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Karl Marx
Karl Marx
5 months 3 weeks ago
Since property here exists in the...

Since property here exists in the form of stock, its movement and transfer become purely a result of gambling on the stock exchange, where the little fish are swallowed by the sharks and the lambs by the stock exchange wolves.

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Vol. III, Ch. XXVII, The Role of Credit, p. 440.
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
5 months 3 weeks ago
Nothing is yet in its true...

Nothing is yet in its true form.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Owen
Robert Owen
3 months 2 weeks ago
The Institution has been devised to...

The Institution has been devised to afford the means of receiving your children at an early age, almost as soon as they can walk. By this means many of you, mothers and families, will be able to earn a better maintenance or support for your children; you will have less care and anxiety about them, while the children will be prevented from acquiring any bad habits. and gradually prepared to learn the best.

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Philosophical Maxims
William Whewell
William Whewell
1 month 3 weeks ago
The resolution of complex Facts into...

The resolution of complex Facts into precise and measured partial Facts, we call the 'Decomposition of Facts'. This process is requisite for the progress of science, but does not necessarily lead to progress. The Conceptions by which Facts are bound together, are suggested by the sagacity of discoverers. But a supply of appropriate hypotheses cannot be constructed by rule, nor without inventive talent. The truth of tentative hypotheses must be tested by their application to facts. The discoverer must be ready, carefully to try his hypotheses in this manner, and to reject them if they will not bear the test, in spite of indolence and vanity.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
6 months 3 weeks ago
It's my belief that the Universe...

It's my belief that the Universe possesses, in its essence, fractal properties of a very complex sort and that the pursuit of science shares those properties. It follows that any part of the Universe that remains un-understood, and any part of scientific investigation that remains unresolved, however small that might be in comparison to what is understood and resolved, contains within it all the complexity of the original. Therefore, we'll never finish. No matter how far we go, the road ahead will be as long as it was at the start, and that's the secret of the Universe.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
5 months 3 weeks ago
By means of ever more effective...

By means of ever more effective methods of mind-manip­ulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms- elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest-will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitari­anism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slo­gans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial-but democracy and free­dom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of sol­diers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit.

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Chapter 3, p. 25
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
5 months 3 weeks ago
There is no virtue they should...

There is no virtue they should be excited to, nor fault they should be kept from, which I do not think they may be convinced of; but it must be by such reasons as their age and understandings are capable of, and those propos'd always in very few and plain words.

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Sec. 81
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
3 months 2 weeks ago
From the poetry of Lord Byron...

From the poetry of Lord Byron they drew a system of ethics, compounded of misanthropy and voluptuousness, a system in which the two great commandments were, to hate your neighbour, and to love your neighbour's wife.

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p. 351
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
6 months 4 days ago
Lucid intervals and happy pauses...

Lucid intervals and happy pauses.

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History of King Henry VII, III
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 3 weeks ago
In how many churches, by how...

In how many churches, by how many prophets, tell me, is man made sensible that he is an infinite Soul; that the earth and heavens are passing into his mind; that he is drinking forever the soul of God?

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p. 18
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
5 months 3 weeks ago
Your crystal? That's silly. Whom do...

Your crystal? That's silly. Whom do you think you are fooling? Come on, everyone knows that I threw the baby out of the window. The crystal is shattered on earth, and I do not care. I am no longer anything but a skin, and my skin does not belong to you.

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Estelle to Inès, Act 1, sc. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
5 months 3 weeks ago
Besides, we should never attempt to...

Besides, we should never attempt to balance anybody's misery against somebody else's happiness.

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pp. 486-487
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
6 months 3 days ago
I have greater confidence in my...

I have greater confidence in my wife and my pupils than I have in Christ.

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2397
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 3 weeks ago
Isn't history ultimately the result of...

Isn't history ultimately the result of our fear of boredom?

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Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
4 months 1 week ago
Human history began with an act...

Human history began with an act of disobedience, and it is not unlikely that it will be terminated by an act of obedience.

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Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem in On Disobedience and Other Essays
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
5 months 1 week ago
Eat not the brain….

Eat not the brain.

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Symbol 31
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 3 weeks ago
In the interval between his campaigns...

In the interval between his campaigns Agricola was employed in the great labours of peace. He knew that the general must be perfected by the legislator; and that the conquest is neither permanent nor honourable, which is only an introduction to tyranny... In short, he subdued the Britons by civilizing them; and made them exchange a savage liberty for a polite and easy subjection. His conduct is the most perfect model for those employed in the unhappy, but sometimes necessary, task of subduing a rude and free people.

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An Essay towards an Abridgment of English History (1757-c. 1763)
Philosophical Maxims
John Searle
John Searle
3 months 4 weeks ago
I cannot recall a time when...

