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Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
2 weeks 1 day ago
You could give Aristotle a tutorial....

You could give Aristotle a tutorial. And you could thrill him to the core of his being. Aristotle was an encyclopedic polymath, an all time intellect. Yet not only can you know more than him about the world, you also can have a deeper understanding of how everything works. Such is the privilege of living after Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Planck, Watson, Crick and their colleagues.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Searle
John Searle
3 weeks 1 day ago
Materialism ends up denying the existence...

Materialism ends up denying the existence of any irreducible subjective qualitative states of sentience or awareness.

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Consciousness and Language (2002) p. 47.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 2 weeks ago
The State is a collection of...

The State is a collection of officials, different for difference purposes, drawing comfortable incomes so long as the status quo is preserved. The only alteration they are likely to desire in the status quo is an increase of bureaucracy and the power of bureaucrats.

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Ch. 12: Free Thought and Official Propaganda
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
3 months 2 weeks ago
Universal is known according to reason,...

Universal is known according to reason, but that which is particular, according to sense...

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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
2 months 3 weeks ago
At present they [philosophers] seem to...

At present they [philosophers] seem to be in a very lamentable condition, and such as the poets have given us but a faint notion of in their descriptions of the punishment of Sisyphus and Tantalus. For what can be imagin'd more tormenting, than to seek with eagerness, what for ever flies us; and seek for it in a place, where 'tis impossible it can ever exist?

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Part 4, Section 3
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
2 months 3 weeks ago
There is no more lovely, friendly...

There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.

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292
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 week 5 days ago
New truth...
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Main Content / General
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 2 weeks ago
Stupidity is much the same all...

Stupidity is much the same all the world over. A stupid person's notions and feelings may confidently be inferred from those which prevail in the circle by which the person is surrounded. Not so with those whose opinions and feelings are an emanation from their own nature and faculties.

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Ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 months 3 weeks ago
For the purpose of acquiring gain,...

For the purpose of acquiring gain, everything else is pushed aside or thrown overboard, for example, as is philosophy by the professors of philosophy.

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E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 347
Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
2 months 2 weeks ago
This is a long book, not...

This is a long book, not only in pages.

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Preface, pg. viii
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
3 months 4 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?

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(28) [tr. Elizabeth Carter]
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 weeks 5 days ago
One is ashamed to say how...

One is ashamed to say how little is needed for all men to be delivered from those calamities which now oppress them; it is only needful not to lie.

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Ch. 17
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
2 months 1 day ago
Choose rather to be strong in...

Choose rather to be strong in soul than in body.

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"Pythagorean Ethical Sentences From Stobæus" (1904) Choose rather to be strong of soul than strong of body. As quoted in Florilegium, I.22, as translated in Dictionary of Quotations (1906) by Thomas Benfield Harbottle, p. 396
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
1 month 1 week ago
The basic word I-Thou can be...

The basic word I-Thou can be spoken only with one's whole being. The concentration and fusion into a whole being can never be accomplished by me, can never be accomplished without me. I require a Thou to become; becoming I, I say Thou.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
2 months 2 weeks ago
We ourselves are the entities to...

We ourselves are the entities to be analyzed.

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Macquarrie & Robinson translation
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
2 months 1 week ago
"These Macedonians," said he, "are a...

"These Macedonians," said he, "are a rude and clownish people, that call a spade a spade."

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39 Philip
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
3 months 3 days ago
The stead drip of water….

The steady drip of water causes stone to hollow and yield.

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Book I, line 313 (tr. Stallings) Variant translation: Continual dropping wears away a stone. Compare: "The soft droppes of rain pierce the hard marble; many strokes overthrow the tallest oaks", John Lyly, Euphues, 1579 (Arber's reprint), p. 81
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
2 months 2 weeks ago
In a head-on clash between violence...

In a head-on clash between violence and power, the outcome is hardly in doubt. Nowhere is the self-defeating factor in the victory of violence over power more evident than in the use of terror to maintain domination, about whose weird successes and eventual failures we know perhaps more than any generation before us. Violence can destroy power; it is utterly incapable of creating it.

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On Violence
Philosophical Maxims
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
1 week 5 days ago
Once you had read the Psychopathology...

Once you had read the Psychopathology of Everyday Life, you knew that everyday life was psychopathology.

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Humboldt's Gift (1975) [Penguin Classics, 1996, ISBN 0-140-18944-0], p. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 weeks 3 days ago
In the electric age, when our...

In the electric age, when our central nervous system is technologically extended to involve us in the whole of mankind and to incorporate the whole of mankind in us, we necessarily participate, in depth, in the consequences of our every action. It is no longer possible to adopt the aloof and dissociated role of the literate Westerner.

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(p. 4)
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 2 weeks ago
Once in his early youth a...

Once in his early youth a man allowed himself to be so far carried away in an overwrought irresponsible state as to visit a prostitute. It is all forgotten. Now he wants to get married. Then anxiety stirs. He is tortured day and night with the thought that he might possibly be a father, that somewhere in the world there could be a created being who owed his life to him. He cannot share his secret with anyone; he does not even have any reliable knowledge of the fact. –For this reason the incident must have involved a prostitute and taken place in the wantonness of youth; had it been a little infatuated or an actual seduction, it would be hard to imagine that he could know nothing about it, but now this this very ignorance is the basis of his agitated torment. On the other hand, precisely because of the rashness of the whole affair, his misgivings do not really start until he actually falls in love.

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Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
1 month 2 weeks ago
A character is a completely fashioned...

A character is a completely fashioned will.

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(vollkommen gebildeter Wille).
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
2 months 2 weeks ago
If the ability to tell...

If the ability to tell right from wrong should turn out to have anything to do with the ability to think, then we must be able to "demand" its exercise from every sane person, no matter how erudite or ignorant, intelligent or stupid, he may happen to be. Kant-in this respect almost alone among the philosophers-was much bothered by the common opinion that philosophy is only for the few, precisely because of its moral implications.

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p. 13
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 2 weeks ago
Then we understand that rebellion cannot...

Then we understand that rebellion cannot exist without a strange form of love. Those who find no rest in God or in history are condemned to live for those who, like themselves, cannot live; in fact, for the humiliated.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
3 months 3 weeks ago
But let us not forget this...
But let us not forget this either: it is enough to create new names and estimations and probabilities in order to create in the long run new "things."
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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
1 week 1 day ago
A single breaker may recede; but...

A single breaker may recede; but the tide is evidently coming in.

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pp. 266-267
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
1 month 2 weeks ago
The Austrian Germans and Magyars will...

The Austrian Germans and Magyars will be set free and wreak a bloody revenge on the Slav barbarians. The general war which will then break out will smash this Slav Sonderbund and wipe out all these petty hidebound nations, down to their very names. The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward.

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The Magyar Struggle in Neue Rheinische Zeitung (13 January 1849) Referring to the Serb uprising of 1848-49
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 2 weeks ago
Metaphysical rebellion is a claim, motivated...

Metaphysical rebellion is a claim, motivated by the concept of a complete unity, against the suffering of life and death and a protest against the human condition both for its incompleteness, thanks to death, and its wastefulness, thanks to evil.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 2 weeks ago
The greatest danger, that of losing...

The greatest danger, that of losing one's own self, may pass off as quietly as if it were nothing; every other loss, that of an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife etc., is sure to be noticed.

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Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
1 month 2 weeks ago
Our life is no dream...

Our life is no dream, but it should and perhaps will become one.

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Fragmente I, Magische Philosophie Variant: "Our life is no dream; but it ought to become one, and perhaps will." George MacDonald, Phantastes, epigraph to Chapter XXV
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1 month 2 weeks ago
Brothers, love is a teacher…

Brothers, love is a teacher; but one must know how to acquire it, for it is hard to acquire, it is dearly bought, it is won slowly by long labour. For we must love not only occasionally, for a moment, but for ever. Everyone can love occasionally, even the wicked can.

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Book VI, Chapter 3: Conversations and Exhortations of Father Zossima
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 2 weeks ago
Irony limits, finitizes, and circumscribes and...

Irony limits, finitizes, and circumscribes and thereby yields truth, actuality, content; it disciplines and punishes and thereby yields balance and consistency.

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Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
3 months 3 days ago
Life is one…

Life is one long struggle in the dark.

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Book II, line 54 (tr. Rouse)
Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
1 month 2 weeks ago
Women are systematically degraded by receiving...

Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority.

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Ch. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
2 months 3 weeks ago
The first characteristic of the human...

