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John Rawls
John Rawls
2 weeks 2 days ago
It may be expedient but it...

It may be expedient but it is not just that some should have less in order that others may prosper.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 weeks 5 days ago
My basis is supported by the...

My basis is supported by the authority of the greatest moralist of modern times; for such, undoubtedly, J. J. Rousseau is,-that profound reader of the human heart, who drew his wisdom not from books, but from life, and intended his doctrine not for the professorial chair, but for humanity; he, the foe of all prejudice, the foster-child of nature, whom alone she endowed with the gift of being able to moralise without tediousness, because he hit the truth and stirred the heart.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
1 month 2 weeks ago
The Philology of Christianity.
The Philology of Christianity. How little Christianity cultivates the sense of honesty can be inferred from the character of the writings of its learned men. They set out their conjectures as audaciously as if they were dogmas, and are but seldom at a disadvantage in regard to the interpretation of Scripture. Their continual cry is: am right, for it is written and then follows an explanation so shameless and capricious that a philologist, when he hears it, must stand stock-still between anger and laughter, asking himself again and again: Is it possible? Is it honest? Is it even decent?It is only those who never or always attend church that underestimate the dishonesty with which this subject is still dealt in Protestant pulpits; in what a clumsy fashion the preacher takes advantage of his security from interruption; how the Bible is pinched and squeezed; and how the people are made acquainted with every form of the art of false reading.
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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
3 weeks 5 days ago
There are four classes of Idols...

There are four classes of Idols which beset men's minds. To these for distinction's sake I have assigned names - calling the first class, Idols of the Tribe; the second, Idols of the Cave; the third, Idols of the Market-Place; the fourth, Idols of the Theater.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 weeks 4 days ago
Something that is merely negative creates...

Something that is merely negative creates nothing.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
3 weeks ago
We must therefore glean up our...

We must therefore glean up our experiments in this science from a cautious observation of human life, and take them as they appear in the common course of the world, by men's behaviour in company, in affairs, and in their pleasures. Where experiments of this kind are judiciously collected and compared, we may hope to establish on them a science, which will not be inferior in certainty, and will be much superior in utility to any other of human comprehension.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 weeks 3 days ago
It makes a great difference in...

It makes a great difference in the force of a sentence whether a man be behind it or no.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 weeks 4 days ago
Every great study is not only...

Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of mind.

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Philosophical Maxims
Protagoras
Protagoras
1 day ago
There are two sides to every...

There are two sides to every question.

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Philosophical Maxims
Porphyry
Porphyry
1 day ago
Animals are rational; in most of...

Animals are rational; in most of them logos is imperfect, but it is certainly not wholly lacking. So if, as our opponents say, justice applies to rational beings, why should not justice, for us, also apply to animals?

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 weeks 2 days ago
The worst of misfortunes is still...

The worst of misfortunes is still a stroke of luck, since one feels oneself living when one experiences it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
1 week 5 days ago
Athuroglossos is characterized by..: (1) When...

Athuroglossos is characterized by..: (1) When you have "a mouth like a running spring," you cannot distinguish those occasions when you should speak from those when you should remain silent; or that which must be said from that which must remain unsaid; or the circumstances and situations where speech is required from those where one ought to remain silent. (2) As Plutarch notes... you have no regard for the value of logos, for rational discourse as a means of gaining access to truth.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 weeks 4 days ago
But he, with these burthens on...

But he, with these burthens on him, planned, commenced, and completed, the History of India; and this in the course of about ten years, a shorter time than has been occupied (even by writers who had no other employment) in the production of almost any other historical work of equal bulk, and of anything approaching to the same amount of reading and research. And to this is to be added, that during the whole period, a considerable part of almost every day was employed in the instruction of his children: in the case of one of whom, myself, he exerted an amount of labour, care, and perseverance rarely, if ever, employed for a similar purpose, in endeavouring to give, according to his own conception, the highest order of intellectual education.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 weeks 4 days ago
In this frame of mind it...

In this frame of mind it occurred to me to put the question directly to myself: "Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?" And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, "No!" At this my heart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down. All my happiness was to have been found in the continual pursuit of this end. The end had ceased to charm, and how could there ever again be any interest in the means? I seemed to have nothing left to live for.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
3 weeks 4 days ago
One ought to fast, watch, and...

