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George Santayana
George Santayana
2 months 2 weeks ago
Miracles are propitious accidents, the natural...

Miracles are propitious accidents, the natural causes of which are too complicated to be readily understood.

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Philosophical Maxims
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Leibniz
3 months 4 weeks ago
Thus I may be said….

Thus it may be said that not only the soul, the mirror of an indestructible universe, is indestructible, but also the animal itself, though its mechanism may often perish in part and take off or put on an organic slough.

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La monadologie (77). Sometimes paraphrased as: The soul is the mirror of an indestructible universe.
Philosophical Maxims
Willard van Orman Quine
Willard van Orman Quine
2 months 1 week ago
Modern empiricism has been conditioned in...

Modern empiricism has been conditioned in large part by two dogmas. One is a belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded in meanings independently of matters of fact, and truths which are synthetic, or grounded in fact. The other dogma is reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience. Both dogmas, I shall argue, are ill-founded. One effect of abandoning them is, as we shall see, a blurring of the supposed boundary between speculative metaphysics and natural science. Another effect is a shift toward pragmatism.

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"Two dogmas of Empiricism"
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 3 weeks ago
When the evolutionary process shifts from...

When the evolutionary process shifts from biology to software technology the body becomes the old hardware environment. The human body is now a probe, a laboratory for experiments.

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(p. 180)
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
1 month 1 week ago
The method of scientific investigation is...

The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind.

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Our Knowledge of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 3 weeks ago
Friendship arises out of mere companionship...

Friendship arises out of mere companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, "What? You too? I thought I was the only one."

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
2 months 3 weeks ago
It is so by nature that...

It is so by nature that the plant will develop with regularity, that the animal will move purposefully, and that human beings will think. Why should I take exception to recognizing also the last as the expression of an original force of nature, as I do the first and the second?

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P. Preuss, trans. (1987), p. 11
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 week 3 days ago
Allow me, excellent Lucilius, to utter...

Allow me, excellent Lucilius, to utter a still bolder word: if any goods could be greater than others, I should prefer those which seem harsh to those which are mild and alluring, and should pronounce them greater. For it is more of an accomplishment to break one's way through difficulties than to keep joy within bounds.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 months 1 week ago
The consequences of a plethora of...

The consequences of a plethora of half-digested theoretical knowledge are deplorable.

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Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
2 months 3 weeks ago
All the evolution we know of...

All the evolution we know of proceeds from the vague to the definite.

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Vol. VI, par. 191
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 3 weeks ago
It is a waste of energy...

It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won't go. The difference is that you can compel your car to go to a garage, but you cannot compel Hitler to go to a psychiatrist.

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A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42 (1996), p. 544
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 3 weeks ago
A young man who wishes to...

A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere... God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.

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p. 191
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 months 1 week ago
The combination of these two facts...

The combination of these two facts - the longing in the depth of the heart for absolute good, and the power, though only latent, of directing attention and love to a reality beyond the world and of receiving good from it - constitutes a link which attaches every man without exception to that other reality. Whoever recognizes that reality recognizes also that link. Because of it, he holds every human being without any exception as something sacred to which he is bound to show respect. This is the only possible motive for universal respect towards all human beings. Whatever formulation of belief or disbelief a man may choose to make, if his heart inclines him to feel this respect, then he in fact also recognizes a reality other than this world's reality. Whoever in fact does not feel this respect is alien to that other reality also.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 3 weeks ago
Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do...

Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.

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Considerations by the Way
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
3 months 2 weeks 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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p. 168.
Philosophical Maxims
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham
3 months 4 weeks ago
It is the principle of antipathy...

It is the principle of antipathy which leads us to speak of offences as deserving punishment. It is the corresponding principle of sympathy which leads us to speak of certain actions as meriting reward. This word merit can only lead to passion and error. It is effects good or bad which we ought alone to consider.

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MSS 29, 32, University College Collection
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
You are forgiven everything provided you...

You are forgiven everything provided you have a trade, a subtitle to your name, a seal on your nothingness.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
1 month 4 weeks ago
In default of any other proof,...

In default of any other proof, the thumb would convince me of the existence of a God.

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Stanislas (1856)
Philosophical Maxims
Emperor Julian
Emperor Julian
4 days ago
But how many are the final...

