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1 month 2 weeks ago

The universal intelligence puts itself in motion for every separate effect... or it puts itself in motion once, and everything else comes by way of a sequence in a manner; or individual elements are the origin of all things. In a word, if there is a god, all is well; and if chance rules, do not thou be governed by it.

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IX, 28
6 months 3 weeks ago

There must have been many who had a relationship to Jesus similar to that of Barabbas (his name was Jesus Barrabas). The Danish "Barrabas" is about the same as "N.N." [Mr. X or John Doe], filius patris, his father's son. - It is too bad, however, that we do not know anything more about Barrabas; it seems to me that in many ways he could have become a counterpart to the Wandering Jew. The rest of his life must have taken a singular turn. God knows whether or not he became a Christian. - It would be a poetic motif to have him, gripped by Christ's divine power, step forward and witness for him.

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3 months 1 week ago

Can we find nothing good to say about TV? Well, yes, it brings scattered solitaries into a sort of communion. TV allows your isolated American to think that he participates in the life of the entire country. It does not actually place him in a community, but his heart is warmed with the suggestion (on the whole false) that there is a community somewhere in the vicinity and that his atomized consciousness will be drawn back toward the whole.

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The Distracted Public (1990), p. 159
6 months 2 weeks ago

Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.

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4 months 1 week ago

The spontaneous reproduction of superimposed needs by the individual does not establish autonomy; it only testifies to the efficacy of the control.

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p. 8
5 months 3 weeks ago

The great end of all human industry, is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, sciences cultivated, laws ordained, and societies modelled, by the most profound wisdom of patriots and legislators.

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Part I, Essay 16: The Stoic
4 months 3 weeks ago

The zealous never fail to draw political inferences from religious tenets, by which they interest the magistrate in the dispute; and then to the heat of a religious fervour is added the fury of a party zeal. All intercourse is cut off between the parties. They lose all knowledge of each other, tho' countrymen and neighbours, and are therefore easily imposed upon with the most absurd stories concerning each other's opinions and practices. They judge of the hatred of the adverse side by their own. Then fear is added to their hatred; and preventive injuries arise from their fear. The remembrance of the past, the dread of the future, the present ill, will join together to urge them forward to the most violent courses.Such is the manner of proceeding of religious parties towards each other.

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Volume II, p. 147
2 months 2 days ago

At sunset of the third day, near the village of Igendja, we moved along an island set in the middle of the wide river. On a sandback to our left, four hippopotamuses and their young plodded along in our same direction. Just then, in my great tiredness and discouragement, the phrase "Reverence for Life" struck me like a flash. As far as I knew, it was a phrase I had never heard nor ever read. I realized at once that it carried within itself the solution to the problem that had been torturing me. Now I knew that a system of values which concerns itself only with our relationship to other people is incomplete and therefore lacking in power for good. Only by means of reverence for life can we establish a spiritual and humane relationship with both people and all living creatures within our reach. Only in this fashion can we avoid harming others, and, within the limits of our capacity, go to their aid whenever they need us.

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1 month 3 weeks ago

I am quite at a loss about the nailboys remaining with mr Stewart. they have long been a dead expence instead of profit to me. in truth they require a vigour of discipline to make them do reasonable work, to which he cannot bring himself. on the whole I think it will be best for them also to be removed to mr Lilly's control.

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In a letter to James Dinsmore as quoted in The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson, by Henry Wiencek, Smithsonian Magazine,
2 months 6 days ago

He who conquers his enemy with meekness, wins fame.

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4 months 1 week ago

I hope I may claim in the present work to have made it probable that the laws of arithmetic are analytic judgments and consequently a priori. Arithmetic thus becomes simply a development of logic, and every proposition of arithmetic a law of logic, albeit a derivative one. To apply arithmetic in the physical sciences is to bring logic to bear on observed facts; calculation becomes deduction.

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Gottlob Frege (1950 ). The Foundations of Arithmetic. p. 99.

To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great or rational whether in life or in science. Great achievement is assured, however, of subsequent recognition and grateful acceptance by public opinion, which in due course will make it one of its own prejudices.

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Sect. 318, as translated by T. M. Knox,, 1952
1 month 4 weeks ago

Love for distance and order, the ability to subordinate one's individualistic and passionate element to principles, the ability to take action and work above mere personhood, a feeling of dignity devoid of vanity are features of the true warrior spirit as essential as those which refer to actual combat.

