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Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
3 months 2 weeks ago
All natural philosophers, who wished to...

All natural philosophers, who wished to proceed mathematically in their work, have hence invariably (although unknown to themselves) made use of metaphysical principles, and must make use of such, it matters not how energetically they may otherwise repudiate any claim of metaphysics on their science.

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Preface, Tr. Bax, 1883
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
3 months 2 weeks ago
People are often reproached because their...

People are often reproached because their desires are directed mainly to money and they are fonder of it than of anything else. Yet it is natural and even inevitable for them to love that which, as an untiring Proteus, is ready at any moment to convert itself into the particular object of our fickle desires and manifold needs. Thus every other blessing can satisfy only one desire and one need; for instance, food is good only to the hungry, wine only for the healthy, medicine for the sick, a fur coat for winter, women for youth, and so on. Consequently, all these are only ... relatively good. Money alone is the absolutely good thing because it meets not merely one need in concreto, but needs generally in abstracto.

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E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 347
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
3 months 1 week ago
What is more subjective is not...

What is more subjective is not necessarily more private. In general it is intersubjectively available. I assume that the intersubjective ideas of experience, of action, and of the self are in some sense public or common property. That is why the problems of mind and body, free will, and personal identity are not just problems about one's own case.

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"Subjective and Objective" (1979), p. 207.
Philosophical Maxims
Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin
2 months 1 week ago
Everything is what it is: liberty...

Everything is what it is: liberty is liberty, not equality or fairness or justice or culture, or human happiness or a quiet conscience.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
1 month 3 weeks ago
If we accept values as given...

If we accept values as given and consistent, if we postulate an objective description of the world as it really is, and if we assume that the decision maker's computational powers are unlimited, then two important consequences follow. First, we do not need to distinguish between the real world and the decision maker's perception of it: he or she perceives the world as it really is. Second, we can predict the choices that will be made by a rational decision maker entirely from our knowledge of the real world and without a knowledge of the decision maker's perceptions or modes of calculation. (We do, of course, have to know his or her utility function.)

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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
3 months 3 weeks ago
Look round the world: contemplate the...

Look round the world: contemplate the whole and every part of it: You will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions, to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy, which ravishes into admiration all men, who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance; of human design, thought, wisdom, and intelligence.

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Philo to Cleanthes, Part II
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 2 weeks ago
A character is never the author...

A character is never the author who created him. It is quite likely, however, that an author may be all his characters simultaneously.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 2 weeks ago
Each the herald is who wrote...

Each the herald is who wrote His rank, and quartered his own coat. There is no king nor sovereign state That can fix a hero's rate.

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Astræa
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 months 1 week ago
A religious symbol does not rest...

A religious symbol does not rest on any opinion. And error belongs only with opinion. One would like to say: This is what took place here; laugh, if you can.

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Ch. 7 : Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 123
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
3 months 2 weeks ago
Visions are a feeble resource, you...

Visions are a feeble resource, you will say, against great adversity! Oh Sir, these visions may possibly have more reality than all those apparent goods about which men make so much ado, for they never bring a true feeling of happiness to the soul, and those who possess them are equally forced to project themselves into the future for want of finding enjoyments that satisfy them, in the present.

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Second Dialogue; translated by Judith R. Bush, Christopher Kelly, Roger D. Masters
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 2 weeks ago
The best work is not what...

The best work is not what is most difficult for you; it is what you do best.

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Act 6, sc. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
3 months 3 weeks ago
Sacred and inspired divinity, the sabaoth...

Sacred and inspired divinity, the sabaoth and port of all men's labours and peregrinations.

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Book II
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 2 weeks ago
Man is the only....
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Main Content / General
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 week 1 day ago
Mahomet can work no miracles; he...

Mahomet can work no miracles; he often answers impatiently: I can work no miracles. I? "I am a Public Preacher;" appointed to preach this doctrine to all creatures. Yet the world, as we can see, had really from of old been all one great miracle to him. Look over the world, says he; is it not wonderful, the work of Allah; wholly "a sign to you," if your eyes were open!

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Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
3 months 1 week ago
One should emulate works and deeds...

One should emulate works and deeds of virtue, not arguments about it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
1 week 5 days ago
There is a left wing version...

There is a left wing version of this longing for community... because in a liberal society we never move as quickly as we should towards full equality, and therefore there are many marginalized groups who feel that the liberal society is... hypocritical, that it's promising an equality of recognition, and of rights, but it is not delivering... and therefore the very concept of liberal universalism is challenged in favor of a definition of rights that is tied to the specific groups.

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18:44
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 1 week ago
Because of your unbelief: for verily...

Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.

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17:20-21 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
3 months 3 weeks ago
My opinion concerning God differs widely...