But how many are the final causes of union, the most beautiful, which this deity contains within himself? The Sun, that is, Apollo, is "Leader of the Muses;" and inasmuch as he completes our life with good order, he produces in the world Æsculapius; for even before the world was, he had the latter by his side. But were one to discuss the numerous other qualities belonging to this god, he would never arrive to the end of them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 3 weeks ago
I like a church, I like...

I like a church, I like a cowl, I love a prophet of the soul, And on my heart monastic aisles Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles; Yet not for all his faith can see, Would I that cowled churchman be. Why should the vest on him allure, Which I could not on me endure?

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The Problem, st. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
Heroes abound at the dawn of...

Heroes abound at the dawn of civilizations, during pre-Homeric and Gothic epochs, when people, not having yet experienced spiritual torture, satisfy their thirst for renunciation through a derivative: heroism.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
1 month 4 weeks ago
1. Fidelity & Allegiance sworn to...

1. Fidelity & Allegiance sworn to the King is only such a fidelity and obedience as is due to him by the law of the land; for were that faith and allegiance more than what the law requires, we would swear ourselves slaves, and the King absolute; whereas, by the law, we are free men, notwithstanding those Oaths. 2. When, therefore, the obligation by the law to fidelity and allegiance ceases, that by the Oath also ceases...

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Letter to Dr. Covel Feb. 21, (1688-9) Thirteen Letters from Sir Isaac Newton to J. Covel, D.D.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
4 months 1 week ago
To become like God is the...

To become like God is the ultimate end of all.

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Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
3 months 2 weeks ago
Analytical philosophy was very interesting. It...

Analytical philosophy was very interesting. It always struck me as being very interesting and full of tremendous intellectual curiosities. It is wonderful to see the mind at work in such an intense manner, but, for me, it was still too far removed from my own issues.

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Interview in African-American Philosophers: 17 Conversations (1998) edited by George Yancy, p. 35
Philosophical Maxims
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
8 months 1 day ago
Fundamental principles

The source of totalitarianism is a dogmatic attachment to the official word: the lack of laughter, of ironic detachment. An excessive commitment to Good may in itself become the greatest Evil: real Evil is any kind of fanatical dogmatism, especially exerted in the name of supreme Good... Consider only Mozart's Don Giovanni at the end of the opera, when he is confronted with the following choice: if he confesses his sins, he can still achieve salvation; if he persists, he will be damned forever. From this viewpoint of the pleasure principle, the proper thing to do would be to renounce his past, but he does not, he persists in his Evil, although he knows that by persisting he will be damned forever. Paradoxically, with his final choice of Evil, he acquires the status of an ethical hero - that is, of someone who is guided by fundamental principles beyond the pleasure principle and not just by the search for pleasure or material gain.

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Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
4 months 4 days ago
War is sweet….

War is sweet to them that know it not.

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Though Erasmus quoted this proverb in Latin at the start of his essay Bellum [War], and it is sometimes attributed to him, it originates with the Greek poet Pindar
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
2 months 1 week ago
Pornography completes the deritualization of love.

Pornography completes the deritualization of love.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
1 month 1 week ago
The whole analogy of natural operations...

The whole analogy of natural operations furnishes so complete and crushing an argument against the intervention of any but what are termed secondary causes, in the production of all the phenomena of the universe; that, in view of the intimate relations between Man and the rest of the living world; and between the forces exerted by the latter and all other forces, I can see no excuse for doubting that all are co-ordinated terms of Nature's great progression, from the formless to the formed-from the inorganic to the organic-from blind force to conscious intellect and will.

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Ch.2, p. 128
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 3 weeks ago
Our conviction that the world is...

Our conviction that the world is meaningless is due in part to the fact (discussed in a later paragraph) that the philosophy of meaningless lends itself very effectively to furthering the ends of political and erotic passion; in part to a genuine intellectual error - the error of identifying the world of science, a world from which all meaning has deliberately been excluded, with ultimate reality.

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Ch. 14, p. 309 [2012 reprint]
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 4 weeks ago
When I endeavour to examine my...

When I endeavour to examine my own conduct, when I endeavour to pass sentence upon it, and either to approve or condemn it, it is evident that, in all such cases, I divide myself, as it were, into two persons; and that I, the examiner and judge, represent a different character from that other I, the person whose conduct is examined into and judged of.

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Chap. I.
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
2 months 1 week ago
By narcissism is meant ceasing to...

By narcissism is meant ceasing to have an authentic interest in the outside world but instead an intense attachment to oneself, to one's own group, clan, religion, nation, race, etc. - with consequent serious distortions of rational judgment. In general, the need for narcissistic satisfaction derives from the necessity to compensate for material and cultural poverty.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
2 months 2 weeks ago
Every great advance in science has...

Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.

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The Quest for Certainty (1929), Ch. XI
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Schlegel
Friedrich Schlegel
2 months 3 weeks ago
It cannot be denied that the...

It cannot be denied that the early Indians possessed knowledge of God. All their writings are replete with sentiments and expressions, noble, clear, severely grand, as deeply conceived in any human language in which men have spoken of their God.

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quoted in Knapp, Stephen Proof of Vedic Culture s Global Existence. Published byThe World Relief Network Detroit 2000. p. vii as quoted in Londhe, S. (2008)
Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
2 months 1 week ago
Es gibt kein richtiges Leben im...

Wrong life cannot be lived rightly.

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E. Jephcott, trans. (1974), § 18
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 5 days ago
For a truly....
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Main Content / General
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva
1 month 1 week ago
There is a strong affinity between...

There is a strong affinity between the forces of empire and a politics of hate that justifies policies of domination and exclusion. So long as people's attention is focused on fear and hatred of foreigners or members of a particular religious group, such as Muslims, they are distracted from organizing to deal with the system of institutional domination and exploitation that is the real source of their insecurity.

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Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
2 months 3 weeks ago
The first Man is the first...

The first Man is the first Spirit-seer; all appears to him as Spirit. What are children, but first men? The fresh gaze of the Child is richer in significance than the forecasting of the most indubitable Seer.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
2 months 2 weeks ago
Dialogue and monologue are silenced. Bundled...

Dialogue and monologue are silenced. Bundled together, men march without Thou and without I, those of the left who want to abolish memory, and those of the right who want to regulate it: hostile and separated hosts, they march into the common abyss.

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p. 33
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 3 weeks ago
The moral things I wish to...

The moral things I wish to say to future generations is very simple. I should say love is wise hatred is foolish. In this world which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other. We have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don't like. We can only live together in that way, and if we are to live together and not die together we must learn the kind of charity and kind of tolerance which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.

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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 week 3 days ago
What say you…

"What," say you, "are you giving me advice? Indeed, have you already advised yourself, already corrected your own faults? Is this the reason why you have leisure to reform other men?" No, I am not so shameless as to undertake to cure my fellow-men when I am ill myself. I am, however, discussing with you troubles which concern us both, and sharing the remedy with you, just as if we were lying ill in the same hospital.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 3 weeks ago
The rush to California, for instance,...

The rush to California, for instance, and the attitude, not merely of merchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so called, in relation to it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind. That so many are ready to live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others less lucky, without contributing any value to society!

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p. 487
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 3 weeks ago
The theory of Communism may be...

The theory of Communism may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.

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Section 2, paragraph 13.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
I do not forgive myself for...

I do not forgive myself for being born. It is as if, creeping into this world, I had profaned a mystery, betrayed some momentous pledge, committed a fault of nameless gravity. Yet in a less assured mood, birth seems a calamity I would be miserable not having known.

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Philosophical Maxims
Niels Bohr
Niels Bohr
3 days ago
Truth and clarity are complementary. As...

Truth and clarity are complementary.

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As quoted in Quantum Theory and the Flight from Realism : Philosophical Responses to Quantum Mechanics (2000) by Christopher Norris, p. 234
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 3 weeks ago
Do we call this the land...

Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from King George and continue the slaves of King Prejudice? What is it to be born free and not to live free? What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom? Is it a freedom to be slaves, or a freedom to be free, of which we boast? We are a nation of politicians, concerned about the outmost defences only of freedom. It is our children's children who may perchance be really free.

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p. 493
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 3 weeks ago
Unjust laws exist: shall we be...

Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?

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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 week 3 days ago
Let us greedily enjoy our friends,...

Let us greedily enjoy our friends, because we do not know how long this privilege will be ours.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
3 months 4 weeks ago
Does a man of sense run...

Does a man of sense run after every silly tale of hobgoblins or fairies, and canvass particularly the evidence? I never knew anyone, that examined and deliberated about nonsense who did not believe it before the end of his enquiries.

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Letters
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 months 1 week ago
One of the most exquisite pleasures...

One of the most exquisite pleasures of human love - to serve the loved one without his knowing it - is only possible, as regards the love of God, through atheism.

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Last Notebook (1942) p. 84
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
Society: an inferno of saviors!

Society: an inferno of saviors!

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Philosophical Maxims
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