley, it was perfectly clear, just as clear as I am. ... And he said, "Well, in France, it would be regarded as somewhat childish and naive if you wrote clearly. ... In France you've got to have 10% incomprehensible."

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Otherwise people won't think it's deep. They won't think you're a profound thinker.
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 months 2 weeks ago
There is a greatness in the...

There is a greatness in the lives of those who build up religious systems, a greatness in action, in idea and in self-subordination, embodied in instance after instance through centuries of growth. There is a greatness in the rebels who destroy such systems: they are the Titans who storm heaven, armed with passionate sincerity. It may be that the revolt is the mere assertion by youth of its right to its proper brilliance, to that final good of immediate joy. Philosophy may not neglect the multifariousness of the world - the fairies dance, and Christ is nailed to the cross.

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Pt. V, ch. 1, sec. 1.
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
4 months ago
Though they may think the proof...

Though they may think the proof incomplete that the universe is a work of design, and though they assuredly disbelieve that it can have an Author and Governor who is absolute in power as well as perfect in goodness, they have that which constitutes the principal worth of all religions whatever, an ideal conception of a Perfect Being, to which they habitually refer as the guide of their conscience; and this ideal of Good is usually far nearer to perfection than the objective Deity of those, who think themselves obliged to find absolute goodness in the author of a world so crowded with suffering and so deformed by injustice as ours.

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(p. 46)
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months 1 week ago
The most successful tempters and thus...

The most successful tempters and thus the most dangerous are the deluded deluders.

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F 120
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
2 weeks ago
What madness this is, to punish...

What madness this is, to punish oneself because one is unfortunate, and not to lessen, but to increase one's ills! You ought to display, in this matter also, that decent behaviour and modesty which has characterised all your life: for there is such a thing as self-restraint in grief also.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 months 3 weeks ago
You get tragedy where the tree,...

You get tragedy where the tree, instead of bending, breaks.

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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
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 4 weeks ago
After silence that which comes nearest...

After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

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"The Rest is Silence"
Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
4 months 2 weeks ago
If you reject absolutely any single...

If you reject absolutely any single sensation without stopping to discriminate with respect to that which awaits confirmation between matter of opinion and that which is already present, whether in sensation or in feelings or in any immediate perception of the mind, you will throw into confusion even the rest of your sensations by your groundless belief and so you will be rejecting the standard of truth altogether. If in your ideas based upon opinion you hastily affirm as true all that awaits confirmation as well as that which does not, you will not escape error, as you will be maintaining complete ambiguity whenever it is a case of judging between right and wrong opinion.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 1 week ago
Naturally, every age...
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Montesquieu
Montesquieu
2 months 2 weeks ago
Life was given to me as...

Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.

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No. 76. (Usbek writing to Ibben)
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
3 months 4 weeks ago
How you produce volume after volume...

How you produce volume after volume the way you do is more than I can conceive. ...But you haven't to forge every sentence in the teeth of irreducible and stubborn facts as I do. It is like walking through the densest brush wood.

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Letter to Henry James (ca. 1890) as quoted by Robert D. Richardson, William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism (2007) p. 297.
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 4 weeks ago
Whatever limits us we call Fate....

Whatever limits us we call Fate.

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Fate
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 months 2 weeks ago
Art is the symbol of the...

Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.

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The Pre-War Notebook (1933-1939), published in First and Last Notebooks (1970) edited by Richard Rees
Philosophical Maxims
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
1 month 1 week ago
One cannot collect all the beautiful...

One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few.

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p. 114
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
4 months 2 weeks ago
The first and most necessary topic...

The first and most necessary topic in philosophy is that of the use of moral theorems, such as, "We ought not to lie;" the second is that of demonstrations, such as, "What is the origin of our obligation not to lie;" the third gives strength and articulation to the other two, such as, "What is the origin of this is a demonstration." For what is demonstration? What is consequence? What contradiction? What truth? What falsehood? The third topic, then, is necessary on the account of the second, and the second on the account of the first. But the most necessary, and that whereon we ought to rest, is the first. But we act just on the contrary. For we spend all our time on the third topic, and employ all our diligence about that, and entirely neglect the first.

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(51).
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
4 months 1 day ago
Even in those cities which seem...

Even in those cities which seem to enjoy the blessings of peace, and where the arts florish, the inhabitants are devoured by envy, cares and anxieties, which are greater plagues than any experienced in a town when it is under siege.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 3 weeks ago
For I came to cause division,...

