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Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
5 months 1 week ago
Cézanne's painting is strictly painting, and...

Cézanne's painting is strictly painting, and its value is immense; but Van Gogh's painting has the Outsider's characteristic: it is a laboratory refuse of a man who treated his own life as an experiment in living; it faithfully records moods and developments of vision on the manner of a Bildungsroman.

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p. 103
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
6 months 3 weeks ago
If beings are grasped as will...

If beings are grasped as will to power, the "should" which is supposed to hang suspended over them, against which they might be measured, becomes superfluous. If life itself is will to power, it is itself the ground, principium, of valuation. Then a "should" does not determine being. Being determines a "should." "When we talk of values we are speaking under the inspiration or optics of life: life itself compels us to set up values; life itself values through us whenever we posit values."

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(VIII, 89) p. 32
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
4 months 2 weeks ago
Within the last fifty years, the...

Within the last fifty years, the extraordinary growth of every department of physical science has spread among us mental food of so nutritious and stimulating a character that a new ecdysis seems imminent.

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Ch.2, p. 73
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Owen
Robert Owen
4 months 3 weeks ago
My friends, I tell you that...

My friends, I tell you that hitherto you have been prevented from even knowing what happiness really is, solely in consequence of the errors - gross errors - that have been combined with the fundamental notions of every religion that has hitherto been taught to men. And, in consequence, they have made man the most inconsistent, and the most miserable being in existence. By the errors of these systems he has been made a weak, imbecile animal; a furious bigot and fanatic or a miserable hypocrite; and should these qualities be carried, not only into the projected villages, but into Paradise itself, a Paradise would no longer be found!

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Statement (21 August 1817), as quoted by Jim Herrick, in "Bradlaugh and Secularism: 'The Province of the Real'"
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
7 months 1 day ago
We think it also necessary to...

We think it also necessary to express our astonishment that a government, desirous of being called free, should prefer connection with the most despotic and arbitrary powers in Europe.

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Address and Declaration at a Select Meeting of the Friends of Universal Peace and Liberty (August 20, 1791) p. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
5 months 1 week ago
Whatever is merely positive is lifeless....

Whatever is merely positive is lifeless. Negativity is essential to vitality.

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Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
5 months 1 week ago
What the horrors of war are,...

What the horrors of war are, no one can imagine - they are not wounds and blood and fever, spotted and low, or dysentery, chronic and acute, cold and heat and famine - they are intoxication, drunken brutality, demoralization and disorder on the part of the inferior, jealousies, meanness, indifference, selfish brutality on the part of the superior.

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Letter (5 May 1855), published in Florence Nightingale : An Introduction to Her Life and Family (2001), edited by Lynn McDonald, p. 141
Philosophical Maxims
Xunzi
Xunzi
3 months 3 weeks ago
A questioner asks: If human nature...

A questioner asks: If human nature is evil, then where do ritual and rightness come from? I reply: ritual and rightness are always created by the conscious activity of the sages.

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Sources of Chinese Tradition (1999), vol. 1, p. 180
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
5 months 4 weeks ago
The pursuit of individual happiness within...

The pursuit of individual happiness within those limits prescribed by social conditions, is the first requisite to the attainment of the greatest general happiness.

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Ethics (New York:1915), § 70, pp. 190-191
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
3 months 3 weeks ago
Be afraid of the Chinese. I...

Be afraid of the Chinese. I mean, the Chinese shoot down satellites in space; they hack into Google's computers; the Osama bin Laden people can't make their underwear blow up.

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On The Colbert Report (2 May 2011), answering the question of who Americans should be scared of now that bin Laden is dead
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
5 months 3 weeks ago
Religions are not true or false,...

Religions are not true or false, but better or worse.

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This statement is presented in quotes in The Philosophy of Religion and Advaita Vedanta (2008) by Arvind Sharma, p. 216
Philosophical Maxims
Max Scheler
Max Scheler
5 months 2 weeks ago
The "kingdom of God" has become...

The "kingdom of God" has become the "other world," which stands mechanically beside "this world"-an opposition unknown to the strongest periods of Christianity.

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L. Coser, trans. (1961), p. 97
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
7 months 3 weeks ago
It happens that the stage sets...

It happens that the stage sets collapse. Rising, streetcar, four hours in the office or the factory, meal, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm this path is easily followed most of the time. But one day the "why" arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement.

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Philosophical Maxims
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
3 months 3 weeks ago
The present crisis of Western democracy...

The present crisis of Western democracy is a crisis in journalism.

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Journalism and the Higher Law, p. 5
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
7 months 2 weeks ago
By faithfulness we are collected and...

By faithfulness we are collected and wound up into unity within ourselves, whereas we had been scattered abroad in multiplicity.

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As quoted in Footprints in Time : Fulfilling God's Destiny for Your Life (2007) by Jeff O'Leary, p. 223
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
6 months 4 weeks ago
Kant was also quite aware that...

Kant was also quite aware that "the urgent need" of reason is both different from and "more than mere quest and desire for knowledge." Hence, the distinguishing of the two faculties, reason and intellect, coincides with a distinction between two altogether different mental activities, thinking and knowing.

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p. 14
Philosophical Maxims
Alan Watts
Alan Watts
3 months 1 week ago
Psychotherapists ... are dealing with people...

Psychotherapists ... are dealing with people whose distress arises from what may be termed maya, to use the Hindu-Buddhist word whose exact meaning is not merely 'illusion' but the entire world-conception of a culture, considered as illusion in the strict etymological sense of a play (Latin, ludere). The aim of a way of liberation is not the destruction of maya but seeing it for what it is, or seeing through it. Play is not to be taken seriously, or, in other words, ideas of the world and of oneself which are social conventions and institutions are not to be confused with reality.

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p. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
5 months 3 weeks ago
Building worlds is not enough for...

Building worlds is not enough for the deeper urging mind; but a loving heart sates the striving spirit.

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Fragment No. 91
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
6 months ago
I decline the election. - It...

I decline the election. - It has ever been my rule through life, to observe a proportion between my efforts and my objects. I have never been remarkable for a bold, active, and sanguine pursuit of advantages that are personal to myself.

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Speech at Bristol on declining the poll (9 September 1780), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II (1855), p. 170
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
4 months 3 weeks ago
Success makes some crimes honorable. Maxim...

Success makes some crimes honorable.

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Maxim 326
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
7 months ago
We have, in fact, two kinds...

We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side; one which we preach but do not practise, and another which we practise but seldom preach.

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Ch. 8: Eastern and Western Ideals of Happiness
Philosophical Maxims
Mencius
Mencius
3 months 3 weeks ago
Tsze-Kung asked Confucius, saying, "Master, are...

Tsze-Kung asked Confucius, saying, "Master, are you a sage?" Confucius answered him: "A sage is what I cannot rise to. I learn without satiety, and teach without being tired." Tsze-Kung said: "You learn without satiety: that shows your wisdom. You teach without being tired: that shows your benevolence. Benevolent and wise:- Master, you are a sage."

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"Humility", no. 139
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
7 months ago
Competition for power is of two...

Competition for power is of two sorts: between organizations, and between individuals for leadership within an organization.

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p. 165
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
2 months 4 weeks ago
What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible...

What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment and death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment, be deaf to all those motives whose powers supported him through his trial, and inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.

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Letter to Jean Nicholas Demeunier (24 January 1786) Bergh 17:103
Philosophical Maxims
Sir Thomas Browne
Sir Thomas Browne
6 months 4 days ago
Half our days we pass in...

Half our days we pass in the shadow of the earth; and the brother of death exacteth a third part of our lives.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
7 months ago
[M]y father's rejection of all that...

[M]y father's rejection of all that is called religious belief, was not, as many might suppose, primarily a matter of logic and evidence: the grounds of it were moral, still more than intellectual. He found it impossible to believe that a world so full of evil was the work of an Author combining infinite power with perfect goodness and righteousness.

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(pp. 39-40)
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
7 months 3 weeks ago
Q. You do not consider your...

Q. You do not consider your statement a disloyal one? A. No, sir. Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty. Q. You are sure that your statement represents scientific truth? A. I am.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 4 weeks ago
Let anyone try....
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Main Content / General
John Gray
John Gray
4 months 6 days ago
Science is not distinguished from myth...

Science is not distinguished from myth by science being literally true and myth only a type of poetic analogy. While their aims are different, both are composed of symbols we use to deal with a slippery world.

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Beyond the Last Thought: Freud's cigars and the long way round to Nirvana (p. 96)
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
5 months 1 week ago
I began to practice 'meditation', sitting...

I began to practice 'meditation', sitting cross-legged for hours, staring straight in front of me. The result was a sudden and total transformation of my inner-being. There was a sense of freedom from my personality -- from the being called Colin Wilson who was born in Leicester in 1931. I felt that 'he' was a series of responses and reactions, of ambitions and frustrations. But after half an hour of staring straight in front of me, of concentrating my attention 'at the root of my eyebrows', I felt in control of his responses and frustrations. This control brought such a sense of exhilaration and satisfaction that I often sneaked away from other people to spend just five minutes sitting cross-legged; when I was working as a labourer on a building site, I would find a quiet spot and, while the others were having a smoke, would sit in a position that could quickly be changed to an ordinary sitting posture if someone came by . . .

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p. 87
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
7 months 2 days ago
As the analysis of a substantial...

As the analysis of a substantial composite terminates only in a part which is not a whole, that is, in a simple part, so synthesis terminates only in a whole which is not a part, that is, the world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
5 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.

