Skip to main content

Main navigation

☰ ˟
  • Home
  • Articulation
  • Contact
  • Shop
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
4 months 3 weeks ago
I don't believe in flying saucers......

I don't believe in flying saucers... The energy requirements of interstellar travel are so great that it is inconceivable to me that any creatures piloting their ships across the vast depths of space would do so only in order to play games with us over a period of decades.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
4 months 2 weeks ago
If a man has no...

If a man has no humaneness what can his propriety be like? If a man has no humaneness what can his happiness be like?

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
2 months 3 days ago
The fact that goals may be...

The fact that goals may be dependent for their force on other more distant ends leads to the arrangement of these goals in a hierarchy - each level to be considered as an end relative to the levels below it and as a mean to the levels above it.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 62.
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
3 months 3 weeks ago
The Philosophy of Nature takes up...

The Philosophy of Nature takes up the material, prepared for it by physics out of experience, at the point to which physics has brought it, and again transforms it, without basing it ultimately on the authority of experience. Physics therefore must work into the hands of philosophy, so that the latter may translate into a true comprehension (Begriff) the abstract universal transmitted to it, showing how it issues from that comprehension as an intrinsically necessary whole.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
4 months 3 weeks ago
No matter how various the subject...

No matter how various the subject matter I write on, I was a science-fiction writer first and it is as a science-fiction writer that I want to be identified.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 3 weeks ago
It shews the anxiety of the...

It shews the anxiety of the great men who influenced the conduct of affairs at that great event, to make the Revolution a parent of settlement, and not a nursery of future revolutions.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Referring to the Glorious Revolution of 1688
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
3 months 3 weeks ago
Religion...is a man's total reaction upon...

Religion...is a man's total reaction upon life.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Lecture II, "Circumscription of the Topic"
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
4 months 2 weeks ago
If you would govern a...

If you would govern a state of a thousand chariots (a small-to-middle-size state), you must pay strict attention to business, be true to your word, be economical in expenditure and love the people. You should use them according to the seasons.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
1 month 3 weeks ago
You worldly-minded people are most unfortunate!...

You worldly-minded people are most unfortunate! You are surrounded with sorrows and troubles overhead and underfoot and to the right and to the left, and you are enigmas even to yourselves.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 37
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
3 months 3 weeks ago
To these spurious principles must be...

To these spurious principles must be added some others of great affinity with them... First, that by which we assume that everything in the universe is done according to the order of nature, which principle by Epicurus was proclaimed without any restriction, and by all other philosophers unanimously with extremely rare exceptions, not to be admitted but from supreme necessity.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
1 month 3 weeks ago
The peculiar and amusing nature of...

The peculiar and amusing nature of those answers stems from the fact that modern history is like a deaf person who is in the habit of answering questions that no one has put to them. If the purpose of history be to give a description of the movement of humanity and of the peoples, the first question - in the absence of a reply to which all the rest will be incomprehensible - is: what is the power that moves peoples? To this, modern history laboriously replies either that Napoleon was a great genius, or that Louis XIV was very proud, or that certain writers wrote certain books. All that may be so and mankind is ready to agree with it, but it is not what was asked.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Vol 2, pt 5, p 236 - Selected Works, Moscow, 1869
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
1 month 3 weeks ago
Men think it right to eat...

Men think it right to eat animals, because they are led to believe that God sanctions it. This is untrue. No matter in what books it may be written that it is not sinful to slay animals and to eat them, it is more clearly written in the heart of man than in any books that animals are to be pitied and should not be slain any more than human beings. We all know this if we do not choke the voice of our conscience.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The Pathway of Life: Teaching Love and Wisdom (posthumous), Part I, International Book Publishing Company, New York, 1919, p. 68
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
1 month 1 week ago
Sound knowledge respecting the habits and...

Sound knowledge respecting the habits and mode of life of the man-like Apes has been even more difficult of attainment than correct information regarding their structure.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch.1, p. 36
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
4 months 2 weeks ago
To rank the effort above the...

To rank the effort above the prize may be called love.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
3 months 3 weeks ago
The Nazis were 'convinced that evil-doing...

The Nazis were 'convinced that evil-doing in our time has a morbid force of attraction,' Bolshevik assurances inside and outside Russia that they do not recognize ordinary moral standards have become a mainstay of Communist propaganda, and experience has proven time and again that the propaganda value of evil deeds and general contempt for moral standards is independent of mere self-interest, supposedly the most powerful psychological factor in politics.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Part 3, Ch. 10
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
3 months 4 weeks ago
In a word, human life is...

In a word, human life is more governed by fortune than by reason; is to be regarded more as a dull pastime than as a serious occupation; and is more influenced by particular humour, than by general principles. Shall we engage ourselves in it with passion and anxiety? It is not worthy of so much concern. Shall we be indifferent about what happens? We lose all the pleasure of the game by our phlegm and carelessness. While we are reasoning concerning life, life is gone; and death, though perhaps they receive him differently, yet treats alike the fool and the philosopher.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Part I, Essay 18: The Sceptic
Philosophical Maxims
Julius Evola
Julius Evola
2 days ago
One of the commonplaces of modern...

