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Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 2 weeks ago
In all affairs - love, religion,...

In all affairs - love, religion, politics, or business - it's a healthy idea, now and then, to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

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As quoted in The Reader's Digest, Vol. 37 (1940), p. 90; no specific source given.
Philosophical Maxims
Max Scheler
Max Scheler
1 month 5 days ago
Ressentiment is always to some degree...

Ressentiment is always to some degree a determinant of the romantic type of mind. At least this is so when the romantic nostalgia for some past era (Hellas, the Middle Ages, etc.) is not primarily based on the values of that period, but on the wish to escape from the present. Then all praise of the "past" has the implied purpose of downgrading present-day reality.

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L. Coser, trans. (1973), p. 68
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 2 weeks ago
A white spot is on the...

A white spot is on the horizon. There it is. A terrible storm is brewing. But no one sees the white spot or has any inkling of what it might mean. But no (this would not be the most terrible situation either), no, there is one person who sees it and knows what it means-but he is a passenger. He has no authority on the ship, can take no action. ... The fact that in Christendom there is visible on the horizon a white speck which means that a storm is threatening-this I knew; but, alas, I was an am only a passenger.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
2 months 3 weeks ago
I know God only as he...

I know God only as he became human, so shall I have him in no other way.

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Das Marburger religionsgesprach 1529: Versuch einer Rekonstruction (Leipzig, 1929), p. 27; also LW 38, 3-90
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
3 months 2 weeks ago
Forgetting our intentions is the most...
Forgetting our intentions is the most frequent of all acts of stupidity.
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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
1 week 3 days ago
Wherever a man is, there will...

Wherever a man is, there will be a lie.

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Episodes in the Story of a Mine.
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 weeks ago
You worldly-minded people are most unfortunate!...

You worldly-minded people are most unfortunate! You are surrounded with sorrows and troubles overhead and underfoot and to the right and to the left, and you are enigmas even to yourselves.

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p. 37
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
1 month 2 weeks ago
The power of the people and...

The power of the people and the power of reason are one.

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Act III.
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 months 2 weeks ago
Several excuses are always less convincing...

Several excuses are always less convincing than one.

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Ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 week 5 days ago
The bow too tensely strung is...

The bow too tensely strung is easily broken.

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Maxim 388
Philosophical Maxims
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
2 months 4 days ago
Once he saw the officials of...

Once he saw the officials of a temple leading away some one who had stolen a bowl belonging to the treasurers, and said, "The great thieves are leading away the little thief."

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Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 45
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
Just now
If some great Power would agree...

If some great Power would agree to make me always think what is true and do what is right, on condition of being turned into a sort of clock and wound up every morning before I got out of bed, I should instantly close with the offer. The only freedom I care about is the freedom to do right; the freedom to do wrong I am ready to part with on the cheapest terms to any one who will take it of me.

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"On Descartes' Discourse touching the method of using one's reason rightly and of seeking scientific truth"
Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
1 month 1 week ago
It is justice, not charity, that...

It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.

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Ch. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
2 months 1 week ago
I believe that...

I believe that political power also exercises itself through the mediation of a certain number of institutions that seem to have nothing in common with political power, that have the appearance of being independent, but are not.

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Debate with Noam Chomsky, École Supérieure de Technologie à Eindhoven, November 1971
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks 3 days ago
So that is what...
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Main Content / General
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
1 month 1 week ago
Now, let there be an indefinite...

Now, let there be an indefinite succession of these inferential acts of comparative perception; and it is plain that the last moment will contain objectively the whole series. Let there be, not merely an indefinite succession, but a continuous flow of inference through a finite time; and the result will be a mediate objective consciousness of the whole time in the last moment. In this last moment, the whole series will be recognized, or known as known before.

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Philosophical Maxims
Judith Butler
Judith Butler
2 weeks 2 days ago
The ethical stand of nonviolence has...

The ethical stand of nonviolence has to be linked to a commitment to radical equality. And more specifically, the practice of nonviolence requires an opposition to biopolitical forms of racism and war logics that regularly distinguish lives worth safeguarding from those that are not-populations conceived as collateral damage, or as obstructions to policy and military aims.

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p. 62
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
2 months 2 weeks ago
To be independent of public opinion...

To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great or rational whether in life or in science. Great achievement is assured, however, of subsequent recognition and grateful acceptance by public opinion, which in due course will make it one of its own prejudices.

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Sect. 318, as translated by T. M. Knox,, 1952
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
1 month ago
Moreover, nothing is so rare as...

