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Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
3 months 5 days ago
What terrible tragedies realism inflicts on...

What terrible tragedies realism inflicts on people.'

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Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
4 months 1 week ago
The prejudices of the second species,...

The prejudices of the second species, since they impose upon the intellect by the sensual conditions restricting the mind if it wishes in certain cases to attain to what is intellectual, lurk more deeply. One of them is that which affects knowledge of quantity, the other that affecting knowledge of qualities generally. The former is: every actual multiplicity can be given numerically, and hence, every infinite quantity; the latter, whatever is impossible contradicts itself. In either of them the concept of time, it is true, does not enter into the very notion of the predicate, nor is it attributed as a qualification to the subject. But yet it serves as a means for forming an idea of the predicate, and thus, being a condition, affects the intellectual concept of the subject to the extent that the latter is only attained by its aid.

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Philosophical Maxims
René Descartes
René Descartes
4 months 1 week ago
No more useful inquiry can be...

No more useful inquiry can be proposed than that which seeks to determine the nature and the scope of human knowledge. ... This investigation should be undertaken once at least in his life by anyone who has the slightest regard for truth, since in pursuing it the true instruments of knowledge and the whole method of inquiry come to light. But nothing seems to me more futile than the conduct of those who boldly dispute about the secrets of nature ... without yet having ever asked even whether human reason is adequate to the solution of these problems.

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Rules for the Direction of the Mind in Key Philosophical Writings (1997), pp. 29-30
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 1 day ago
If we would regain our freedom,...

If we would regain our freedom, we must shake off the burden of sensation, no longer react to the world by our senses, break our bonds. For all sensation is a bond, pleasure as much as pain, joy as much as misery. The only free mind is the one that, pure of all intimacy with beings or objects, plies its own vacuity.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
4 months 1 week ago
It is a want of feeling...

It is a want of feeling to talk of priests and bells while so many infants are perishing in the hospitals, and aged and infirm poor in the streets, from the want of necessaries.

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Worship and Church Bells, 1797
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
3 weeks 5 days ago
Mahomet can work no miracles; he...

Mahomet can work no miracles; he often answers impatiently: I can work no miracles. I? "I am a Public Preacher;" appointed to preach this doctrine to all creatures. Yet the world, as we can see, had really from of old been all one great miracle to him. Look over the world, says he; is it not wonderful, the work of Allah; wholly "a sign to you," if your eyes were open!

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Philosophical Maxims
William Whewell
William Whewell
5 days ago
The Science of Hydrostatics depends upon...

The Science of Hydrostatics depends upon the Fundamental Principle that 'fluids press equally in all directions'. This Principle necessarily results from the conception of a Fluid, as a body of which the parts are perfectly moveable in all directions. For since the Fluid is a body, it can transmit pressure; and the transmitted pressure is equal to the original pressure, in virtue of the Axiom that Reaction is equal to Action. That the Fundamental Principle is not derived from experience, is plain both from its evidence and from its history.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 5 days ago
Every natural fact is a symbol...

Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.

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Language
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Schmitt
Carl Schmitt
4 days ago
Liberalism, with its contradictions and compromises,...

Liberalism, with its contradictions and compromises, existed for Donoso Cortés only in that short interim period in which it was possible to answer the question "Christ or Barabbas?" with a proposal to adjourn or appoint a commission of investigation.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 6 days ago
Most people, at a crisis, feel...

Most people, at a crisis, feel more loyalty to their nation than to their class.

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Ch. 8: Economic Power
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months ago
The World and Life are one....

The World and Life are one. Physiological life is of course not "Life". And neither is psychological life. Life is the world. Ethics does not treat of the world. Ethics must be a condition of the world, like logic. Ethics and Aesthetics are one.

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Journal entry (24 July 1916), p. 77e
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
2 months 2 weeks ago
The successful revolutionary is a statesman,...

The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.

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Ch. 7
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 6 days ago
The fundamental defect of fathers, in...

The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.

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Ch. 14: Freedom Versus Authority in Education
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
5 months 2 days ago
The absurd does not liberate...

The absurd does not liberate; it binds. It does not authorize all actions. "Everything is permitted" does not mean that nothing is forbidden.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 3 days ago
The fall or scrapping of a...

The fall or scrapping of a cultural world puts us all into the same archetypal cesspool, engendering nostalgia for earlier conditions.

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p. 103
Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
3 months 2 days ago
A modest man is steady, an...

A modest man is steady, an humble man timid, and a vain one presumptuous.

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Ch. 7
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 5 days ago
Every really able man, in whatever...

