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Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 3 weeks ago
He was free, free in every...

He was free, free in every way, free to behave like a fool or a machine, free to accept, free to refuse, free to equivocate; to marry, to give up the game, to drag this death weight about with him for years to come. He could do what he liked, no one had the right to advise him, there would be for him no Good or Evil unless he thought them into being.

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L'âge de raison (The Age of Reason)
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
1 month 2 weeks ago
If one does not understand a...

If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.

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Mysterium Coniunctionis, from The Collected Works of C. G. Jung
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks 6 days ago
I must plunge...
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Main Content / General
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 months 3 weeks ago
A reproach can only hurt if...

A reproach can only hurt if it hits the mark. Whoever knows that he does not deserve a reproach can treat it with contempt.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 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
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
2 months 1 week ago
Animal Liberation is Human Liberation too....

Animal Liberation is Human Liberation too.

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Preface
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
3 months 2 days ago
You venerate the saints, and you...

You venerate the saints, and you take pleasure in touching their relics. But you disregard their greatest legacy, the example of a blameless life. No devotion is more pleasing to Mary than the imitation of Mary's humility. No devotion is more acceptable and proper to the saints than striving to imitate their virtues.

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The Erasmus Reader (1990), p. 144.
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
3 months 2 days ago
The world thought well of my...

The world thought well of my schoolmaster guardian, because he was neither a liar, nor a scamp, nor a gambler; but he was coarse, avaricious, and ignorant; he knew nothing beyond the confused lessons which he taught to his classes. He imagined that in forcing a youth to become a monk he would be offering a sacrifice acceptable to God. He used to boast of the many victims which he devoted annually to Dominic and Francis and Benedict.

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As quoted in Life and Letters of Erasmus: Lectures Delivered at Oxford 1893-4 (1899) by James Anthony Froude
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 months 3 weeks ago
An unexciting truth may be eclipsed...

An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling falsehood.

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Chapter 11 (p. 104)
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
2 months 3 weeks ago
Indeed, history is nothing more…

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

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L'Ingénu, ch.10 (1767) Quoted in The End, part 13 of A Series of Unfortunate Events
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 3 weeks ago
It is the character of the...

It is the character of the British people, or at least of the higher and middle classes who pass muster for the British people, that to induce them to approve of any change, it is necessary that they should look upon it as a middle course: they think every proposal extreme and violent unless they hear of some other proposal going still farther, upon which their antipathy to extreme views may discharge itself. So it proved in the present instance; my proposal was condemned, but any scheme for Irish Land reform, short of mine, came to be thought moderate by comparison.

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(pp. 294-295)
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1 month 3 weeks ago
Accept suffering and achieve atonement through...

Accept suffering and achieve atonement through it - that is what you must do.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 2 weeks ago
One of the biggest paradoxes of...

One of the biggest paradoxes of our world: memories vanish when we want to remember, but fix themselves permanently in the mind when we want to forget.

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Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
1 month 2 weeks ago
For a woman, the typical danger...

For a woman, the typical danger emanating from the unconscious comes from above, from the "spiritual" sphere personified by the animus, whereas for a man it comes from the chthonic realm of the "world and woman," i.e., the anima projected on to the world.

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"A Study in the Process of Individuation" (1934) In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. P. 559
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
3 months 1 week ago
If it is my interest to...

If it is my interest to have a farm, it is my interest to take it away from my neighbour; if it is my interest to have a cloak, it is my interest also to steal it from a bath. This is the source of wars, seditions, tyrannies, plots.

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Book I, ch. 22, 14.
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
2 months 3 weeks ago
Of all those expensive and uncertain...

Of all those expensive and uncertain projects, however, which bring bankruptcy upon the greater part of the people who engage in in them, there is none perhaps more perfectly ruinous than the search after new silver and gold mines. It is perhaps the most disadvantageous lottery in the world, or the one in which the gain of those who draw the prizes bears the least proportion to the loss of those who draw the blanks: for though the prizes are few and the blanks are many, the common price of a ticket is the whole fortune of a very rich man.

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Chapter VII, Part First, p. 610.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 2 weeks ago
Nothing is a better proof of...