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p. 158
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
7 months 2 days ago
Several actual worlds without one another...

Several actual worlds without one another are not, therefore, impossible by the very concept, as Wolf hastily concluded from the notion of a complex or multiplicity which he deemed sufficient to a whole, as such, but only on condition that there exist but one necessary cause of all things. If several are admitted, several worlds without one another will be possible in the strictest metaphysical sense.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
5 months 3 weeks ago
It is written again, Thou shalt...

It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

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4:7 (KJV) Said to Satan. The reference is to Deuteronomy 6:16, "Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God, as ye tempted him in Massah." (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
3 months 1 week ago
True peace of mind comes from...

True peace of mind comes from accepting the worst.

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p. 158
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
5 months 1 week ago
It is certainly not a matter...

It is certainly not a matter of indifference whether I learn something without effort or finally arrive at it myself through my system of thought. In the latter case everything has roots, in the former it is merely superficial.

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F154
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
7 months ago
Some part of life - perhaps...

Some part of life - perhaps the most important part - must be left to the spontaneous action of individual impulse, for where all is system there will be mental and spiritual death.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
5 months 1 week ago
Man loves company - even if...

Man loves company - even if it is only that of a small burning candle.

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K 40
Philosophical Maxims
Sydney Smith
Sydney Smith
3 months 2 weeks ago
Live always in the best company...

Live always in the best company when you read.

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Vol. I, ch. 10, p. 370
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
5 months 3 weeks ago
The proletarian works with the instruments...

The proletarian works with the instruments of production of another, for the account of this other, in exchange for a part of the product. ... The proletarian liberates himself by abolishing competition, private property, and all class differences.

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Philosophical Maxims
Antisthenes
Antisthenes
6 months 2 weeks ago
Virtue is the same…

Virtue is the same for a man and for a woman.

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§ 5
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
7 months ago
We are thus led to a...

We are thus led to a somewhat vague distinction between what we may call "hard" data and "soft" data. This distinction is a matter of degree, and must not be pressed; but if not taken too seriously it may help to make the situation clear. I mean by "hard" data those which resist the solvent influence of critical reflection, and by " soft " data those which, under the operation of this process, become to our minds more or less doubtful.

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p. 70
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
6 months 4 weeks ago
The victory of vivisection marks a...

The victory of vivisection marks a great advance in the triumph of ruthless, non-moral utilitarianism over the old world of ethical law; a triumph in which we, as well as animals, are already the victims, and of which Dachau and Hiroshima mark the more recent achievements.

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"Vivisection" (1947), p. 228
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
7 months ago
There are 80,000 prostitutes in London...

There are 80,000 prostitutes in London alone and what are they, if not bloody sacrifices on the altar of monogamy?

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"Of Women"
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
6 months 4 weeks ago
An organised system of machines, to...

An organised system of machines, to which motion is communicated by the transmitting mechanism from a central automation, is the most developed form of production by machinery.

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Vol. I, Ch. 15, Section 1, pg. 416.
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
7 months 1 week ago
When I play with my cat….

When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?

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Ch. 12 (tr. Donald M. Frame) , tr. David Wills, 2008
Philosophical Maxims
Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
4 months 3 weeks ago
This "knowing what to do"... is...

This "knowing what to do"... is a matter of having the right purpose, the purpose appropriate to the situation in hand... The one who "knows what to do" is the one on whom you can rely to make the best shot at success, whenever success is possible.

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"Knowledge and Feeling" (p. 35)
Philosophical Maxims
Ptahhotep
Ptahhotep
6 months 2 weeks ago
One who is serious all day...

One who is serious all day will never have a good time, while one who is frivolous all day will never establish a household.

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Maxim no. 25.
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
5 months 2 weeks ago
The difference between the artificial and...

The difference between the artificial and the artful in the artistic lies on the surface in the former there is a split between what is overly done and what is intended. The appearance is one of cordiality; the intent is that of gaining favor. Whenever this split between what is done and its purpose exists, there is insincerity, a trick, a simulation of an act that intrinsically has another effect. When the natural and the cultivated blend into one, acts of social intercourse are works of art. The animating impulsion of genial friendship and the deed performed completely coincide without intrusion of ulterior motive. Awkwardness may prevent adequacy of expression.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 months 3 weeks ago
Remember that the term Rational was...

Remember that the term Rational was intended to signify a discriminating attention to every several thing and freedom from negligence; and that Equanimity is the voluntary acceptance of things which are assigned to thee by the common nature; and the Magnanimity is the elevation of the intelligent part above the pleasurable or painful sensations of the flesh, and above that poor thing called fame, and death, and all such things. If then, thou maintainest thyself in the possession of these names, without desiring to be called by these names by others, thou wilt be another person and wilt enter into another life.

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Philosophical Maxims
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