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Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Just now
How can it be that...

How can it be that mathematics, being, after all, a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality? Is human reason, then, without experience, merely by taking thought, able to fathom the properties of real things?

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Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
3 months 6 days ago
Even if the whole world were...

Even if the whole world were to fall to pieces, the unity of the psyche would never be shattered. And the wider and more numerous the fissures on the surface, the more the unity is strengthened in the depths.

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Civilization in Transition
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Just now
Sometimes one pays most for...

Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.

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Quoted in The Ultimate Quotable Einstein by Alice Calaprice (2010), p. 230
Philosophical Maxims
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
3 months 1 day ago
Language transcends us and yet, we...

Language transcends us and yet, we speak.

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p. 349
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks 4 days ago
It is the very joy....
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Main Content / General
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 months 2 weeks ago
The most formidable of all the...

The most formidable of all the ills that threaten the future of the Union arises from the presence of a black population upon its territory; and in contemplating the cause of the present embarrassments, or the future dangers of the United States, the observer is invariably led to this as a primary fact.

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Chapter XVIII.
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 1 week ago
The subject must distinguish itself through...

The subject must distinguish itself through opposition from the rational being, which it has assumed outside of itself. The subject has posited itself as one, which contains in itself the last ground of something that is in it, (for this is the condition of Egohood, or of Rationality generally;) but it has also posited a being outside of itself, as the last ground of this something in it. It is to have the power of distinguishing itself from this other being; and this is, under our presupposition, possible only, if the subject can distinguish in that given something how far the ground of this something lies in itself and how far it lies outside of itself.

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P. 63
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
4 months 2 weeks ago
Whence we see spiders, flies, or...

Whence we see spiders, flies, or ants entombed and preserved forever in amber, a more than royal tomb.

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Historia Vitæ et Mortis; Sylva Sylvarum, Cent. i. Exper. 100, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed.
Philosophical Maxims
Cisero
Cisero
4 months 4 weeks ago
What! You would convict me from...

What! You would convict me from my own words, and bring against me what I had said or written elsewhere. You may act in that manner with those who dispute by established rules. We live from hand to mouth, and say anything that strikes our mind with probability, so that we are the only people who are really at liberty.

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Book 5 Section 11
Philosophical Maxims
Alan Watts
Alan Watts
3 weeks ago
Camus said there is only really...

Camus said there is only really one serious philosophical question, which is whether or not to commit suicide. I think there are four or five serious philosophical questions: The first one is: Who started it? The second is: Are we going to make it? The third is: Where are we going to put it? The fourth is: Who's going to clean up? And the fifth: Is it serious?

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Out Of Your Mind (2004), Audio lecture 1: The Nature of Consciousness: A Game That's Worth The Candle
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 1 week ago
In tetrad form, the artefact is...

In tetrad form, the artefact is seen to be not netural or passive, but an active logos or utterance of the human mind or body that transforms the user and his ground.

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p. 99
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 6 days ago
I don't understand why we must...

I don't understand why we must do things in this world, why we must have friends and aspirations, hopes and dreams. Wouldn't it be better to retreat to a faraway corner of the world, where all its noise and complications would be heard no more? Then we could renounce culture and ambitions; we would lose everything and gain nothing; for what is there to be gained from this world?

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
3 weeks ago
We cannot abdicate our conscience to...

We cannot abdicate our conscience to an organization, nor to a government. 'Am I my brother's keeper?' Most certainly I am! I cannot escape my responsibility by saying the State will do all that is necessary. It is a tragedy that nowadays so many think and feel otherwise.

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p. 309
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
3 months 5 days ago
The manufacturing worker almost always lives...

The manufacturing worker almost always lives in the countryside and in a more or less patriarchal relation to his landlord or employer; the proletarian lives, for the most part, in the city and his relation to his employer is purely a cash relation. The manufacturing worker is torn out of his patriarchal relation by big industry, loses whatever property he still has, and in this way becomes a proletarian.

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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
3 weeks 4 days ago
He who does not….

He who does not prevent a crime, when he can, encourages it.

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line 291; (Agamemnon)
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
4 months 2 weeks ago
When you see a person squirming...

When you see a person squirming in the clutches of the Law, say to him: "Brother, get things straight. You let the Law talk to your conscience. Make it talk to your flesh.

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Chapter 2, Verse 19
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
3 weeks 4 days ago
Mucius put his hand into the...

Mucius put his hand into the fire. It is painful to be burned; but how much more painful to inflict such suffering upon oneself!

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Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
3 months 3 weeks ago
He preferred an honest man that...

He preferred an honest man that wooed his daughter, before a rich man. "I would rather," said Themistocles, "have a man that wants money than money that wants a man."

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49 Themistocles
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
3 weeks ago
Man can hardly even recognize the...

Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.