Nothing is a better proof of how far humanity has regressed than the impossibility of finding a single nation, a single tribe, among whom birth still provokes mourning and lamentations.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 5 days ago
They certainly demonstrate that Seth, whether...

They certainly demonstrate that Seth, whether an aspect of Jane Robert's unconscious mind or a genuine "spirit," was of a high level of intelligence. Yet when Jane Roberts produced a book that purported to be the after-death journal of the philosopher William James, it was difficult to take it seriously. James's works are noted for their vigour and clarity of style; Jane Robert's "communicator" writes like an undergraduate . . . there is a clumsiness here that is quite unlike James's swift-moving, colloquial prose.

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p. 390
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 3 weeks ago
Whenever the general disposition of the...

Whenever the general disposition of the people is such, that each individual regards those only of his interests which are selfish, and does not dwell on, or concern himself for, his share of the general interest, in such a state of things, good government is impossible.

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Ch. II: The Criterion of a Good Form of Government (p. 167)
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 3 weeks ago
I would say to the readers...

I would say to the readers of the Scriptures, if they wish for a good book, read the Bhagavad-Gita...translated by Charles Wilkins. It deserves to be read with reverence even by yankees...Besides the Bhagvat-Geeta, our Shakespeare seems sometimes youthfully green...Ex oriente lux may still be the motto of scholars, for the Western world has not yet derived from the East all the light it is destined to derive thence.

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Quoted in Sushama Londhe, A Tribute to Hinduism (New Delhi: Pragun Publication, 2008) p. 26
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 3 weeks ago
This world is but canvas to...

This world is but canvas to our imaginations.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 2 weeks ago
So long as man is protected...

So long as man is protected by madness he functions and flourishes, but when he frees himself from the fruitful tyranny of fixed ideas, he is lost, ruined.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 month 1 week ago
But Don Quixote was converted. Yes...

But Don Quixote was converted. Yes - and died, poor soul. But the other, the real Don Quixote, he who remained on earth and lives among us with his spirit - this Don Quixote was not converted, this Don Quixote continues to incite us to make ourselves ridiculous, this Don Quixote must never die.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
1 month 1 week ago
The great man, whether we comprehend...

The great man, whether we comprehend him in the most intense activity of his work or in the restful equipoise of his forces, is powerful, involuntarily and composedly powerful, but he is not avid for power. What he is avid for is the realization of what he has in mind, the incarnation of the spirit.

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p. 151
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
Every man would like to be...

Every man would like to be God, if it were possible; some few find it difficult to admit the impossibility.

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Ch. 1: The Impulse to Power
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1 month 3 weeks ago
Man grows used to everything, the...

Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel.

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Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
2 months 1 week ago
Nor word for word…

Nor word for word too faithfully translate.

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Line 133 (tr. John Dryden)
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
2 months 2 weeks ago
Transcendence constitutes selfhood. Essence of Ground

Transcendence constitutes selfhood.

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Essence of Ground
Philosophical Maxims
John Searle
John Searle
3 weeks 4 days ago
The student should have enough knowledge...

The student should have enough knowledge of his or her cultural tradition to know how it got to be the way it is. This involves both political and social history, on the one hand, as well as the mastery of some of the great philosophical and literary texts of the culture on the other. It involves reading not only texts that are of great value, like those of Plato, but many less valuable that have been influential, such as the works of Marx. For the United States, the dominant tradition is, and for the foreseeable future, will remain the European tradition. The United States is, after all, a product of the European Enlightenment. However, you do not understand your own tradition if you do not see it in relation to others. Works from other cultural traditions need to be studied as well.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 2 weeks ago
If Nietzsche and Hegel serve as...

If Nietzsche and Hegel serve as alibis to the masters of Dachau and Karaganda, that does not condemn their entire philosophy. But it does lead to the suspicion that one aspect of their thought, or of their logic, can lead to these appalling conclusions.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 2 weeks ago
"I conclude that all is well,"...

"I conclude that all is well," says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.

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Philosophical Maxims
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
6 months 4 weeks ago
I hate writing

I hate writing. I so intensely hate writing — I cannot tell you how much. The moment I am at the end of one project I have the idea that I didn’t really succeed in telling what I wanted to tell, that I need a new project — it’s an absolute nightmare. But my whole economy of writing is in fact based on an obsessional ritual to avoid the actual act of writing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
1 month 6 days ago
The freedom of the 'everyday mind'...

