Skip to main content
Image removed.

Main navigation

☰ ˟
  • Home
  • Articulation
  • Contact
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 4 weeks ago
The barrenest of all mortals is...

The barrenest of all mortals is the sentimentalist.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Characteristics.
Philosophical Maxims
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
1 month 3 days ago
The proletarian revolution ought now, by...

The proletarian revolution ought now, by a little ray of kindness, to illuminate the gloomy life of prisoners, shorten Draconian sentences, abolish barbarous punishments - the use of manacles and whippings - improve, as far as possible, the medical attention, the food allowance, and the conditions of labor. That is a duty of honor.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Against Capital Punishment (1918), Rosa Luxemburg Speaks
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 4 weeks ago
Who is my mother? and who...

Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
12:48-50 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
5 months 1 week ago
A criminal who, having renounced reason...

A criminal who, having renounced reason ... hath, by the unjust violence and slaughter he hath committed upon one, declared war against all mankind, and therefore may be destroyed as a lion or tyger, one of those wild savage beasts with whom men can have no society nor security. And upon this is grounded the great law of Nature, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed."

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Second Treatise of Civil Government, Ch. II, sec. 11
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
6 months 1 week ago
The least initial deviation from the...

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
5 months 1 week 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.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Philo to Cleanthes, Part IV
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 4 weeks ago
The Public is an old woman....

The Public is an old woman. Let her maunder and mumble.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Journal (1835).
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
3 months 4 weeks ago
In Walt Whitman democracy is carried...

In Walt Whitman democracy is carried into psychology and morals. The various sights, moods, and emotions are given each one vote; they are declared to be all free and equal, and the innumerable commonplace moments of life are suffered to speak like the others. Those moments formerly reputed great are not excluded, but they are made to march in the ranks with their companions-plain foot-soldiers and servants of the hour.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 53
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
5 months 2 days ago
Kant's philosophy shifts for the first...

Kant's philosophy shifts for the first time the whole of modern thought and being (Desein) into the clarity and transparency of the foundation (Begrundung). This determines every attitude toward knowledge since then, as well as the bounds (Abgrenzungen) and appraisals of the sciences in the nineteenth century up to the present time. Therein Kant towers so far above all who precede and follow that even those who reject him or go beyond him still remain entirely dependent upon him.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 55-56
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 1 week ago
I learn with great satisfaction that...

I learn with great satisfaction that you are about committing to the press the valuable historical and State papers you have been so long collecting. Time and accident are committing daily havoc on the originals deposited in our public offices. The late war has done the work of centuries in this business. The last cannot be recovered, but let us save what remains; not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Letter to Mr. Hazard
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
3 months 3 weeks ago
The order of nature cannot be...

The order of nature cannot be justified by the mere observation of nature. For there is nothing in the present fact which inherently refers either to the past or to the future.... It illustrates the anti-rationalism of the scientific public that, when Hume did appear, it was only the religious implications of his philosophy which attracted attention. This was because the clergy were in principle rationalists, whereas the men of science were content with a simple faith in the order of nature.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 3: "The Century of Genius", p. 73
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Fourier
Charles Fourier
2 months 3 days ago
The seeds of heavenly bodies are...

The seeds of heavenly bodies are deposited and cared for in the Milky Way, from which they emanate in swarms of comets that travel a ;long time and ordinarily gravitate towards various suns before becoming fixed in orbit.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
L'attraction passioneé
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 2 weeks ago
There is, nevertheless, a certain respect...

There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book II, Ch. 11. Of Cruelty
Philosophical Maxims
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
3 months 1 week ago
I have wanted to give Iraq...

I have wanted to give Iraq a lesson in democracy - because we're experienced with it, you know. And, in democracy, after a hundred years, you have to let your slaves go. And, after a hundred and fifty years, you have to let your women vote. And, at the beginning of democracy, is that quite a bit of genocide and ethnic cleansing is quite okay. And that's what's going on now.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Interviewed by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
6 months 3 days ago
If there is a sin against...

If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 3 days ago
If I were to go blind,...

If I were to go blind, what would bother me the most would be no longer to be able to stare idiotically at the passing clouds.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
5 months 3 weeks ago
The Yin based its propriety...

The Yin based its propriety on that of the Xia, and what it added and subtracted is knowable. The Zhou has based its propriety on that of the Shang and what it added and subtracted is knowable. In this way, what continues from the Chou, even if 100 generations hence, is knowable.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 1 week ago
Men are qualified for civil liberty...

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, - in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity, - in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption, - in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
5 months 3 weeks ago
Pleasant it is…

Pleasant it is, when over a great sea the winds trouble the waters, to gaze from shore upon another's great tribulation: not because any man's troubles are a delectable joy, but because to perceive from what ills you are free yourself is pleasant.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book II, lines 1-4 (tr. Rouse)
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
3 months 3 weeks ago
Thus the universe is to be...

Thus the universe is to be conceived as attaining the active self-expression of its own variety of opposites of its own freedom and its own necessity, of its own multiplicity and its own unity, of its own imperfection and its own perfection. All the opposites are elements in the nature of things, and are incorrigibly there. The concept of God is the way in which we understand this incredible fact that what cannot be, yet is.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
1 month 6 days ago
The issue here really is not...

The issue here really is not whether international trade shall be free but whether or not it makes any sense for a country - or, for that matter, a region - to destroy its own capacity to produce its own food. How can a government, entrusted with the safety and health of its people, conscientiously barter away in the name of an economic idea that people's ability to feed itself? And if people lose their ability to feed themselves, how can they be said to be free?

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"A Bad Big Idea"
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
1 month 1 week ago
How simple and frugal a thing...

How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. . . . All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 7
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 3 weeks ago
If a philosopher is not a...

If a philosopher is not a man, he is anything but a philosopher; he is above all a pedant, and a pedant is a caricature of a man. The cultivation of any branch of science - of chemistry, of physics, of geometry, of philology - may be a work of differentiated specialization, and even so, only within very narrow limits and restrictions; but philosophy, like poetry, is a work of integration and synthesis, or else it is merely pseudo-philosophical erudition.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
4 months 4 days ago
All religions are cruel, all founded...

All religions are cruel, all founded on blood; for all rest principally on the idea of sacrifice - that is, on the perpetual immolation of humanity to the insatiable vengeance of divinity.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
4 months 1 week ago
Everything that makes diversity of kinds,...

Everything that makes diversity of kinds, of species, differences, properties... everything that consists in generation, decay, alteration and change is not an entity, but a condition and circumstance of entity and being, which is one, infinite, immobile, subject, matter, life, death, truth, lies, good and evil.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 4 weeks ago
Work is the grand cure for...

Work is the grand cure for all the maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind,-honest work, which you intend getting done.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Address as Lord Rector of Edinburgh University, (April 2, 1866), reported in A dictionary of quotations in prose, edited by A. L. Ward (1889).
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Schmitt
Carl Schmitt
1 month 6 days ago
The metaphysical image that a definite...

The metaphysical image that a definite epoch forges of the world has the same structure as what the world immediately understands to be appropriate as a form of its political organization.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 1 week ago
Mysticism is, in essence, little more...

Mysticism is, in essence, little more than a certain intensity and depth of feeling in regard to what is believed about the universe.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 1: Mysticism and Logic
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 days ago
Illusion begets and sustains the world.....
0
⚖0
Main Content / General
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
5 months 2 days ago
Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid...

Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 56e
Philosophical Maxims
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
1 month 4 days ago
We must admit, with the same...

We must admit, with the same frankness, that we are ignorant whether matter has in itself the faculty of feeling, or only the power of acquiring it by those modifications or forms to which matter is susceptible; for it is true that this faculty of feeling appears only in organic bodies.This is then another new faculty which might exist only potentially in matter, like all the others which have been mentioned; and this was the hypothesis of the ancients, whose philosophy, full of insight and penetration, deserves to be raised above the ruins of the philosophy of the moderns.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. VI Concerning the Sensitive Faculty of Matter
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
6 months 4 days ago
The undramatic fact is that I...

The undramatic fact is that I just think and think and think until I have something [for a story], and there is nothing marvelous or artistic about the phenomenon.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 1 week ago
The philosophy of nature must not...

The philosophy of nature must not be unduly terrestrial; for it, the earth is merely one of the smaller planets of one of the smaller stars of the Milky Way. It would be ridiculous to warp the philosophy of nature in order to bring out results that are pleasing to the tiny parasites of this insignificant planet. Vitalism as a philosophy, and evolutionism, show, in this respect, a lack of sense of proportion and logical relevance. They regard the facts of life, which are personally interesting to us, as having a cosmic significance, not a significance confined to the earth's surface. Optimism and pessimism, as cosmic philosophies, show the same naive humanism; the great world, so far as we know it from the philosophy of nature, is neither good nor bad, and is not concerned to make us happy or unhappy. All such philosophies spring from self-importance and are best corrected by a little astronomy.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
5 months 3 weeks ago
To rank the effort above the...

To rank the effort above the prize may be called love.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 3 weeks ago
Man is said to be a...

Man is said to be a reasoning animal. I do not know why he has not been defined as an affective or feeling animal. Perhaps that which differentiates him from other animals is feeling rather than reason. More often I have seen a cat reason than laugh or weep. Perhaps it weeps or laughs inwardly - but then perhaps, also inwardly, the crab resolves equations of the second degree.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 1 week ago
A diversity of opinion upon almost...

A diversity of opinion upon almost every principle of politics, had indeed drawn a strong line of separation between them and some others. However, they were desirous not to extend the misfortune by unnecessary bitterness; they wished to prevent a difference of opinion on the commonwealth from festering into rancorous and incurable hostility. Accordingly they endeavoured that all past controversies should be forgotten; and that enough for the day should be the evil thereof. There is however a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. Men may tolerate injuries, whilst they are only personal to themselves. But it is not the first of virtues to bear with moderation the indignities that are offered to our country.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Describing the Government's position at a previous time of deep division in British politics in fact over policy on America, Observations on a Late Publication on the Present State of the Nation (1769), page 2
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
4 months 3 weeks ago
The pleasures that give most joy...

The pleasures that give most joy are the ones that most rarely come.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Joseph de Maistre
Joseph de Maistre
1 month 4 days ago
It is from the shadow of...

It is from the shadow of a cloister that there emerges one of mankind's greatest very greatest scourges. Luther appears; Calvin follows him. The Peasants' Revolt; the Thirty Years' War; the civil war in France; the massacre of the Low Countries; the massacre of Ireland; the massacre of the Cévennes; St Bartholomew's Day; the murders of Henry II, Henry IV, Mary Stuart, and Charles I; and finally, in our day, from the same source, the French Revolution.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter III, p. 27
Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
1 month 6 days ago
What we do need to worry...

What we do need to worry about is the possibility that we will be reduced, in the face of the enormities of our time, to silence or to mere protest.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
A Poem of Difficult Hope
Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
3 months 3 weeks ago
As we search as a nation...

As we search as a nation for constructive ways to challenge racism and white supremacy, it is absolutely essential that progressive female voices gain a hearing.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
6 months 1 week ago
Editor Preface In this book, originating...

Editor Preface In this book, originating in the year 1848, the requirement for being a Christian is forced up by the pseudonymous author to the supreme ideality. Yet the requirement should indeed be stated, presented, and heard. From the Christian point of view, there ought to be no scaling down of the requirement, nor suppression of it-instead of a personal admission and confession. The requirement should be heard-and I understand what is said as spoken to me alone-so that I might learn not only to resort to grace but to resort to it in relation to the use of grace.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
5 months 2 weeks ago
By the law is the knowledge...

By the law is the knowledge of sin [Rom 3:20], so the word of grace comes only to those who are distressed by a sense of sin and tempted to despair.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 168
Philosophical Maxims
René Descartes
René Descartes
5 months 2 weeks ago
Thus, all unknown quantities can be...

Thus, all unknown quantities can be expressed in terms of a single quantity, whenever the problem can be constructed by means of circles and straight lines, or by conic sections, or even by some other curve of degree not greater than the third or fourth.But I shall not stop to explain this in more detail, because I should deprive you of the pleasure of mastering it yourself, as well as of the advantage of training your mind by working over it, which is in my opinion the principal benefit to be derived from this science. Because, I find nothing here so difficult that it cannot be worked out by anyone at all familiar with ordinary geometry and with algebra, who will consider carefully all that is set forth in this treatise.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
First Book
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
5 months 2 weeks ago
Is Christ only to be adored?...

Is Christ only to be adored? Or is the holy Mother of God rather not to be honoured? This is the woman who crushed the Serpent's head. Hear us. For your Son denies you nothing.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works, English translation edited by J. Pelikan [Concordia: St. Louis], Vol. 51, 128-129
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
5 months 1 week ago
Life is a task to be...

Life is a task to be done. It is a fine thing to say defunctus est; it means that the man has done his task.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"On the Sufferings of the World"
Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
3 months 3 weeks ago
Today's fashion magazines may carry an...

Today's fashion magazines may carry an article about the dangers of anorexia while bombarding its readers with images of emaciated young bodies representing the height of beauty and desirability.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics (2014), p.34
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 3 days ago
To have grazed every form of...

To have grazed every form of failure, including success.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
4 months 3 days ago
Your vision will become clear only...

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Without, everything seems discordant; only within does it coalesce into unity. Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakes.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Letter to Fanny Bowditch, 22 October 1916
Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
4 months 4 days ago
I see not the shadow of...

I see not the shadow of a reason to conclude that their [the sexes'] virtues should differ in respect to their nature. In fact, how can they, if virtue has only one eternal standard? I must therefore, if I reason consequentially, as strenuously maintain that they must have the same simple direction as that there is a God.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
-26
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 4 weeks ago
He seldom or never spoke except...

He seldom or never spoke except actually to convey an idea. Measured by quantity of words, he was a talker of fully average copiousness; by extent of meaning communicated, he was the most copious I have listened to. How in few sentences he would sketch you off an entire biography, an entire object or transaction, keen, clear, rugged, genuine, completely rounded In! His words came direct from the heart by the inspiration of the moment.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
  • Load More

User login

  • Create new account
  • Reset your password

Social

☰ ˟
  • Main Feed
  • Philosophical Maxims

Civic

☰ ˟
  • Propositions
  • Issue / Solution

Users

☰ ˟
  • All users
  • Historical Figures

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