Every really able man, in whatever direction he work,-a man of large affairs, an inventor, a statesman, an orator, a poet, a painter,-if you talk sincerely with him, considers his work, however much admired, as far short of what it should be.

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Immortality
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 3 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.

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12:48-50 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
4 months 2 weeks ago
Whatever moral rules you have deliberately...

Whatever moral rules you have deliberately proposed to yourself abide by them as they were laws, and as if you would be guilty of impiety by violating any of them. Don't regard what anyone says of you, for this, after all, is no concern of yours. How long, then, will you put off thinking yourself worthy of the highest improvements and follow the distinctions of reason? You have received the philosophical theorems, with which you ought to be familiar, and you have been familiar with them. What other master, then, do you wait for, to throw upon that the delay of reforming yourself?... Let whatever appears to be the best be to you an inviolable law.

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(50).
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
4 months 1 week ago
The beauty or uncomeliness of many...

The beauty or uncomeliness of many things, in good and ill breeding, will be better learnt, and make deeper impressions on them, in the examples of others, than from any rules or instructions can be given about them.

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Sec. 82
Philosophical Maxims
Ernest Renan
Ernest Renan
1 month ago
He whom God has touched will...

He whom God has touched will always be a being apart: he is, whatever he may do, a stranger among men; he is marked by a sign.

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Oeuvres Complètes, vol. 3. L'Avenir de la Science (1890).
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
4 months 2 weeks ago
The Heavenly City outshines Rome, beyond...

The Heavenly City outshines Rome, beyond comparison. There, instead of victory, is truth; instead of high rank, holiness; instead of peace, felicity; instead of life, eternity.

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Book II, Chapter 29
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
3 months 3 weeks ago
There were two brothers called Both...

There were two brothers called Both and Either; perceiving Either was a good, understanding, busy fellow, and Both a silly fellow and good for little, Philip said, "Either is both, and Both is neither."

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35 Philip
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
5 months 6 days ago
When you read God's Word, in...

When you read God's Word, in everything you read, continually to say to yourself: It is I to whom it is speaking - this is earnestness, precisely this is earnestness. Not a single one of those to whom the cause of Christianity in the higher sense has been entrusted forgot to urge this again and again as most crucial, as unconditionally the condition if you are to come to see yourself in the mirror.

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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
2 weeks 6 days ago
Virtue alone…

Virtue alone affords everlasting and peace-giving joy; even if some obstacle arise, it is but like an intervening cloud, which floats beneath the sun but never prevails against it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
3 weeks 6 days ago
I have found a paper of...

I have found a paper of mine among some others in which I call architecture 'petrified music.' Really there is something in this; the tone of mind produced by architecture approaches the effect of music.

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Conversations with Eckermann (23 March 1829) - Often quoted as "Architecture is frozen music."
Philosophical Maxims
Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Berdyaev
2 months 3 weeks ago
Morally, it is wrong to suppose...

Morally, it is wrong to suppose the source of evil is outside oneself, that one is a vessel of holiness running over with virtue. Such a disposition is the best soil for a hateful and cruel fanaticism. It is as wrong to impute every wickedness to Jews, Freemasons, "intellectuals," as it is to blame all crimes on the bourgeoisie, the nobility, and the powers that were. No; the root of evil is in me as well, and I must take my share of the responsibility and the blame. That was true before the revolution and it is true still.

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p. 128
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
4 months 5 days ago
The world would be astonished if...

The world would be astonished if it knew how great a proportion of its brightest ornaments-of those most distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue-are complete sceptics in religion...

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(p. 45)
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 months 2 weeks ago
The deepest definition of youth is...

The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy.

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p. 285.
Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
4 months 1 week ago
A prince who is not wise...

A prince who is not wise himself will never take good advice.

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The Prince (1513), Ch. 23; translated by W. K. Marriot
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 1 week ago
If you don't know how to...

If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
2 months 1 day ago
Nothing like a little judicious levity....

Nothing like a little judicious levity.

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The Wrong Box, ch. 7 (1889).
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
4 months 1 week ago
Nature made women mature early and...

Nature made women mature early and had them demand gentle and polite treatment from men, so that they would find themselves imperceptibly fettered by a child due to their own magnanimity; and they would find themselves brought, if not quite to morality itself, then at least to that which cloaks it, moral behavior, which is the preparation and introduction to morality.

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Kant, Immanuel (1996), pages 219-220
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 3 days ago
Pornography and violence are by-products of...

Pornography and violence are by-products of societies in which private identity has been...destroyed by sudden environmental change.

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Letter to Clare Westcott, November 26 1975. Letters of Marshall McLuhan, p. 514
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
3 months 4 weeks ago
In the ceremonies of the public...

