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Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 months 3 days ago
The universal hypocrisy has so entered...

The universal hypocrisy has so entered into the flesh and blood of all classes of our modern society, it has reached such a pitch that nothing in that way can rouse indignation. Hypocrisy in the Greek means "acting," and acting-playing a part-is always possible. Chapter XII, Conclusion-Repent Ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand Variant Translation: Hypocrisy with good reason means the same as acting, and anybody can pretend - act a part.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
5 months ago
The words that reverberate for us...

The words that reverberate for us at the confines of this long adventure of rebellion are not formulas for optimism, for which we have no possible use in the extremities of our unhappiness, but words of courage and intelligence which, on the shores of the eternal seas, even have the qualities of virtue.

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Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
2 months 2 weeks ago
Sovereignty, the freedom unto death, is...

Sovereignty, the freedom unto death, is threatening to a society that is organized around work and production.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months 4 days ago
What extracts from the Vedas I...

What extracts from the Vedas I have read fall on me like the light of a higher and purer luminary, which describes a loftier course through purer stratum. It rises on me like the full moon after the stars have come out, wading through some far stratum in the sky.

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1850
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 2 days ago
Nicias, do you think you can...

Nicias, do you think you can erase with good deeds the wrongs you committed against your mother? What good deed will ever reach her? Her soul is a scorching noon time, without a single breath of a breeze, nothing moves, nothing changes, nothing lives there; a great emaciated sun, an immobile sun eternally consumes her.

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King Aegistheus, Act 2
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 4 days ago
One must care about a world...

One must care about a world one will not see.

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Attributed to Russell in The Wordsworth Dictionary of Quotations (1997), p. 450, and in Robertson's Dictionary of Quotations (1998), p. 362, but no specific source is given.
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
4 months 2 weeks ago
Why dost thou not retire…

Why dost thou not retire like a guest sated with the banquet of life, and with calm mind embrace, thou fool, a rest that knows no care?

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Book III, lines 938-939 (tr. Bailey)
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
4 months 1 week ago
In vain, therefore, should we pretend...

In vain, therefore, should we pretend to determine any single event, or infer any cause or effect, without the assistance of observation and experience.

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§ 4.11
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
2 weeks ago
Only at quite rare moments have...

Only at quite rare moments have I felt really glad to be alive. I could not but feel with a sympathy full of regret all the pain that I saw around me, not only that of men but that of the whole creation. From this community of suffering I have never tried to withdraw myself. It seemed to me a matter of course that we should all take our share of the burden of pain which lies upon the world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 months 2 weeks ago
The best and greatest winning is...

The best and greatest winning is a true friend; and the greatest loss is the loss of time.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 2 days ago
Perfect humility dispenses with modesty.

Perfect humility dispenses with modesty.

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Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 month 4 weeks ago
Such delusions of grandeur to think...

Such delusions of grandeur to think that a God with a hundred billion galaxies on his mind would give a tuppenny damn who you sleep with, or indeed whether you believe in him.

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Richard Dawkins debates Rowan Williams
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
2 months 3 weeks ago
Whoever desires to live among men...

Whoever desires to live among men has to obey their laws-this is what the secular morality of Western civilization comes down to. ... Rationality in the form of such obedience swallows up everything, even the freedom to think.

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p. 29.
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
2 months 4 weeks ago
People think they have taken quite...

People think they have taken quite an extraordinarily bold step forward when they have rid themselves of belief in hereditary monarchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy.

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Introduction to 1891 edition of Karl Marx's, The Civil War in France
Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
4 months 1 week ago
Women are the most…

Women are the most charitable creatures, and the most troublesome. He who shuns women passes up the trouble, but also the benefits. He who puts up with them gains the benefits, but also the trouble. As the saying goes, there's no honey without bees.

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Act III, scene iv
Philosophical Maxims
William Kingdon Clifford
William Kingdon Clifford
3 days ago
If an event really happened which...

If an event really happened which was not a part of the uniformity of nature, it would have two properties: no evidence could give the right to believe it to any except those whose actual experience it was; and no inference worthy of belief could be founded upon it at all. Are we then bound to believe that nature is absolutely and universally uniform? Certainly not; we have no right to believe anything of this kind. The rule only tells us that in forming beliefs which go beyond our experience, we may make the assumption that nature is practically uniform so far as we are concerned. Within the range of human action and verification, we may form, by help of this assumption, actual beliefs; beyond it, only those hypotheses which serve for the more accurate asking of questions.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks 1 day ago
Any reductionist program...
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Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 1 day ago
Computers can do better than ever...

Computers can do better than ever what needn't be done at all. Making sense is still a human monopoly.

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(p. 109)
Philosophical Maxims
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
1 week 4 days ago
Instead of holding on to the...

Instead of holding on to the Biblical view that we are made in the image of God, we come to realize that we are made in the image of the monkey.

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p. 36
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
1 month 3 weeks ago
We know no spectacle so ridiculous...

