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1 month 3 weeks ago

Every toiling Manchester, its smoke and soot all burnt, ought it not, among so many world-wide conquests, to have a hundred acres or so of free greenfield, with trees on it, conquered, for its little children to disport in; for its all-conquering workers to take a breath of twilight air in? You would say so! A willing Legislature could say so with effect. A willing Legislature could say very many things! And to whatsoever 'vested interest,' or such like, stood up, gainsaying merely, "I shall lose profits,"-the willing Legislature would answer, "Yes, but my sons and daughters will gain health, and life, and a soul."-

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5 months 5 days ago

It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.

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3 months 1 day ago

Language does for intelligence what the wheel does for the feet and the body. It enables them to move from thing to thing with greater ease and speed and ever less involvement.

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(p. 113)
2 months 2 weeks ago

Identical in the physical processes by which he originates-identical in the early stages of his formation-identical in the mode of his nutrition before and after birth, with the animals which lie immediately below him in the scale-Man, if his adult and perfect structure be compared with theirs, exhibits, as might be expected, a marvellous likeness of organization. He resembles them as they resemble one another-he differs from them as they differ from one another.-And, though these differences and resemblances cannot be weighed and measured, their value may be readily estimated; the scale or standard of judgment, touching that value, being afforded and expressed by the system of classification of animals now current among zoologists.

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Ch.2, p. 83
3 months 1 week ago

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.
3 months 4 weeks ago

Only what we have not accomplished and what we could not accomplish matters to us, so that what remains of a whole life is only what it will not have been.

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4 months ago

No moral system can rest solely on authority.

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Humanist Outlook (1968), p. 4.
5 months 3 days ago

God said, I am tired of kings, I suffer them no more; Up to my ear the morning brings The outrage of the poor.

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Boston Hymn, st. 2
1 month 3 weeks ago

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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6 months ago

Every rebellion implies some kind of unity.

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5 months 2 weeks ago

As the soul is the life of the body, so God is the life of the soul. As therefore the body perishes when the soul leaves it, so the soul dies when God departs from it.

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p. 277
3 months 2 weeks ago

The pursuit of mathematics is a divine madness of the human spirit.

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Ch. 2: "Mathematics as an Element in the History of Thought", p. 30
3 months 4 weeks ago

To be or not to be is not the question where transcendence is concerned. The statement of being's other, of the otherwise than being, claims to state a difference over and beyond that which separates being from nothingness - the very difference of the beyond, the difference of transcendence.

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Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence (1974) Chapter I, Section 1.
5 months 1 week ago

Furthermore, how will you endure the Romanists' terrible idolatries? It was not enough that they venerated the saints and praised God in them, but they actually made them into gods. They put that noble child, the mother Mary, right into the place of Christ. They fashioned Christ into a judge and thus devised a tyrant for anguished consciences, so that all comfort and confidence was transferred from Christ to Mary, and then everyone turned from Christ to his particular saint. Can anyone deny this? Is it not true?

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Luther's Works, 47:45; cf. also Anderson, Stafford & Burgess (1992), p. 29
3 months 3 days ago

Now about your family. Do you know that since your daughter came out everyone has been enraptured by her? They say she is amazingly beautiful.

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Bk. I, Ch. I
6 months 4 days ago

I do not know, my listener, what your crime, your guilt, your sins are, but surely we are all more or less of the guilt of loving only little. Take comfort, then, in these words just as I take comfort in them.

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1 month 3 days ago

Remember, then, that [scientific thought] is the guide of action; that the truth which it arrives at is not that which we can ideally contemplate without error, but that which we may act upon without fear; and you cannot fail to see that scientific thought is not an accompaniment or condition of human progress, but human progress itself. And for this reason the question what its characters are... is the question of all questions for the human race.