One ought to fast, watch, and labor to the extent that such activities are needed to harness the body's desires and longings; however, those who presume that they are justified by works pay no attention to the need for self-discipline but see the works themselves as the way to righteousness. They believe that if they do a great number of impressive works all will be well and righteousness will be the result. Sometimes this is pursued with such zeal that they become mentally unstable and their bodies are sapped of all strength. Such disastrous consequences demonstrate that the belief that we are justified and saved by works without faith is extremely foolish.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 weeks 4 days ago
Love is better than hate, because...

Love is better than hate, because it brings harmony instead of conflict into the desires of the persons concerned. Two people between whom there is love succeed or fail together, but when two people hate each other the success of either is the failure of the other.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
3 weeks 1 day ago
For such is the nature of...

For such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; Yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves: For they see their own wit at hand, and other men's at a distance.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 weeks 4 days ago
Those things which now most engage...

Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of human society, but should be unconsciously performed, like the corresponding functions of the physical body. They are infra-human, a kind of vegetation. I sometimes awake to a half-consciousness of them going on about me, as a man may become conscious of some of the processes of digestion in a morbid state, and so have the dyspepsia, as it is called.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 weeks 2 days ago
But then again of course I...

But then again of course I know perfectly well that He can't be used as a road. If you're approaching Him not as the goal but as a road, not as the end but as a means, you're not really approaching Him at all.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 weeks 5 days ago
For the purpose of acquiring gain,...

For the purpose of acquiring gain, everything else is pushed aside or thrown overboard, for example, as is philosophy by the professors of philosophy.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 weeks 4 days ago
I had always heard it maintained...

I had always heard it maintained by my father, and was myself convinced, that the object of education should be to form the strongest possible associations of the salutary class; associations of pleasure with all things beneficial to the great whole, and of pain with all things hurtful to it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
1 month 2 weeks ago
In the world of today can...

In the world of today can there be peace anywhere until there is peace everywhere?

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
1 week 5 days ago
A critique is not a matter...

A critique is not a matter of saying that things are not right as they are. It is a matter of pointing out on what kinds of assumptions, what kinds of familiar, unchallenged, unconsidered modes of thought the practices that we accept rest.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
1 month 2 weeks ago
Manhattan. Sometimes from beyond the skyscrapers,...

Manhattan. Sometimes from beyond the skyscrapers, across of thousands of high walls, the cry of a tugboat finds you in your insomnia in the middle of the night, and you remember that this desert of iron and cement is an island.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
1 month 2 weeks ago
To understand oneself in existence is...

To understand oneself in existence is the Christian principle, except that this self has received much richer and much more profound qualifications that are even more difficult to understand together with existing. The believer is a subjective thinker, and the difference, is only between the simple person and the simple wise person. Here again the oneself is not humanity in general, subjectivity in general, and other such things, whereas everything becomes easy inasmuch as the difficulty is removed and the whole matter is shifted over into the shadow play of abstraction.

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Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
2 weeks 6 days ago
Men will not understand ... that...

Men will not understand ... that when they fulfil their duties to men, they fulfil thereby God's commandments; that they are consequently always in the service of God, as long as their actions are moral, and that it is absolutely impossible to serve God otherwise.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
2 weeks 2 days ago
Justice is the first virtue of...

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. It does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many. Therefore in a just society the liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
3 weeks 5 days ago
The two ways of contemplation are...

The two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients: the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contemplation: If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 weeks 4 days ago
Most of us are not neutral...

Most of us are not neutral in feeling, but, as human beings, we have to remember that, if the issues between East and West are to be decided in any manner that can give any possible satisfaction to anybody, whether Communist or anti-Communist, whether Asian or European or American, whether White or Black, then these issues must not be decided by war. We should wish this to be understood, both in the East and in the West.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ptahhotep
Ptahhotep
1 week 1 day ago
Be cheerful while you are alive....

Be cheerful while you are alive.

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Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
1 week ago
This to the right….

This to the right, that to the left hand strays, and all are wrong, but wrong in different ways.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
3 weeks ago
Beauty is no quality in things...

Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. One person may even perceive deformity, where another is sensible of beauty; and every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to regulate those of others.

