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C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 4 days ago
The wraith of Sigmund said. "You...

The wraith of Sigmund said. "You know what this is, I suppose. Religious melancholia. Stop while there is time. If you dive, you dive into insanity."

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Pilgrim's Regress 168
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
2 months 1 week ago
Here then we may learn the...

Here then we may learn the fallacy of the remark... that any particular state is weak, though fertile, populous, and well cultivated, merely because it wants money. It appears that the want of money can never injure any state within itself: For men and commodities are the real strength of any community. It is the simple manner of living which here hurts the public, by confining the gold and silver to few hands, and preventing its universal diffusion and circulation. On the contrary, industry and refinements of all kinds incorporate it with the whole state, however small its quantity may be: They digest it into every vein, so to speak; and make it enter into every transaction and contract.

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Of Money (1752) as quoted in David Hume: Writings on Economics (1955, 1970) ed., Eugene Rotwein, p. 45.
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
1 month 4 weeks ago
We are aware of all the...

We are aware of all the inconveniences of prison, and that it is dangerous when it is not useless. And yet one cannot 'see' how to replace it. It is the detestable solution, which one seems unable to do without.

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Part Four, Complete and austere institutions
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 1 day ago
I was walking late one night...

I was walking late one night along a tree-lined path; a chestnut fell at my feet. The noise it made as it burst, the resonance it provoked in me, and an upheaval out of all proportion to this insignificant event thrust me into miracle, into the rapture of the definitive, as if there were no more questions - only answers. I was drunk on a thousand unexpected discoveries, none of which I could make use of. This is how I nearly reached the Supreme. But instead I went on with my walk.

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Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 day ago
Even the constantly reiterated insistence that...

Even the constantly reiterated insistence that we are miserable offenders, born in sin, is a kind of inverted arrogance: such vanity, to presume that our moral conduct has some sort of cosmic significance, as though the Creator of the Universe wouldn't have better things to do than tot up our black marks and our brownie points. The universe is all concerned with me. Is that not the arrogance that passeth all understanding? The Intellectual and Moral Courage of Atheism

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Originally from 2007; quotes are from the slightly revised 2019 version on the website
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
3 weeks 5 days ago
We cannot grasp any idea, any...

We cannot grasp any idea, any organ of meditation, we cannot possess it in full force, until we have felt and sensed it, as much so as if it were an odor or a color.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 weeks 5 days ago
Our habitual experience is a complex...

Our habitual experience is a complex of failure and success in the enterprise of interpretation. If we desire a record of uninterpreted experience, we must ask a stone to record its autobiography.

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Pt. I, ch. 1, sec. 6.
Philosophical Maxims
Montesquieu
Montesquieu
3 weeks 1 day ago
The Spirit of the Law] became...

The Spirit of the Laws became the nobleman's Bible all over Europe.

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Catherine Behrens, The Ancien Régime (1967), p. 78
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 5 days ago
It goes without saying that the...

It goes without saying that the normal durability of fixed capital is calculated on the supposition that all the conditions under which it can perform its functions normally during that time are fulfilled, just as we assume, in placing a mans life at 30 years on the average,that he will wash himself.

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Volume II, Ch. VIII, p. 176-177.
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
3 weeks 6 days ago
The concept of freedom, as the...

The concept of freedom, as the Philosophy of Right has shown, follows the pattern of free ownership. As a result, the history of the world that Hegel looks out upon exalts and enshrines the history of the middle-class, which based itself on this pattern. There is a stark truth in Hegel's strangely certain announcement that history has reached its end. But it announces the funeral of a class, not of history.

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P. 227
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
2 months ago
What is peddled about nowadays as...

What is peddled about nowadays as philosophy, especially that of N.S. [National Socialism], but has nothing to do with the inner truth and greatness of that movement [namely the encounter between global technology and modern humanity] is nothing but fishing in that troubled sea of values and totalities.

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Introduction to Metaphysics (1953) - a publication of lectures of 1935.
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
1 month 5 days ago
Germany is now a field of...

Germany is now a field of cadavers, soon she will be a paradise.

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Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
2 days ago
Fortune is not satisfied with inflicting...

Fortune is not satisfied with inflicting one calamity.