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This quote was attributed to Albert Schweitzer by Rachel Carson on p. 17 of her seminal work Silent Spring (1962), and is widely cited on various Internet websites, but an actual source from Schweitzer's works is elusive.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 1 day ago
A Parliament speaking through reporters to...

A Parliament speaking through reporters to Buncombe and the twenty-seven millions, mostly fools.

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Latter Day Pamphlets, No. 6.
Philosophical Maxims
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
1 month 1 week ago
In places where men are used...

In places where men are used to differences they inevitably become tolerant.

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Ch. IV: "The Line of Least Resistance", p. 52
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 1 week ago
This inner revolution is realistic because...

This inner revolution is realistic because it maintains itself deliberately within the framework of existing institutions; the oppressed reckon with the real situation.

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p. 66
Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
1 week 3 days ago
Never forget: We are alive within...

Never forget: We are alive within mysteries.

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Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
2 months 3 weeks ago
If things are deprived of memory,...

If things are deprived of memory, they become information or commodities. They are pushed into a time-free, ahistorical place.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 week ago
Consider all that you've gone through,...

Consider all that you've gone through, all that you've survived. And that the story of your life is done, your assignment complete. How many good things have you seen? How much pain and pleasure have you resisted? How many honors have you declined? How many unkind people have you been kind to?

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(Hays translation) V, 31
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
4 months 1 week ago
Our colleges ought to have lit...

Our colleges ought to have lit up in us a lasting relish for the better kind of man, a loss of appetite for mediocrities, and a disgust for cheapjacks. We ought to smell, as it were, the difference of quality in men and their proposals when we enter the world of affairs about us.

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The Social Value of the College-Bred
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 1 week ago
The state of society is one...

The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters,-a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.

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par. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
3 weeks 4 days ago
Anger, as we have said, is...

Anger, as we have said, is eager to punish; and that such a desire should exist in man's peaceful breast is least of all according to his nature; for human life is founded on benefits and harmony and is bound together into an alliance for the common help of all, not by terror, but by love towards one another.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
4 months 2 weeks ago
In all ages of the world,...

In all ages of the world, priests have been enemies to liberty; and it is certain, that this steady conduct of theirs must have been founded on fixed reasons of interest and ambition. Liberty of thinking, and of expressing our thoughts, is always fatal to priestly power, and to those pious frauds, on which it is commonly founded; and, by an infallible connexion, which prevails among all kinds of liberty, this privilege can never be enjoyed, at least has never yet been enjoyed, but in a free government.

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Part I, Essay 9: Of The Parties of Great Britain
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 1 week ago
This world belongs to the energetic....

This world belongs to the energetic.

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Resources
Philosophical Maxims
Georges Sorel
Georges Sorel
2 weeks 6 days ago
Myths are not descriptions of things,...

Myths are not descriptions of things, but expressions of a determination to act... A myth cannot be refuted since it is, at bottom, identical with the convictions of a group, being the expression of these convictions in the language of movement.

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p. 28-29 (Letter to Daniel Halevy)
Philosophical Maxims
Max Scheler
Max Scheler
3 months ago
The process of aging can only...

The process of aging can only be fruitful and satisfactory if the important transitions are accompanied by free resignation, by the renunciation of the values proper to the preceding stage of life. Those spiritual and intellectual values which remain untouched by the process of aging, together with the values of the next stage of life, must compensate for what has been lost. Only if this happens can we cheerfully relive the values of our past in memory, without envy for the young to whom they are still accessible. If we cannot compensate, we avoid and flee the "tormenting" recollection of youth, thus blocking our possibilities of understanding younger people. At the same time we tend to negate the specific values of earlier stages. No wonder that youth always has a hard fight to sustain against the ressentiment of the older generation.

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L. Coser, trans. (1973), pp. 62-63
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
5 months 1 week ago
Of all the schools of patience...

Of all the schools of patience and lucidity, creation is the most effective. It is also the staggering evidence of man's sole dignity: the dogged revolt against his condition, perseverance in an effort considered sterile. It calls for a daily effort, self-mastery, a precise estimate of the limits of truth, measure, and strength. It constitutes an ascesis. All that "for nothing," in order to repeat and mark time. But perhaps the great work of art has less importance in itself than in the ordeal it demands of a man and the opportunity it provides him of overcoming his phantoms and approaching a little closer to his naked reality.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alan Watts
Alan Watts
3 weeks ago
Wouldn't it be as farfetched to...

Wouldn't it be as farfetched to call birth the cause of death as to call the cat's head the cause of the tail? Lifting the neck of a bottle implies lifting the bottom as well, for the "two parts" come up at the same time. If I pick up an accordion by one end, the other will follow a little later, but the principle is the same. Total situations are, therefore, patterns in time as much as patterns in space.

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p. 72
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
1 month 3 weeks ago
The saying that a little knowledge...

The saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing is, to my mind, a very dangerous adage. If knowledge is real and genuine, I do not believe that it is other than a very valuable possession, however infinitesimal its quantity may be. Indeed, if a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?