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Philosophical Maxims
Antisthenes
Antisthenes
1 week ago
Wealth and poverty do not lie...

Wealth and poverty do not lie in a person's estate, but in their souls.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 weeks 3 days ago
It had been, when I read...

It had been, when I read it, only a vaguely pregnant piece of nonsense. Now it was all as clear as day, as evident as Euclid. Of course the Dharma-Body of the Buddha was the hedge at the bottom of the garden. At the same time, and no less obviously, it was these flowers, it was anything that I-or rather the blessed Not-I, released for a moment from my throttling embrace-cared to look at.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 2 weeks ago
His disciples said to Him, "When...

His disciples said to Him, "When will the Kingdom come?" Jesus said, "It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying 'Here it is' or 'There it is.' Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it." (113)

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
1 month 3 days ago
But if we discard this definition...

But if we discard this definition of a people, and, assuming another, say that a people is an assemblage of reasonable beings bound together by a common agreement as to the objects of their love, then, in order to discover the character of any people, we have only to observe what they love. Yet whatever it loves, if only it is an assemblage of reasonable beings and not of beasts, and is bound together by an agreement as to the objects of love, it is reasonably called a people; and it will be a superior people in proportion as it is bound together by higher interests, inferior in proportion as it is bound together by lower.

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
2 weeks 5 days ago
I am very fond of truth….

I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 weeks 3 days ago
One right-thinking man thinks like all...

One right-thinking man thinks like all other right-thinking men of his time-that is to say, in most cases, like some wrong-thinking man of another time.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
1 week 5 days ago
Not only must people know, they...

Not only must people know, they must see with their own eyes. Because they must be made to be afraid; but also because they must be the witnesses, the guarantors, of the punishment, and because they must to a certain extent take part in it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
5 days ago
About Pontus there are some creatures...

About Pontus there are some creatures of such an extempore being that the whole term of their life is confined within the space of a day; for they are brought forth in the morning, are in the prime of their existence at noon, grow old at night, and then die.

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Philosophical Maxims
Cisero
Cisero
1 month 5 days ago
What! You would convict me from...

What! You would convict me from my own words, and bring against me what I had said or written elsewhere. You may act in that manner with those who dispute by established rules. We live from hand to mouth, and say anything that strikes our mind with probability, so that we are the only people who are really at liberty."

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
2 weeks 3 days ago
My thinking is first and last...

My thinking is first and last and always for the sake of my doing.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 2 weeks ago
If only it were true...
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Main Content / General
Plato
Plato
1 month 2 weeks ago
By such reflections and by the...

By such reflections and by the continuance in them of a divine nature, the qualities which we have described grew and increased among them; but when the divine portion began to fade away, and became diluted too often and too much with the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune, behaved unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see grew visibly debased, for they were losing the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were full of avarice and unrighteous power.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 2 weeks ago
You shall know the truth, and...

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. 8:32

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
1 week 1 day ago
Bats ... present a range of...

Bats ... present a range of activity and a sensory apparatus so different from ours that the problem I want to pose is exceptionally vivid (though it certainly could be raised with other species). Even without the benefit of philosophical reflection, anyone who has spent some time in an enclosed space with an excited bat knows what it is to encounter a fundamentally alien form of life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
1 month 1 week ago
The superior man, extensively studying...

The superior man, extensively studying all learning, and keeping himself under the restraint of the rules of propriety, may thus likewise not overstep what is right.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 weeks 4 days ago
Compared with the greatest poets, he...

Compared with the greatest poets, he may be said to be the poet of unpoetical natures, possessed of quiet and contemplative tastes. But unpoetical natures are precisely those which require poetic cultivation. This cultivation Wordsworth is much more fitted to give, than poets who are intrinsically far more poets than he.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
2 weeks 5 days ago
Wit and good nature meeting in...

Wit and good nature meeting in a fair young lady as they do in you make the best resemblance of an angel that we know; and he that is blessed with the conversation and friendship of a person so extraordinary enjoys all that remains of paradise in this world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
1 month 2 weeks ago
We face eternity now. We have...

We face eternity now. We have no universe left, no outside phenomena, no emotions, no passions. Nothing but ourselves and thought. We face an eternity of introspection, when all through history we have never known what to do with ourselves on a rainy Sunday.

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Philosophical Maxims
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