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Cornel West
Cornel West
4 months 4 days ago
With a few glorious and glaring...

With a few glorious and glaring exceptions, the shadow of Jim Crow was cast in its new glittering form expressed in the language of superficial diversity... The disarray of a scattered curriculum, the disenchantment of talented yet deferential faculty, and the disorientation of precious students loom large... To witness a faculty enthusiastically support a candidate for tenure then timidly defer to a rejection based on the Harvard administration's hostility to the Palestinian cause was disgusting... We all know the mendacious reasons given had nothing to do with academic standards... This kind of narcissistic academic professionalism, cowardly deference to the anti-Palestinian prejudices of the Harvard administration, and indifference to my Mother's death constitutes an intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of deep deaths...

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Quoted in Civil rights activist Cornel West resigns from Harvard, By Jackie Salo, New York Post, July 13, 2021
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 1 week ago
That which is best about conservatism,...

That which is best about conservatism, that which, though it cannot be expressed in detail, inspires reverence in all, is the Inevitable.

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Philosophical Maxims
Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch
3 months 1 day ago
Perhaps when distant people on other...

Perhaps when distant people on other planets pick up some wave-length of ours all they hear is a continuous scream.

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The Message to the Planet (1989) p. 509.
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 1 week ago
I saw men go up and...

I saw men go up and down, In the country and the town, With this tablet on their neck,- 'Judgement and a judge we seek.' Not to monarchs they repair, Nor to learned jurist's chair; But they hurry to their peers, To their kinsfolk and their dears; Louder than with speech they pray,- 'What am I? companion, say.'

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Astræa
Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
2 months 3 weeks ago
To be in touch with senses...

To be in touch with senses and emotions beyond conquest is to enter the realm of the mysterious.

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Chapter 2, Altars of Sacrifice
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 6 days ago
Vague a l'ame - melancholy yearning...

Vague a l'ame - melancholy yearning for the end of the world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 1 week 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
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 6 days ago
What can be said, lacks reality....

What can be said, lacks reality. Only what fails to make its way into words exists and counts.

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Philosophical Maxims
Proclus
Proclus
3 months 3 weeks ago
Again, Amyclas the Heracleotean, one of...

Again, Amyclas the Heracleotean, one of Plato's familiars, and Menæchmus, the disciple, indeed, of Eudoxus, but conversant with Plato, and his brother Dinostratus, rendered the whole of geometry as yet more perfect. But Theudius, the Magnian, appears to have excelled, as well in mathematical disciplines, as in the rest of philosophy. For he constructed elements egregiously, and rendered many particulars more universal. Besides, Cyzicinus the Athenian, flourished at the same period, and became illustrious in other mathematical disciplines, but especially in geometry. These, therefore, resorted by turns to the Academy, and employed themselves in proposing common questions.

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Ch. IV.
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
5 months 1 week ago
Writing is an addiction more powerful...

Writing is an addiction more powerful than alcohol, than nicotine, than crack. I could not conceive of not writing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emmanuel Levinas
Emmanuel Levinas
3 months 5 days ago
The theory of transparency was set...

The theory of transparency was set up in reaction to the theory of mental images, of an inner tableu which the perception of an object would leave in us. In imagination our gaze always goes outward, but imagination modifies and neutralizes the gaze: the real world appears in it as it were between parenthesis or quote marks.

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The Levinas reader by Levinas, Emmanuel p. 134
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 5 days ago
I don't know why we are...

I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.

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As quoted in The Beginning of the End (2004) by Peter Hershey, p. 109 Also, as quoted in "The Relentless Rise of Science as Fun", by Jeremy Burgess, in New Scientist, Volume 143, Issues 1932-1945, originally published 1994.
Philosophical Maxims
William Whewell
William Whewell
1 week 2 days ago
The Perception of Time involves a...

The Perception of Time involves a constant and latent kind of memory, which may be termed a 'Sense of Succession'. The Perception of Number also involves this Sense of Succession, although in small numbers we appear to apprehend the units simultaneously and not successively.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 2 weeks 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
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
4 months 1 week ago
What can be said can and...

What can be said can and should always be said more and more simply and clearly.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 months 2 weeks ago
In countries where associations are free,...

In countries where associations are free, secret societies are unknown. In America there are factions, but no conspiracies.

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Chapter XII.
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
5 months 1 week ago
The vicious lover is the follower...

The vicious lover is the follower of earthly Love who desires the body rather than the soul; his heart is set on what is mutable and must therefore be inconstant. And as soon as the body he loves begins to pass the first flower of its beauty, he "spreads his wings and flies away," giving the lie to all his pretty speeches and dishonoring his vows, whereas the lover whose heart is touched by moral beauties is constant all his life, for he has become one with what will never fade.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 months 1 week ago
The oppression of a majority by...