In the ceremonies of the public execution, the main character was the people, whose real and immediate presence was required for the performance.

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Chapter One, pp. 56
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
4 months 5 days ago
I conceive that the description so...

I conceive that the description so often given of a Benthamite, as a mere reasoning machine, though extremely inapplicable to most of those who have been designated by that title, was during two or three years of my life not altogether untrue of me. ...There is nothing very extraordinary in this fact: no youth of the age I then was, can be expected to be more than one thing, and this was the thing I happened to be. Ambition and desire of distinction, I had in abundance; and zeal for what I thought the good of mankind was my strongest sentiment, mixing with and colouring all others. But my zeal was as yet little else, at that period of my life, than zeal for speculative opinions. It had not its root in genuine benevolence, or sympathy with mankind; though these qualities held their due place in my ethical standard. Nor was it connected with any high enthusiasm for ideal nobleness.

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(pp. 109-110)
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 5 days ago
Who am I? Subject and object...

Who am I? Subject and object in one - contemplating and contemplated, thinking and thought of. As both must I have become what I am.

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Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 71
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
2 months 3 weeks ago
I know not how the world...

I know not how the world will receive it, nor how it may reflect on those that shall seem to favor it. For in a way beset with those that contend, on one side for too great Liberty, and on the other side for too much Authority, 'tis hard to passe between the points of both unwounded.

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The Epistle Dedicatory, Paris, April 15-25, 1651
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
2 months 2 weeks ago
The history of the Romanovs is...

The history of the Romanovs is an Elizabethan tragedy that lasts for three centuries. Its keynote is cruelty, a barbaric, pointless kind of cruelty that has always been common in the East, but that came to Europe only recently, in the time of Hitler.

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pp. 61-62
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 4 days ago
Criminals together. We're in hell, my...

Criminals together. We're in hell, my little friend, and there's never any mistake there. People are not damned for nothing. Act 1, sc. 5 Variant translation: Among murderers. We are in hell, my dear, there is never a mistake and people are not damned for nothing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 6 days ago
There is a boundary to men's...

There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feeling; none when they are under the influence of imagination.

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p. 460
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
3 weeks 5 days ago
Clever men are good, but they...

Clever men are good, but they are not the best.

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Goethe.
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 months 3 weeks ago
By committing a crime, a man...

By committing a crime, a man places himself, of his own accord, outside the chain of eternal obligations which bind every human being to every other one. Punishment alone can weld him back again; fully so, if accompanied by consent on his part; otherwise only partially so. Just as the only way of showing respect for somebody suffering from hunger is to give him something to eat, so the only way of showing respect for somebody who has placed himself outside the law is to reinstate him inside the law by subjecting him to the punishment ordained by law.The need for punishment is not satisfied where, as is generally the case, the penal code is merely a method of exercising pressure through fear.

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p. 103
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 months 2 weeks ago
By Silence, the discretion of a...

By Silence, the discretion of a man is known: and a fool, keeping Silence, seemeth to be wise.

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Philosophical Maxims
Antisthenes
Antisthenes
3 months 3 weeks ago
Being asked what learning is…..

Being asked what learning is the most necessary, he replied, "How to get rid of having anything to unlearn.

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" § 7
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
2 months 3 weeks ago
In solitude it is possible to...

In solitude it is possible to love mankind; in the world, for one who knows the world, there can be nothing but secret or open war.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
4 months 1 week ago
Let us not forget what befits...

Let us not forget what befits our present state in the pursuit of vain fancies. Mankind has its place in the sequence of things; childhood has its place in the sequence of human life; the man must be treated as a man and the child as a child. Give each his place, and keep him there. Control human passions according to man's nature; that is all we can do for his welfare. The rest depends on external forces, which are beyond our control.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 2 weeks ago
Neither family, nor privilege...
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Main Content / General
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 5 days ago
Money, then, appears as this overturning...

Money, then, appears as this overturning power both against the individual and against the bonds of society, etc., which claim to be essences in themselves. It transforms fidelity into infidelity, love into hate, hate into love, virtue into vice, vice into virtue, servant into master, master into servant, idiocy into intelligence and intelligence into idiocy.

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"The Power of Money in Bourgeois Society" p. 105, The Marx-Engels Reader
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
4 months 5 days ago
All those to whom I looked...

All those to whom I looked up, were of opinion that the pleasure of sympathy with human beings, and the feelings which made the good of others, and especially of mankind on a large scale, the object of existence, were the greatest and surest sources of happiness. Of the truth of this I was convinced, but to know that a feeling would make me happy if I had it, did not give me the feeling.

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(p. 138)
Philosophical Maxims
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