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Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 4 weeks ago
It is high time that Communists...

It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the spectre of Communism with a Manifesto of the party itself.

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Preamble, paragraph 3.
Philosophical Maxims
Ernest Renan
Ernest Renan
1 month 3 weeks ago
In morals, truth is but little...

In morals, truth is but little prized when it is a mere sentiment, and only attains its full value when realized in the world as fact.

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Ch. 5.
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
4 months 1 week ago
Anger begins in folly, and ends...

Anger begins in folly, and ends in repentance.

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As quoted in Treasury of Thought: Forming an Encyclopædia of Quotations from Ancient and Modern Authors (1894) by Maturin Murray Ballou
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
4 weeks ago
It is a palpable falsehood to...

It is a palpable falsehood to say we can have specie for our paper whenever demanded. Instead, then, of yielding to the cries of scarcity of medium set up by speculators, projectors and commercial gamblers, no endeavors should be spared to begin the work of reducing it by such gradual means as may give time to private fortunes to preserve their poise, and settle down with the subsiding medium; and that, for this purpose, the States should be urged to concede to the General Government, with a saving of chartered rights, the exclusive power of establishing banks of discount for paper.

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6 November 1813, ME 13:431: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson "Memorial Edition" (20 Vols., 1903-04) edited by Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, Vol. 13, p. 431
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
5 months 6 days ago
By the law is the knowledge...

By the law is the knowledge of sin [Rom 3:20], so the word of grace comes only to those who are distressed by a sense of sin and tempted to despair.

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p. 168
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 4 weeks ago
Our words tend to conceal what...

Our words tend to conceal what is private and particular in our impressions, and to make us believe that different people live in a common world to a greater extent than is in fact the case.

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An Outline of Philosophy Ch.15 The Nature of our Knowledge of Physics, 1927
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 4 weeks ago
At puberty, the elements of an...

At puberty, the elements of an unsuperstitious sexual morality ought to be taught. Boys and girls should be taught that nothing can justify sexual intercourse unless there is mutual inclination... Boys and girls should be taught respect for each other's liberty; they should be made to feel that nothing gives one human being rights over another, and that jealousy and possessiveness kill love. They should be taught that to bring another human being into the world is a very serious matter, only to be undertaken when the child will have a reasonable prospect of health, good surroundings, and parental care. But they should also be taught methods of birth control, so as to insure that children shall only come when they are wanted. Finally, they should be taught the dangers of venereal disease, and the methods of prevention and cure. The increase of human happiness to be expected from sex education on these lines is immeasurable.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
4 weeks ago
Let what will be said or...

Let what will be said or done, preserve your sang-froid immovably, and to every obstacle, oppose patience, perseverance, and soothing language.

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Letter to William Short
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks ago
A man can never....
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Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 4 weeks ago
If human nature were unchangeable, as...

If human nature were unchangeable, as ignorant people still suppose it to be, the situation would indeed be hopeless.

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Ch. 17: Some Prospects: Cheerful and Otherwise
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
3 months 3 weeks ago
Man is the higher Sense of...

Man is the higher Sense of our Planet; the star which connects it with the upper world; the eye which it turns towards Heaven.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
5 months ago
There are, first of all, two...

There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the subject's sake, and those who write for writing's sake. The first kind have had thoughts or experiences which seem to them worth communicating, while the second kind need money and consequently write for money.

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Philosophical Maxims
Empedocles
Empedocles
4 months 2 weeks ago
A law there is….

A law there is, an oracle of Doom, Of old enacted by the assembled gods, That if a Daemon-such as live for ages- Defile himself with foul and sinful murder, He must for seasons thrice ten thousand roam Far from the Blest; such is the path I tread, I too a wanderer and exile from heaven.

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tr. Phillip H. De Lacy and Benedict Einarson. Cf. full quotation at Leonard p. 54-55 fr. 115, as paraphrased in Plutarch's Moralia
Philosophical Maxims
William Whewell
William Whewell
4 weeks ago
It has been proved by the...

It has been proved by the biological speculations of past time, that organic Life cannot rightly be resolved into mechanical or chemical forces, or the operation of a vital fluid, or of a soul.

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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 1 week ago
That you may know that they...

That you may know that they whom anger possesses are not sane, look at their appearance; for as there are distinct symptoms which mark madmen, such as a bold and menacing air, a gloomy brow, a stern face

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
4 weeks ago
England was, until we copied her,...

England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
4 months 4 weeks ago
The first intellectual operation in which...

The first intellectual operation in which I arrived at any proficiency, was dissecting a bad argument, and finding in what part the fallacy lay: and though whatever capacity of this sort I attained was due to the fact that it was an intellectual exercise in which I was most perseveringly drilled by my father, yet it is also true that the school logic, and the mental habits acquired in studying it, were among the principal instruments of this drilling. I am persuaded that nothing, in modern education, tends so much, when properly used, to form exact thinkers, who attach a precise meaning to words and propositions, and are not imposed on by vague, loose, or ambiguous terms. The boasted influence of mathematical studies is nothing to it; for in mathematical processes, none of the real difficulties of correct ratiocination occur.

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(p. 19)
Philosophical Maxims
Ernst Bloch
Ernst Bloch
3 weeks 6 days ago
In ourselves alone the absolute light...

In ourselves alone the absolute light keeps shining, a sigillum falsi et sui, mortis et vitae aeternae [false signal and signal of eternal life and death itself], and the fantastic move to it begins: to the external interpretation of the daydream, the cosmic manipulation of a concept that is utopian in principle. Finding this concept, finding the right for whose sake it behoves us to live, to be organized, to have time-this is where we are headed, why we are clearing the metaphysically constitutive trails afresh, calling for what is not, building into the blue that lines all edges of the world; this is why we build ourselves into the blue and search for truth and reality where mere factuality vanishes.

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p. 43
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
5 months 1 week ago
The greatest error of all the...

The greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men: as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a tarrasse, for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state, for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and contention; or a shop, for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse, for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate.

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Book I, v, 11
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 2 weeks ago
How does the poet speak to...

How does the poet speak to men with power, but by being still more a man than they?

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Burns.
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
4 weeks 1 day ago
The doors of heaven and hell...

The doors of heaven and hell are adjacent and identical.

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Ch. 18
Philosophical Maxims
Leszek Kołakowski
Leszek Kołakowski
1 month 3 weeks ago
In this sense Marxism performs the...

In this sense Marxism performs the function of a religion, and its efficacy is of a religious character. But it is a caricature and a bogus form of religion, since it presents its temporal eschatology as a scientific system, which religious mythologies do not purport to be.

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Epilogue, p. 1208
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Kuhn
Thomas Kuhn
1 month 2 weeks ago
History, if viewed as a repository...

History, if viewed as a repository for more than anecdote or chronology, could produce a decisive transformation in the image of science by which we are now possessed.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
5 months 1 day ago
Let me give two cautions....

Let me give two cautions. 1) The one is, that you keep them to the practice of what you would have grow into a habit with them, by kind words, and gentle admonitions, rather as minding them of what they forget, than by harsh rebukes and chiding, as if they were wilfully guilty. 2) Another thing you are to take care of, is, not to endeavour to settle too many habits at once, lest by variety you confound them, and so perfect none. When constant custom has made any one thing easy and natural to 'em, and they practice it without reflection, you may then go on to another.

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Sec. 66
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
3 weeks 4 days ago
Of things that are external, happen...

Of things that are external, happen what will to that which can suffer by external accidents. Those things that suffer let them complain themselves, if they will; as for me, as long as I conceive no such thing, that that which is happened is evil, I have no hurt; and it is in my power not to conceive any such thing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
4 months 1 week ago
Concern should drive us into action...

Concern should drive us into action and not into a depression.

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The Collected Works of Karen Horney‎ (1957) by Karen Horney, p. 154: "We may feel genuinely concerned about world conditions, though such a concern should drive us into action and not into a depression."
Philosophical Maxims
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
4 months 2 weeks ago
When Alexander the Great addressed him...

When Alexander the Great addressed him with greetings, and asked if he wanted anything, Diogenes replied "Yes, stand a little out of my sunshine."

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From Plutarch, Alexander, 14. Cf. Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 38, Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, v. 32
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
3 months 1 week ago
Modem mainstream economic theory bravely assumes...

Modem mainstream economic theory bravely assumes that people make their decisions in such a way as to maximize their utility. Accepting this assumption enables economics to predict a great deal of behavior (correctly or incorrectly) without ever making empirical studies of human actors.

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Simon (1990) "Invariants of Human Behavior" in: Annu. Rev. Psychol. 41: p. 6.
Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
5 months 2 days ago
The order and connection…

The order and connection of the thought is identical to with the order and connection of the things.

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Part II, Prop. VII
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
5 months ago
We should be considerate…

We should be considerate to the living; to the dead we owe only the truth.

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Letter to M. de Grenonville, 1719
Philosophical Maxims
Alan Watts
Alan Watts
1 month 1 week ago
Now, you see, if you understand...

Now, you see, if you understand what I'm saying, with your intelligence, and then take the next step and say "But I understood it now, but I didn't feel it." Then, next I raise the question: Why do you want to feel it? You say: "I want something more", because that's again that spiritual greed. And you could only say that because you didn't understand it.

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Intellectual Yoga
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
5 months 1 day ago
Religion, which should most distinguish us...

Religion, which should most distinguish us from the beasts, and ought most particularly elevate us, as rational creatures, above brutes, is that wherein men often appear most irrational, and more senseless than beasts.

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Book IV, Ch. 18
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 4 weeks ago
I do like clarity and exact...

I do like clarity and exact thinking and I believe that very important to mankind because when you allow yourself to think inexactly your prejudices, your bias, your self interest comes in in ways you don't notice and you do bad things without knowing that you are doing them: self deception is very easy. So that I do think clear thinking immensely important.

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Television interview ("On clarity and exact thinking" - available on youtube)
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 3 weeks ago
All men cannot receive this saying,...

All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.

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19:11-12 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
5 months 6 days ago
The Apostle Paul wants us to...

