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Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
4 months 1 week ago
"What is a thing?" is historical,...

"What is a thing?" is historical, because every report of the past, that is of the preliminaries to the question about the thing, is concerned with something static. This kind of historical reporting is an explicit shutting down of history, whereas it is, after all, a happening. We question historically if we ask what is still happening even if it seems to be past. We ask what is still happening and whether we remain equal to this happening so that it can really develop.

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p. 43
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
4 months 2 weeks ago
Lying... is so ill a quality,...

Lying... is so ill a quality, and the mother of so many ill ones that spawn from it, and take shelter under it, that a child should be brought up in the greatest abhorrence of it imaginable. It should be always spoke of before him with the utmost detestation, as a quality so wholly inconsistent with the name and character of a gentleman, that no body of any credit can bear the imputation of a lie; a mark that is judg'd in utmost disgrace, which debases a man to the lowest degree of a shameful meanness, and ranks him with the most contemptible part of mankind and the abhorred rascality; and is not to be endured in any one who would converse with people of condition, or have any esteem or reputation in the world.

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Sec. 131
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 1 week ago
The skeptic is the least mysterious...

The skeptic is the least mysterious man in the world, and yet, starting from a certain moment, he no longer belongs to this world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
2 months 1 week ago
Every person I met believes if...

Every person I met believes if there is any disagreement between the Koran and science, then the Koran wins. It's just utterly deplorable. These are now British children who are having their minds stuffed with alien rubbish. Occasionally, my colleagues lecturing in universities lament having undergraduate students walk out of their classes when they talk about evolution. This is almost entirely Muslims.

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Dawkins attacks 'alien rubbish' taught in Muslim faith schools, Daily Mail
Philosophical Maxims
chanakya
chanakya
1 month 3 weeks ago
Whoever imposes severe punishment becomes repulsive...

Whoever imposes severe punishment becomes repulsive to the people; while he who awards mild punishment becomes contemptible. But whoever imposes punishment as deserved becomes respectable. For punishment when awarded with due consideration, makes the people devoted to righteousness and to works productive of wealth and enjoyment; while punishment, when ill-awarded under the influence of greed and anger or owing to ignorance, excites fury even among hermits and ascetics dwelling in forests, not to speak of householders.

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Book I : "Concerning Discipline" Chapter 4 "Determination of the Place of Varta and of Dandaniti"
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
4 months 2 weeks ago
The impulse to take life strivingly...

The impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race.

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Ch. 21
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
4 months 2 weeks ago
The more powerful and original a...

The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.

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Philosophical Maxims
René Descartes
René Descartes
4 months 3 weeks ago
So blind is the curiosity by...

So blind is the curiosity by which mortals are possessed, that they often conduct their minds along unexplored routes, having no reason to hope for success, but merely being willing to risk the experiment of finding whether the truth they seek lies there.

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Rules for the Direction of the Mind: IV
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
3 months 1 week ago
Fate and temperament are two words...

Fate and temperament are two words for one and the same concept.

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As quoted in Demian (1965) by Hermann Hesse, trans. Michael Roloff and Michael Lebeck
Philosophical Maxims
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
8 months 3 weeks ago
Take the risk and have a position

I believe in clear-cut positions. I think that the most arrogant position is this apparent, multidisciplinary modesty of "what I am saying now is not unconditional, it is just a hypothesis," and so on. It really is a most arrogant position. I think that the only way to be honest and expose yourself to criticism is to state clearly and dogmatically where you are. You must take the risk and have a position.

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Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
3 months 1 week ago
The more remote and unreal the...

The more remote and unreal the personal mother is, the more deeply will the son's yearning for her clutch at his soul, awakening that primordial and eternal image of the mother for whose sake everything that embraces, protects, nourishes, and helps assumes maternal form, from the Alma Mater of the university to the personification of cities, countries, sciences and ideals.

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"Paracelsus as a Spiritual Phenomenon" (1942) In CW 13: Alchemical Studies P.47
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
2 months 4 weeks ago
Poems are magic ceremonies of language.

Poems are magic ceremonies of language.

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Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
4 months 2 weeks ago
To expect truth to come from...

To expect truth to come from thinking signifies that we mistake the need to think with the urge to know.

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p. 61
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 2 weeks ago
The process of philosophizing, to my...