We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.

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p. 315
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 3 weeks ago
All natures, all formed things, all...

All natures, all formed things, all creatures exist in and with one another and will again be resolved into their own roots, because the nature of matter is dissolved into the roots of its nature alone. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
2 months 3 weeks ago
Dialectical thought understands the critical tension...

Dialectical thought understands the critical tension between "is" and "ought" first as an ontological condition, pertaining to the structure of Being itself. However, the recognition of this state of Being - its theory - intends from the beginning a concrete practice. Seen in the light of a truth which appears in them falsified or denied, the given facts themselves appear false and negative.

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p. 133
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 4 weeks ago
A self-respecting man is a man...

A self-respecting man is a man without a country. A fatherland is birdlime...

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Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
2 months ago
The loss which is unknown is...

The loss which is unknown is no loss at all.

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Maxim 38
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 months 4 weeks ago
Philosophy hasn't made any progress?-If someone...

Philosophy hasn't made any progress?-If someone scratches where it itches, do we have to see progress? Is it not genuine scratching otherwise, or genuine itching?

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p. 98e
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
3 weeks 3 days ago
The Noble in the high place,...

The Noble in the high place, the Ignoble in the low; that is, in all times and in all countries, the Almighty Maker's Law.

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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
2 weeks 4 days ago
That man, I declare, is happy...

That man, I declare, is happy whom nothing makes less strong than he is; he keeps to the heights, leaning upon none but himself; for one who sustains himself by any prop may fall.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
1 month 1 week ago
Evangelical atheists preach the need for...

Evangelical atheists preach the need for a scientific view of things, but a settled view does not go with scientific method. If we know anything it is that most of the theories that prevail at any one time are false. Scientific theories are not components of a world-view but tools we use to tinker with the world.

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Sweet Morality (p. 224)
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 3 weeks ago
“What man among you with 100...

“What man among you with 100 sheep, on losing one of them, will not leave the 99 behind in the wilderness and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when he has found it, he puts it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he gets home, he calls his friends and his neighbors together, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous ones who have no need of repentance.

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Luke 15: 4-7
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 3 days ago
The purpose of the State is,...

The purpose of the State is, as we have already shown in our last lecture, no other than that of the Human Race itself:-to order all its relations according to the Laws of Reason. It is only after the Age of Reason as Science shall have been traversed, and we shall have arrived at the Age of Reason as Art, that the State can reflect upon this purpose with clear consciousness. Till then it constantly promotes this purpose, but without its own knowledge, or free pre meditated design; prompted thereto by the natural law of the development of our Race, even while it has a totally different purpose in view;-with which purpose of its own, Nature has indissolubly bound up the purpose of the whole Race.

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p. 168
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
5 months 6 days ago
Who is the most moral man?...
Who is the most moral man? First, he who obeys the law most frequently, who ... is continually inventive in creating opportunities for obeying the law. Then, he who obeys it even in the most difficult cases. The most moral man is he who sacrifices the most to custom. ... Self-overcoming is demanded, not on account of any useful consequences it may have for the individual, but so that hegemony of custom and tradition shall be made evident.
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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
4 months 1 week ago
Some books are to be tasted,...

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.

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Of Studies
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
4 months 3 days ago
One Folk, One Realm, One Leader....

One Folk, One Realm, One Leader. Union with the unity of an insect swarm. Knowledgeless understanding of nonsense and diabolism. And then the newsreel camera had cut back to the serried ranks, the swastikas, the brass bands, the yelling hypnotist on the rostrum. And here once again, in the glare of his inner light, was the brown insectlike column, marching endlessly to the tunes of this rococo horror-music. Onward Nazi soldiers, onward Christian soldiers, onward Marxists and Muslims, onward every chosen People, every Crusader and Holy War-maker. Onward into misery, into all wickedness, into death!

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 months 2 weeks ago
Our patriotism comes straight from the...

Our patriotism comes straight from the Romans. This is why French children are encouraged to seek inspiration for it in Corneille. It is a pagan virtue, if these two words are compatible. The word pagan, when applied to Rome, early possesses the significance charged with horror which the early Christian controversialists gave it. The Romans really were an atheistic and idolatrous people; not idolatrous with regard to images made of stone or bronze, but idolatrous with regard to themselves. It is this idolatry of self which they have bequeathed to us in the form of patriotism.

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p. 220, also in The Need for Roots : prelude towards a declaration of duties towards mankind
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
4 months 3 days ago
By means of ever more effective...

By means of ever more effective methods of mind-manip­ulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms- elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest-will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitari­anism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slo­gans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial-but democracy and free­dom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of sol­diers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit.

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Chapter 3, p. 25
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Kuhn
Thomas Kuhn
3 weeks 3 days ago
Men whose research is based on...

Men whose research is based on shared paradigms are committed to the same rules and standards for scientific practice. That commitment and the apparent consensus it produces are prerequisites for normal science, i.e., for the genesis and continuation of a particular research tradition.

