Skip to main content

Main navigation

☰ ˟
  • Home
  • Articulation
  • Contact
  • Shop
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 3 weeks ago
There's a Bible on that shelf...

There's a Bible on that shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire - poison and antidote.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
In Kenneth Harris Talking To: Bertrand Russell, 1971
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
2 weeks ago
Have we really the right to...

Have we really the right to speak of the cause of a phenomenon?

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
3 months 4 weeks ago
I assert once again as a...

I assert once again as a truth to which history as a whole bears witness that men may second their fortune, but cannot oppose it; that they may weave its warp, but cannot break it. Yet they should never give up, because there is always hope, though they know not the end and more towards it along roads which cross one another and as yet are unexplored; and since there is hope, they should not despair, no matter what fortune brings or in what travail they find themselves.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book 2, Ch. 29 (as translated by LJ Walker and B Crick)
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 months 6 days ago
The first thing that we know...

The first thing that we know about ourselves is our imperfection.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 3 weeks ago
Christ speaks of two debtors, one...

Christ speaks of two debtors, one of whom owed much and the other little, and who both found forgiveness. He asks: Which of these two ought to love more? The answer: The one who has forgiven much. When you love much, you are forgiven much-and when you are forgiven much, you love much. See here the blessed recurrence of salvation in love!

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
2 months 1 week 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.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
E. Jephcott, trans., p. 17.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
To have committed every crime but...

To have committed every crime but that of being a father.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
3 months 3 weeks ago
There is only one man who...

There is only one man who gets his own way-he who can get it single-handed; therefore freedom, not power, is the greatest good. That man is truly free who desires what he is able to perform, and does what he desires. This is my fundamental maxim. Apply it to childhood, and all the rules of education spring from it. Society has enfeebled man, not merely by robbing him of the right to his own strength, but still more by making his strength insufficient for his needs. This is why his desires increase in proportion to his weakness; and this is why the child is weaker than the man. If a man is strong and a child is weak it is not because the strength of the one is absolutely greater than the strength of the other, but because the one can naturally provide for himself and the other cannot. Thus the man will have more desires and the child more caprices, a word which means, I take it, desires which are not true needs, desires which can only be satisfied with the help of others.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 week 4 days ago
They have their belief, these poor...

They have their belief, these poor Thibet people, that Providence sends down always an Incarnation of Himself into every generation. At bottom some belief in a kind of Pope! At bottom still better, belief that there is a Greatest Man; that he is discoverable; that, once discovered, we ought to treat him with an obedience which knows no bounds! This is the truth of Grand Lamaism; the "discoverability" is the only error here.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
4 months 6 days ago
We are He, since we are...

We are He, since we are His body and since He was made man in order to be our Head.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p.432
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
2 months 1 week ago
Hegel's theological discussion repeatedly asks what...

Hegel's theological discussion repeatedly asks what the true relation is between the individual man and a state that no longer satisfies his capacities but exists rather as an 'estranged' institution from which the active political interest of the citizens has disappeared. Hegel defined this state with almost the same categories as those of eighteenth century liberalism: the state rests on the consent of the individuals, it circumscribes their rights and duties and protects its members from those internal and external dangers that might threaten the perpetuation of the whole.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
P. 32
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
2 months 2 weeks ago
Originally, ethics has no existence apart...

Originally, ethics has no existence apart from religion, which holds it in solution.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 1, The Confusion of Ethical Thought
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months ago
Where the frontier of science once...

Where the frontier of science once was is now the centre.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1991) edited by Alan Lindsay Mackay, p. 153
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
4 months 2 weeks ago
It is only afterward that a...

It is only afterward that a new idea seems reasonable. To begin with, it usually seems unreasonable.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
Nostalgia, more than anything, gives us...

Nostalgia, more than anything, gives us the shudder of our own imperfection.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 months 2 weeks ago
One often makes a remark and...

One often makes a remark and only later sees how true it is.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Journal entry (11 October 1914), p. 10e
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
4 months 5 days ago
If a person gave your body...

If a person gave your body to any stranger he met on his way, you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in handing over your own mind to be confused and mystified by anyone who happens to verbally attack you?

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
(28) [tr. Elizabeth Carter]
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 3 weeks ago
...no legislator, at any period of...

...no legislator, at any period of the world, has willingly placed the seat of active power in the hands of the multitude: Because there it admits of no control, no regulation; no steady direction whatsoever. The people are the natural control on authority; but to exercise and to control together is contradictory and impossible.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 441
Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
4 months 1 week ago
Natural justice is a symbol or...

Natural justice is a symbol or expression of usefulness, to prevent one person from harming or being harmed by another.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
2 months 2 days ago
A girl, if she has any...

A girl, if she has any pride, is so ashamed of having anything she wishes to say out of the hearing of her own family, she thinks it must be something so very wrong, that it is ten to one, if she have the opportunity of saying it, that she will not. And yet she is spending her life, perhaps, in dreaming of accidental means of unrestrained communion.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
3 months 3 weeks ago
Europeans are awakening more and more...

Europeans are awakening more and more to a sense that beasts have rights, in proportion as the strange notion is being gradually overcome and outgrown, that the animal kingdom came into existence solely for the benefit and pleasure of man. This view, with the corollary that non-human living creatures are to be regarded merely as things, is at the root of the rough and altogether reckless treatment of them, which obtains in the West.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Part III, Ch. VIII, 7, p. 225
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 month 2 weeks ago
Let us try to teach generosity...

Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have a chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 1. Why Are People?
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 4 weeks ago
My life has been full of...

My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Ernest Renan
Ernest Renan
2 weeks 1 day ago
As a rule, all heroism is...

As a rule, all heroism is due to a lack of reflection, and thus it is necessary to maintain a mass of imbeciles. If they once understand themselves the ruling men will be lost.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Orlando, in Caliban, act 2, sc. 1 (1878).
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
There are no solutions, only cowardice...

There are no solutions, only cowardice masquerading as such.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 2 weeks ago
If the only significant history of...

If the only significant history of human thought were to be written, it would have to be the history of its successive regrets and its impotences.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 3 weeks ago
The only fence against the world...

The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it, into which a young gentleman should be enter'd by degrees, as he can bear it; and the earlier the better, so he be in safe and skillful hands to guide him.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Sec. 94
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 months 2 days ago
A blow from your friend is...

A blow from your friend is better than a kiss from your enemy.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists‎ (2007) by James Geary, p. 118
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
3 months 3 weeks ago
The question here is not, "How...

The question here is not, "How conscience ought to be guided? For Conscience is its own General and Leader; it is therefore enough that each man have one. What we want to know is, how conscience can be her own Ariadne, and disentangle herself from the mazes even of the most raveled and complicated casuistical theology. Here is an ethical proposition that stands in need of no proof: No Action May At Any Time Be Hazarded On The Uncertainty That Perchance It May Not Be Wrong (Quod dubitas, ne feceris! Pliny - which you doubt, then neither do) Hence the Consciousness, that Any Action I am about to perform is Right, is in itself a most immediate and imperative duty. What actions are right, - what wrong - is a matter for the understanding, not for conscience.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 251 Book IV, Part 2, Section 4
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
3 months 1 week ago
Once a word….

Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book I, epistle xviii, line 71
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
We should, out of decency, choose...

We should, out of decency, choose for ourselves the moment to disappear.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
2 months 3 weeks ago
Be charitable before Wealth makes thee...

Be charitable before Wealth makes thee covetous.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
3 months 3 weeks ago
God is the...

God is the Immanent Cause of all things, never truly transcendent from them.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Part I, Prop. XVIII
Philosophical Maxims
Empedocles
Empedocles
3 months 1 week ago
Fortunate is he who…

Fortunate is he who has acquired a wealth of divine understanding, but wretched the one whose interest lies in shadowy conjectures about divinities.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
fr. 132
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks ago
We are aware....
0
⚖0
Main Content / General
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 3 weeks ago
None can be an impartial or...