The process of philosophizing, to my mind, consists mainly in passing from those obvious, vague, ambiguous things, that we feel quite sure of, to something precise, clear, definite, which by reflection and analysis we find is involved in the vague thing that we start from, and is, so to speak, the real truth of which that vague thing is a sort of shadow.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 2 weeks ago
Only the skilled can judge the...

Only the skilled can judge the skilfulness, but that is not the same as judging the value of the result.

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A Preface to Paradise Lost (1942), Chapter 2: "Is Criticism Possible?"
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
4 months 2 weeks ago
Christianity taught only what the whole...

Christianity taught only what the whole of Asia knew already long before and even better.

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quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture. New Delhi: Pragun Publication.
Philosophical Maxims
Cisero
Cisero
5 months 3 days ago
I am a Roman citizen.

I am a Roman citizen.

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Against Verres [In Verrem], part 2, book 5, section 57; reported in Cicero, The Verrine Orations, trans. L. H. G. Greenwood (1935), vol. 2, p. 629
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
2 months 1 week ago
Orb webs in real life do...

Orb webs in real life do their business largely in two dimensions. If the mesh is too coarse, flies pass straight through. If the mesh is too fine, rival spiders will achieve nearly the same result at less cost in silk, and will therefore leave behind more progeny to carry on their economically more prudent genes. Natural selection finds the efficient compromise.

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Chapter 2, "Silken Fetters" (p. 58)
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 1 week ago
At different degrees, everything is pathology,...

At different degrees, everything is pathology, except for indifference.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 2 weeks ago
If you are not already dead,...

If you are not already dead, forgive. Rancor is heavy, it is worldly; leave it on earth: die light.

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Act 1
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 months 3 weeks ago
It is better to suffer, than...

It is better to suffer, than to do, wrong.

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Philosophical Maxims
Averroes
Averroes
5 months 4 days ago
The world is divided into men...

The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 1 week ago
The deepest and most organic death...

The deepest and most organic death is death in solitude, when even light becomes a principle of death. In such moments you will be severed from life, from love, smiles, friends and even from death. And you will ask yourself if there is anything besides the nothingness of the world and your own nothingness.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 1 week ago
See ye not all these things?...

See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

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24:2 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 3 weeks ago
No wind serves him who addresses...

No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.

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Book II, Ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
5 months 2 weeks ago
As a genius of construction man...
As a genius of construction man raises himself far above the bee in the following way: whereas the bee builds with wax that he gathers from nature, man builds with the far more delicate conceptual material which he first has to manufacture from himself.
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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 2 weeks ago
But how can the characters in...

But how can the characters in a play guess the plot? We are not the playwright, we are not the producer, we are not even the audience. We are on the stage. To play well the scenes in which we are "on" concerns us much more than to guess about the scenes that follow it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 2 weeks ago
It is the destiny of our...

It is the destiny of our race to become united into one great body, thoroughly connected in all its parts, and possessed of similar culture. Nature, and even the passions and vices of Man, have from the beginning tended towards this end. A great part of the way towards it is already passed, and we may surely calculate that it will in time be reached.

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Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 88
Philosophical Maxims
William Whewell
William Whewell
2 weeks 1 day ago
And so no force however great...

And so no force however great can stretch a cord however fine into an horizontal line which is accurately straight.

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Elementary Treatise on Mechanics, The Equilibrium of Forces on a Point, 1819
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
2 months 4 weeks ago
The same polarity of the male...

The same polarity of the male and female principle exists in nature; not only, as is obvious in animals and plants, but in the polarity of the two fundamental functions, that of receiving and penetrating. It is the polarity of earth and rain, of the river and the ocean, of night and day, of darkness and light, of matter and spirit.

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Ch. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
1 month 1 day ago
Credit expansion can bring about a...

Credit expansion can bring about a temporary boom. But such a fictitious prosperity must end in a general depression of trade, a slump.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 2 weeks ago
In doing Good, I lose myself...

In doing Good, I lose myself in Being, I abandon my particularity, I become a universal subject.

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p. 77
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
3 months 1 week ago
The secret is that only that...

The secret is that only that which can destroy itself is truly alive.

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Psychology and Alchemy
Philosophical Maxims
Cisero
Cisero
5 months 3 days ago
Since our leading men think themselves...

since our leading men think themselves in a seventh heaven, if there are bearded mullets in their fish-ponds that will come to hand for food, and neglect everything else, do not you think that I am doing no mean service if I secure that those who have the power, should not have the will, to do any harm?

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Letters to Atticus, Book II, 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
2 weeks 2 days ago
Architecture worth great attention. As we...