One of the commonplaces of modern historiography is the polemical exaltation of the civilization of the Renaissance over and against medieval civilization. This is not just the expression of a typical misunderstanding, since this mentality is the effect of one among the innumerable deceptions purposely spread in modern culture by the leaders of global subversion. The truth is that after the collapse of the ancient world, if there ever was a civilization that deserves the name of Renaissance, this was the civilization of the Middle Ages. In its objectivity, its virile spirit, its hierarchical structure, its proud antihumanistic simplicity so often permeated by the sense of the sacred, the Middle Ages represented a return to the origins.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p.309
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months 4 days ago
He was then in his fifty-fourth...

He was then in his fifty-fourth year, when even in the case of poets reason and passion begin to discuss a peace treaty and usually conclude it not very long afterwards.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
B 30
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
4 months 1 week ago
You called and cried out loud...

You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
2 months 1 week ago
Sadism is plainly connected with the...

Sadism is plainly connected with the need for self-assertion. At the same time it cannot be separated from the idea of defeat. A sadist is a man, who, in some sense, has his back to the wall. Nothing is further from sadism, for example, than the cheerful, optimistic mentality of a Shaw or Wells.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 158
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 3 weeks ago
I've always been careful never to...

I've always been careful never to predict anything that had not already happened.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Interview: Tom Wolfe, TVOntario, August 1970
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 3 weeks ago
It must not be supposed that...

It must not be supposed that the subjective elements are any less 'real' than the objective elements; they are only less important... because they do not point to anything beyond ourselves...

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
An Outline of Philosophy Ch.15 The Nature of our Knowledge of Physics, 1927
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
2 months 4 weeks ago
The French are ... the most...

The French are ... the most brilliant and the most dangerous nation of Europe, and the one that is surest to inspire admiration, hatred, terror, or pity, but never indifference.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 245
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
2 months 2 weeks ago
Before his death, Rabbi Zusya said,...

Before his death, Rabbi Zusya said, "In the coming world, they will not ask me: 'Why were you not Moses?' They will ask me: 'Why were you not Zusya?'"

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Tales of the Hasidim (1947), 1991 Ebook edition, p.251, as quoted in Jewish Currents.
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
4 months 1 week ago
The living force….

The living force of his soul gained the day: on he passed far beyond the flaming walls of the world and traversed throughout in mind and spirit the immeasurable universe.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book I, lines 72-74 (tr. H. A. J. Munro); of Epicurus.
Philosophical Maxims
Willard van Orman Quine
Willard van Orman Quine
2 months 1 week ago
No particular experiences are linked with...

No particular experiences are linked with any particular statements in the interior of the field, except indirectly through considerations of equilibrium affecting the field as a whole.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"Two Dogmas of Empiricism"
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
4 months 3 days ago
Libraries are as the shrine where...

Libraries are as the shrine where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
2 months 1 week ago
The significance of feminist movement (when...

The significance of feminist movement (when it is not co-opted by opportunistic, reactionary forces) is that it offers a new ideological meeting ground for the sexes, a space for criticism, struggle, and transformation.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee
1 month 1 week ago
Every oasis is an island that...

Every oasis is an island that has water inside it but not round it.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Between Niger and Nile (London: Oxford UP, 1965) 20. Cyrenaïca's Green Mountain
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
1 month 1 day ago
Progress in civilization seems possible only...

Progress in civilization seems possible only in interludes when history is idling.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
An Old Chaos: The Emperor's Tomb (p. 35)
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 3 weeks ago
This is approximately the way Christendom...

This is approximately the way Christendom relates to the essentially Christian, the unconditioned. After seventeen, eighteen detours and running all around someone finally has his finite existence assured, and then we receive a sermon about Seek first the kingdom of God. Is this sobriety or is this intoxication?

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 3 weeks ago
Freedom is what you do….

Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emperor Julian
Emperor Julian
3 days ago
Inasmuch as it is my wish...

Inasmuch as it is my wish only to compose a hymn of thanksgiving in honour of the god, I have deemed it quite sufficient to discourse to the best of my ability concerning his nature. I do not think I have wasted words to no purpose: the maxim, "Sacrifice to the immortal gods according to thy means," I accept as applying not merely to burnt-offerings, but also to our praises addressed unto the gods. I pray for the third time, in return for this my good intention, the Sun lord of the universe to be propitious to me, and to bestow on me a virtuous life, a more perfect understanding, and a superhuman intellect, and a very easy release from the trammels of life at the time appointed: and after that release, an ascension up to himself, and an abiding place with him, if possible, for all time to come; or if that be too great a recompense for my past life, many and long-continued revolutions around his presence!

