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Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
3 weeks 5 days ago
By incestuous symbiosis is meant the...

By incestuous symbiosis is meant the tendency to stay tied to the mother and to her equivalents - blood, family, tribe - to fly from the unbearable weight of responsibility, of freedom, of awareness, and to be protected and loved in a state of certainty dependence that the individual pays for with the ceasing of his own human development.

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
2 months 2 weeks ago
If I had had more time,...

If I had had more time, this letter would have been shorter.

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Written by Voltaire in an over-long letter to a friend, quoted to A. P. Martinich in Philosophical Writing: An Introduction, Note to the Second Edition, 1996
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
3 months ago
The members of Christ, many though...

The members of Christ, many though they be, are bound to one another by the ties of charity and peace under the one Head, who is our Saviour Himself, and form one man. Often their voice is heard in the Psalms as the voice of one man; the cry of one is as the cry of all, for all are one in One.

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p.430
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 3 weeks ago
'T is so much to be...

T is so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so. The strange lustre that surrounds him conceals and shrouds him from us; our sight is there broken and dissipated, being stopped and filled by the prevailing light.

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Book III, Ch. 7. Of the Inconveniences of Greatness
Philosophical Maxims
Gottlob frege
Gottlob frege
1 month 1 week ago
Every good mathematician is at least...

Every good mathematician is at least half a philosopher, and every good philosopher is at least half a mathematician.

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Attributed to Frege in: A. A. B. Aspeitia (2000), Mathematics as grammar: 'Grammar' in Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics during the Middle Period, Indiana University, p. 25
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 month 3 weeks ago
Patience cometh by the grace of...

Patience cometh by the grace of the Soul.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 3 weeks ago
We are brought to a belief...

We are brought to a belief of God either by reason or by force. Atheism being a proposition as unnatural as monstrous, difficult also and hard to establish in the human understanding, how arrogant soever, there are men enough seen, out of vanity and pride, to be the authors of extraordinary and reforming opinions, and outwardly to affect the profession of them; who, if they are such fools, have, nevertheless, not the power to plant them in their own conscience. Yet will they not fail to lift up their hands towards heaven if you give them a good thrust with a sword in the breast, and when fear or sickness has abated and dulled the licentious fury of this giddy humour they will easily re-unite, and very discreetly suffer themselves to be reconciled to the public faith and examples.

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Ch. 12
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 2 weeks ago
Seeing only what is fair, Sipping...

Seeing only what is fair, Sipping only what is sweet, Thou dost mock at fate and care.

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To the Humble Bee, st. 6
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 2 weeks ago
Of all evils of war the...

Of all evils of war the greatest is the purely spiritual evil: the hatred, the injustice, the repudiation of truth, the artificial conflict.

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Justice in War-Time (1916), p. 27
Philosophical Maxims
Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes
1 month ago
By reducing any quality to quantity,...

By reducing any quality to quantity, myth economizes intelligence: it understands reality more cheaply.

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p. 153
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 week 5 days ago
You should hammer your iron when...

You should hammer your iron when it is glowing hot.

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Maxim 262
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
1 month 1 week ago
Every civilized human being, whatever his...

Every civilized human being, whatever his conscious development, is still an archaic man at the deeper levels of his psyche. Just as the human body connects us with the mammals and displays numerous relics of earlier evolutionary stages going back to even the reptilian age, so the human psyche is likewise a product of evolution which, when followed up to its origins, show countless archaic traits.

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p. 126
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
1 month 2 weeks ago
The surface of American society is...

The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.

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Chapter II.
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
2 months 3 weeks ago
Neither did the dispensation of God...

Neither did the dispensation of God vary in the times after our Saviour came into the world; for our Saviour himself did first show His power to subdue ignorance, by His conference with the priests and doctors of the law, before He showed His power to subdue nature by His miracles. And the coming of this Holy Spirit was chiefly figured and expressed in the similitude and gift of tongues, which are but vehicula scientiæ.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 week 5 days ago
If we sit and talk in...

If we sit and talk in a dark room, words suddenly acquire new meanings and different textures...and on the radio. Given only the sound of a play, we have to fill in all of the senses, not just the sight of the action. So much do-it-yourself, or completion and "closure" of action, develops a kind of independent isolation in the young that makes them remote and inaccessible.

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(p. 264)
Philosophical Maxims
John Searle
John Searle
2 weeks 3 days ago
Well, what does "good" mean anyway...?...

Well, what does "good" mean anyway...? As Wittgenstein suggested, "good," like "game," has a family of meanings. Prominent among them is this one: "meets the criteria or standards of assessment or evaluation."

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P. 152.
Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
1 month 1 week ago
The pistol and dagger may as...

The pistol and dagger may as easily be made the auxiliaries of vice, as of virtue.