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Maxim 274
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 5 days ago
What potent blood hath modest May!...

What potent blood hath modest May!

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May-Day
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
2 months 2 weeks ago
Show that you know this only

Show that you know this only, how you may never either fail to get what you desire or fall into what you avoid.

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Book II, ch. 1, 37
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
2 months 2 weeks ago
Logic has borrowed, perhaps, the rules...

Logic has borrowed, perhaps, the rules of geometry, without comprehending their force... it does not thence follow that they have entered into the spirit of geometry, and I should be greatly averse... to placing them on a level with that science that teaches the true method of directing reason.

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Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
2 weeks 3 days ago
If a person loves only one...

If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to all others, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks 6 days ago
Love, a tacit agreement...
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Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
2 weeks 4 days ago
It is the fallacy of all...

It is the fallacy of all intellectuals to believe that intellect can grasp life. It cannot, because it works in terms of symbols and language. There is another factor involved: consciousness. If the flame of consciousness is low, a symbol has no power to evoke reality, and intellect is helpless.

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p. 112
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 3 days ago
I have no faith in precision:...

I have no faith in precision: ...simplicity and clarity are values in themselves, but not... [of] precision or exactness...

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
1 month ago
Since the management of industry by...

Since the management of industry by individuals necessarily implies private property, and since competition is in reality merely the manner and form in which the control of industry by private property owners expresses itself, it follows that private property cannot be separated from competition and the individual management of industry. Private property must, therefore, be abolished and in its place must come the common utilization of all instruments of production and the distribution of all products according to common agreement - in a word, what is called the communal ownership of goods.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
1 month 5 days ago
Time: That which man is always...

Time: That which man is always trying to kill, but which ends in killing him.

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Definitions, as quoted in The Dictionary of Essential Quotations (1983) by Kevin Goldstein-Jackson, p. 154
Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
2 weeks 6 days ago
The metaphysical apologia at least betrayed...

The metaphysical apologia at least betrayed the injustice of the established order through the incongruence of concept and reality. The impartiality of scientific language deprived what was powerless of the strength to make itself heard and merely provided the existing order with a neutral sign for itself. Such neutrality is more metaphysical than metaphysics.

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E. Jephcott, trans., p. 17
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
2 months 5 days ago
Pragmatism, on the other hand, asks...

Pragmatism, on the other hand, asks its usual question. "Grant an idea or belief to be true," it says, "what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone's actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth's cash-value in experiential terms?"

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Lecture VI, Pragmatism's Conception of Truth
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
1 week ago
Such would be the successive phases...

Such would be the successive phases of the image:it is the reflection of a profound reality;it masks and denatures a profound reality;it masks the absence of a profound reality;it has no relation to any reality whatsoever: it is its own pure simulacrum.In the first case, the image is a good appearance-representation is of the sacramental order. In the second, it is an evil appearance-it is of the order of maleficence. In the third, it plays at being an appearance-it is of the order of sorcery. In the fourth, it is no longer of the order of appearances, but of simulation.

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Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
1 month 3 weeks ago
After the battle in Pharsalia, when...

After the battle in Pharsalia, when Pompey was fled, one Nonius said they had seven eagles left still, and advised to try what they would do. "Your advice," said Cicero, "were good if we were to fight jackdaws."

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Cicero
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 weeks 1 day ago
Little can be hoped for from...

Little can be hoped for from a ruler... who has not at some time or other been preoccupied, even if only confusedly, with the first beginning and ultimate end of all things, and above all of man, with the "why" of his origin and the "wherefore" of his destiny.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
1 month 5 days ago
The life of the wealthy is...

The life of the wealthy is one long Sunday.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 days ago
The percept takes priority of the...

The percept takes priority of the concept.

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Letter to Edward T. Hall, 1971, Letters of Marshall McLuhan, p. 397
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
2 months 3 weeks ago
It is soft, smooth and shining

It is soft, smooth and shining like intelligence. Its edges seem sharp but do not cut like justice. It hangs down to the ground like humility. When struck, it gives a clear, ringing sound like music. The strains in it are not hidden and add to its beauty like truthfulness.' What imagination! Confucius extolled Jade's virtues this way.

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Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
2 months 3 weeks ago
This happy state can only be...