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
3 months 3 weeks ago
It makes a tremendous emotional and...

It makes a tremendous emotional and practical difference to one whether one accepts the universe in the drab discolored way of stoic resignation to necessity, or with the passionate happiness of Christian saints.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Lecture II, "Circumscription of the Topic"
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
2 months 2 weeks ago
Interest only becomes one-sided and morbid...

Interest only becomes one-sided and morbid only when it ceases to be frank, and becomes sly and furtive.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 197
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
1 month 1 week ago
The consciousness of brutes would appear...

The consciousness of brutes would appear to be related to the mechanism of their body simply as a collateral product of its working, and to be as completely without any power of modifying that working as the steam-whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive engine is without influence upon its machinery. Their volition, if they have any, is an emotion indicative of physical changes, not a cause of such changes.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Zeno of Citium
Zeno of Citium
3 months 6 days ago
If melodiously piping flutes sprang from...

If melodiously piping flutes sprang from the olive, would you doubt that a knowledge of flute-playing resided in the olive? And what if plane trees bore harps which gave forth rhythmical sounds? Clearly you would think in the same way that the art of music was possessed by plane trees. Why, then, seeing that the universe gives birth to beings that are animate and wise, should it not be considered animate and wise itself?

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in De Natura Deorum by Cicero, ii. 8.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
In a republic, that paradise of...

In a republic, that paradise of debility, the politician is a petty tyrant who obeys the laws.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
To try curing someone of a...

To try curing someone of a "vice," of what is the deepest thing he has, is to attack his very being, and this is indeed how he himself understands it, since he will never forgive you for wanting him to destroy himself in your way and not his.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
2 months 1 week ago
Yet it must be acknowledged that...

Yet it must be acknowledged that there is a fundamental difference between the sexual impulse in men and women. Her need is for a lover, a protector, a father for her children. His desire is for mastery, conquest, to be allowed to use her body for his own satisfaction. He feels like a bee, burying itself in a flower, apparently doing nothing for the flower but taking its sweetness. If he loves her, then his desire is mixed with a kind of pity.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 3 weeks ago
Let them have what instructions you...

Let them have what instructions you will, and ever so learned lectures of breeding daily inculcated into them, that which will most influence their carriage will be the company they converse with, and the fashion of those about them.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Sec. 67
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 1 week ago
A sovereign shows....
0
⚖0
Main Content / General
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
3 months 3 weeks ago
I had always heard it maintained...

I had always heard it maintained by my father, and was myself convinced, that the object of education should be to form the strongest possible associations of the salutary class; associations of pleasure with all things beneficial to the great whole, and of pain with all things hurtful to it.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
(p. 136)
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
4 months 1 week ago
The Word takes to Himself one...

The Word takes to Himself one man, for He takes unity. He does not take schisms to Himself, nor does He take heresies. So it is one man who is taken, and his Head is Christ. This is that "blessed man who hath not walked in the council of the ungodly" (Ps. 1:1); this is he that is assumed. He is not outside of us. Let us be in Him, and we shall be assumed; let us be in Him, and we shall be chosen. Therefore this one man that is taken to become the temple of God, is at once many and one.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p.430
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
2 months 3 weeks ago
We have not made the Revolution,...

We have not made the Revolution, the Revolution has made us.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Act II.
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
4 months 2 days ago
I know God only as he...

I know God only as he became human, so shall I have him in no other way.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Das Marburger religionsgesprach 1529: Versuch einer Rekonstruction (Leipzig, 1929), p. 27; also LW 38, 3-90
Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
3 months 3 weeks ago
Justice does not require that men...

Justice does not require that men must stand idly by while others destroy the basis of their existence.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter IV, Section 35, p. 218
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 4 weeks ago
For a very small expence the...

For a very small expence the public can facilitate, can encourage, and can even impose upon almost the whole body of the people, the necessity of acquiring those most essential parts of education.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter I, Part III, Article II, p. 847.
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 3 weeks ago
There never, gentlemen, was a period...

There never, gentlemen, was a period in which the steadfastness of some men has been nut to so sore a trial. It is not very difficult for well-formed minds to abandon their interest; but the separation of fame and virtue is an harsh divorce. Liberty is in danger of being made unpopular to Englishmen. Contending for an imaginary power, we begin to acquire the spirit of domination, and to lose the relish of honest equality.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
4 months 1 week ago
Anything done against faith or conscience...

Anything done against faith or conscience is sinful.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Commentary on Romans, cap 14, I 3
Philosophical Maxims
  • Load More

User login

  • Create new account
  • Reset your password

Social

☰ ˟
  • Main Feed
  • Philosophical Maxims

Civic

☰ ˟
  • Propositions
  • Issue / Solution

Who's new

  • Søren Kierkegaard
  • Jesus
  • Friedrich Nietzsche
  • VeXed
  • Slavoj Žižek

Who's online

There are currently 0 users online.

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia