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Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 6 days ago
A word, once dissected, no longer...

A word, once dissected, no longer signifies anything, is nothing. Like a body that, after an autopsy, is less than a corpse.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
3 months 1 day ago
You do not attain to knowledge...

You do not attain to knowledge by remaining on the shore and watching the foaming waves, you must make the venture and cast yourself in, you must swim, alert and with all your force, even if a moment comes when you think you are losing consciousness; in this way, and in no other, do you reach anthropological insight.

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p. 148
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 1 week ago
With despair, true optimism begins: the...

With despair, true optimism begins: the optimism of the man who expects nothing, who knows he has no rights and nothing coming to him, who rejoices in counting on himself alone and in acting alone for the good of all.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
1 month 3 weeks ago
I can assure you that there...

I can assure you that there is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life. You learn that which is of inestimable importance - that there are a great many people in the world who are just as clever as you are. You learn to put your trust, by and by, in an economy and frugality of the exercise of your powers, both moral and intellectual; and you very soon find out, if you have not found it out before, that patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.

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On Medical Education
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 1 week ago
In order to make myself recognized...

In order to make myself recognized by the Other, I must risk my own life. To risk one's life, in fact, is to reveal oneself as not-bound to the objective form or to any determined existence - as not-bound to life.

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p. 237, 1998 edition
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 1 week ago
Three o'clock is always too late...

Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.

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Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
5 months ago
Moderation, in the pursuit of honors...

Moderation, in the pursuit of honors or riches, is the only security against disappointment and vexation. A wise man, therefore, will prefer the simplicity of rustic life to the magnificence of courts.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
3 months 2 weeks ago
A little water makes a sea,...

A little water makes a sea, a small puff of wind a Tempest.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 months 1 week ago
Social and economic...
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Main Content / General
Voltaire
Voltaire
4 months 1 week ago
Nothing is so common…

Nothing is so common as to imitate one's enemies, and to use their weapons.

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"Oracles", 1770
Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
4 months 1 day ago
In the beginning there were two...

In the beginning there were two primal spirits,Twins spontaneously active,These are the Good and the Evil, in thought, and in word, and in deed.

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Ahunuvaiti Gatha; Yasna 30, 3.
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
4 months 2 weeks ago
If the material world rests upon...

If the material world rests upon a similar ideal world, this ideal world must rest upon some other; and so on, without end. It were better, therefore, never to look beyond the present material world. By supposing it to contain the principle of its order within itself, we really assert it to be God; and the sooner we arrive at that Divine Being, so much the better. When you go one step beyond the mundane system, you only excite an inquisitive humour which it is impossible ever to satisfy.

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Philo to Cleanthes, Part IV
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
4 months 2 weeks ago
But the other conception, namely the...

But the other conception, namely the infusion of the soul, it is piously and suitably believed, was without any sin, so that while the soul was being infused, she would at the same time be cleansed from original sin and adorned with the gifts of God to receive the holy soul thus infused. And thus, in the very moment in which she began to live, she was without all sin.

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Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works, English translation edited by J. Pelikan [Concordia: St. Louis], Vol. 4, 694
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 1 week ago
The governors of the world believe,...

The governors of the world believe, and have always believed, that virtue can only be taught by teaching falsehood, and that any man who knew the truth would be wicked. I disbelieve this, absolutely and entirely. I believe that love of truth is the basis of all real virtue, and that virtues based upon lies can only do harm.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee
1 month 3 weeks ago
I do not believe that civilizations...

I do not believe that civilizations have to die...Civilization is not an organism. It is a product of wills.

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In "Prophet of Hope & Fear" [Review of A Study of History, Vols. 7-10] TIME (18 October 1954) p. 108
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 1 day ago
Oceans of horse-hair, continents of parchment,...

Oceans of horse-hair, continents of parchment, and learned-sergeant eloquence, were it continued till the learned tongue wore itself small in the indefatigable learned mouth, cannot make unjust just.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 week ago
Why then dost thou choose to...

Why then dost thou choose to act in the same way? and why dost thou not leave these agitations which are foreign to nature, to those who cause them and those who are moved by them? And why art thou not altogether intent upon the right way of making use of things which happen to thee? for then thou wilt use them well, and they will be material for thee. Only attend to thyself, and resolve to be a good man in every act which thou doest; and remember...

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VII, 58
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
3 months 1 week ago
I think the devil doesn't exist,...

I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
1 month 2 weeks ago
It is easy to romanticise, say,...

It is easy to romanticise, say, tigers or lions and cats. We admire their magnificent beauty, strength and agility. But we would regard their notional human counterparts as wanton psychopaths of the worst kind.

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1.10 On the Misguided Romanticisation of Feline Psychopaths
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
3 months 2 days ago
Works of art express space as...

Works of art express space as opportunity for movement and action.

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p. 217
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 1 day ago
Wise command, wise obedience: the capability...

Wise command, wise obedience: the capability of these two is the net measure of culture, and human virtue, in every man; all good lies in the possession of these two capabilities; all evil, wretchedness and ill-success in the want of these.

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Philosophical Maxims
Montesquieu
Montesquieu
2 months 3 weeks ago
Life was given to me as...

Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.

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No. 76. (Usbek writing to Ibben)
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
2 months 3 weeks ago
Stories on digital platforms like Facebook...

Stories on digital platforms like Facebook or Instagram are not genuine stories. They have no narrative duration. Rather, they are just sequences of momentary impressions that do not tell us anything.

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Philosophical Maxims
B. F. Skinner
B. F. Skinner
1 month 6 days ago
I did not direct my life....

I did not direct my life. I didn't design it. I never made decisions. Things always came up and made them for me. That's what life is.

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As quoted in "Unpacking the Skinner Box : Revisiting B. F. Skinner through a Postformal Lens" by Dana Salter in The Praeger Handbook of Education and Psychology Vol. 4 (2008) edited by Joe L. Kincheloe and Raymond A. Horn, Ch. 99, p. 872
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months 2 weeks ago
I have remarked very clearly that...

I have remarked very clearly that I am often of one opinion when I am lying down and of another when I am standing up.

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F 73
Philosophical Maxims
Sydney Smith
Sydney Smith
3 weeks 4 days ago
The fact is that in order...

The fact is that in order to do any thing in this world worth doing, we must not stand shivering on the bank thinking of the cold and the danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.

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Lecture IX : On the Conduct of the Understanding
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 1 week ago
The most dangerous thing you can...

The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs. There is not one of them which will not make us into devils if we set it up as an absolute guide. You might think love of humanity in general was safe, but it is not. If you leave out justice you will find yourself breaking agreements and faking evidence in trials "for the sake of humanity", and become in the end a cruel and treacherous man.

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Book I, Chapter 2, "Some Objections"
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
5 months 1 week ago
What must be remembered in any...

What must be remembered in any case is that secret complicity that joins the logical and the everyday to the tragic.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 1 day ago
I knew Robert Burns, and I...

I knew Robert Burns, and I knew my father. Yet were you to ask me which had the greater natural faculty, I might perhaps actually pause before replying. Burns had an infinitely wider education, my father a far wholesomer. Besides, the one was a man of musical utterance; the other wholly a man of action, with speech subservient thereto. Never, of all the men I have seen, has one come personally in my way in whom the endowment from nature and the arena from fortune were so utterly out of all proportion. I have said this often, and partly know it. As a man of speculation - had culture ever unfolded him - he must have gone wild and desperate as Burns; hut he was a man of conduct, and work keeps all right. What strange shapable creatures we are!

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Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
4 months 2 weeks ago
My purpose is to explain…

My purpose is to explain, not the meaning of words, but the nature of things.

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Part III, Def. XX
Philosophical Maxims
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
2 weeks 4 days ago
All men and women have passions,...

All men and women have passions, natural desires and noble ambitions, and also a conscience; they have sex, hunger, fear, anger, and are subject to sickness, pain, suffering and death. Culture consists in bringing about the expression of these passions and desires in harmony.

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p. 20
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
4 months 1 week ago
"...the church of England, when she...

"...the church of England, when she baptizes any one, makes him not a Christian [...] the church of England is mistaken, and makes none but socinians Christians"

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279
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
5 months 1 week ago
A man who for a long...

A man who for a long time has gone around hiding a secret becomes mentally deranged. At this point one would imagine that his secret would have to come out, but despite his derangement his soul still sticks to its hideout, and those around him become even more convinced that the false story he told to deceive them is the truth. He is healed of his insanity, knows everything that has gone on, and thereby perceives that nothing has been betrayed. Was this gratifying to him or not; he might wish to have disposed of his secret in his madness; it seems as if there were a fate which forced him to remain in his secret and would not let him go away from it. Or was it for the best, was there a guardian spirit who helped him keep his secret.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
5 months 1 week ago
Probably, the most-often-repeated lesson in history...

Probably, the most-often-repeated lesson in history is that foreigners who are called in to help one side in a civil war take over for themselves. It is a lesson that seems never to be learned despite endless repetition.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 2 weeks ago
All of the days go toward...

All of the days go toward death and the last one arrives there.

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Ch. 20. Of the Force of Imagination
Philosophical Maxims
Max Stirner
Max Stirner
3 weeks 5 days ago
Yes, so it is that knowledge...

Yes, so it is that knowledge itself must die in order to blossom forth again in death as will; the freedom of thought, belief, and conscience, these wonderful flowers of three centuries will sink back into the lap of mother earth so that a new freedom, the freedom will, will be nourished with its most noble juices.

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p. 19
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 1 week ago
The degree of one's emotion varies...

The degree of one's emotion varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts - the less you know the hotter you get.

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Attributed to Russell in Distilled Wisdom (1964) by Alfred Armand Montapert, p. 145
Philosophical Maxims
Max Stirner
Max Stirner
3 weeks 5 days ago
If a concept lacks an essence,...

If a concept lacks an essence, nothing will ever be found that completely fits that concept. If you are lacking in the concept of human being, it will immediately expose that you are something individual, something that cannot be expressed by the term human being, thus, in every instance, an individual human being.

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Landstreicher, p. 16
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 months 1 week ago
What! all of us, Christians, not...

What! all of us, Christians, not only profess to love one another, but do actually live one common life; we whose social existence beats with one common pulse-we aid one another, learn from one another, draw ever closer to one another to our mutual happiness, and find in this closeness the whole meaning of life!-and to-morrow some crazy ruler will say some stupidity, and another will answer in the same spirit, and then I must go expose myself to being murdered, and murder men-who have done me no harm-and more than that, whom I love. And this is not a remote contingency, but the very thing we are all preparing for, which is not only probable, but an inevitable certainty.

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Chapter V, Contradiction Between our Life and our Christian Conscience
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 1 week ago
The gods sell anything to everybody...

The gods sell anything to everybody at a fair price.

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Quotation and Originality
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 months 2 weeks ago
In the United States, except for...

In the United States, except for slaves, servants and the destitute fed by townships, everyone has the vote and this is an indirect contributor to law-making. Anyone wishing to attack the law is thus reduced to adopting one of two obvious courses: they must either change the nation's opinion or trample its wishes under foot.

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Chapter XIV.
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
4 months ago
Education is an ornament for the...

Education is an ornament for the prosperous, a refuge for the unfortunate.

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Freeman (1948), p. 161
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 1 week ago
What do you want to do...

What do you want to do with the [Communist] Party? A racing stable? What good is it to sharpen a knife every day if you never use it for slicing? A party is never more than a means. There is only one objective: power.

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Hoederer to Hugo, Act 5, sc. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 1 week ago
In place of the bourgeois society,...

In place of the bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, shall we have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

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Section 2, paragraph 72 (last paragraph).
Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
4 months 2 weeks ago
Speaking generally, he holds dominion, to...

Speaking generally, he holds dominion, to whom are entrusted by common consent affairs of state - such as the laying down, interpretation, and abrogation of laws, the fortification of cities, deciding on war and peace, &c. But if this charge belong to a council, composed of the general multitude, then the dominion is called a democracy; if the council be composed of certain chosen persons, then it is an aristocracy ; and, if, lastly, the care of affairs of state, and, consequently, the dominion rest with one man, then it has the name of monarchy.

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Ch. 2, Of Natural Right
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 6 days ago
Someone who knows too much finds...

Someone who knows too much finds it hard not to lie.

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p. 64e
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 1 week ago
I was not the one to...

I was not the one to invent lies: they were created in a society divided by class and each of us inherited lies when we were born. It is not by refusing to lie that we will abolish lies: it is by eradicating class by any means necessary.

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Act 5, sc. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
5 months 1 week ago
Death induces the sensual person to...

Death induces the sensual person to say: Let us eat and drink, because tomorrow we shall die – but this is sensuality's cowardly lust for life, that contemptible order of things where one lives in order to eat and drink instead of eating and drinking in order to live.

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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
3 weeks 4 days ago
Kindly remember…

Kindly remember that he whom you call your slave sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself breathes, lives and dies. It is just as possible for you to see in him a free-born man as for him to see in you a slave.

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Line 10.
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
5 months 1 week ago
When you write a short story...

When you write a short story ... you had better know the ending first. The end of a story is only the end to the reader. To the writer, it's the beginning. If you don't know exactly where you're going every minute you're writing, you'll never get there or anywhere.

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Philosophical Maxims
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