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Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 1 day ago
In the fact of being born...

In the fact of being born there is such an absence of necessity that when you think about it a little more than usual, you are left...with a foolish grin.

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Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
3 months 3 weeks ago
Men have been released from concentration...

Men have been released from concentration camps who have taken over the jargon of their jailers and with cold reason and mad consent (the price, as it were, of their survival) tell their story as if it could not have been otherwise than it was, contending that they have not been treated so badly after all.

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p. 45.
Philosophical Maxims
Emperor Julian
Emperor Julian
1 month 2 weeks ago
A very weighty argument is this...

A very weighty argument is this - namely, that neither does the light which descends from thence, chiefly upon the world, mix itself with anything, nor admit of dirtiness or pollution, but remains entirely, and in all things that are, free from defilement, admixture, and suffering. Besides, we must pay attention to the other kinds of phenomena, both to the Intelligible, and yet more to the Sensible - whatever are connected with matter, or will manifest themselves in relation to our subject.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 3 weeks ago
Battles, in these ages, are transacted...

Battles, in these ages, are transacted by mechanism; with the slightest possible development of human individuality or spontaneity: men now even die, and kill one another, in an artificial manner.

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Pt. I, Bk. VII, ch. 4.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 5 days ago
The moral sense, or conscience, is...

The moral sense, or conscience, is as much a part of man as his leg or arm. It is given to all human beings in a stronger or weaker degree, as force of members is given them in a greater or less degree. It may be strengthened by exercise, as may any particular limb of the body. This sense is submitted, indeed, in some degree, to the guidance of reason; but it is a small stock which is required for this: even a less one than what we call common sense. State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
5 months 1 week ago
It is the duty of every...

It is the duty of every man, so far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error.

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The Theophilanthropist: Containing Critical, Moral, Theological and Literary Essays, in Monthly Numbers, p. 387
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 6 days ago
The Africans had that claim on...

The Africans had that claim on our humanity which could not be resisted, whatever might have been advanced by an hon. gentleman in defence of the property of the planters.

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Speech in the House of Commons (12 May 1789), quoted in The Parliamentary History of England, From the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, Vol. XXVIII (1816), column 98
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 5 days ago
The effects of opposition are wonderful....

The effects of opposition are wonderful. There are men who rise refreshed on hearing of a threat, - men to whom a crisis which intimidates and paralyzes the majority - demanding, not the faculties of prudence and thrift, but comprehension, immovableness, the readiness of sacrifice - comes graceful and beloved as a bride!

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p. 189
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
3 months 3 weeks ago
Subjective reason ... is inclined to...

Subjective reason ... is inclined to abandon the fight with religion by setting up two different brackets, one for science and philosophy, and one for institutionalized mythology, thus recognizing both of them. For the philosophy of objective reason there is no such way out. Since it hold to the concept of objective truth, it must take a positive or a negative stand with regard to the content of established religion.

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p. 12.
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 2 weeks ago
Whoever complains about the death of...

Whoever complains about the death of anyone, is complaining that he was a man. Everyone is bound by the same terms: he who is privileged to be born, is destined to die.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 3 weeks ago
I hope, reader, that some time...

I hope, reader, that some time while our tragedy is still playing, in some interval between acts, we shall meet again. And we shall recognize one another. And forgive me if I have troubled you more than was needful and inevitable, more than I intended to do when I took up my pen proposing to distract you from your distractions. And may God deny you peace, but give you glory!

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 week 3 days ago
Paper is poverty....
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Main Content / General
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
5 months ago
It is also the becoming-space of...

It is also the becoming-space of the spoken chain - which has been called temporal or linear; a becoming-space which makes possible both writing and every correspondence between speech and writing, every passage from one to the other.The activity or productivity connoted by the a of différance refers to the generative movement in the play of differences. The latter are neither fallen from the sky nor inscribed once and for all in a closed system, a static structure that a synchronic and taxonomic operation could exhaust. Differences are the effects of transformations, and from this vantage the theme of différance is incompatible with the static, synchronic, taxonomic, ahistoric motifs in the concept of structure.

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p. 28
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
1 month 3 weeks ago
For the time being, the ominous...

For the time being, the ominous peril of the communist parties in the West lies in their stand on foreign affairs. The distinctive mark of all present-day communist parties is their devotion to the aggressive foreign policy of the Soviets. Whenever they must choose between Russia and their own country, they do not hesitate to prefer Russia. Their principle is: Right or wrong, my Russia. They strictly obey all orders issued from Moscow. When Russia was an ally of Hitler, the French communists sabotaged their own country's war effort and the American communists passionately opposed President Roosevelt's plans to aid England and France in their struggle against the Nazis.

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Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
4 months 3 weeks ago
May we be those who shall...

May we be those who shall heal this world.

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Yasna 30,9
Philosophical Maxims
Mozi
Mozi
1 month 1 week ago
When nobody in the world loves...

When nobody in the world loves any other, naturally the strong will overpower the weak, the many will oppress the few, the wealthy will mock the poor, the honoured will disdain the humble, the cunning will deceive the simple. Therefore all the calamities, strifes, complaints, and hatred in the world have arisen out of want of mutual love. Therefore the benevolent disapproved of this want.

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Book 4; Universal Love II
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 3 weeks ago
Nothing is lost, nothing wholly passes...

Nothing is lost, nothing wholly passes away, for in some way or another everything is perpetuated; and everything, after passing through time, returns to eternity.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 1 week ago
There is, nevertheless, a certain respect...

There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants.

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Book II, Ch. 11. Of Cruelty
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 5 days ago
Knowing that religion does not furnish...

Knowing that religion does not furnish grosser bigots than law, I expect little from old judges.

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Letter to Thomas Cooper
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
1 month 6 days ago
Who holds a sword is tempted,...

Who holds a sword is tempted, who has youth must play,he who does not fear death on earth does not fear God.

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Odysseus, Book VIII, line 560
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 1 week ago
Arts and sciences are not cast...

Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are formed and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing, as bears leisurely lick their cubs into form.

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Book II, Ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
4 months 5 days ago
A subject interests me and holds...

A subject interests me and holds my attention only so long as it presents me with difficulties, only so long as I am at odds with it and have, as it were, to struggle with it; but once I have mastered it I hurry on to something else, to a new subject; for my interest is not confined to any particular field or subject; it extends to everything human. This does not mean that I am an intellectual miser or egoist, who amasses knowledge for himself alone; by no means! What I do and think for myself, I must also think and do for others. But I feel the need of instructing others in a subject only so long as, while instructing others, I am also instructing myself.

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Lecture I, , R. Manheim, trans. (1967), p. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 1 day ago
I'd rather offer my life as...

I'd rather offer my life as a sacrifice than be necessary to anything.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
5 months 1 week ago
The sneaking arts of underling tradesmen...

The sneaking arts of underling tradesmen are thus erected into political maxims for the conduct of a great empire; for it is the most underling tradesmen only who make it a rule to employ chiefly their own customers. A great trader purchases his good always where they are cheapest and best, without regard to any little interest of this kind.

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Chapter III, Part II, p. 530.
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
3 months 3 weeks ago
The complexity of the connection between...

The complexity of the connection between the world of perception and the world of physics does not preclude that such a connection can be shown to exist at any time.

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p. 133.
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
2 months 1 week ago
In Kleist's essay humans are caught...

In Kleist's essay humans are caught between the graceful automatism of the puppet and the conscious freedom of a god. The jerky, stuttering quality of their actions comes from their feeling that they must determine the course of their lives. Other animals live without having to choose their path through life. Whatever uncertainty they may feel sniffing their way through the world is not a permanent condition; once they reach a place of safety, they are at rest. In contrast, human life is spent anxiously deciding how to live.

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The Faith of Puppets: Leopardi and the Souls of Machines (p.25-6)
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
1 month 4 weeks ago
If all the parts….

If all the parts of the universe are interchained in a certain measure, any one phenomenon will not be the effect of a single cause, but the resultant of causes infinitely numerous; it is, one often says, the consequence of the state of the universe the moment before.

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Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
3 months 3 weeks ago
On fact, the whole machinery of...

On fact, the whole machinery of our intelligence, our general ideas and laws, fixed and external objects, principles, persons, and gods, are so many symbolic, algebraic expressions. They stand for experience; experience which we are incapable of retaining and surveying in its multitudinous immediacy. We should flounder hopelessly, like the animals, did we not keep ourselves afloat and direct our course by these intellectual devices.

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Theory helps us to bear our ignorance of fact. Pt. III, Form; § 30: "The average modified in the direction of pleasure.", p. 125
Philosophical Maxims
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
2 months 4 weeks ago
I discovered that rejections are not...

I discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, "To hell with you."

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Quoted in "Feeling Rejected? Join Updike, Mailer, Oates..." by Barbara Bauer and Robert F. Moss, New York Times (21 July 1985), section 7, page 1, column 1
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 3 weeks ago
Mahomet was only fourteen; had no...

Mahomet was only fourteen; had no language but his own: much in Syria must have been a strange unintelligible whirlpool to him. But the eyes of the lad were open; glimpses of many things would doubtless be taken in, and lie very enigmatic as yet, which were to ripen in a strange way into views, into beliefs and insights one day. These journeys to Syria were probably the beginning of much to Mahomet. One other circumstance we must not forget: that he had no school-learning; of the thing we call school-learning none at all.

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Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
3 months 3 weeks ago
Philosophers are as jealous as women....

Philosophers are as jealous as women. Each wants a monopoly of praise.

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P. 30
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
4 months 3 days ago
To revolt is a natural tendency...

To revolt is a natural tendency of life. Even a worm turns against the foot that crushes it. In general, the vitality and relative dignity of an animal can be measured by the intensity of its instinct to revolt.

