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Jesus
Jesus
2 months 3 weeks ago
So watch yourselves. If your brother...

So watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him.

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(Luke 17:3-4) (NIV)
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
2 months 3 weeks ago
Here we must make one of...

Here we must make one of those inductive applications of the law of continuity which have produced such great results in all of the positive sciences. We must extend the law of insistency into the future. Plainly, the insistency of a future idea with reference to the present is a quantity affected by the minus sign; for it is the present that affects the future, if there be any effect, not the future that affects the present.

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Philosophical Maxims
Hermann Weyl
Hermann Weyl
1 week 2 days ago
On a certain level of generality...

On a certain level of generality A which I call the ground level, you have certain theorems that have been proved and certain unsolved problems P of recognised interest. Suppose you discover a generalisation of one of these theorems and thereby rise to a higher level of generality A'. Write it up, but lock it away in a drawer - unless or until it serves to solve one of the problems P on the ground level... But the deeper one drives the spade the harder the digging gets; maybe it has become too hard for us unless we are not given some outside help, be it even by such devilish devices as high-speed computing machines.

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At the Princeton Bicentennial, 17-19 December 1946
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 weeks 6 days ago
The spoken Word, the written Poem,...

The spoken Word, the written Poem, is said to be an epitome of the man; how much more the done Work. Whatsoever of morality and of intelligence; what of patience, perseverance, faithfulness, of method, insight, ingenuity, energy; in a word, whatsoever of Strength the man had in him will lie written in the Work he does. To work: why, it is to try himself against Nature, and her everlasting unerring Laws; these will tell a true verdict as to the man.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months ago
I am sure that university life...

I am sure that university life would be better, both intellectually and morally, if most university students had temporary childless marriages. This would afford a solution to the sexual urge neither restless nor surreptitious, neither mercenary nor casual, and of such a nature that it need not take up time which ought to be given to work.

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"Sex in Education", p. 119-120
Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
4 months 2 weeks ago
Those who were best able to...

Those who were best able to provide themselves with the means of security against their neighbors, being thus in possession of the surest guarantee, passed the most agreeable life in each other's society; and their enjoyment of the fullest intimacy was such that, if one of them died before his time, the survivors did not mourn his death as if it called for sympathy.

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Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
4 months 1 week ago
In order to enter into a...

In order to enter into a real knowledge of your condition, consider it in this image: A man was cast by a tempest upon an unknown island, the inhabitants of which were in trouble to find their king, who was lost; and having a strong resemblance both in form and face to this king, he was taken for him, and acknowledged in this capacity by all the people.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
1 week 3 days ago
I do not want to frighten...

I do not want to frighten you by telling you about the temptations life will bring. Anyone who is healthy in spirit will overcome them. But there is something I want you to realize. It does not matter so much what you do. What matters is whether your soul is harmed by what you do. If your soul is harmed, something irreparable happens, the extent of which you won't realize until it will be too late.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months ago
Next to enjoying ourselves, the next...

Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.

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Ch. 10: Recrudescence of Puritanism
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
5 months ago
For well-being and health, again, the...

For well-being and health, again, the homestead should be airy in summer, and sunny in winter. A homestead possessing these qualities would be longer than it is deep; and its main front would face the south.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 weeks 6 days ago
Do nothing, only keep agitating, debating;...

Do nothing, only keep agitating, debating; and things will destroy themselves.

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Pt. I, Bk. VI, ch. 3.
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
2 months 1 week ago
The revolutionary and critical thinker is...

The revolutionary and critical thinker is in a certain way always outside of his society while of course he is at the same time also in it. That he is in it is obvious, but why is he outside it? First, because he is not brainwashed by the ruling ideology, that is to say, he has an extraordinary kind of independence of thought and feeling; hence he can have a greater objectivity than the average person has. There are many emotional factors too. And certainly I do not mean to enter here into the complex problem of the revolutionary thinker. But it seems to me essential that in a certain sense he transcends his society. You may say he transcends it because of the new historical developments and possibilities he is aware of, while the majority still think in traditional terms.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months ago
A trade begun with savage war,...

A trade begun with savage war, prosecuted with unheard of cruelty, continued during the mid passage with the most loathsome imprisonment, and ending in perpetual exile and unremitting slavery, was a trade so horrid in all its circumstances, that it was impossible a single argument could be adduced in its favour. On the score of prudence nothing could be said in defence of it, nor could it be justified by necessity, and no case of inhumanity could be justified, but upon necessity; but no such necessity could be made out strong enough to bear out such a traffick. It was the duty of that House, therefore, to put an end to it. If it were said, that the interest of individuals required that it should continue, that argument ought not to be listened to.

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Speech in the House of Commons against the slave trade (12 May 1789), quoted in The Parliamentary History of England, From the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, Vol. XXVIII (1816), columns 68-69
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
4 months 1 day ago
I do not say this, that...

I do not say this, that I think there should be no difference of opinions in conversation, nor opposition in men's discourses... 'Tis not the owning one's dissent from another, that I speak against, but the manner of doing it.

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Sec. 145
Philosophical Maxims
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
1 week ago
A man may own a thousand...