Moreover, nothing is so rare as to see misfortune fairly portrayed; the tendency is either to treat the unfortunate person as though catastrophe were his natural vocation, or to ignore the effects of misfortune on the soul, to assume, that is, that the soul can suffer and remain unmarked by it, can fail, in fact, to be recast in misfortune's image.

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p. 193
Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
2 months 1 week ago
The need of black conservatives to...

The need of black conservatives to gain the respect of their white peers deeply shapes certain elements of their conservatism. In this regard, they simply want what most people want, to be judged by the quality of their skills, not by the color of their skin. But the black conservatives overlook the fact that affirmative action policies were political responses to the pervasive refusal of most white Americans to judge black Americans on that basis.

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(p52)
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
3 weeks 3 days ago
There were honest people long before...

There were honest people long before there were Christians and there are, God be praised, still honest people where there are no Christians. It could therefore easily be possible that people are Christians because true Christianity corresponds to what they would have been even if Christianity did not exist.

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L 16
Philosophical Maxims
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
2 weeks 2 days ago
The big advantage of being a...

The big advantage of being a chemistry major was the freedom to be tasteless.

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Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 month 3 weeks ago
If there be light, then there...

If there be light, then there is darkness; if cold, heat; if height, depth; if solid, fluid; if hard, soft; if rough, smooth; if calm, tempest; if prosperity, adversity; if life, death.

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As quoted in Bibliotheca Sacra and Theological Review by ? Vol. IV, No. 8 (1847) by Dallas Theological Seminary, p. 107
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 2 weeks ago
The individual produces an object and,...

The individual produces an object and, by consuming it, returns to himself, but returns as a productive and self reproducing individual. Consumption thus appears as a moment of production.

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Introduction, p. 14.
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
2 months 3 weeks ago
Out of special hatred for our...

Out of special hatred for our faith, the devil has sent some whores here to destroy our poor young men . . . such a syphilitic whore can poison ten, twenty, thirty or more of the children of good people, and thus is to be considered a murderer, or worse, as a poisoner.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 2 weeks ago
The worker's existence is thus brought...

The worker's existence is thus brought under the same condition as the existence of every other commodity. The worker has become a commodity, and it is a bit of luck for him if he can find a buyer, And the demand on which the life of the worker depends, depends on the whim of the rich and the capitalists.

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Wages of Labor, p. 20.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
Just now
Is Man so different from any...

Is Man so different from any of these Apes that he must form an order by himself? Or does he differ less from them than they differ from one another, and hence must take his place in the same order with them?

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Ch.2, p. 86
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 2 weeks ago
It is high time that Communists...

It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the spectre of Communism with a Manifesto of the party itself.

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Preamble, paragraph 3.
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 month 3 weeks ago
It is better wither to be...

It is better wither to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word; and do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in a few.

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As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tyron Edwards, p. 525
Philosophical Maxims
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham
2 months 2 weeks ago
All poetry is misrepresentation…

All poetry is misrepresentation.

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An Aphorism attributed to him according to John Stuart Mill (see Mill's essay On Bentham and Coleridge in Utilitarianism edt. by Mary Warnock p. 123).
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 weeks ago
The whole plan of our order...

The whole plan of our order should be based on the idea of preparing men of firmness and virtue bound together by unity of conviction-aiming at the punishment of vice and folly, and patronizing talent and virtue: raising worthy men from the dust and attaching them to our Brotherhood. Only then will our order have the power unobtrusively to bind the hands of the protectors of disorder and to control them without their being aware of it. In a word, we must found a form of government holding universal sway, which should be diffused over the whole world without destroying the bonds of citizenship, and beside which all other governments can continue in their customary course and do everything except what impedes the great aim of our order, which is to obtain for virtue the victory over vice.

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Book VI, Chapter VII
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 3 weeks ago
Wonder is the foundation of all...

Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, research is the means of all learning, and ignorance is the end.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 1 week ago
His business is here, it is...

His business is here, it is here that he is despised and vilified, it is here that he must carry out his undertaking.

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p. 67
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
4 weeks 1 day ago
Familiar things happen, and mankind does...

Familiar things happen, and mankind does not bother about them. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.

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Ch. 1: "The Origins of Modern Science", p. 6
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
3 months 1 week ago
They despised everything but virtue, caring...

They despised everything but virtue, caring little for their present state of life, and thinking lightly of the possession of gold and other property, which seemed only a burden to them; neither were they intoxicated by luxury; nor did wealth deprive them of their self-control; but they were sober, and saw clearly that all these goods are increased by virtue and friendship with one another, whereas by too great regard and respect for them, they are lost and friendship with them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard
1 month 1 week ago
I am a dreamer of words,...

I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the word begin to move around. Stressed accents begin to invert. The word abandons its meaning like an overload which is too heavy and prevents dreaming. Then words take on other meanings as if they had the right to be young. And the words wander away, looking in the nooks and crannies of vocabulary for new company, bad company.

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Introduction, sect. 6
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 2 weeks ago
The acts of France were acts...

The acts of France were acts of hostility to this country; her whole system, every speech, every decree, every act, bespoke an intention preclusive of accommodation. No man, he would venture to say, had a more lively sense of the importance of the question before the House, or of the evils of war, than himself. A war with France, under such circumstances as now governed her conduct, must be terrible, but peace much more so. A nation that had abandoned all its valuable distinctions, arts, sciences, religion, law order, every thing but the sword, was most formidable and dreadful to all nations composed of citizens who only used soldiers as a defence; as such, France should be resisted with spirit and temper, without fear or scruple.

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Speech in the House of Commons upon the outbreak of war with France (12 February 1793)
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 2 weeks ago
To those who inquire as to...

To those who inquire as to the purpose of mathematics, the usual answer will be that it facilitates the making of machines, the travelling from place to place, and the victory over foreign nations, whether in war or commerce. ... The reasoning faculty itself is generally conceived, by those who urge its cultivation, as merely a means for the avoidance of pitfalls and a help in the discovery of rules for the guidance of practical life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Averroes
Averroes
3 months 3 days ago
Praise be to God with all...

Praise be to God with all due praise, and a prayer for Muhammad His chosen servant and apostle. The purpose of this treatise is to examine, from the standpoint of the study of the Law, whether the study of philosophy and logic is allowed by the Law, or prohibited, or commanded either by way of recommendation or as obligatory.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
3 months 2 weeks ago
If, then, in the sphere of...

If, then, in the sphere of action there is some one end which we desire for its own sake, and for the sake of which we desire every thing else; and if we do not choose every thing for the sake of something else, for this would go on without limit, and our desire would be idle and futile, it is clear that this must be the supreme good, and the best thing of all.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
2 months 2 weeks ago
Wit and good nature meeting in...

Wit and good nature meeting in a fair young lady as they do in you make the best resemblance of an angel that we know; and he that is blessed with the conversation and friendship of a person so extraordinary enjoys all that remains of paradise in this world.

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Letter to Mary Clarke (7 May 1682), quoted in Maurice Cranston, John Locke: A Biography (1957; 1985), p. 221
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 1 week ago
The absurd is the essential concept...

The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 1 week ago
How can I, who was not...

How can I, who was not able to retain my own past, hope to save that of another?

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Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
1 month 6 days ago
No work of art can be...

No work of art can be instantaneously perceived because there is the no opportunity for conservation and increase in tension, and hence none for that release and unfolding which gives volume to a work of art.

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p. 189
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
3 weeks 3 days ago
Every man has his moral backside...

Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered as long as possible with the trousers of decorum.

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B 12 Variant translation: Everyone has a moral backside, which he does not show except in case of need and which he covers as long as possible with the breeches of respectability.
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
2 months 2 weeks ago
Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much...

Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.

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Chapter IX, p. 117.
Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
2 months 1 week ago
The political triumph of Donald Trump...

The political triumph of Donald Trump is a symbol and symptom-not cause or origin-of our imperial meltdown. Trump is neither alien nor extraneous to American culture and history. In fact, he is as American as apple pie. Yet he is a sign of our spiritual bankruptcy-all spectacle and no substance, all narcissism and no empathy, all appetite and greed and no wisdom and maturity. Yet his triumph flows from the implosion of a Republican Party establishment beholden to big money, big military, and big scapegoating of vulnerable peoples of color, LGBTQ peoples, immigrants, Muslims, and women; from a Democratic Party establishment beholden to big money, big military, and the clever deployment of peoples of color, LGBTQ peoples, immigrants, Muslims, and women to hide and conceal the lies and crimes of neoliberal policies here and abroad; and from a corporate media establishment that aided and abetted Trump owing to high profits and revenues.

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2017 introduction
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
1 month 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
David Hume
David Hume
2 months 2 weeks ago
By liberty, then, we can only...

By liberty, then, we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will.

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§ 8.23
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 1 week ago
Capital punishment is the most premeditated...

Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated, can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date on which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not to be encountered in private life.

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Philosophical Maxims
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