I cannot recall a time when American education was not in a "crisis." We have lived through Sputnik (when we were "falling behind the Russians"), through the era of "Johnny can't read," and through the upheavals of the Sixties. Now a good many books are telling us that the university is going to hell in several different directions at once. I believe that, at least in part, the crisis rhetoric has a structural explanation: since we do not have a national consensus on what success in higher education would consist of, no matter what happens, some sizable part of the population is going to regard the situation as a disaster. As with taxation and relations between the sexes, higher education is essentially and continuously contested territory. Given the history of that crisis rhetoric, one's natural response to the current cries of desperation might reasonably be one of boredom.

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Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
6 months 2 weeks ago
Fine words and an insinuating...

Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue. 

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Variant: Someone who is a clever speaker and maintains a 'too-smiley' face is seldom considered a humane person.
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
5 months 3 weeks ago
In order to make himself thoroughly...

In order to make himself thoroughly undesirable, he will speak.

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p. 463
Philosophical Maxims
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
3 months 4 days ago
I discovered that what's really important...

I discovered that what's really important for a creator isn't what we vaguely define as inspiration or even what it is we want to say, recall, regret, or rebel against. No, what's important is the way we say it. Art is all about craftsmanship. Others can interpret craftsmanship as style if they wish. Style is what unites memory or recollection, ideology, sentiment, nostalgia, presentiment, to the way we express all that. It's not what we say but how we say it that matters.

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Craftsmanship
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 3 weeks ago
I hate tyranny, at least I...

I hate tyranny, at least I think I do; but I hate it most of all where most are concerned in it. The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny. If, as society is constituted in these large countries of France and England, full of unequal property, I must make my choice (which God avert!) between the despotism of a single person, or of the many, my election is made. As much injustice and tyranny has been practised in a few months by a French democracy, as in all the arbitrary monarchies in Europe in the forty years of my observation.

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Letter to Captain Thomas Mercer (26 February 1790), quoted in Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VI: July 1789-December 1791 (1967), p. 96
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
6 months 1 week ago
Cantare amantis est. Singing is of...

Singing is of a lover.

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Variant translation: To sing is characteristic of the lover. 336
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
6 months 4 weeks ago
There are ages in which the...
There are ages in which the rational man and the intuitive man stand side by side, the one in fear of intuition, the other with scorn for abstraction. The latter is just as irrational as the former is inartistic. They both desire to rule over life: the former, by knowing how to meet his principle needs by means of foresight, prudence, and regularity; the latter, by disregarding these needs and, as an "overjoyed hero," counting as real only that life which has been disguised as illusion and beauty.
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Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
4 months 1 week ago
Violence may capture space, but it...

Violence may capture space, but it does not create space.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 3 weeks ago
Plato and his....
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Main Content / General
Alan Watts
Alan Watts
2 months 6 days ago
In an autobiography one must surely...

In an autobiography one must surely be allowed to boast, just for fun. I have, at a range of twenty feet, shot the tobacco out of a cigarette and left the paper intact. At a range of thirty feet, I have split a target, edge towards me, with an air pistol. I am also the world's champion in a game called "You Are the Target," in which anyone better than I would be dead. The game is to shoot an arrow straight up and see how near to you it can be allowed to land. You have to watch its fall very carefully, but I have had it hit the ground exactly between my feet. Of course, there were no witnesses. Had there been, they would forcefully have discouraged the experiment. I was using a fifty-five pound bow.

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p. 18
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
5 months 3 weeks ago
If children were brought into the...

If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence?

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"On the Sufferings of the World"
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
6 months 3 weeks ago
What will be left of the...

What will be left of the power of example if it is proved that capital punishment has another power, and a very real one, which degrades men to the point of shame, madness, and murder?

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 2 weeks ago
I should say sincerity, a deep,...

I should say sincerity, a deep, great, genuine sincerity, is the first characteristic of all men in any way heroic.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
5 months 3 weeks ago
Liberty, as we all know, cannot...

Liberty, as we all know, cannot flourish in a country that is permanently on a war footing, or even a near war footing. Permanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of central government.

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Chapter 1 (p. 14)
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
4 months 1 week ago
Perhaps even more than constituted authority,...

Perhaps even more than constituted authority, it is social uniformity and sameness that harass the individual most. His very "uniqueness," "separateness" and "differentiation" make him an alien, not only in his native place, but even in his own home. Often more so than the foreign born who generally falls in with the established. In the true sense one's native land, with its back ground of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home. A certain atmosphere of "belonging," the consciousness of being "at one" with the people and environment, is more essential to one's feeling of home. This holds good in relation to one's family, the smaller local circle, as well as the larger phase of the life and activities commonly called one's country. The individual whose vision encompasses the whole world often feels nowhere so hedged in and out of touch with his surroundings than in his native land.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 3 weeks ago
Old age, after all, is merely...

Old age, after all, is merely the punishment for having lived.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 3 weeks ago
Knowledge is the plague of life,...

Knowledge is the plague of life, and consciousness, an open wound in its heart.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 3 weeks ago
A marvel that has nothing to...

A marvel that has nothing to offer, democracy is at once a nation's paradise and its tomb.

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Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
5 months 1 week ago
It is only necessary to make...

It is only necessary to make war with five things; with the maladies of the body, the ignorances of the mind, with the passions of the body, with the seditions of the city and the discords of families.

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As quoted in The Biblical Museum: A Collection of Notes Explanatory, Homiletic, and Illustrative on the Holy Scriptures, Especially Designed for the Use of Ministers, Bible-students, and Sunday-school Teachers (1873) by James Comper Gray, Vol. V
Philosophical Maxims
chanakya
chanakya
3 months 5 days ago
Treat your kid like a darling...

Treat your kid like a darling for the first five years. For the next five years, scold them. By the time they turn sixteen, treat them like a friend. Your grown up children are your best friends.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 months 3 weeks ago
A Frenchman is self-assured because he...

A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The German's self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth - science - which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth.

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Bk. IX, ch. 10
Philosophical Maxims
Empedocles
Empedocles
5 months 2 weeks ago
With deep roots….

With deep roots Ether plunged into earth.

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fr. 54
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 2 weeks ago
The fine arts once divorcing themselves...

The fine arts once divorcing themselves from truth are quite certain to fall mad, if they do not die.

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Latter Day Pamphlet, No. 8.
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
4 months 2 weeks ago
The significance of God, cause, number,...

The significance of God, cause, number, substance or soul consists, as James asserts, in nothing but the tendency of the given concept to make us act or think. If the world should reach a point at which it ceases to care not only about such metaphysical entities but also about murders perpetrated behind closed frontiers or simply in the dark, one would have to conclude that the concepts of such murders have no meaning, that they represent no 'distinct ideas' or truths, since they do not make any 'sensible difference to anybody.

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describing the pragmatist view, pp. 46-47.
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
6 months 3 weeks ago
When you are reading God's Word,...

When you are reading God's Word, it is not the obscure passages that bind you but what you understand, and with that you comply at once. If you understood only one single passage in all of Holy Scripture, well, then you must do that first of all, but you do not first have to sit down and ponder the obscure passages.

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Philosophical Maxims
Julius Evola
Julius Evola
2 months 4 days ago
Immortality is the privilege of the...

Immortality is the privilege of the few, and, according to the Aryan conception, specifically the privilege of heroes. Continuing to live - not as a shadow, but as a demigod - is reserved to those which a special spiritual action has elevated from the one nature to the other.

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p. 102
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
1 month 2 weeks ago
The longing for guidance, for...

The longing for guidance, for love and succor, provides the stimulus for the growth of a social or moral conception of God. This is the God of Providence, who protects, decides, rewards and punishes. This is the God who, according to man's widening horizon, loves and provides for the life of the race, or of mankind, or who even loves life itself. He is the comforter in unhappiness and in unsatisfied longing, the protector of the souls of the dead. This is the social or moral idea of God.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
2 months 2 weeks ago
If we study the history of...

If we study the history of science we see happen two inverse phenomena... Sometimes simplicity hides under complex appearances; sometimes it is the simplicity which is apparent, and which disguises extremely complicated realities....No doubt, if our means of investigation should become more and more penetrating, we should discover the simple under the complex, then the complex under the simple, then again the simple under the complex, and so on, without our being able to foresee what will be the last term. We must stop somewhere, and that science may be possible, we must stop when we have found simplicity. This is the only ground on which we can rear the edifice of our generalizations.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
4 months 2 weeks ago
The transition from Hegel to Marx...

The transition from Hegel to Marx is, in all respects, a transition to an essentially different order of truth, no to be interpreted in terms of philosophy. We shall see that all the philosophical concepts of Marxian theory are social and economic categories, whereas Hegel's social and economic categories are all philosophical concepts.

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P. 258
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 3 weeks ago
It is the function of a...

It is the function of a judge not to make but to declare the law, according to the golden mete-wand of the law and not by the crooked cord of discretion.

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Preface to Brissot's Address
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
5 months 3 weeks ago
Anyone wanting a new house picks...

Anyone wanting a new house picks one from among those built on speculation or still in process of construction. The builder no longer works for his customers but for the market.

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Vol. II, Ch. XII, p. 237.
Philosophical Maxims
Judith Butler
Judith Butler
3 months 3 weeks ago
Nonviolence does not make sense without...

Nonviolence does not make sense without a commitment to equality. The reason why nonviolence requires a commitment to equality can best be understood by considering that in this world some lives are more clearly valued than others, and that this inequality implies that certain lives will be more tenaciously defended than others. If one opposes the violence done to human lives-or, indeed, to other living beings-this presumes that it is because those lives are valuable. Our opposition affirms those lives as valuable. If they were to be lost as a result of violence, that loss would be registered as a loss only because those lives were affirmed as having a living value, and that, in turn, means we regard those lives as worthy of grief.

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p. 28
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 months 3 weeks ago
Every innovation scraps its immediate predecessor...

Every innovation scraps its immediate predecessor and retrieves still older figures - it causes floods of antiques or nostalgic art forms and stimulates the search for museum pieces.

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Philosophical Maxims
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