The oppression of a majority by a minority, and the demoralization inevitably resulting from it, is a phenomenon that has always occupied me and has done so most particularly of late.

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I
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
3 months 6 days ago
Now, let there be an indefinite...

Now, let there be an indefinite succession of these inferential acts of comparative perception; and it is plain that the last moment will contain objectively the whole series. Let there be, not merely an indefinite succession, but a continuous flow of inference through a finite time; and the result will be a mediate objective consciousness of the whole time in the last moment. In this last moment, the whole series will be recognized, or known as known before.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Just now
I believe with Schopenhauer: We...

I believe with Schopenhauer: We can do what we wish, but we can only wish what we must. Practically, I am, nevertheless, compelled to act as if freedom of the will existed. If I wish to live in a civilized community, I must act as if man is a responsible being. I know that philosophically a murderer is not responsible for his crime; nevertheless, I must protect myself from unpleasant contacts. I may consider him guiltless, but I prefer not to take tea with him.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 2 weeks ago
All they that take....
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Main Content / General
William James
William James
4 months 1 week ago
What we really need the poet's...

What we really need the poet's and orator's help to keep alive in us is not, then, the common and gregarious courage which Robert Shaw showed when he marched with you, men of the Seventh Regiment. It is that more lonely courage which he showed when he dropped his warm commission in the glorious Second to head your dubious fortunes, negroes of the Fifty-fourth. That lonely kind of courage (civic courage as we call it in times of peace) is the kind of valor to which the monuments of nations should most of all be reared.

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Robert Gould Shaw: Oration upon the Unveiling of the Shaw Monument, 31 May 1897
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
4 months ago
The only justifiable stopping place for...

The only justifiable stopping place for the expansion of altruism is the point at which all whose welfare can be affected by our actions are included within the circle of altruism. This means that all beings with the capacity to feel pleasure or pain should be included; we can improve their welfare by increasing their pleasures and diminishing their pains.

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Chapter 4, Reason, p. 120
Philosophical Maxims
Thales of Miletus
Thales of Miletus
3 months 3 weeks ago
Hope is the only good that...

Hope is the only good that is common to all men; those who have nothing else possess hope still.

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A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908) by Tryon Edwards, p. 234
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 1 week 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
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
4 months 3 weeks ago
Variant translation: Inasmuch as love grows...

Inasmuch as love grows in you, in so much beauty grows; for love is itself the beauty of the soul.

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as translated by H. Browne and J. H. Meyers, The Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers (1995)
Philosophical Maxims
Ptahhotep
Ptahhotep
4 months ago
Be cheerful while you are alive....

Be cheerful while you are alive.

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Maxim no. 34.
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
4 months 1 week ago
Beauty is no quality in things...

Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. One person may even perceive deformity, where another is sensible of beauty; and every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to regulate those of others.

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Part I, Essay 23: Of The Standard of Taste
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
4 months 2 weeks ago
No Man is wise at all...

No Man is wise at all Times, or is without his blind Side.

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The Alchymyst, in Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I.
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
3 months ago
The world is not divine sport,...

The world is not divine sport, it is divine destiny. There is divine meaning in the life of the world, of man, of human persons, of you and of me. Creation happens to us, burns itself into us, recasts us in burning - we tremble and are faint, we submit. We take part in creation, meet the Creator, reach out to Him, helpers and companions.

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Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
1 week 2 days ago
Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful...

Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.

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Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front in Farming: A Hand Book
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
6 days ago
If a man is mistaken, instruct...

If a man is mistaken, instruct him kindly and show him his error. But if thou art not able, blame thyself, or blame not even thyself.

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X, 4
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
3 months 6 days ago
As the animus is partial to...

As the animus is partial to argument, he can best be seen at work in disputes where both parties know they are right. Men can argue in a very womanish way, too, when they are anima-possessed and have thus been transformed into the animus of their own anima.

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Aion (1951). CW 9, Part II: P.29
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
4 months 5 days ago
What is peddled about nowadays as...

What is peddled about nowadays as philosophy, especially that of N.S. [National Socialism], but has nothing to do with the inner truth and greatness of that movement [namely the encounter between global technology and modern humanity] is nothing but fishing in that troubled sea of values and totalities.

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Introduction to Metaphysics (1953) - a publication of lectures of 1935.
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Just now
No man can visualize four...

No man can visualize four dimensions, except mathematically ... I think in four dimensions, but only abstractly. The human mind can picture these dimensions no more than it can envisage electricity. Nevertheless, they are no less real than electro-magnetism, the force which controls our universe, within, and by which we have our being.

