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David Hume
David Hume
1 month 2 days ago
Were a stranger to drop on...

Were a stranger to drop on a sudden into this world, I would show him, as a specimen of its ills, a hospital full of diseases, a prison crowded with malefactors and debtors, a field of battle strewed with carcasses, a fleet foundering in the ocean, a nation languishing under tyranny, famine, or pestilence. To turn the gay side of life to him, and give him a notion of its pleasures; whither should I conduct him? to a ball, to an opera, to court? He might justly think, that I was only showing him a diversity of distress and sorrow.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 weeks 6 days ago
There is something which unites magic...

There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the wisdom of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men.

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Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 week 2 days ago
Patience cometh by the grace of...

Patience cometh by the grace of the Soul.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 weeks ago
Communism is for us not a...

Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
1 month 1 week ago
It is true that may hold...

It is true that may hold in these things, which is the general root of superstition; namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
1 month ago
Giving then to matter all the...

Giving then to matter all the properties which philosophy knows it has, or all that atheism ascribes to it, and can prove, and even supposing matter to be eternal, it will not account for the system of the universe or of the solar system, because it will not account for motion, and it is motion that preserves it. When, therefore, we discover a circumstance of such immense importance, that without it the universe could not exist, and for which neither matter, nor any, nor all, the properties of matter can account, we are by necessity forced into the rational and comfortable belief of the existence of a cause superior to matter, and that cause man calls, God.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham
1 month 1 day ago
Secrecy is an instrument of conspiracy;...

Secrecy is an instrument of conspiracy; it ought not, therefore, to be the system of a regular government.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
3 weeks 6 days ago
If in this book harsh words...

If in this book harsh words are spoken about some of the greatest among the intellectual leaders of mankind, my motive is not, I hope, the wish to belittle them. It springs rather from my conviction that, if our civilization is to survive, we must break with the habit of deference to great men. Great men may make great mistakes; and as the book tries to show, some of the greatest leaders of the past supported the perennial attack on freedom and reason. Their influence, too rarely challenged, continues to mislead those on whose defence civilization depends, and to divide them. The responsibility of this tragic and possibly fatal division becomes ours if we hesitate to be outspoken in our criticism of what admittedly is a part of our intellectual heritage. By reluctance to criticize some of it, we may help to destroy it all.

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Philosophical Maxims
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Leibniz
1 month 2 days ago
My philosophical views approach somewhat closely...

My philosophical views approach somewhat closely those of the late Countess of Conway, and hold a middle position between Plato and Democritus, because I hold that all things take place mechanically as Democritus and Descartes contend against the views of Henry More and his followers, and hold too, nevertheless, that everything takes place according to a living principle and according to final causes - all things are full of life and consciousness, contrary to the views of the Atomists.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
1 month 6 days ago
I want death to…

I want death to find me planting my cabbages.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
1 month 2 days ago
Another doctrine repugnant to Civill Society,...

Another doctrine repugnant to Civill Society, is that whatsoever a man does against his Conscience, is Sinne; and it dependeth on the presumption of making himself judge of Good and Evill. For a man's Conscience and his Judgement are the same thing, and as the Judgement, so also the Conscience may be erroneous.

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Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
1 month 5 days ago
The end of the republic is...

The end of the republic is to enervate and to weaken all other bodies so as to increase its own body.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 weeks 1 day ago
I am writing to you to...

I am writing to you to tell you of my decision to return to your Government the Carl von Ossietzsky medal for peace. I do so reluctantly and after two years of private approaches on behalf of Heinz Brandt, whose continued imprisonment is a barrier to coexistence, relaxation of tension and understanding between East and West... I regret not to have heard from you on this subject. I hope that you will yet find it possible to release Brandt through an amnesty which would be a boon to the cause of peace and to your country.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
1 month 4 weeks ago
I have never worked as hard...

I have never worked as hard as now. I go for a brief walk in the morning. Then I come home and sit in my room without interruption until about three o'clock. My eyes can barely see. Then with my walking stick in hand I sneak off to the restaurant, but am so weak that I believe that if somebody were to call out my name, I would keel over and die. Then I go home and begin again. In my indolence during the past months I had pumped up a veritable shower bath, and now I have pulled the string and the ideas are cascading down upon me: healthy, happy, merry, gay, blessed children born with ease and yet all of them with the birthmark of my personality.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
1 month 4 weeks ago
Socrates did not stop with a...

Socrates did not stop with a philosophical consideration of mankind; he addressed himself to each one individually, wrested everything from him, and sent him away empty-handed.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 weeks 2 days ago
It is so characteristic, that just...

It is so characteristic, that just when the mechanics of reproduction are so vastly improved, there are fewer and fewer people who know how the music should be played.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 weeks 2 days ago
I am sitting with a...

I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again "I know that that's a tree", pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell them: "This fellow isn't insane. We are only doing philosophy."

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Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
2 weeks 4 days ago
Neither our distance from a preventable...

Neither our distance from a preventable evil nor the number of other people who, in respect to that evil, are in the same situation as we are, lessens our obligation to mitigate or prevent that evil.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
1 month 6 days ago
How many valiant men we have...

How many valiant men we have seen to survive their own reputation!

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Philosophical Maxims
Porphyry
Porphyry
1 week 5 days ago
Every good thing is gentle and...

Every good thing is gentle and consistent, progressing in good order and not going beyond what is right.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 weeks ago
For nature beats in perfect tune,...

For nature beats in perfect tune, And rounds with rhyme her every rune, Whether she work in land or sea, Or hide underground her alchemy. Thou canst not wave thy staff in air, Or dip thy paddle in the lake, But it carves the bow of beauty there, And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months ago
Verily I say unto you, All...

Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation. Mark 3:28-29 (KJV)

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Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
2 weeks 4 days ago
Fame and wealth without wisdom are...

Fame and wealth without wisdom are unsafe possessions.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months ago
Enter by the narrow gate; for...

Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Matthew 7:13-14 (NKJV) (Also Luke 13:24)

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
2 weeks 4 days ago
The problem is one of opposition...

The problem is one of opposition between subjective and objective points of view. There is a tendency to seek an objective account of everything before admitting its reality. But often what appears to a more subjective point of view cannot be accounted for in this way. So either the objective conception of the world is incomplete, or the subjective involves illusions that should be rejected.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
3 weeks 1 day ago
Je crois que le pouvoir politique...

I believe that political power also exercises itself through the mediation of a certain number of institutions that seem to have nothing in common with political power, that have the appearance of being independent, but are not.

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Philosophical Maxims
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
2 weeks 4 days ago
Plato had defined Man as an...

Plato had defined Man as an animal, biped and featherless, and was applauded. Diogenes plucked a fowl and brought it into the lecture-room with the words, "Behold Plato's man!"

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
1 month 1 week ago
An unjust law is no law...

An unjust law is no law at all.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 weeks ago
The country that is more developed...

The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
1 month 4 weeks ago
Anxiety may be compared with dizziness....

Anxiety may be compared with dizziness. He whose eye happens to look down into the yawning abyss becomes dizzy. But what is the reason for this? It is just as much in his own eye as in the abyss, for suppose he had not looked down. Hence, anxiety is the dizziness of freedom, which emerges when the spirit wants to posit the synthesis and freedom looks down into its own possibility, laying hold of finiteness to support itself. Freedom succumbs to dizziness. Further than this, psychology cannot and will not go. In that very moment everything is changed, and freedom, when it again rises, sees that it is guilty. Between these two moments lies the leap, which no science has explained and which no science can explain. He who becomes guilty in anxiety becomes as ambiguously guilty as it is possible to become.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 weeks ago
The aggregate capital appears as the...

The aggregate capital appears as the capital stock of all individual capitalists combined. This joint stock company has in common with many other stock companies that everyone knows what he puts in, but not what he will get out of it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 weeks 1 day ago
Acquisitiveness - the wish to possess...

Acquisitiveness - the wish to possess as much as possible of goods, or the title to goods - is a motive which, I suppose, has its origin in a combination of fear with the desire for necessaries.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 weeks ago
The sublime is excited in me...

The sublime is excited in me by the great stoical doctrine, Obey thyself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 weeks ago
A great man quotes bravely, and...

A great man quotes bravely, and will not draw on his invention when his memory serves him with a word just as good.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
1 month 3 weeks ago
For man to become successful, for...

For man to become successful, for man to establish himself as the ruler of the planet, it was necessary for him to use his brain as something more than a device to make the daily routine of getting food and evading enemies a little more efficient. Man had to learn to control his environment.

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Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
1 month 3 weeks ago
No multitude is able to acquire...

No multitude is able to acquire any art whatsoever. Then if there is a kingly art, neither the collective body of the wealthy nor the whole people could ever acquire this science of statesmanship.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
1 month ago
Our Traders in Men (an unnatural...

Our Traders in Men (an unnatural commodity!) must know the wickedness of that Slave-Trade, if they attend to reasoning, or the dictates of their own hearts; and such as shun and stiffle all these, wilfully sacrifice Conscience, and the character of integrity to that golden Idol.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 weeks 2 days ago
You could attach prices to thoughts....

You could attach prices to thoughts. Some cost a lot, some a little. And how does one pay for thoughts? The answer, I think, is: with courage.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 weeks ago
For what are they all in...

For what are they all in their high conceit, When man in the bush with God may meet?

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Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 week 2 days ago
When going to the temple to...

When going to the temple to adore Divinity neither say nor do any thing in the interim pertaining to the common affairs of life.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 week ago
Let's put a limit...
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Main Content / General
Voltaire
Voltaire
1 month ago
Whatever you do…

Whatever you do, crush the infamous thing, and love those who love you.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 weeks 1 day ago
Truth never turns to rebuke falsehood;...

Truth never turns to rebuke falsehood; her own straightforwardness is the severest correction.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
3 days ago
I am not so much afraid...

I am not so much afraid of death, as ashamed thereof; 'tis the very disgrace and ignominy of our natures, that in a moment can so disfigure us that our nearest friends, Wife, and Children stand afraid and start at us.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
3 weeks 1 day ago
In the ceremonies of the public...

In the ceremonies of the public execution, the main character was the people, whose real and immediate presence was required for the performance.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 weeks 1 day ago
To those who inquire as to...

To those who inquire as to the purpose of mathematics, the usual answer will be that it facilitates the making of machines, the travelling from place to place, and the victory over foreign nations, whether in war or commerce. ... The reasoning faculty itself is generally conceived, by those who urge its cultivation, as merely a means for the avoidance of pitfalls and a help in the discovery of rules for the guidance of practical life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
2 weeks 1 day ago
Being nimble and light-footed, his father...

Being nimble and light-footed, his father encouraged him to run in the Olympic race. "Yes," said he, "if there were any kings there to run with me."

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Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
3 weeks 2 days ago
In situations of sparse resources along...

In situations of sparse resources along with degraded self-images and depoliticized sensibilities, one avenue for poor people is in existential rebellion and anarchic expression. The capacity to produce social chaos is the last resort of desperate people.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 weeks 2 days ago
If the true is what...

If the true is what is grounded, then the ground is not true, nor yet false.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
1 month 5 days ago
So it is with minds. Unless...

So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and control them, they throw themselves in disorder hither and yon in the vague field of imagination. ..And there is no mad or idle fancy that they do no bring forth in the agitation.

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Philosophical Maxims
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