A man may own a thousand acres of land, and yet he still sleeps upon a bed of five feet.

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p. 38 (Chinese saying)
Philosophical Maxims
René Descartes
René Descartes
4 months 1 week ago
Good sense is, of all things….

Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
Glory - once achieved, what is...

Glory - once achieved, what is it worth?

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 4 weeks ago
We are born believing. A man...

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.

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Worship
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
2 months 3 weeks ago
Fourth, this supreme law, which is...

Fourth, this supreme law, which is celestial and living harmony, does not so much as demand that the special ideas shall surrender their peculiar arbitrariness and caprice entirely; for that would be self-destructive. It only requires that they influence and be influenced by one another.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
1 month 1 week ago
It is easy to romanticise, say,...

It is easy to romanticise, say, tigers or lions and cats. We admire their magnificent beauty, strength and agility. But we would regard their notional human counterparts as wanton psychopaths of the worst kind.

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1.10 On the Misguided Romanticisation of Feline Psychopaths
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
4 months 1 day ago
What a pity and what a...

What a pity and what a poverty of spirit, to assert that beasts are machines deprived of knowledge and sentiment, which affect all their operations in the same manner, which learn nothing, never improve, &c. [...] Some barbarians seize this dog, who so prodigiously excels man in friendship, they nail him to a table, and dissect him living, to show the mezarian veins. You discover in him all the same organs of sentiment which are in yourself. Answer me, machinist, has nature arranged all the springs of sentiment in this animal that he should not feel? Has he nerves to be incapable of suffering? Do not suppose this impertinent contradiction in nature. [...] The animal has received those of sentiment, memory, and a certain number of ideas. Who has bestowed these gifts, who has given these faculties? He who has made the herb of the field to grow, and who makes the earth gravitate towards the sun.

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"Beasts", in A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 2, J. and H. L. Hunt, 1824, p. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months ago
Everyone who knows anything of history...

Everyone who knows anything of history also knows that great social revolutions are impossible without the feminine ferment. Social progress may be measured precisely by the social position of the fair sex (plain ones included).

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Letter to Ludwig Kugelmann, dated 12 December 1868.
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months ago
Corrupt influence, which is itself the...

Corrupt influence, which is itself the perennial spring of all prodigality, and of all disorder; which loads us, more than millions of debt; which takes away vigor from our arms, wisdom from our councils, and every shadow of authority and credit from the most venerable parts of our constitution.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 months 3 weeks ago
I am my world.

I am my world.

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(The microcosm.) (5.63) Original German: Ich bin meine welt (Der Mikrokosmos.)
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months ago
It seems that sin is geographical....

It seems that sin is geographical. From this conclusion, it is only a small step to the further conclusion that the notion of "sin" is illusory, and that the cruelty habitually practised in punishing it is unnecessary.

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A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42 (1996), p. 283
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
4 months 1 week ago
In the country of....

In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

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Adagia (first published 1500, with numerous expanded editions through 1536), III, IV, 96
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
4 months 2 days ago
The third of this kind of...

The third of this kind of principles is : matter neither originates nor perishes; all the changes in the world concern form only ; a postulate which on the recommendation of common sense has spread through all philosophical schools, not because it is to be taken as having been found so, or as having been demonstrated by arguments a priori, but because if we were to admit that matter itself is fleeting and transitory, nothing at all that is stable and lasting would be left any longer to serve for the explication of phenomena according to universal and perpetual laws, and hence nothing at all would be left for the exercise of the intellect.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months ago
These principles it is necessary strictly...

These principles it is necessary strictly to attend to, because they will serve much to explain the whole course both of government and real property, wherever the German nations obtained a settlement; the whole of their government depending for the most part upon two principles in our nature,-ambition, that makes one man desirous, at any hazard or expense, of taking the lead amongst others; and admiration, which makes others equally desirous of following him from the mere pleasure of admiration, and a sort of secondary ambition, one of the most universal passions among men. These two principles, strong both of them in our nature, create a voluntary inequality and dependence.

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An Essay towards an Abridgment of English History (1757-c. 1763), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI (1856), p. 282
Philosophical Maxims
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
2 months 1 day ago
You learn about life by the...

You learn about life by the accidents you have, over and over again, and your father is always in your head when that stuff happens. Writing, most of the time, for most people, is an accident and your father is there for that, too. You know, I taught writing for a while and whenever somebody would tell me they were going to write about their dad, I would tell them they might as well go write about killing puppies because neither story was going to work. It just doesn't work. Your father won't let it happen.

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Interviewed by J. Rentilly, "The Best Jokes Are Dangerous", McSweeny's
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months ago
I am grateful for what I...

I am grateful for what I am & have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite - only a sense of existence. Well, anything for variety. I am ready to try this for the next 1000 years, & exhaust it. How sweet to think of! My extremities well charred, and my intellectual part too, so that there is no danger of worm or rot for a long while. My breath is sweet to me. O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it - for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.

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Letter to Harrison Gray Otis Blake (6-7 December 1856), as published in The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau (1958)
Philosophical Maxims
Hermann Weyl
Hermann Weyl
1 week 2 days ago
All characteristics of material things as...