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Book IV, "Of Tyrannicide"
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 1 week ago
Facing a landscape annihilated by the...

Facing a landscape annihilated by the light, to remain serene supposes a temper I do not have. The sun is my purveyor of black thoughts; and summer the season when I have always reconsidered my relations with this world and with myself, to the greatest prejudice of both.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 weeks 6 days ago
The terrible struggle of the thinking...

The terrible struggle of the thinking man and woman against political, social and moral conventions owes its origin to the family, where the child is ever compelled to battle against the internal and external use of force. The categorical imperatives: You shall! you must! this is right! that is wrong! this is true! that is false! shower like a violent rain upon the unsophisticated head of the young being and impress upon its sensibilities that it has to bow before the long established and hard notions of thoughts and emotions.

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Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
2 months 4 weeks ago
Let not that which in the...

Let not that which in the case of another is contrary to nature become an evil for you; for you are born not to be humiliated along with others, nor to share in their misfortunes, but to share in their good fortune. If, however, someone is unfortunate, remember that his misfortune concerns himself. For God made all mankind to be happy, to be serene.

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Book III, ch. 24, 1
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
3 weeks 3 days ago
People often become scholars for the...

People often become scholars for the same reason they become soldiers: simply because they are unfit for any other station. Their right hand has to earn them a livelihood; one might say they lie down like bears in winter and seek sustenance from their paws.

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B 41
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
1 month 1 week ago
The word "God," so "capitalised" (as...

The word "God," so "capitalised" (as we Americans say), is the definable proper name, signifying Ens necessarium; in my belief Really creator of all three Universes of Experience. I, Ens necessarium is a latin expression which signifies "Necessary being, necessary entity"

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
2 months 2 weeks ago
May we not return….

May we not return to those scoundrels of old, the illustrious founders of superstition and fanaticism, who first took the knife from the altar to make victims of those who refused to be their disciples?

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Letter to Frederick II of Prussia (December 1740), published in Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, Vol. 7 (1869), edited by Georges Avenel, p. 105; as translated by Richard Aldington
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
1 month 3 weeks ago
This whole which is visible in...

This whole which is visible in different ways in bodies, as far as formation, constitution, appearance, colors and other properties and common qualities, is none other than the diverse face of the same substance - a changeable, mobile face, subject to decay, of an immobile, permanent and eternal being.

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As translated by Paul Harrison
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 week 3 days ago
Eternity is best spent under a...

Eternity is best spent under a general anesthetic - which is what is going to happen.

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Interview with Joe Rogan on The Joe Rogan Experience (2019);
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 week 5 days ago
Physiologically, man in the normal use...

Physiologically, man in the normal use of technology (or his variously extended body) is perpetually modified by it and in turn finds ever new ways of modifying his technology. Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs of the machine world, as the bee of the plant world, enabling it to fecundate and to evolve ever new forms. The machine world reciprocates man's love by expediting his wishes and desires, namely, in providing him with wealth. One of the merits of motivation research has been the revelation of man's sex relation to the motorcar.

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(p.46)
Philosophical Maxims
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam
3 weeks 1 day ago
No sane person should believe that...

No sane person should believe that something is 'subjective' merely because it cannot be settled beyond controversy.

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Lecture IV: Reasonableness as a Fact and as a Value
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 months 2 weeks ago
If good music has charms to...

If good music has charms to soothe the savage breast, bad music has no less powerful spells for filling the mildest breast with rage, the happiest with horror and disgust. Oh, those mammy songs, those love longings, those loud hilarities! How was it possible that human emotions intrinsically decent could be so ignobly parodied.

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"Silence is Golden," p. 59
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 3 weeks ago
If you are...
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Main Content / General
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 1 week ago
One age misunderstands another; and a...

One age misunderstands another; and a petty age misunderstands all the others in its own ugly way.

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p. 98e
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 week 5 days ago
Environments are invisible. Their groundrules, pervasive...

Environments are invisible. Their groundrules, pervasive structure, and overall patterns elude easy perception.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 1 week ago
I have no faith in precision:...

I have no faith in precision: ...simplicity and clarity are values in themselves, but not... [of] precision or exactness...

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 2 weeks ago
People will tell us that without...

People will tell us that without the consolations of religion they would be intolerably unhappy. So far as this is true, it is a coward's argument. Nobody but a coward would consciously choose to live in a fool's paradise. When a man suspects his wife of infidelity, he is not thought the better of for shutting his eyes to the evidence. And I cannot see why ignoring evidence should be contemptible in one case and admirable in the other.

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"Is There a God?", 1952
Philosophical Maxims
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
2 weeks 2 days ago
You learn about life by the...