For I came to cause division, with a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 Indeed, a man's enemies will be those of his own household.

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10:35,36, New World Translation
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
1 month 4 weeks ago
It is often better for a...

It is often better for a person to recognize a sin than to do a good deed. Recognizing a sin makes a person humble. Doing a good deed often can feed a person's pride.

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p. 108
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
4 months 3 weeks ago
First, there must be an end...

First, there must be an end to war and national rivalry and only then could one turn to the internal miseries that, after all, had external conflict as their chief cause.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
1 month 3 weeks ago
Books are good enough in their...

Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life.

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An Apology for Idlers.
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months ago
Aeschylus had a clear eye for...

Aeschylus had a clear eye for the commonest things. His genius was only an enlarged common sense. He adverts with chaste severity to all natural facts. His sublimity is Greek sincerity and simpleness, naked wonder which mythology had not helped to explain... Whatever the common eye sees at all and expresses as best it may, he sees uncommonly and describes with rare completeness. The multitude that thronged the theatre could no doubt go along with him to the end... The social condition of genius is the same in all ages. Aeschylus was undoubtedly alone and without sympathy in his simple reverence for the mystery of the universe.

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January 29, 1840
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 4 weeks ago
Mr. Neo-Angular - I am doing...

Mr. Neo-Angular - I am doing my duty. My ethics are based on dogma, not on feeling. Vertue - I know that a rule is to be obeyed because it is a rule and not because it appeals to my feelings at the moment.

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Pilgrim's Regress 90
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
2 months 3 weeks ago
Such abstraction which refuses to accept...

Such abstraction which refuses to accept the given universe of facts as the final context of validation, such "transcending" analysis of the facts in the light of their arrested and denied possibilities, pertains to the very structure of social theory.

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p. xliii
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
4 months 1 day ago
The example of the Jews, in...

The example of the Jews, in many things, may not be imitated by us; they had not only orders to cut off several nations altogether, but if they were obliged to war with others, and conquered them, to cut off every male; they were suffered to use polygamy and divorces, and other things utterly unlawful to us under clearer light.

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Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
2 months 3 weeks ago
Self-alienation is the source of all...

Self-alienation is the source of all degradation as well as, on the contrary, the basis of all true elevation. The first step will be a look inward, an isolating contemplation of our self. Whoever remains standing here proceeds only halfway. The second step must be an active look outward, an autonomous, determined observation of the outer world. Fragment No. 24 Variant translation: The first step is to look within, the discriminating contemplation of the self. He who remains at this point only half develops. The second step must be a telling look without, independent, sustained contemplation of the external world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months ago
The law will never make men...

The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

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"Slavery in Massachusetts", 1854
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
3 months 2 weeks ago
To have a great man…

To have a great man for an intimate friend seems pleasant to those who have never tried it; those who have, fear it.

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Book I, epistle xviii, line 86
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
When you know quite absolutely that...

When you know quite absolutely that everything is unreal, you then cannot see why you should take the trouble to prove it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
1 month 3 weeks ago
Writers are greatly respected. The intelligent...

Writers are greatly respected. The intelligent public is wonderfully patient with them, continues to read them, and endures disappointment after disappointment, waiting to hear from art what it does not hear from theology, philosophy, social theory, and what it cannot hear from pure science. Out of the struggle at the center has come an immense, painful longing for a broader, more flexible, fuller, more coherent, more comprehensive account of what we human beings are, who we are and what this life is for.

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Nobel Prize lecture
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months ago
There is more of good nature...

There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.

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Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 170
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months ago
The present hour is always wealthiest...

The present hour is always wealthiest when it is poorer than the future ones, as that is the pleasantest site which affords the pleasantest prospect.

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Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 210
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 months 2 weeks ago
Any madness in us gains from...

Any madness in us gains from being expressed, because in this way one gives a human form to what separates us from humanity.

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p. 76
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
3 months 2 weeks ago
As for me…

As for me, when you want a good laugh, you will find me in fine state... fat and sleek, a true hog of Epicurus' herd.

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Book I, epistle iv, lines 15-16
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 4 weeks ago
We can pool information about experiences....

We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes.

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Page 159
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
4 months 1 day ago
Religion may be purified. This great...

Religion may be purified. This great work was begun two hundred years ago: but men can only bear light to come in upon them by degrees.

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The critical review, or annals of literature, Volume XXVI, by A Society of Gentlemen (1768) p. 450
Philosophical Maxims
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