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pp. 114-115
4 months 3 weeks ago

It was the case of common soldiers deserting from their officers, to join a furious, licentious populace. It was a desertion to a cause, the real object of which was to level all those institutions, and to break all those connexions, natural and civil, that regulate and hold together the community by a chain of subordination; to raise soldiers against their officers; servants against their masters; tradesmen against their customers; artificers against their employers; tenants against their landlords; curates against their bishops; and children against their parents. That this cause of theirs was not an enemy to servitude, but to society.

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Speech in the House of Commons (9 February 1790), quoted in The Parliamentary History of England, From the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, Vol. XXVIII (1816), column 359
4 months 2 weeks ago

It is comparatively easy for the philosopher in his closet to invent imaginary schemes of policy, and to shew how mankind, if they were without passions and without prejudices, might best be united in the form of a political community. But, unfortunately, men in all ages are the creatures of passions, perpetually prompting them to defy the rein, and break loose from the dictates of sobriety and speculation.

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History of the Commonwealth of England. From its Commencement, to the Restoration of Charles the Second. Volume the Fourth. Oliver, Lord Protector (1828), p. 579
4 months 3 days ago

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
5 months 3 weeks ago

The freest importation of salt provisions, in the same manner, could have as little effect upon the interest of the graziers of Great Britain as that of live cattle. Salt provisions are not only a very bulky commodity, but when compared with fresh meat, they are a commodity both of worse quality, and as they cost more labour and expence, of higher price. They could never, therefore, come into competition with the fresh meat, though they might with the salt provisions of the country.

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Chapter II
5 months 1 week ago

Aristodemus, a friend of Antigonus, supposed to be a cook's son, advised him to moderate his gifts and expenses. "Thy words," said he, "Aristodemus, smell of the apron."

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44 Antigonus I
5 months 3 weeks ago

Beneficence is a duty. He who often practices this, and sees his beneficent purpose succeed, comes at last really to love him whom he has benefited. When, therefore, it is said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," this does not mean, "Thou shalt first of all love, and by means of love (in the next place) do him good"; but: "Do good to thy neighbour, and this beneficence will produce in thee the love of men (as a settled habit of inclination to beneficence)."

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Metaphysical Elements of Ethics (1780). Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, translation available at Philosophy.eserver.org. From section "Preliminary Notions of the Susceptibility of the Mind for Notions of Duty Generally", Part C ("Of love to men")
6 months 2 weeks ago

If one thing goes without saying, almost anything can.

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1 month 3 weeks ago

There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world.

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Letter to Henry Lee
5 months 3 weeks ago

The present hour is always wealthiest when it is poorer than the future ones, as that is the pleasantest site which affords the pleasantest prospect.

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Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 210
5 months 3 weeks ago

The public is a ferocious beast: one must chain it up or flee from it.

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Letter to Mademoiselle Quinault, quoted in Charles Sainte-Beuve, "Lettres inédites de Voltaire," Causeries de Lundi (20 October 1856) ; an English translation can be found on this page:
5 months 2 weeks ago

A sovereign shows himself to be a tyrant if he disregards his honest advisors, or punishes them for what they have said.

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5 months 2 weeks ago

Always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood: there will always be some who misunderstand you.

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4 months 2 weeks ago

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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2 months 2 weeks ago

I was obliged to retract, like a good Catholic, this opinion of mine; and as a punishment my dialogue was prohibited; and after five months being dismissed from Rome (at the time that the city of Florence was infected with plague), the habitation which with generous pity was assigned to me, was that of the dearest friend I had in Siena, Monsignor the Archbishop Piccolomini, whose most agreeable conversation I enjoyed with such quite and satisfaction of mind, that having there resumed my studies, I discovered and demonstrated a great number on the mechanical conclusions on the resistance of solids ... after about five months, the pestilence having ceased, the confinement of that house was changed by His Holiness for the freedom of the country so agreeable to me, whence I returned to the villa of Bellosguardo, and afterwards to Arcetri, where I still breathe salubrious air near my dear native-country Florence.

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Stay sane. p. 251-253
2 months 6 days ago

Because the Egoist is to himself the warder of the human, and has nothing to say to the state except: "Get out of my sunshine!"

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Tucker 1907, p. 307
5 months 3 weeks ago

William James used to preach the "will-to-believe." For my part, I should wish to preach the "will-to-doubt." None of our beliefs are quite true; all at least have a penumbra of vagueness and error. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.