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 months 3 weeks ago
If a captive mind is unaware...

If a captive mind is unaware of being in prison, it is living in error. If it has recognized the fact, even for the tenth of a second, and then quickly forgotten it in order to avoid suffering, it is living in falsehood. Men of the most brilliant intelligence can be born, live and die in error and falsehood. In them, intelligence is neither a good, nor even an asset. The difference between more or less intelligent men is like the difference between criminals condemned to life imprisonment in smaller or larger cells. The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like a condemned man who is proud of his large cell.

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p. 69
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1 month 2 days ago
The spirits that I summoned upI...

The spirits that I summoned up, I now can't rid myself of.

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Der Zauberlehrling (The Sorcerer's Apprentice)
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 6 days ago
Philosophy's error is to be too...

Philosophy's error is to be too endurable.

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Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
4 months 4 weeks ago
The flesh receives as unlimited the...

The flesh receives as unlimited the limits of pleasure; and to provide it requires unlimited time. But the mind, intellectually grasping what the end and limit of the flesh is, and banishing the terrors of the future, procures a complete and perfect life, and we have no longer any need of unlimited time. Nevertheless the mind does not shun pleasure, and even when circumstances make death imminent, the mind does not lack enjoyment of the best life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
3 months 2 days ago
To the degree to which they...

To the degree to which they correspond to the given reality, thought and behavior express a false consciousness, responding to and contributing to the preservation of a false order of facts. And this false consciousness has become embodied in the prevailing technical apparatus which in turn reproduces it.

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p. 145
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
4 months 1 week ago
He that uses his words loosely...

He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.

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Book III, Ch. 10, sec. 31
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 2 weeks ago
Nature forms us for ourselves, not...

Nature forms us for ourselves, not for others; to be, not to seem.

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Book II, Ch. 37. Of the Resemblance of Children to their Brothers
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 1 week ago
Self-command is the main elegance. p....

Self-command is the main elegance.

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p. 205
Philosophical Maxims
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
6 days ago
If we assume the viewpoint claimed...

If we assume the viewpoint claimed as his own by Lenin and we fear the influence of intellectuals in the proletarian movement, we can conceive of no greater danger to the Russian party than Lenin's plan of organization. Nothing will more surely enslave a young labor movement to an intellectual elite hungry for power than this bureaucratic straightjacket, which will immobilize the movement and turn it into an automaton manipulated by a Central Committee. On the other hand there is no more effective guarantee against opportunist intrigue and personal ambition than the independent revolutionary action of the proletariat, as a result of which the workers acquire the sense of political responsibility and self-reliance.

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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
3 weeks 3 days ago
Lay hold of today's task, and...

Lay hold of today's task, and you will not need to depend so much upon tomorrow's. While we are postponing, life speeds by.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 week 3 days ago
The Constitution has made no provision...

The Constitution has made no provision for our holding foreign territory, still less for incorporating foreign nations into our Union. The Executive, in seizing the fugitive occurrence which so much advances the good of their country, have done an act beyond the Constitution. The Legislature, in casting behind them metaphysical subtleties and risking themselves like faithful servants, must ratify and pay for it, and throw themselves on their country for doing for them unauthorized what we know they would have done for themselves had they been in a situation to do it.

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On the Louisiana Purchase, Letter to John Breckinridge
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
2 months 3 weeks ago
Suffering is a spiritual thing. It...

Suffering is a spiritual thing. It is the most immediate revelation of consciousness, and it may be that our body was given us simply in order that suffering might be enabled to manifest itself. A man who had never known suffering, either in greater or less degree, would scarcely possess consciousness of himself. The child first cries at birth when the air, entering into his lungs and limiting him, seems to say to him: You have to breathe me in order to live!

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Owen
Robert Owen
2 months 3 days ago
I was forced, through seeing the...

I was forced, through seeing the error of their foundation, to abandon all belief in every religion which had been taught to man. But my religious feelings were immediately replaced by the spirit of universal charity - not for a sect, or a party, or for a country or a colour - but for the human race, and with a real and ardent desire to do good.

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Life of Robert Owen (1857) his autobiography, as quoted by Jim Herrick, in "Bradlaugh and Secularism: 'The Province of the Real'"
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
6 days ago
Let it not be in any...

Let it not be in any man's power to say truly of thee that thou art not simple or that thou art not good; but let him be a liar whoever shall think anything of this kind about thee; and this is altogether in thy power.

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X, 32
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 1 day ago
That there should one Man die...

That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy.

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Bk. III, ch. 4.
Philosophical Maxims
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