The Apostle Paul wants us to work with our hands in order to share with the needy (Ephesians 5:28). Notice that he could have said that we should work to support ourselves. But Paul says that we work to give to those in need. This is why caring for our body is also a Christian work. If the body is healthy and fit, we are able to work and save money that can be used to help those in need.

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p. 80
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1 month 3 weeks ago
A noble person attracts noble people,...

A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.

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Torquato Tasso, Act I, sc. i
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
1 month 2 weeks ago
The interventionists do not approach the...

The interventionists do not approach the study of economic matters with scientific disinterestedness. Most of them are driven by an envious resentment against those whose incomes are larger than their own. This bias makes it impossible for them to see things as they really are. For them the main thing is not to improve the conditions of the masses, but to harm the entrepreneurs and capitalists even if this policy victimizes the immense majority of the people.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
2 months 3 weeks ago
There is a sort of dead-alive,...

There is a sort of dead-alive, hackneyed people about, who are scarcely conscious of living except in the exercise of some conventional occupation. ... They have no curiosity; they cannot give themselves over to random provocations; they do not take pleasure in the exercise of their faculties for its own sake; and unless necessity lays about them with a stick, they will even stand still. It is no good speaking to such folk: they cannot be idle, their nature is not generous enough; and they pass those hours in a sort of coma, which are not dedicated to furious moiling in the gold-mill.

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An Apology for Idlers.
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 4 weeks ago
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee...

Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that, if eyes were made for seeing, Then beauty is its own excuse for Being.

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The Rhodora
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 3 weeks ago
I am no longer sure of...

I am no longer sure of anything. If I satiate my desires, I sin but I deliver myself from them; if I refuse to satisfy them, they infect the whole soul.

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Act 10, sc. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 3 weeks ago
At the very high speed of...

At the very high speed of living, everybody needs a new career and a new job and a totally new personality every ten years.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 4 weeks ago
The State is a collection of...

The State is a collection of officials, different for difference purposes, drawing comfortable incomes so long as the status quo is preserved. The only alteration they are likely to desire in the status quo is an increase of bureaucracy and the power of bureaucrats.

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Ch. 12: Free Thought and Official Propaganda
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 4 weeks ago
Each piece of money is a...

Each piece of money is a mere coin, or means of circulation, only so long as it actually circulates.

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Vol. I, Ch. 3, Section 2(c), pg. 145.
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
3 months 3 weeks ago
We know as little of a...

We know as little of a supreme being as of Matter. But there is as little doubt of the existence of a supreme being as of Matter. The world beyond is reality, and experiential fact. We only don't understand it.

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Letter to Morton Kelsey (1958) as quoted by Morton Kelsey, Myth, History & Faith: The Mysteries of Christian Myth & Imagination (1974) Ch.VIII
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months 4 weeks ago
What is called politics is comparatively...

What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial and inhuman, that, practically, I have never fairly recognized that it concerns me at all. The newspapers, I perceive, devote some of their columns specially to politics or government without charge; and this, one would say, is all that saves it; but, as I love literature, and, to some extent, the truth also, I never read those columns at any rate. I do not wish to blunt my sense of right so much.

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p. 494
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
4 weeks ago
I regret that I am now...

I regret that I am now to die in the belief, that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self- government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be, that I live not to weep over it. If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away, against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by union than by scission, they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves, and of treason against the hopes of the world. To yourself, as the faithful advocate of the Union, I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect.

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Letter to John Holmes
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 2 weeks ago
In looking at this wreck of...

In looking at this wreck of Governments in all European countries, there is one consideration that suggests itself, sadly elucidative of our modern epoch. These Governments, we may be well assured, have gone to anarchy for this one reason inclusive of every other whatsoever, That they were not wise enough; that the spiritual talent embarked in them, the virtue, heroism, intellect, or by whatever other synonyms we designate it, was not adequate,-probably had long been inadequate, and so in its dim helplessness had suffered, or perhaps invited falsity to introduce itself; had suffered injustices, and solecisms, and contradictions of the Divine Fact, to accumulate in more than tolerable measure; whereupon said Governments were overset, and declared before all creatures to be too false.

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Philosophical Maxims
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
2 months 1 week ago
Even if I set out to...

Even if I set out to make a film about a fillet of sole, it would be about me.

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On the autobiographical nature of his films, in The Atlantic
Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
5 months 6 days ago
Anyone who studies present and ancient...

Anyone who studies present and ancient affairs will easily see how in all cities and all peoples there still exist, and have always existed, the same desires and passions. Thus, it is an easy matter for him who carefully examines past events to foresee future events in a republic and to apply the remedies employed by the ancients, or, if old remedies cannot be found, to devise new ones based upon the similarity of the events. But since these matters are neglected or not understood by those who read, or, if understood, remain unknown to those who govern, the result is that the same problems always exist in every era.

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Book 1, Chapter 39
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
5 months 2 days ago
Hypothetical liberty is allowed to everyone...

Hypothetical liberty is allowed to everyone who is not a prisoner and in chains

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§ 8.23
Philosophical Maxims
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