The freedom of the 'everyday mind' consists rather in not kneeling down in awe. Its mental attitude is better expressed as sitting unmoveable like an object.

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1 month 3 weeks ago
So long as man remains free...

So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find some one to worship.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
3 months ago
A penny saved is of more...

A penny saved is of more value than a penny paid out.

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What Luther Says, Section on "Life, Human," No. 2438. Rules for a Thrifty Life. 2, p. 784
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
1 month 2 weeks ago
It is only natural that I...

It is only natural that I should constantly have revolved in my mind the question of the relationship of the symbolism of the unconscious to Christianity as well as to other religions. Not only do I leave the door open for the Christian message, but I consider it of central importance for Western man. It needs, however, to be seen in a new light, in accordance with the changes wrought by the contemporary spirit.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 2 weeks ago
No one commits suicide for external...

No one commits suicide for external reasons, only because of inner disequilibrium. Under similar adverse circumstances, some are indifferent, some are moved, some are driven to suicide.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 2 weeks ago
Ennui is the echo in us...

Ennui is the echo in us of time tearing itself apart.

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Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
1 month 2 weeks ago
...the relatively unconscious man driven by...

...the relatively unconscious man driven by his natural impulses because, imprisoned in his familiar world, he clings to the commonplace, the obvious, the probable, the collectively valid, using for his motto: 'Thinking is difficult. Therefore, let the herd pronounce judgement.'

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Frequently misquoted as "Thinking is difficult, that's why most people judge" and close variants. Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky. (1959), C.G. Jung, R.F.C. Hull (translator) (Princeton Press, 1979, ISBN 9780691018225
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
3 months 3 weeks ago
If there is some end of...

If there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake, clearly this must be the good. Will not knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what we should? If so, we must try, in outline at least, to determine what it is.

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Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
1 month 1 week ago
Bourgeois society is ruled by equivalence....

Bourgeois society is ruled by equivalence. It makes the dissimilar comparable by reducing it to abstract quantities. To the Enlightenment, that which does not reduce to numbers, and ultimately to the one, becomes illusion.

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John Cumming trans., p. 7.
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
2 months 3 weeks ago
As a rule we disbelieve all...

As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use.

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"The Will to Believe" p. 10
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 3 weeks ago
I speak for the slave when...

I speak for the slave when I say that I prefer the philanthropy of Captain Brown to that philanthropy which neither shoots me nor liberates me.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
The plan we are advocating amounts...

The plan we are advocating amounts essentially to this: that a certain small income, sufficient for necessaries, should be secured to all, whether they work or not, and that a larger income, as much larger as might be warranted by the total amount of commodities produced, should be given to those who are willing to engage in some work which the community recognizes as useful.

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Ch. IV: Work and Pay, discussing Universal Basic Income (UBI)
Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
1 month 2 weeks ago
The political freedom of conscience and...

The political freedom of conscience and of the press, so far from being as it is commonly supposed an extension, is a new case of the limitation of rights and discretion. Conscience and the press ought to be unrestrained, not because men have a right to deviate from the exact line that duty prescribes, but because society, the aggregate of individuals, has no right to assume the prerogative of an infallible judge, and to undertake authoritatively to prescribe to its members in matters of pure speculation.

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Vol. 1, bk 2 : Principles of Society , Ch. 5 : Of Rights
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 3 weeks ago
Poetry is the mysticism of mankind.

Poetry is the mysticism of mankind.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 5 days ago
The chief impression left by a...

The chief impression left by a study of Crowley's life and works is that he wasted an immense amount of time and energy trying to shock everyone he came into contact with, and his dislike of orthodoxy turned him into an unconsciously comic figure, like Don Quixote.

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pp. 153-154
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
I like mathematics because it is...

I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe - because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return.

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Letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell, March, 1912, as quoted in Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2012), p. 1318
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
3 months 1 week ago
When the Great Dao (Tao, perfect...

When the Great Dao (Tao, perfect order) prevails, the world is like a Commonwealth State shared by all, not a dictatorship.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months ago
When I am attacked by gloomy...

When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.

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Philosophical Maxims
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