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4 months 2 weeks ago

Marxism is a revolutionary worldview that must always struggle for new revelations. Marxism must abhor nothing so much as the possibility that it becomes congealed in its current form. It is at its best when butting heads in self-criticism, and in historical thunder and lightning, it retains its strength.

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As quoted in Quote Junkie : Political Edition (2008) by Hagopian Institute
7 months 1 day ago

Truth and falsity are the most fundamental terms of rational criticism, and any adequate philosophy must give some account of these, or failing that, show that they can be dispensed with.

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"Introduction: Philosophy of language and the rest of philosophy"
7 months 2 weeks ago

The determination of the mot juste, of the right incident in the right place, of exquisiteness of proportion, of the precise tone, hue, and shade that helps unify the whole while it defines a part, is accomplished by emotion. Not every emotion, however, can do this work, but only one informed by material that is grasped and gathered. Emotion is informed and carried forward when it is spent indirectly in search for material and in giving it order, not when it is directly expended.

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p. 73
8 months 1 week ago

The only roads of enquiry there are to think of: one, that it is and that it is not possible for it not to be, this is the path of persuasion (for truth is its companion); the other, that it is not and that it must not be - this I say to you is a path wholly unknowable.

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Frag. B 2.2-6, quoted by Proclus, Commentary on the Timaeus I, 345
6 months 2 weeks ago

Ten years ago, you could have traveled thousands of miles through the United States and never seen a baseball cap turned back to front. Today, the reverse baseball cap is ubiquitous. I do not know what the pattern of geographical spread of the reverse baseball cap precisely was, but epidemiology is certainly among the professions primarily qualified to study it.

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4 months 3 weeks ago

The concept of humanity is an especially useful ideological instrument of imperialist expansion, and in its ethical-humanitarian form it is a specific vehicle of economic imperialism.

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9 months 3 weeks ago

According to one mode... nature is thus denominated, viz. the first subject matter to every thing which contains in itself the principle of motion and mutation. But after another mode it is denominated form, which subsists according to definition: for as art is called that which subsists according to art, and that which is artificial; so likewise nature is both called that which is according to nature, and that which is natural. ...that which is composed from these is not nature, but consists from nature; as, for instance, man. And this is nature in a greater degree than matter: for every thing is then said to be, when it is form in energy... entelecheia, rather than when it is incapacity.

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8 months 3 weeks ago

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

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Poetry and Imagination
7 months 3 weeks ago

The rights and duties of man thus simplified, it seems almost impertinent to attempt to illustrate truths that appear so incontrovertible: yet such deeply rooted prejudices have clouded reason, and such spurious qualities have assumed the name of virtues, that it is necessary to pursue the course of reason as it has been perplexed and involved in error, by various adventitious circumstances, comparing the simple axiom with casual deviations.Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices, which they have imbibed, they cannot trace how, rather than to root them out. The mind must be strong that resolutely forms its own principles; for a kind of intellectual cowardice prevails which makes many men shrink from the task, or only do it by halves. Yet the imperfect conclusions thus drawn, are frequently very plausible, because they are built on partial experience, on just, though narrow, views.

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Ch. 1
6 months 3 weeks ago

A man's reach must exceed his grasp or what's a metaphor?

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(p.7) A play on the lines in Robert Browning's poem "Andrea del Sarto":Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?
8 months 3 weeks ago

Talk of mysteries! - Think of our life in nature, - daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, - rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? where are we?

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The Maine Woods (1848)
4 months 3 weeks ago

I regret that I am now to die in the belief, that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self- government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be, that I live not to weep over it. If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away, against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by union than by scission, they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves, and of treason against the hopes of the world. To yourself, as the faithful advocate of the Union, I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect.

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Letter to John Holmes
9 months 1 day ago

We must remove the Decalogue out of sight and heart.

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Wilhelm Martin Leberecht De Wette, 4, 188. As cited by Jonathan Ramachandran (January 1, 2019), Lake of Fire - Hope for the Wicked One Day? - Essays in First Christianity, 5 Loaf 2 Fish Publications, p. 1264.
8 months 3 weeks ago

Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for co-operation with oneself.

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Ch. 6: On the Scientific Method in Philosophy
7 months 2 weeks ago

If the individual were no longer compelled to prove himself on the market, as a free economic subject, the disappearance of this kind of freedom would be one of the greatest achievements of civilization. The technological processes of mechanization and standardization might release individual energy into a yet uncharted realm of freedom beyond necessity. The very structure of human existence would be altered; the individual would be liberated from the work world's imposing upon him alien needs and alien possibilities. The individual would be free to exert autonomy over a life that would be his own.

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p. 2
6 months 3 weeks ago

Nobody can doubt that the entire range of applied science contributes to the very format of a newspaper. But the headline is a feature which began with the Napoleonic Wars. The headline is a primitive shout of rage, triumph, fear, or warning, and newspapers have thrived on wars ever since.

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p. 7
8 months 3 weeks ago

I frequently asked myself, if I could, or if I was bound to go on living, when life must be passed in this manner. I generally answered to myself, that I did not think I could possibly bear it beyond a year.

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(p. 140)
8 months 3 weeks ago

This bird sees the white man come and the Indian withdraw, but it withdraws not. Its untamed voice is still heard above the tinkling of the forge... It remains to remind us of aboriginal nature.

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March 23, 1856; of the crow
7 months 3 weeks ago

Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision sceptical, puzzled, and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit, and not a series of unconnected acts. Through just prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature.

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8 months 3 weeks ago

The believers in the non-natural character of sudden conversion have had practically to admit that there is no unmistakable class-mark distinctive of all true converts. The super-normal incidents, such as voices and visions and overpowering impressions of the meaning of suddenly presented scripture texts, the melting emotions and tumultuous affections connected with the crisis of change, may all come by way of nature, or worse still, be counterfeited by Satan. The real witness of the spirit to the second birth is to be found only in the disposition of the genuine child of God, the permanently patient heart, the love of self eradicated. And this, it has to be admitted, is also found in those who pass no crisis, and may even be found outside of Christianity altogether.

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Lecture X, "Conversion, concluded"
8 months 3 weeks ago

Do not yet see, that, if the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.

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par. 43
9 months 1 week ago

The first duty of a man is the seeking after and the investigation of truth.

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As quoted in A Crowd of One: The Future of Individual Identity (2007) by John Clippinger, p. 130 Compare: "The distinguishing property of man is to search for and to follow after truth." – De Officiis, Book I, 13
5 months 2 weeks ago

Literature is the Thought of thinking Souls.

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7 months 1 week ago

We find here the final application of the doctrine of objective immortality. Throughout the perishing occasions in the life of each temporal Creature, the inward source of distaste or of refreshment, the judge arising out of the very nature of things, redeemer or goddess of mischief, is the transformation of Itself, everlasting in the Being of God. In this way, the insistent craving is justified - the insistent craving that zest for existence be refreshed by the ever-present, unfading importance of our immediate actions, which perish and yet live for evermore.

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4 months 2 weeks ago

Another may be more expert in casting [throwing] his opponent; but he is not more social, nor more modest, nor better disciplined to meet all that happens, nor more considerate with respect to the faults of his neighbors.

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VII, 52
7 months 2 weeks ago

I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.

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Revelation 22:17
5 months 2 weeks ago

He who outrages benevolence is called a ruffian: he who outrages righteousness is called a villain. I have heard of the cutting off of the villain Chow, but I have not heard of the putting of a ruler to death.

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1B:8, In relation to righteousness and the overthrow of the tyrannous King Zhou of Shang, as translated by Sir Robert Kennaway Douglas, China (1904), p. 8
9 months 3 weeks ago
No power can maintain itself if only hypocrites represent it.
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7 months 3 weeks ago

Instinct is blind;-a consciousness without insight. Freedom, as the opposite of Instinct, is thus seeing, and clearly conscious of the grounds of its activity.

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p. 7
9 months 2 days ago

In this life it is necessary that we be on our guard. To begin with we must be constantly aware of the fact that life here below is best described as being a type of continual warfare. This is a fact that Job, that undefeated soldier of vast experience, tells us so plainly. Yet in this matter the great majority of mankind is often deceived, for the world, like some deceitful magician, captivates their minds with seductive blandishments, and as a result most individuals behave as if there had been a cessation of hostilities.

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p.61
6 months 3 weeks ago

Paradox is the technique for seizing the conflicting aspects of any problem. Paradox coalesces or telescopes various facets of a complex process in a single instant.

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(p. 106)
6 months 3 weeks ago

While people are engaged in creating a totally different world, they always form vivid images of the preceding world.

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(p. 21)
8 months 1 week ago

Nay, men, if any of you had heeded what I was ever foretelling and advising, ye would now neither be fearing a single man nor putting your hopes in a single man.

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Quoted by Plutarch, Life of Cato the Younger, 52 Bernadotte Perrin, ed. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. 8, LCL 100 (1919), pp. 247, 361
9 months 3 weeks ago

There was no denying that he would always be conscious of the fact that an Earthman was an Earthman. He couldn't help that. That was the result of a childhood immersed in an atmosphere of bigotry so complete that it was almost invisible, so entire that you accepted its axioms as second nature. Then you left it and saw it for what it was when you looked back.

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5 months 1 week ago

As our acts and our thoughts are, so will our lives be.

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8 months 3 weeks ago

Wisdom and contrivance are shown in overcoming difficulties, so there is no place for them in a Being for whom no difficulties exist.

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pages 176-177; Early Modern Texts page 16
6 months 6 days ago

America is like a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair!

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In Quote: The Weekly Digest, vol. 23, no. 19 (4 May 1952) p. 16
7 months 1 week ago

I acknowledge that history is full of religious wars: but we must distinguish; it is not the multiplicity of religions which has produced wars; it is the intolerant spirit animating that which believed itself in the ascendant.

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No. 86. (Usbek writing to Mirza)
8 months 3 weeks ago

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

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May 25, 1843
9 months 3 weeks ago
He who thinks a great deal is not suited to be a party man: he thinks his way through the party and out the other side too soon.
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When an acquaintance goes by I often step back from my window, not so much to spare him the effort of acknowledging me as to spare myself the embarrassment of seeing that he has not done so.

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F 155
8 months 3 weeks ago

There is one thing, and only one, in the whole universe which we know more about than we could learn from external observation. That one thing is Man. We do not merely observe men, we are men. In this case we have, so to speak, inside information; we are in the know.

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Book I, Chapter 4, "What Lies behind the Law"
8 months 3 weeks ago

An unbiased reader, on opening one of their [Fichte's, Schelling's or Hegel's] books and then asking himself whether this is the tone of a thinker wanting to instruct or that of a charlatan wanting to impress, cannot be five minutes in any doubt. ... The tone of calm investigation, which had characterized all previous philosophy, is exchanged for that of unshakeable certainty, such as is peculiar to charlatanry of every kind and at all times. ... From every page and every line, there speaks an endeavor to beguile and deceive the reader, first by producing an effect to dumbfound him, then by incomprehensible phrases and even sheer nonsense to stun and stupefy him, and again by audacity of assertion to puzzle him, in short, to throw dust in his eyes and mystify him as much as possible.

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E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 23

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