You learn about life by the accidents you have, over and over again, and your father is always in your head when that stuff happens. Writing, most of the time, for most people, is an accident and your father is there for that, too. You know, I taught writing for a while and whenever somebody would tell me they were going to write about their dad, I would tell them they might as well go write about killing puppies because neither story was going to work. It just doesn't work. Your father won't let it happen.

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Interviewed by J. Rentilly, "The Best Jokes Are Dangerous", McSweeny's
Philosophical Maxims
Auguste Comte
Auguste Comte
1 month 2 weeks ago
There are three successive states of...

There are three successive states of morality answering to the three principal stages of human life; the personal, the domestic, and the social stage.

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p. 104
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 months 2 weeks ago
Many Catholic mystics have affirmed that,...

Many Catholic mystics have affirmed that, at a certain stage of that contemplative prayer in which, according to the most authoritative theologians, the life of Christian perfection ultimately consists, it is necessary to put aside all thought of the Incarnation as distracting from the higher knowledge of that which has been incarnated. From this fact have arisen misunderstandings in plenty and a number of intellectual difficulties.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
2 months 2 weeks ago
I want you to read the...

I want you to read the true system of the heart, drafted by a decent man and published under another name. I do not want you to be biased against good and useful books merely because a man unworthy of reading them has the audacity to call himself the Author.

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First Dialogue; translated by Judith R. Bush, Christopher Kelly, Roger D. Masters
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
1 month 5 days ago
That science is incapable of solving...

That science is incapable of solving in its own way those fundamental questions is no sufficient reason for slighting them.

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p. 14
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 weeks ago
When an individual passes from one...

When an individual passes from one period of life to another a time comes when he cannot go on in senseless activity and excitement as before, but has to understand that although he has out-grown what before used to direct him, this does not mean that he must live without any reasonable guidance, but rather that he must formulate for himself an understanding of life corresponding to his age, and having elucidated it must be guided by it. And in the same way a similar time must come in the growth and development of humanity.

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VI
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 months 2 weeks ago
There are 80,000 prostitutes in London...

There are 80,000 prostitutes in London alone and what are they, if not bloody sacrifices on the altar of monogamy?

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"Of Women"
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
3 weeks 2 days ago
The techniques of the practitioner are...

The techniques of the practitioner are usually called 'synthetic'. He designs by organizing known principles and devices into larger systems.

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Simon (1945, p. 353); As cited in: Philosophy of Technology and Engineering Sciences (2009) p. 425.
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
2 months 4 weeks ago
Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes....

Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Therefore, give yourself fully to your endeavors. Decide to construct your character through excellent actions, and determine to pay the price for a worthy goal. The trials you encounter will introduce you to your strengths. Remain steadfast... and one day you will build something that endures, something worthy of your potential.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 2 weeks ago
The days .... come and go...

The days .... come and go like muffled and veiled figures, sent from a distant friendly party; but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away.

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Works and Days
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 2 weeks ago
The gods sell anything to everybody...

The gods sell anything to everybody at a fair price.

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Quotation and Originality
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
2 months 2 weeks ago
The child must be brought up...

The child must be brought up free (that he allow others to be free). He must learn to endure the restraint to which freedom subjects itself for its own preservation (experience no subordination to his command). Thus he must be disciplined. This precedes instruction. Training must continue without interruption. He must learn to do without things and to be cheerful about it. He must not be obliged to dissimulate, he must acquire immediate horror of lies, must learn so to respect the rights of men that they become an insurmountable wall for him. His instruction must be more negative. He must not learn religion before he knows morality. He must be refined, but not spoiled (pampered). He must learn to speak frankly, and must assume no false shame. Before adolescence he must not learn fine manners ; thoroughness is the chief thing. Thus he is crude longer, but earlier useful and capable.

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Part III : Selection on Education from Kant's other Writings, Ch. I Pedagogical Fragments, # 3
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 2 weeks ago
A religious creed differs from a...

A religious creed differs from a scientific theory in claiming to embody eternal and absolutely certain truth, whereas science is always tentative, expecting that modification in its present theories will sooner or later be found necessary, and aware that its method is one which is logically incapable of arriving at a complete and final demonstration.

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Religion and Science (1935), Ch. I: Ground of Conflict
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
2 months 2 days ago
Cato instigated the magistrates to punish...

Cato instigated the magistrates to punish all offenders, saying that they that did not prevent crimes when they might, encouraged them. Of young men, he liked them that blushed better than those who looked pale.

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Cato the Elder
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 month 3 weeks ago
The wind is blowing, adore the...

The wind is blowing, adore the wind.

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Symbol 8
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 1 week ago
Yes, Lord, you are innocence itself:...

Yes, Lord, you are innocence itself: how could you conceive of Nothingness, you who are plenitude? Your gaze is light and transforms all into light: how could you know the half-light in my heart?

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Act 3, sc. 6
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 weeks 6 days 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
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