Architecture worth great attention. As we double our numbers every 20 years we must double our houses. Besides we build of such perishable materials that one half of our houses must be rebuilt in every space of 20 years. So that in that term, houses are to be built for three fourths of our inhabitants. It is then among the most important arts: and it is desireable to introduce taste into an art which shews so much.

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Hints to Americans travelling in Europe, letter to John Rutledge, Jr. (June 19, 1788); in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd (1956), vol. 13, p. 269
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 week 6 days ago
Choose not to be harmed-and you...

Choose not to be harmed-and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed-and you haven't been.

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(Hays translation) IV, 7
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
2 months 3 weeks ago
A major task in organizing is...

A major task in organizing is to determine, first, where the knowledge is located that can provide the various kinds of factual premises that decisions require.

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p. 24.
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
2 weeks 2 days ago
Two equally steep and bold paths...

Two equally steep and bold paths may lead to the same peak. To act as if death did not exist, or to act thinking every minute of death, is perhaps the same thing.

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Ch. 3
Philosophical Maxims
William Whewell
William Whewell
2 weeks 1 day ago
'Intuitive' is opposed to 'discursive' reason....

'Intuitive' is opposed to 'discursive' reason. In intuition, we obtain our conclusions by dwelling upon 'one' aspect of the fundamental Idea; in discursive reasoning, we combine several aspects of the Idea

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 3 days ago
Imagination, which is the social sense,...

Imagination, which is the social sense, animates the inanimate and anthropomorphizes everything; it humanizes everything and even makes everything identical with man. And the work of man is to supernaturalize Nature - that is to say, to make it divine by making it human, to help it to become conscious of itself, in short. The action of reason, on the other hand, is to mechanize or materialize.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
2 months 2 weeks ago
And so one can imagine that...

And so one can imagine that in amorous seduction the other is the locus of your secret - the other unknowingly holds that which you will never have the chance to know.

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(p. 65)
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 2 weeks ago
The strangest mores of the most...

The strangest mores of the most of-the-way societies will, in spite of everything, be relatively comprehensible to the person who has a flesh-and-blood knowledge of man's needs, anxieties, and hopes. If, on the other hand, this experience is lacking, he will not even be able to understand the customs of those about him.

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p. 139
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
4 months 2 weeks ago
Truth springs from argument amongst friends.

Truth springs from argument amongst friends.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
4 months 2 weeks ago
They should always be heard, and...

They should always be heard, and fairly and kindly answer'd, when they ask after any thing they would know, and desire to be informed about. Curiosity should be as carefully cherish'd in children, as other appetites suppress'd.

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Sec. 108
Philosophical Maxims
Mozi
Mozi
3 weeks 3 days ago
The words of malicious slander should...

The words of malicious slander should not be allowed to enter the ear. A defensive voice should not be allowed to come out of the mouth. The want to gravely injure people should not be allowed to exist in the heart. If this is accomplished, though there be people who cynically expose others, they would be without people who would align with them.

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Book 1; Self-culfivation
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
2 months 2 weeks ago
Not only does reality resist those...

Not only does reality resist those who still criticize it, but it also abandons those who defend it. Maybe it is a way for reality to get its revenge from those who claim to believe in it for the sole purpose of eventually transforming it: sending back its supporters to their own desires.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 2 weeks ago
The moral things I wish to...

The moral things I wish to say to future generations is very simple. I should say love is wise hatred is foolish. In this world which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other. We have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don't like. We can only live together in that way, and if we are to live together and not die together we must learn the kind of charity and kind of tolerance which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks ago
He who has....
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Main Content / General
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
3 months 1 week ago
A finite interval of time generally...

A finite interval of time generally contains an innumerable series of feelings; and when these become welded together in association the result is a general idea.

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Philosophical Maxims
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
1 week 5 days ago
As the entire middle class, the...

As the entire middle class, the bourgeois and petty bourgeois intelligentsia, boycotted the Soviet government for months after the October Revolution and crippled the railroad, post and telegraph, and educational and administrative apparatus, and, in this fashion, opposed the workers government, naturally all measures of pressure were exerted against it. These included the deprivation of political rights, of economic means of existence, etc., in order to break their resistance with an iron fist. It was precisely in this way that the socialist dictatorship expressed itself, for it cannot shrink from any use of force to secure or prevent certain measures involving the interests of the whole.

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Philosophical Maxims
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