The first characteristic of the human species is man's ability, as a rational being, to establish character for himself, as well as for the society into which nature has placed him. This ability, however, presupposes an already favorable natural predisposition and an inclination to the good in man, because the evil is really without character (since it is at odds with itself, and since it does not tolerate any lasting principle within itself)

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Kant, Immanuel (1996), page 246
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 2 weeks ago
I consider one of the most...

I consider one of the most important duties of any scientist the teaching of science to students and to the general public.

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Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
3 months 4 days ago
Reason is not measured by size...

Reason is not measured by size or height, but by principle.

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Book I, ch. 12, 26.
Philosophical Maxims
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva
3 days ago
What J.P. Morgan and John D....

What J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller were to the Age of Robber Barons, Microsoft's Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett, as well as digital moguls like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos are to the contemporary age of the rule of the 1%. Then as now, the super-rich used governments to write laws and rules to allow them to accumulate unlimited wealth; then as now, creating monopolies by enclosing the commons and killing competition is the strategy for becoming the 1%.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 2 weeks ago
Natural religion supplies still all the...

Natural religion supplies still all the facts which are disguised under the dogma of popular creeds. The progress of religion is steadily to its identity with morals.

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p. 223
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 2 weeks ago
Bold ideas, unjustified anticipations, and speculative...

Bold ideas, unjustified anticipations, and speculative thought, are our only means for interpreting nature: our only organon, our only instrument, for grasping her. And we must hazard them to win our prize. Those among us who are unwilling to expose their ideas to the hazard of refutation do not take part in the scientific game.

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Ch. 10 "Corroboration, or How a Theory Stands up to Tests", section 85: The Path of Science, p. 280.
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
1 month 2 weeks ago
The third argument, enclosing and defending...

The third argument, enclosing and defending the other two, consists in the development of those principles of logic according to which the humble argument is the first stage of a scientific inquiry into the origin of the three Universes, but of an inquiry which produces, not merely scientific belief, which is always provisional, but also a living, practical belief, logically justified in crossing the Rubicon with all the freightage of eternity.

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V
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 weeks 5 days ago
The vocation of every man and...

The vocation of every man and woman is to serve other people.

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What Is To Be Done? (1886) Chap. XL
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 weeks 3 days ago
There is a real, living unity...

There is a real, living unity in our time, as in any other, but it lies submerged under a superficial hubbub of sensation.

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Letter to Harold Adam Innis (14 March 1951), published in Letters of Marshall McLuhan (1987), p. 223
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 2 days ago
The self-surmounter can never put up...

The self-surmounter can never put up with the man who has ceased to be dissatisfied with himself.

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p. 139
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
1 month 1 week ago
Nobody really thinks who does not...

Nobody really thinks who does not abstract from that which is given, who does not relate the facts to the factors which have made them, who does not - in his mind - undo the facts. Abstractness is the very life of thought, the token of its authenticity.

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p. 134
Philosophical Maxims
Boethius
Boethius
3 months 1 week ago
For when every judgement is the...

For when every judgement is the act of hym that judgeth, it behoveth that every man performe hys worke and purpose, not by any forayne or straunge power or facultie, but by his owne proper power, and strength.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 months 3 weeks ago
If a person is stupid, we...

If a person is stupid, we excuse him by saying that he cannot help it; but if we attempted to excuse in precisely the same way the person who is bad, we should be laughed at.

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E. Payne, trans., vol. 2, p. 230
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
2 months 3 weeks ago
We must remove the Decalogue out...

We must remove the Decalogue out of sight and heart.

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Wilhelm Martin Leberecht De Wette, 4, 188. As cited by Jonathan Ramachandran (January 1, 2019), Lake of Fire - Hope for the Wicked One Day? - Essays in First Christianity, 5 Loaf 2 Fish Publications, p. 1264.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
2 months 1 week ago
The essence of the belief that...

The essence of the belief that bats have experience is that there is something that it is like to be a bat. Now we know that most bats (the microchiroptera, to be precise) perceive the external world primarily by sonar, or echolocation. ... But bat sonar, though clearly a form of perception, is not similar in its operation to any sense that we possess, and there is no reason to suppose that it is subjectively like anything we can experience or imagine. This appears to create difficulties for the notion of what it is like to be a bat.

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p. 168.
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 2 weeks ago
Art, at least, teaches us that...

Art, at least, teaches us that man cannot be explained by history alone and that he also finds a reason for his existence in the order of nature.

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Philosophical Maxims
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