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p. 11
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 3 days ago
Political Economy regards the proletarian ......

Political Economy regards the proletarian ... like a horse, he must receive enough to enable him to work. It does not consider him, during the time when he is not working, as a human being. It leaves this to criminal law, doctors, religion, statistical tables, politics, and the beadle. ... (1) What is the meaning, in the development of mankind, of this reduction of the greater part of mankind to abstract labor? (2) What mistakes are made by the piecemeal reformers, who either want to raise wages and thereby improve the situation of the working class, or - like Proudhon - see equality of wages as the goal of social revolution?.

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First Manuscript - Wages of Labour, p. 6.
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
5 months 1 day ago
Scientific writing is abhorrently stylized and...

Scientific writing is abhorrently stylized and places a premium on poor quality.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
4 weeks ago
The Republican party has really gone...

The Republican party has really gone off the rails and has become... in many ways a quasi-authoritarian party because many Republicans are not willing to accept the results of a... free and fair election. ...We've learned a lot from the... House committee that's studying the January 6th insurrection... What that committee has revealed was that this wasn't just a demonstration that spontaneously got out of hand. It was planned very deliberately by the White House as a way of pressuring former vice president Pence to overturn the election and keep Donald Trump in office, and right now a lot of state level Republican legislatures are trying to modify their rules for counting votes in the next election so that they would be in a better position to do what they tried to do in 2020, but didn't get away with... So this is probably the most severe threat to American democracy... since the Civil War... and I'm quite worried about that.

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43:51:00
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 months 2 weeks ago
Honor Wisdom; and deny it not...

Honor Wisdom; and deny it not to them that would learn; and shew it unto them that dispraise it! Sow not the sea fields!

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 3 days ago
This Being out of God cannot,...

This Being out of God cannot, by any means, be a limited, completed, and inert Being, since God himself is not such a dead Being, but, on the contrary, is Life; - but it can only be a Power, since only a Power is the true formal picture or Schema of Life. And indeed it can only be the Power of realising that which is contained in itself - a Schema.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham
4 months 6 days ago
To what shall the character of...

To what shall the character of utility be ascribed, if not to that which is a source of pleasure?

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Théorie des peines et des récompenses (1811); translation by Richard Smith, The Rationale of Reward, J. & H. L. Hunt, London, 1825, Bk. 3, Ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 months 4 weeks ago
The aim of the book is...

The aim of the book is to set a limit to thought, or rather - not to thought, but to the expression of thoughts: for in order to be able to set a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought). It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be set, and what lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense.

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Philosophical Maxims
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
1 month 2 weeks ago
We must relearn to be alone.

We must relearn to be alone.

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Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
4 months 1 week ago
The perfection of a thing does...

The perfection of a thing does not annul its existence, but, on the contrary, asserts it. Imperfection, on the other hand, does annul it ; therefore we cannot be more certain of the existence of anything, than of the existence of a being absolutely infinite or perfect-that is, of God. For inasmuch as his essence excludes all imperfection, and involves absolute perfection, all cause for doubt concerning his existence is done away, and the utmost certainty on the question is given. This, I think, will be evident to every moderately attentive reader.

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Part I, Prop. XI
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
1 month 2 weeks ago
Not far from the invention of...

Not far from the invention of fire... we must rank the invention of doubt.

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Collected Essays vol 6, viii; quoted in T. H. Huxley: Scientist, Humanist, and Educator (1950) by Cyril Bibby, p. 257
Philosophical Maxims
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva
1 month 2 weeks ago
There is a strong affinity between...

There is a strong affinity between the forces of empire and a politics of hate that justifies policies of domination and exclusion. So long as people's attention is focused on fear and hatred of foreigners or members of a particular religious group, such as Muslims, they are distracted from organizing to deal with the system of institutional domination and exploitation that is the real source of their insecurity.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
4 months 3 days ago
Need and struggle are what excite...

Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us; our hour of triumph is what brings the void. Not the Jews of the captivity, but those of the days of Solomon's glory are those from whom the pessimistic utterances in our Bible come.

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"Is Life Worth Living?"
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
2 weeks ago
Just as the wave cannot exist...

Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me. It is an uncomfortable doctrine which the true ethics whisper into my ear. You are happy, they say; therefore you are called upon to give much.

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Chapter 26
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
3 months 3 days ago
I consider you the most honest...

I consider you the most honest and truthful of men, more honest and truthful than anyone; and if they say that your mind...that is, that you're sometimes afflicted in your mind, it's unjust. I made up my mind about that, and disputed with others, because, though you really are mentally afflicted (you won't be angry with that, of course; I'm speaking from a higher point of view), yet the mind that matters is better in you than in any of them. It's something, in fact, they have never dreamed of. For there are two sorts of mind: one that matters, and one that doesn't matter.

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Part 3, Chapter 8
Philosophical Maxims
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