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"On the International Workingmen's Association and Karl Marx"
Philosophical Maxims
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
2 months 2 weeks ago
It doesn't matter that it can't...

It doesn't matter that it can't last, that we don't find it more often. To know that there is such perfection, that there has been such perfection - it is worth living for. It exists. It has been - it is. One can contemplate it and feel complete peace.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 5 days ago
We are not afraid to follow...

We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.

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Letter to William Roscoe
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
4 months 3 weeks ago
A soldier told Pelopidas, "We are...

A soldier told Pelopidas, "We are fallen among the enemies." Said he, "How are we fallen among them more than they among us?"

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63 Pelopidas
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
3 months 2 weeks ago
The ultimate metaphysical principle is the...

The ultimate metaphysical principle is the advance from disjunction to conjunction, creating a novel entity other than the entities given in disjunction.

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Pt. I, ch. 2, sec. 2.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 1 day ago
If truth were not boring, science...

If truth were not boring, science would have done away with God long ago. But God as well as the saints is a means to escape the dull banality of truth.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 months 2 weeks ago
In his Experiment in Autobiography (1934),...

In his Experiment in Autobiography (1934), H.G. Wells pointed out that ever since the beginning of life, most creatures have been 'up against it'. Their lives are a drama of struggle against the forces of nature. Yet nowadays you can say to a man: Yes, you earn a living, you support a family, you love and hate, but -- what do you do? His real interest may be in something else -- art, science, literature, philosophy. The bird is a creature of the air, the fish is a creature of the water, and man is a creature of the mind.

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pp. 346-347
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
5 months 2 weeks ago
Hurl your calumnies…

Hurl your calumnies boldly; something is sure to stick.

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De Augmentis Scientiarum
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
2 months 1 week ago
Human beings act, certainly. But none...

Human beings act, certainly. But none of them knows why they act as they do. There is a scattering of facts, which can be known and reported. Beyond these facts are the stories that are told. Human beings may behave like puppets, but no one is pulling the strings.

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In The Puppet Theatre: Puppetry, Conspiracy and Ouija Boards (p. 136)
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 1 day ago
Utopia is a mixture of childish...

Utopia is a mixture of childish rationalism and secularized angelism.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
4 months 4 weeks ago
Absurdity destroys the and of the...

Absurdity destroys the and of the enumeration by making impossible the in where the things enumerated would be divided up.

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Preface
Philosophical Maxims
William Whewell
William Whewell
1 month 5 days ago
And so no force however great...

And so no force however great can stretch a cord however fine into an horizontal line which is accurately straight.

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Elementary Treatise on Mechanics, The Equilibrium of Forces on a Point, 1819
Philosophical Maxims
John Herschel
John Herschel
1 month 2 weeks ago
Science is the knowledge of many,...

Science is the knowledge of many, orderly and methodically digested and arranged, so as to become attainable by one.

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Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
6 months 3 days ago
Zeus, the god of gods, who...

Zeus, the god of gods, who rules according to law, and is able to see into such things, perceiving that an honourable race was in a woeful plight, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they might be chastened and improve, collected all the gods into their most holy habitation, which, being placed in the centre of the world, beholds all created things.

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Philosophical Maxims
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
2 months 4 weeks ago
People reserve their best thinking for...

People reserve their best thinking for their professional specialties and, next in line, for serious matters confronting the alert citizen -economics, politics, the disposal of nuclear waste, etc. The day's work done, they want to be entertained.

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p. 16
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 4 weeks ago
All they that take the sword...

All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

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Matthew 26:52 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 3 weeks ago
But if ether is nothing but...

But if ether is nothing but an hypothesis explanatory of light, air on the other hand, is a thing that is directly felt; and even if it did not enable us to explain the phenomenon of sound, we should nevertheless always be directly aware of it, and above all, of the lack of it in moments of suffocation or air-hunger. And in the same way God Himself, not the idea of God, may become a reality that is immediately felt; and even though the idea of God does not enable us to explain either the existence or essence of the Universe, we have at times the direct feeling of God, above all in moments of spiritual suffocation. And the feeling, mark it well, for all that is tragic in it and the whole tragic sense of life is founded upon this - this feeling is a feeling of hunger for God, of the lack of God. To believe in God is, in the first instance... to wish that there may be a God, to be unable to live without Him.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
5 months 5 days ago
Capital is money: Capital is commodities....

Capital is money: Capital is commodities. For the movement, in the course of which it adds surplus-value, is its own movement, its expansion, therefore, is automatic expansion. Because it is value, it has acquired the occult quality of being able to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs.

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Vol. I, Ch. 2, pg. 171.
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
5 months 2 weeks ago
For what is it that everyone...

For what is it that everyone is seeking? To live securely, to be happy, to do everything as they wish to do, not to be hindered, not to be subject to compulsion.

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Book IV, ch. 1, 46.
Philosophical Maxims
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