This happy state can only be obtained by a prudent care of the body, and a steady government of the mind. The diseases of the body are to be prevented by temperance, or cured by medicine, or rendered tolerable by patience.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 1 week ago
One may be humble out of...

One may be humble out of pride.

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Book II, Ch. 17. Of Presumption
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
2 months 2 weeks ago
Custom renders love…

Custom renders love attractive; for that which is struck by oft-repeated blows however lightly, yet after long course of time is overpowered and gives way. See you not too that drops of water falling on rocks after long course of time scoop a hole through these rocks?

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Book IV, lines 1283-1287 (tr. Munro)
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
3 weeks 6 days ago
Give an inch, he'll take an...

Give an inch, he'll take an ell.

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Liberty and Necessity (no. 111)
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
2 weeks 4 days ago
Upper middle-class upbringing has rooted out...

Upper middle-class upbringing has rooted out any element of what might appear to be self-assertion or egoism; good manners is to be like everyone else. So the male of the species becomes accustomed to suppress any stirring of impatience or originality. Shaw once said you can't learn to skate without making a fool of yourself; the British middle-class attitude seems to be that, in that case, you hadn't better skate at all. The result seems to be considerably more oppressive than being brought up in a Jewish ghetto or a west side slum.

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p. 112, An integrity born of hope: Notes on Christopher Isherwood
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
3 weeks 4 days ago
The metaphysical apologia at least betrayed...

The metaphysical apologia at least betrayed the injustice of the established order through the incongruence of concept and reality. The impartiality of scientific language deprived what was powerless of the strength to make itself heard and merely provided the existing order with a neutral sign for itself. Such neutrality is more metaphysical than metaphysics.

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E. Jephcott, trans., p. 17.
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 2 days ago
Science doesn't purvey absolute truth. Science...

Science doesn't purvey absolute truth. Science is a mechanism. It's a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature. It's a system for testing your thoughts against the universe and seeing whether they match. And this works, not just for the ordinary aspects of science, but for all of life. I should think people would want to know that what they know is truly what the universe is like, or at least as close as they can get to it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 6 days ago
I dislike Communism because it is...

I dislike Communism because it is undemocratic, and capitalism because it favors exploitation.

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Unarmed Victory (1963), p. 14
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 1 week ago
There is no man....

There is no man so good that if he placed all his actions and thoughts under the scrutiny of the laws, he would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.

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Ch. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 weeks 6 days ago
Moses because of the hardness of...

Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.

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19:8-9 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
1 month 3 weeks ago
When you wish to instruct…

When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men's minds may take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.

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Lines 335-337; Edward Charles Wickham translation
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 4 days ago
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely...

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.

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"The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment" (1949), p. 292 Similar statements were included in "A Reply to Professor Haldane" (1946) (see above), published posthumously.
Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
2 months 1 week ago
We feel and know….

We feel and know that we are eternal.

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Part V, Prop. XXIII, Scholium
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
2 months 1 week ago
If there were only one religion...

If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two they would cut each other's throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness.

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Letters on England, letter 6, "On the Presbyterians" Trans. Leonard Tancock (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1980): p. 41, published first in English in 1733.
Philosophical Maxims
Empedocles
Empedocles
1 month 3 weeks ago
Nothing of the All…

Nothing of the All is either empty or superfluous.

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fr. 13
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 5 days ago
An increase in the productivity of...

An increase in the productivity of labour means nothing more than that the same capital creates the same value with less labour, or that less labour creates the same product with more capital.

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Notebook IV, The Chapter on Capital, p. 308.
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
1 month 1 week ago
The French are ... the most...

The French are ... the most brilliant and the most dangerous nation of Europe, and the one that is surest to inspire admiration, hatred, terror, or pity, but never indifference.

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p. 245
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 weeks 1 day ago
Reason perhaps teaches certain bourgeois virtues,...

Reason perhaps teaches certain bourgeois virtues, but it does not make either heroes or saints.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 1 week ago
God never sends evils…

God never sends evils.

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Ch. 12
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
1 month 2 days ago
The poem of the understanding is...

The poem of the understanding is philosophy.

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"Logological Fragments," Philosophical Writings, M. Stolijar, trans. (Albany: 1997) #24
Philosophical Maxims
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