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Ch. 12: Free Thought and Official Propaganda
5 months 1 week ago

Men have made an idol of luck as an excuse for their own thoughtlessness. Luck seldom measures swords with wisdom. Most things in life quick wit and sharp vision can set right.

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6 months 3 weeks ago

The greatest danger, that of losing one's own self, may pass off as quietly as if it were nothing; every other loss, that of an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife etc., is sure to be noticed.

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1 month 2 weeks ago

But in life, as we are cognizant of it, mental development can go but a little way. The mind hardly begins to awake ere the bodily powers decline - it but becomes dimly conscious of the vast fields before it, but begins to learn and use its strength, to recognize relations and extend its sympathies, when, with the death of the body, it passes away. Unless there is something more, there seems here a break, a failure. Whether it be a Humboldt or a Herschel, a Moses who looks from Pisgah, a Joshua who leads the host, or one of those sweet and patient souls who in narrow circles live radiant lives, there seems, if mind and character here developed can go no further, a purposelessness inconsistent with what we can see of the linked sequence of the universe.

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3 months 1 week ago

Such night in England ne'er had been, nor ne'er again shall be.

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The Armada, l. 34
4 months 2 weeks ago

Tell me how you want to die, and I'll tell you who you are.

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4 months 3 weeks ago

The saying that beauty is but skin deep is but a skin-deep saying.

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Vol. 2, Ch. XIV, Personal Beauty
5 months 1 week ago

It is sweet and honorable to die for one's country.

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Book III, ode ii, line 13
5 months 3 weeks ago

A philosophical attempt to work out a universal history according to a natural plan directed to achieving the civic union of the human race must be regarded as possible and, indeed, as contributing to this end of Nature.

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Ninth Thesis
3 months 2 weeks ago

If a work of art is to explore new environments, it is not to be regarded as a blueprint but rather as a form of action-painting.

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To Wilfred Watson, October 6 1965. Letters of Marshall McLuhan (1987), p. 325
2 months 6 days ago

Much must also be withdrawn into oneself: for a well-composed conversation of differences disturbs and renews the affections, and infuriates whatever is weak in the mind and has not been cared for...Loneliness will cure the hatred of the crowd, the boredom of solitude will be cured by the crowd.... A certain dullness and languor of the mind is born from constant toil....Nor would the desire of men so much tend to this, unless play and fun had a kind of natural voluptuousness. The frequent use of which will relieve all the weight of the soul and all the vigor.For sleep is also necessary for refreshment, but if you continue it day and night, death will result.

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6 months 2 weeks ago

A man is more a man through the things he keeps to himself than through those he says.

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3 months 1 week ago

There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces, and that cure is freedom.

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p. 41
4 months 3 weeks ago

...no Monarchy limited or unlimited, nor any of the old Republics, can possibly be safe as long as this strange, nameless, wild, enthusiastic thing is established in the Center of Europe.

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Letter to John Trevor (January 1791), quoted in Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VI: July 1789-December 1791 (1967), p. 218
2 months 1 day ago

We have the right to conclude from this that syndicalist violence, perpetrated in the course of strikes by proletarians who desire the overthrow of the State, must not be confused with the acts of savagery which the superstition of the State suggested to the revolutionaries of 1793, when they had power in their hands and were able to oppress the conquered - following the principles which they had received from the Church and from the monarchy.

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p. 108
4 months 2 weeks ago

Morality must be the heart of our existence, if it is to be what it wants to be for us. ... The highest form of philosophy is ethics. Thus all philosophy begins with "I am." The highest statement of cognition must be an expression of that fact which is the means and ground for all cognition, namely, the goal of the I.

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Fichte Studies § 556
4 months 1 week ago

If I compare arithmetic with a tree that unfolds upward into a multitude of techniques and theorems while its root drives into the depths, then it seems to me that the impetus of the root.

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Gottlob Frege, Montgomery Furth (1964). The Basic Laws of Arithmetic: Exposition of the System. p. 10
6 months 1 week ago

By the ruler's cultivation of his own character, the duties of universal obligation are set forth. By honoring men of virtue and talents, he is preserved from errors of judgment.

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1 month 3 weeks ago

I read no newspaper now but Ritchie's, and in that chiefly the advertisments, for they contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.

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Letter to Nathaniel Macon
4 months 3 weeks ago

Is it really not possible to touch the gaming table without being instantly infected by superstition?

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