My opinion concerning God differs widely from that which is ordinarily defended by modern Christians. For I hold that God is of all things the cause immanent, as the phrase is, not transient. I say that all things are in God and move in God, thus agreeing with Paul, and, perhaps, with all the ancient philosophers, though the phraseology may be different ; I will even venture to affirm that I agree with all the ancient Hebrews, in so far as one may judge from their traditions, though these are in many ways corrupted. The supposition of some, that I endeavour to prove in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus the unity of God and Nature (meaning by the latter a certain mass or corporeal matter), is wholly erroneous. As regards miracles, I am of opinion that the revelation of God can only be established by the wisdom of the doctrine, not by miracles, or in other words by ignorance.

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Letter 21 (73) to Henry Oldenburg , November
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 2 weeks ago
I can be twenty women, one...

I can be twenty women, one hundred, if that's what you want, all women. Ride with me behind you, I weigh nothing, your horse will not feel me. I want to be your whorehouse!

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Act 3, sc. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 2 weeks ago
Man is a rational animal -...

Man is a rational animal - so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favor of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three continents. Often paraphrased as "It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this."

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Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
3 months 2 weeks ago
Persecution of powerless or power-losing groups...

Persecution of powerless or power-losing groups may not be a very pleasant spectacle, but it does not spring from human meanness alone. What makes men obey or tolerate real power and, on the other hand, hate people who have wealth without power, is the rational instinct that power has a certain function and is of some general use. Even exploitation and oppression still make society work and establish some kind of order. Only wealth without power or aloofness without a policy are felt to be parasitical, useless, revolting, because such conditions cut all the threads which tie men together. Wealth which does not exploit lacks even the relationship which exists between exploiter and exploited; aloofness without policy does not imply even the minimum concern of the oppressor for the oppressed.

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Part 1, Ch. 1, § 1
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
3 months 2 weeks ago
Hitler never intended to defend 'the...

Hitler never intended to defend 'the West' against Bolshevism but always remained ready to join 'the Reds' for the destruction of the West, even in the middle of the struggle against Soviet Russia.

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Part 3, Ch. 10
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 2 weeks ago
Then I dreamed that one day...

Then I dreamed that one day there was nothing but milk for them and the jailer said as he put down the pipkin:'Our relations with the cow are not delicate-as you can easily see if you imagine eating any of her other secretions.' ... John said, 'Thank heavens! Now at last I know that you are talking nonsense. You are trying to pretend that unlike things are like. You are trying to make us think that milk is the same sort of thing as sweat or dung.' 'And pray, what difference is there except by custom?''Are you a liar or only a fool, that you see no difference between that which Nature casts out as refuse and that which she stores up as food?'

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Pilgrim's Regress 49
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Owen
Robert Owen
1 month 1 week ago
The advanced members of the medical...

The advanced members of the medical profession know that the health of society is not to be obtained or maintained by medicines; - that it is far better, far more easy and far wiser, to adopt substantive measures to prevent disease of body or mind, than to allow substantive measure to remain continually to generate causes to produce physical and mental disorders.

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3rd Part
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 2 weeks ago
[W]e only become what we are...

[W]e only become what we are by the radical and deep-seated refusal of that which others have made of us.

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Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
1 month 4 weeks ago
That man and woman have an...

That man and woman have an equality of duties and rights is accepted by woman even less than by man. Behind his destiny woman must annihilate herself, must be only his complement. A woman dedicates herself to the vocation of her husband; she fills up and performs the subordinate parts in it. But if she has any destiny, any vocation of her own, she must renounce it, in nine cases out of ten.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 2 weeks ago
Believe me, there is no such...

Believe me, there is no such thing as great suffering, great regret, great memory...Everything is forgotten, even great love.

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Philosophical Maxims
Paracelsus
Paracelsus
2 days ago
All is interrelated. Heaven and earth,...

All is interrelated. Heaven and earth, air and water. All are but one thing; not four, not two and not three, but one. Where they are not together, there is only an incomplete piece.

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Paracelsus - Collected Writings Vol. I (1926) edited by Bernhard Aschner, p. 110
Philosophical Maxims
Montesquieu
Montesquieu
2 months 4 days ago
And yet there is nothing so...

And yet there is nothing so badly imagined: nature seems to have provided, that the follies of men should be transient, but they by writing books render them permanent. A fool ought to content himself with having wearied those who lived with him: but he is for tormenting future generations; he is desirous that his folly should triumph over oblivion, which he ought to have enjoyed as well as his grave; he is desirous that posterity should be informed that he lived, and that it should be known for ever that he was a fool. Commonly paraphrased as "An author is a fool who, not content with having bored those who have lived with him, insists on boring future generations".