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p. 157.
1 month 2 days ago

The primary error of the advocates of land nationalization is in their confusion of equal rights with joint rights, and in their consequent failure to realize the nature and meaning of economic rent... In truth the right to the use of land is not a joint or common right, but an equal right; the joint or common right is to rent, in the economic sense of the term. Therefore it is not necessary for the state to take land, it is only necessary for it to take rent. This taking by the commonalty of what is of common right, would of itself secure equality in what is of equal right - for since the holding of land could be profitable only to the user, there would be no inducement for any one to hold land that he could not adequately use, and monopolization being ended no one who wanted to use land would have any difficulty in finding it.

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Part III : Recantation, Ch. XI Compensation
2 months 1 week ago

The point is that philosophy is seen to have come full circle, and to have exhausted itself.

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Chapter 5, Nietzsche's Styles, p. 95
4 months 2 weeks ago

All things are full of gods.

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As quoted in Aristotle, De Anima, 411a
3 months 4 weeks ago

Nothing is indefensible - from the absurdest proposition to the most monstrous crime.

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3 months 3 weeks ago

Avoid melancholy with all your might. It hurts the service of God more than sin. Satan takes less pleasure in sin than in a man's melancholy over having sinned again and so feeling that he is a slave to sin. Thus the Evil One has caught the poor soul in the net of despair.

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Rabbi Jaacob Yitzchak, p. 7
3 months 1 week ago

To sum up: we have seen that of the three notions of 'partial interpretation' discussed, each is either unsuitable for Carnap's purposes (starting with observation terms), or incompatible with a rather minimal scientific realism; and, in addition, the second notion depends upon gross and misleading changes in our use of language. Thus in none of these senses is 'a partially interpreted calculus in which only the observation terms are directly interpreted' an acceptable model for a scientific theory.

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"What theories are not"
2 months 3 weeks ago

One's language is a spiritual location. It houses your soul. If you were born in America all essential communication, your deepest conversations with yourself, will be in English. ... Your English is the principal instrument of your humanity.

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Part I, p. 27
3 months 4 weeks ago

The student of mathematics often finds it hard to throw off the uncomfortable feeling that his science, in the person of his pencil, surpasses him in intelligence,-an impression which the great Euler confessed he often could not get rid of. This feeling finds a sort of justification when we reflect that the majority of the ideas we deal with were conceived by others, often centuries ago. In a great measure it is really the intelligence of other people that confronts us in science.

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Mach, Ernst. p. 196: Mathematics seems possessed of intelligence
1 month 2 days ago

I am firmly convinced, as I have already said, that to effect any great social improvement, it is sympathy rather than self-interest, the sense of duty rather than the desire for self-advancement, that must be appealed to. Envy is akin to admiration, and it is the admiration that the rich and powerful excite which secures the perpetuation of aristocracies.

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Ch. 21 : Conclusion
2 months 3 weeks ago

What is imposed on us by birth and environment is what we are called upon to overcome.

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Part I, p. 28
5 months 2 days ago

Man is a useless passion.

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Part 4, Chapter 2, III
1 month 2 weeks ago

If one awakens in men the idea of freedom then the free men will incessantly go on to free themselves; if on the contrary, one only educates them, then they will at all times accommodate themselves to circumstance in the most highly educated and elegant manner and degenerate into subservient cringing souls.

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p. 23
1 month 2 weeks ago

It was a great deed to conquer Carthage, but a greater deed to conquer death.

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5 months 1 week ago

When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.

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Section 10 : Of Miracles Pt. 1
4 months 3 days ago

The recognition of the light of reality within the darkness of abstraction is a contradiction - both the affirmation and the negation of the real at one and the same time. The new philosophy, which thinks the concrete not in an abstract but a concrete way, which acknowledges the real in its reality - that is, in a way corresponding to the being of the real as true, which elevates it into the principle and object of philosophy - is consequently the truth of the Hegelian philosophy, indeed of modern philosophy as a whole.

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Part III, Section 31
3 months 1 day ago

The invention of printing did away with anonymity, fostering ideas of literary fame and the habit of considering intellectual effort as private property.

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(p. 122)
5 months 3 weeks ago

Sincerity becomes apparent. From being apparent, it becomes manifest. From being manifest, it becomes brilliant. Brilliant, it affects others. Affecting others, they are changed by it. Changed by it, they are transformed. It is only he who is possessed of the most complete sincerity that can exist under heaven, who can transform.

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5 months 2 weeks ago

Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider.

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1 month 1 day ago

Now the real fruits of human nature - the arts, sciences, great enterprises, lofty conceptions, manly virtues - are due especially to the state of war. In a word, we can say that blood is the manure of the plant we call genius.

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Chapter III, p. 29
1 month 3 days ago

All hypotheses respecting the manner in which the elements of inorganic bodies are arranged in space, must be constructed with regard to the general facts of crystallization.

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3 months 1 week ago

In conclusion, then, no satisfactory interpretation of quantum mechanics exists today. The questions posed by the confrontation between the Copenhagen interpretation and the hidden variable theorists go to the very foundations of microphysics, but the answers given by hidden variable theorists and Copenhagenists are alike unsatisfactory. Human curiosity will not rest until those questions are answered, but whether they will be answered by conceptual innovations within the framework of the present theory or only within the framework of an as yet unforeseen theory is unknown. The first step toward answering them has been attempted here. It is the modest but essential step of becoming clear on the nature and magnitude of the difficulties.

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A philosopher looks at quantum mechanics
5 months 2 days ago

Monsieur ... I do not believe in God; his existence has been disproved by Science. But in the concentration camp, I learned to believe in men.

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1 month 3 weeks ago

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
3 months 1 week ago

Instead of gambling on the eternal impossibility of the revolution and on the fascist return of a war-machine in general, why not think that a new type of revolution is in the course of becoming possible, and that all kinds of mutating, living machines conduct wars, are combined and trace out a plane of consistence which undermines the plane of organization of the World and the States?

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from Dialogues with Claire Parnet, p. 147 [emphasis in original].
5 months 2 days ago

Kant ... discovered "the scandal of reason," that is the fact that our mind is not capable of certain and verifiable knowledge regarding matters and questions that it nevertheless cannot help thinking about.

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p. 14
3 months 2 weeks ago

Christianity is most admirably adapted to the training of slaves, to the perpetuation of a slave society; in short, to the very conditions confronting us to-day.... The rulers of the earth have realized long ago what potent poison inheres in the Christian religion. That is the reason they foster it; that is why they leave nothing undone to instill it into the blood of the people. They know only too well that the subtleness of the Christian teachings is a more powerful protection against rebellion and discontent than the club or the gun.

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5 months 1 week ago

Above all, every relation must be considered as suspicious, which depends in any degree upon religion, as the prodigies of Livy: And no less so, everything that is to be found in the writers of natural magic or alchemy, or such authors, who seem, all of them, to have an unconquerable appetite for falsehood and fable.

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Aphorism 29
5 months 5 days ago

To this I answer: That force is to be opposed to nothing, but to unjust and unlawful force. Whoever makes any opposition in any other case, draws on himself a just condemnation, both from God and man...

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Second Treatise of Government, Ch. XVIII, sec. 204
1 month 1 week ago

I am absolutely prepared to talk about the spiritual life of an electronic computer: to state that it is reflecting or is in a bad mood... The question whether the machine really feels or ponders, or whether it merely looks as though it did, is of course absolutely meaningingless.

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As quoted in a letter written from J. Kalckar to John A. Wheeler dated June 10, 1977, which appears in Wheeler's "Law Without Law," pg 207.
1 month 3 weeks ago

"Do the Duty which lies nearest thee," which thou knowest to be a Duty! Thy second Duty will already have become clearer.

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Bk. II, ch. 9.
6 months 1 day ago

Nonsense. You are a military man and should know better. If there is one science into which man has probed continuously and successfully, it is that of military technology. No potential weapon would remain unrealized for ten thousand years.

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