All characteristics of material things as they are presented to us in the acts of external perception (e.g. colour) are endowed with the separateness of spatial extension, but it is only when we build up a single connected real world out of all our experiences that the spatial extension, which is a constituent of every perception, becomes a part of one and the same all-inclusive space. ... every material thing can, without changing content, equally well occupy a position in Space different from its present one. This immediately gives us the property of the homogeneity of space which is the root of the conception, Congruence.

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Introduction
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 4 weeks ago
Friendship is the greatest of worldly...

Friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice to a young man about a place to live, I think I shd. say, 'sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.

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Letter to Arthur Greeves (29 December 1935) - in They Stand Together: The Letters of C. S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves (1914-1963) (1979), p. 477
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
4 months 1 week ago
I would advise no one to...

I would advise no one to send his child where the Holy Scriptures are not supreme. Every institution that does not unceasingly pursue the study of God's word becomes corrupt. Because of this we can see what kind of people they become in the universities and what they are like now. Nobody is to blame for this except the pope, the bishops, and the prelates, who are all charged with training young people. The universities only ought to turn out men who are experts in the Holy Scriptures, men who can become bishops and priests, and stand in the front line against heretics, the devil, and all the world. But where do you find that? I greatly fear that the universities, unless they teach the Holy Scriptures diligently and impress them on the young students, are wide gates to hell.

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To the Christian Nobility of the German States (1520), translated by Charles M. Jacobs, reported in rev. James Atkinson, The Christian in Society, I (Luther's Works, ed. James Atkinson, vol. 44), p. 207
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month ago
Commit no slander.....
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Antisthenes
Antisthenes
3 months 2 weeks ago
I have enough to eat till...

I have enough to eat till my hunger is stayed, to drink till my thirst is sated; to clothe myself withal; and out of doors not Callias there, with all his riches, is more safe than I from shivering; and when I find myself indoors, what warmer shirting do I need than my bare walls? what ampler greatcoat than the tiles above my head?

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iv. 34
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 months 4 days ago
In America, more than anywhere else...

In America, more than anywhere else in the world, care has been taken constantly to trace clearly distinct spheres of action for the two sexes, and both are required to keep in step, but along paths that are never the same.

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Book Three, Chapter XII.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
The more one has suffered, the...

The more one has suffered, the less one demands. To protest is a sign one has traversed no hell.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months ago
I must say, that the whole...

I must say, that the whole Scheme of the war is mistaken, (or appears to me to be so), for it ought to be, not for Dunkirk, or this or t'other Town-but to drive Jacobinism from the world.

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Letter to Dr Charles Burney (14/15 September 1793), quoted in P. J. Marshall and John A. Woods (eds.)
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months ago
Under no pretext should arms and...

Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.

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Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League in London, March 1850
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
2 months 1 week ago
The empirical research of the last...

The empirical research of the last fifteen years on the structure of large organizations seems to confirm the hypothesis of Herbert Simon that human cognitive limits are a basic limiting factor in determining organization structures .

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Jay R. Galbraith, "Organization design: An information processing view." Organizational Effectiveness Center and School 21 (1977). p. 21
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 month 3 weeks ago
No tears are shed, when an...

No tears are shed, when an enemy dies.

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Maxim 376
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
Just now
You have your brush, you have...

You have your brush, you have your colours, you paint paradise, then, in you go.

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As quoted in Journal of Modern Literature Vol. 2, No. 2, Nikos Kazantzakis
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
The first thinker was, without a...

The first thinker was, without a doubt, the first man obsessed by why. An unaccustomed mania, not at all contagious: rare indeed are those who suffer from it, who are a prey to questioning, and who can accept no given because they were born in consternation.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emperor Julian
Emperor Julian
1 week 1 day ago
Come then, and let us celebrate...

Come then, and let us celebrate in the best way we can the anniversary festival which the imperial city is keeping by sacrifices, with unusual splendour. And yet I feel how difficult it is for the human mind even to form a conception of that Sun who is not visible to the sense, if our notion of Him is to be derived from the Sun that is visible; but to express the same in language, however inadequately, is, perhaps, beyond the capability of man! To fitly explain His glory, I am very well aware, is a thing impossible; in lauding it, however, mediocrity seems the highest point to which human eloquence is able to attain.

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Philosophical Maxims
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
3 months 2 weeks ago
The noblest people are those despising...

The noblest people are those despising wealth, learning, pleasure and life; esteeming above them poverty, ignorance, hardship and death.

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Stobaeus, iv. 29a. 19
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
2 months 3 weeks ago
If there is anything that we...

If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.

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p. 285
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 months 4 days ago
There is hardly a pioneer's hut...

There is hardly a pioneer's hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare. I remember reading the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log cabin.

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Book One, Chapter XIII.
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
2 months 3 weeks ago
The slave is outside competition; the...

The slave is outside competition; the proletarian is in it and experiences all its vagaries.

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Philosophical Maxims
Antisthenes
Antisthenes
3 months 2 weeks ago
Ill repute is a good thing….

Ill repute is a good thing and much the same as pain.

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§ 5
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
4 months 2 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
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