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"On Elementary Instruction in Physiology"
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months 2 weeks ago
A schoolteacher or professor cannot educate...

A schoolteacher or professor cannot educate individuals, he educates only species.

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J 10
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 1 day ago
Aesop's Fly, sitting on the axle...

Aesop's Fly, sitting on the axle of the chariot, has been much laughed at for exclaiming: What a dust I do raise!

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 6 days ago
Reading the Socratic dialogues one has...

Reading the Socratic dialogues one has the feeling: what a frightful waste of time! What's the point of these arguments that prove nothing and clarify nothing?

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p. 14e
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
3 months 1 day ago
The nineteenth century, utilitarian throughout, set...

The nineteenth century, utilitarian throughout, set up a utilitarian interpretation of the phenomenon of life which has come down to us and may still be considered as the commonplace of everyday thinking. ... An innate blindness seems to have closed the eyes of this epoch to all but those facts which show life as a phenomenon of utility.

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p. 16
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 week 3 days ago
I know, indeed, that some honest...

I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
2 months 1 week ago
This is how one puts an...

This is how one puts an end to totality. If all information can be found in each of its parts, the whole loses its meaning. It is also the end of the body, of this singularity called body, whose secret is precisely that it cannot be segmented into additional cells, that it is an indivisible configuration, to which its sexuation is witness (paradox: cloning will fabricate sexed beings in perpetuity, since they are similar to their model, whereas thereby sex becomes useless-but precisely sex is not a function, it is what makes a body a body, it is what exceeds all the parts, all the diverse functions of this body). Sex (or death: in this sense it is the same thing) is what exceeds all information that can be collected on a body. Well, where is all this information collected? In the genetic formula. This is why it must necessarily want to forge a path of autonomous reproduction, independent of sexuality and of death.

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"Clone Story," p. 97
Philosophical Maxims
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
3 months 1 day ago
By becoming the pure subject who...

By becoming the pure subject who knows the world objectively, man ultimately realizes that absolute consciousness with respect to which the body and individual existence are no longer anything but objects; death is deprived of meaning. Reduced to the status of object of consciousness, the body could not be conceived as an intermediary between "things" and the consciousness which knows them.

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p. 204
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
2 months 3 weeks ago
The freedom of the 'everyday mind'...

The freedom of the 'everyday mind' consists rather in not kneeling down in awe. Its mental attitude is better expressed as sitting unmoveable like an object.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
3 months 5 days ago
What each individual wills is obstructed...

What each individual wills is obstructed by everyone else, and what emerges is something that no one willed.

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Letter to Jean-Richard Bloch
Philosophical Maxims
Max Stirner
Max Stirner
3 weeks 5 days ago
The tiger that assails me is...

The tiger that assails me is in the right, and I who strike him down am also in the right. I defend against him not my right, but myself.

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S. Byington, trans. (1913), p. 191
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1 month 3 days ago
If I work incessantly to the...

If I work incessantly to the last, nature owes me another form of existence when the present one collapses.

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Letter to Eckermann
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 1 week ago
I don't explain-I explore.

I don't explain-I explore.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 1 week ago
Every man is a divinity in...

Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool. It seems as if heaven had sent its insane angels into our world as to an asylum. And here they will break out into their native music, and utter at intervals the words they have heard in heaven; then the mad fit returns, and they mope and wallow like dogs!

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p. 165
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
3 weeks 4 days ago
When the changes of our times...

When the changes of our times gave you an opportunity, you restored to the use of man that genius of your father for which he had suffered, and made him in real truth immortal by publishing as an eternal memorial of him those books which that bravest of men had written with his own blood. You have done a great service to Roman literature: a large part of Cordus's books had been burned; a great service to posterity, who will receive a true account of events, which cost its author so dear; and a great service to himself, whose memory flourishes and ever will flourish, as long as men set any value upon the facts of Roman history, as long as anyone lives who wishes to review the deeds of our fathers, to know what a true Roman was like - one who still remained unconquered when all other necks were broken in to receive the yoke of Sejanus, one who was free in every thought, feeling, and act.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Just now
Physical concepts are free creations...

Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world. In our endeavor to understand reality we are somewhat like a man trying to understand the mechanism of a closed watch. He sees the face and the moving hands, even hears its ticking, but he has no way of opening the case. If he is ingenious he may form some picture of a mechanism which could be responsible for all the things he observes, but he may never be quite sure his picture is the only one which could explain his observations. He will never be able to compare his picture with the real mechanism and he cannot even imagine the possibility or the meaning of such a comparison. But he certainly believes that, as his knowledge increases, his picture of reality will become simpler and simpler and will explain a wider and wider range of his sensuous impressions. He may also believe in the existence of the ideal limit of knowledge and that it is approached by the human mind. He may call this ideal limit the objective truth.

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Philosophical Maxims
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