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No. 66. (Rica writing to * * *)
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 2 weeks ago
In any race between human numbers...

In any race between human numbers and natural resources, time is against us.

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Chapter 12 (p. 113)
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 2 weeks ago
It is in the social sphere,...

It is in the social sphere, in the realm of politics and economics, that the Will to Order becomes really dangerous.

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Chapter 3 (p. 22)
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
2 months 1 week ago
The transition from philosophy to the...

The transition from philosophy to the domain of state and society had been an intrinsic part of Hegel's system.

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P. 251
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 2 weeks ago
I think He made one law...

I think He made one law of that kind in order that there might be obedience. In all these other matters what you call obeying Him is but doing what seems good in your eyes also. Is love content with that? You do them, indeed, because they are His will, but not only because they are his will. Where can you taste the joy of obeying unless he bids you do something for which His bidding is the only reason?

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
2 months ago
That passivity was the essence of...

That passivity was the essence of the problem. The human being was intended to be passive only in a condition of fatigue, and not always then. Too much passivity of body produced surplus fat, short-windedness, indigestion: passivity of mind produced the same symptoms on the mental level. a feeling of spiritual dyspepsia. Since the average human being has no purposes that are not connected with the activities of keeping alive, the black room was bound to produce passivity, increasing dullness, a state in which the mind is at once awake and static, motionless, stagnant. This sense of dullness was nothing less than the collapse of the sense of reality and of values, the retreat into one's inner world.

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p. 72
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
2 months 1 week ago
The general fellowship of our human...

The general fellowship of our human situation has been rendered even more dubious than before, inasmuch as, though the old ties of caste have been loosened, a new restriction of the individual to some prescribed status in society is manifest. Less than ever, perhaps, is it possible for a man to transcend the limitations imposed by his social origins.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 2 weeks ago
Merely to come into the world...

Merely to come into the world the heir of a fortune is not to be born, but to be still-born, rather. To be supported by the charity of friends, or a government-pension, - provided you continue to breathe, - by whatever fine synonymes you describe these relations, is to go into the almshouse.

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p. 487
Philosophical Maxims
Sydney Smith
Sydney Smith
2 days ago
You remember Thurlow's answer to some...

You remember Thurlow's answer to some one complaining of the injustice of a company. "Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? they have neither a soul to lose, nor a body to kick."

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Vol. I, ch. 11, p. 428
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
2 months ago
books are only what we want...

books are only what we want them to be; rather, what we read into them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
1 week 4 days ago
Thought must never submit…

Thought must never submit, neither to a dogma, nor to a party, nor to a passion, nor to an interest, nor to a preconceived idea, nor to whatever it may be, save to the facts themselves, because, for thought, submission would mean ceasing to be.

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Speech, University of Brussels (19 November 1909), during the festival for the 75th anniversary of the university's foundation; published in Œuvres de Henri Poincaré (1956), p. 152
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 2 weeks ago
Speech structures the abyss of mental...

Speech structures the abyss of mental and acoustic space...it is a cosmic, invisible architecture of the human dark.

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(p. 13)
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
3 months 2 weeks ago
If you want good laws…

If you want good laws, burn those you have and make new ones.

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"Laws", 1765
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
3 months 2 weeks ago
In every province, the chief occupations,...

In every province, the chief occupations, in order of importance, are lovemaking, malicious gossip, and talking nonsense.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 2 weeks ago
There is no rule more invariable...

There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect.

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Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 254
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
1 month 2 weeks ago
Never would the humanities or psychoanalysis...

Never would the humanities or psychoanalysis have existed if it had been miraculously possible to reduce man to his "rational" behaviors.

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"The Animals: Territory and Metamorphoses," p. 132
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
3 days ago
War prosperity is like the prosperity...

War prosperity is like the prosperity that an earthquake or a plague brings.

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p 186
Philosophical Maxims
Étienne de La Boétie
Étienne de La Boétie
1 week 5 days ago
Resolve to serve no more….

Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.

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

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

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An Apology for Idlers.
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
2 months 2 weeks ago
The history of philosophical system is...

The history of philosophical system is the picture gallery of reason.

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Z. Hanfi, trans., in The Fiery Brook (1972), p. 68
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 2 weeks ago
There is wishful thinking in Hell...

There is wishful thinking in Hell as well as on Earth.

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Preface
Philosophical Maxims
Heraclitus
Heraclitus
4 months 1 week ago
Of Every One-Hundred Men, Ten shouldn't...

Of Every One-Hundred Men, Ten shouldn't even be there, Eighty are nothing but targets, Nine are real fighters... We are lucky to have them... They make the battle. Ah but the One, One of them is a Warrior... and He will bring the others back.

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Philosophical Maxims
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