None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Antisthenes
Antisthenes
3 months 1 week ago
It's a royal privilege…

It is a royal privilege to do good and be ill spoken of.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
§ 3; quoted also by Marcus Aurelius, vii. 36
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 2 weeks ago
Too busy with the crowded hour...

Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Quatrains, Nature
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 3 weeks ago
Let them have what instructions you...

Let them have what instructions you will, and ever so learned lectures of breeding daily inculcated into them, that which will most influence their carriage will be the company they converse with, and the fashion of those about them.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Sec. 67
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 1 week ago
Suffer little children, and forbid them...

Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
18:16-17 (KJV) Variant translation: Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.
Philosophical Maxims
B. F. Skinner
B. F. Skinner
2 weeks 2 days ago
Let men be happy, informed, skillful,...

Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Freedom and the control of men (1955/1956) American Scholar, 25 (1), 47-65
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
2 months 1 week ago
A terrible thing is intelligence. It...

A terrible thing is intelligence. It tends to death as memory tends to stability. The living, the absolutely unstable, the absolutely individual, is strictly unintelligible. Logic tends to reduce everything to identities and genera, to each representation having no more than one self-same content in whatever place, time or relation it may occur to us. And there is nothing that remains for two successive moments of its existence. My idea of God is different each time that I conceive it. Identity, which is death, is the goal of the intellect. The mind seeks what is dead, for what is living escapes it; it seeks to congeal the flowing stream in blocks of ice; it seeks to arrest it. In order to analyze a body it is necessary to extenuate or destroy it. In order to understand anything it is necessary to kill it, to lay it out rigid in the mind.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
3 months 2 weeks ago
Everyone is the other, and no...

Everyone is the other, and no one is himself. The they, which supplies the answer to the who of everyday Da-sein, is the nobody to whom every Da-sein has always already surrendered itself, in its being-among-one-another.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Stambaugh translation
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 4 weeks ago
I prefer the company of peasants...

I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Judith Butler
Judith Butler
1 month 3 weeks ago
Nonviolence has now to be understood...

Nonviolence has now to be understood less as a moral position adopted by individuals in relation to a field of possible action than as a social and political practice undertaken in concert, culminating in a form of resistance to systemic forms of destruction coupled with a commitment to world building that honors global interdependency of the kind that embodies ideals of economic, social, and political freedom and equality.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 20
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
4 months 6 days ago
Christ's whole body groans in pain....

Christ's whole body groans in pain. Until the end of the world, when pain will pass away, this man groans and cries to God. And each one of us has part in the cry of that whole body. Thou didst cry out in thy day, and thy days have passed away; another took thy place and cried out in his day. Thou here, he there, and another there. The body of Christ ceases not to cry out all the day, one member replacing the other whose voice is hushed. Thus there is but one man who reaches unto the end of time, and those that cry are always His members.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p.423
Philosophical Maxims
Auguste Comte
Auguste Comte
2 months 3 weeks ago
Language forms a kind of wealth,...

Language forms a kind of wealth, which all can make use of at once without causing any diminution of the store, and which thus admits a complete community of enjoyment; for all, freely participating in the general treasure, unconsciously aid in its preservation.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Volume II, p. 213
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 2 weeks ago
There are two types of poor...

There are two types of poor people, those who are poor together and those who are poor alone. The first are the true poor, the others are rich people out of luck.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Act 4, sc. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 month 2 weeks ago
The total amount of suffering per...

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive; others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear; others are being slowly devoured from within by rasping parasites; thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst and disease. [...] In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
pp. 131-132
Philosophical Maxims
Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
1 month 1 week ago
To teach virtue we must educate...

To teach virtue we must educate the emotions, and this means learning "what to feel" in the various circumstances that prompt them.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"Knowledge and Feeling" (p. 37)
Philosophical Maxims
  • Load More

User login

  • Create new account
  • Reset your password

Social

☰ ˟
  • Main Feed
  • Philosophical Maxims

Civic

☰ ˟
  • Propositions
  • Issue / Solution

Who's new

  • Søren Kierkegaard
  • Jesus
  • Friedrich Nietzsche
  • VeXed
  • Slavoj Žižek

Who's online

There are currently 0 users online.

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia