Skip to main content

Main navigation

☰ ˟
  • Home
  • Articulation
  • Contact
  • Shop
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 months 2 weeks ago
To attempt the destruction of our...

To attempt the destruction of our passions is the height of folly. What a noble aim is that of the zealot who tortures himself like a madman in order to desire nothing, love nothing, feel nothing, and who, if he succeeded, would end up a complete monster!

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 5, as quoted in Selected Writings (1966) edited by Lester G. Crocker
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 month 3 weeks ago
A man really writes for an...

A man really writes for an audience of about ten persons. Of course if others like it, that is clear gain. But if those ten are satisfied, he is content.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 66
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 1 week ago
Philosophy, from the earliest times, has...

Philosophy, from the earliest times, has made greater claims, and achieved fewer results, than any other branch of learning.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Lecture I, Current Tendencies, p. 11, New American Library edition, 1960
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
3 months 3 weeks ago
No man is free who is...

No man is free who is not master of himself.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Fragment 35 (Oldfather translation)
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 1 week ago
Not my idea of God, but...

Not my idea of God, but God.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
4 weeks 1 day ago
Men are never so likely to...

Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 248
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 1 week ago
Anyone who speaks in the name...

Anyone who speaks in the name of others is always an impostor.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
1 month 1 week ago
In life, in true life, there...

In life, in true life, there can be nothing better than what is. Wanting something different than what is, is blasphemy.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 209
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 1 week ago
I remain convinced that obstinate addiction...

I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Quoted in Library of Living Philosophers: The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, 1944
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 1 week ago
The mass of men lead lives...

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 10
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
3 weeks 5 days ago
I really have no claim to...

I really have no claim to rank myself among fatalistic, materialistic, or atheistic philosophers. Not among fatalists, for I take the conception of necessity to have a logical, and not a physical foundation; not among materialists, for I am utterly incapable of conceiving the existence of matter if there is no mind in which to picture that existence; not among atheists, for the problem of the ultimate cause of existence is one which seems to me to be hopelessly out of reach of my poor powers. Of all the senseless babble I have ever had occasion to read, the demonstrations of these philosophers who undertake to tell us all about the nature of God would be the worst, if they were not surpassed by the still greater absurdities of the philosophers who try to prove that there is no God.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 days ago
There are depths in man which...

There are depths in man which go down the length of the lowest Hell, as there are heights which reach the highest Heaven; - for are not both Heaven and Hell made out of him, everlasting Miracle and Mystery that he is?

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Pt. III, Bk. I, ch. 4. This was slightly paraphrased in A Dictionary of Thoughts : Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors, Both Ancient and Modern (1891) edited by Tryon Edwards. p. 327.
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
3 months 2 weeks ago
This species works intentionally on its...

This species works intentionally on its own destruction (by war). This, however, does not keep the rational creatures of such a constantly advancing culture, even in the midst of war, from promising to mankind in coming centuries an unequivocal prospect of bliss which will never end.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Kant, Immanuel (1996), page 185
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
3 months 1 week ago
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule...

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Part 3, Ch. 13, § 3
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 3 days ago
The next day as they were...

The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it. The next day when they came out from Bethany, He was hungry. After seeing in the distance a fig tree with leaves, He went to find out if there was anything on it. When He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. He said to it, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again!"

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Mark 11:12-14 11:12-14
Philosophical Maxims
Ian Hacking
Ian Hacking
1 month 2 weeks ago
A single observation that is inconsistent...

A single observation that is inconsistent with some generalization points to the falsehood of the generalization, and thereby 'points to itself'.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter 4, Evidence, p. 34.
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 2 weeks ago
Labour was the first price, the...

Labour was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased; and its value, to those who possess it, and who want to exchange it for some new productions, is precisely equal to the quantity of labour which it can enable them to purchase or command.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter V, p. 38.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 1 week ago
Nine-tenths of the activities of a...

Nine-tenths of the activities of a modern Government are harmful; therefore the worse they are performed, the better.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The Problem of China (1922), Ch. XII: The Chinese Character
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 month 3 weeks ago
The chief error in philosophy is...

The chief error in philosophy is overstatement.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Pt. I, ch. 1, sec. 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
1 month 3 weeks ago
A farewell does not dilute the...

A farewell does not dilute the presence of the past; it may make an even deeper presence.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 days ago
Work is the grand cure for...

Work is the grand cure for all the maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind,-honest work, which you intend getting done.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Address as Lord Rector of Edinburgh University, (April 2, 1866), reported in A dictionary of quotations in prose, edited by A. L. Ward (1889).
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 month 2 weeks ago
One is rarely an impulsive innovator...

One is rarely an impulsive innovator after the age of sixty, but one can still be a very fine orderly and inventive thinker. One rarely procreates children at that age, but one is all the more skilled at educating those who have already been procreated, and education is procreation of another kind.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
K 51
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 1 week ago
Obscenity is whatever happens to shock...

Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Quoted in Look (New York, 23 February 1954). Cf. Russell (1928), Sceptical Essays
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
2 months 1 week ago
To enrich God, man must become...

To enrich God, man must become poor; that God may be all, man must be nothing.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 1 week ago
Whenever our neighbour's house is on...

Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 months 2 weeks ago
Do you see this egg? With...

Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world. What is it, this egg, before the seed is introduced into it? An insentient mass. And after the seed has been introduced to into it? What is it then? An insentient mass. For what is the seed itself other than a crude and inanimate fluid? How is this mass to make a transition to a different structure, to sentience, to life? Through heat. And what will produce that heat in it? Motion. "Conversation Between D'Alembert and Diderot", as quoted in Selected Writings (1966) edited by Lester G. Crocker, and The Enlightenment and the Intellectual Foundations of Modern Culture (2004) by Louis K Dupré, p. 30 Variant translation: See this egg. It is with this that all the schools of theology and all the temples of the earth are to be overturned.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in Diderot, Reason and Resonance (1982) by Élisabeth de Fontenay, p. 217
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 days ago
But greatly his most important culture...

But greatly his most important culture he had gathered - and this, too, by his own endeavors - from the better part of the district, the religious men; to whom, as to the most excellent, his own nature gradually attached and attracted him. He was religious with the consent of his whole faculties. Without religion he would have been nothing.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
3 months 1 week ago
To Americans. That some desperate wretches...

To Americans. That some desperate wretches should be willing to steal and enslave men by violence and murder for gain, is rather lamentable than strange. But that many civilized, nay, christianized people should approve, and be concerned in the savage practice, is surprising; and still persist, though it has been so often proved contrary to the light of nature, to every principle of Justice and Humanity, and even good policy, by a succession of eminent men, and several late publications.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 1 week ago
The Quaestor turned back the pages...

The Quaestor turned back the pages until he found himself among the Pensées. "We are not satisfied," he read, "with the life we have in ourselves and our own being; we want to live an imaginary life in other people's idea of us. Hence all our efforts are directed to seeming what we are not. We labor incessantly to preserve and embellish this imaginary being, and neglect that which is really ours." The Quaestor put down the book, ... and ruefully reflected that all his own troubles had arisen from this desire to seem what in fact he was not. To seem a man of action, when in fact he was a contemplative; to seem a politician, when nature had made him an introspective psychologist; to seem a wit, which God had intended him for a sage.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"Variations on a Philosopher" in Themes and Variations (1943), p. 2
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 1 day ago
We can pool...
0
⚖0
Main Content / General
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 1 week ago
All gods are homemade, and it...

All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours Vijaya in Island.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
1962
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 1 week ago
A man fits out a ship...

A man fits out a ship at a great expense and sends it to the West Indies with a crew of men and boys, and after six months or a year, it comes back with a load of pine-apples; now, if no more gets accomplished than the speculator commonly aims at, if it simply turns out what is called a successful venture, I am less interested in this expedition than in some child's first excursions a-huckleberrying, in which it is introduced into a new world, experiences a new development, though it brings home only a gill of berries in its basket.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 1 week ago
Certain forms of sex which do...

Certain forms of sex which do not lead to children are at present punished by the criminal law: this is purely superstitious, since the matter is one which affects no one except the parties directly concerned... The peculiar importance attached, at present, to adultery is quite irrational... Moral rules ought not to be such as to make instinctive happiness impossible.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
2 months 1 week ago
Show me what thou truly lovest,...

Show me what thou truly lovest, what thou seekest and strivest for with thy whole heart when thou hopest to attain to true en joyment of thyself-and thou hast thereby shown me thy Life. What thou lovest, in that thou livest. This very Love is thy Life, the root, the seat, the central point of thy being. All other emotions within thee have life only in so far as they are governed by this one central emotion.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
P. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
3 months 2 weeks ago
God the Almighty has made our...

God the Almighty has made our rulers mad; they actually think they can do-and order their subjects to do-whatever they please. And the subjects make the mistake of believing that they, in turn, are bound to obey their rulers in everything.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 83
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 2 weeks ago
The proposal of any new law...

The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter XI, Part III, Conclusion of the Chapter, p. 292.
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
3 months 1 week ago
It makes a tremendous emotional and...

It makes a tremendous emotional and practical difference to one whether one accepts the universe in the drab discolored way of stoic resignation to necessity, or with the passionate happiness of Christian saints.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Lecture II, "Circumscription of the Topic"
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
3 months 1 week ago
I have described religion…

I have described religion as the metaphysics of the people.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 140
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 1 week ago
The rush to California, for instance,...

The rush to California, for instance, and the attitude, not merely of merchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so called, in relation to it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind. That so many are ready to live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others less lucky, without contributing any value to society!

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 487
Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
3 months 5 days ago
The authority of science ... promotes...

The authority of science ... promotes and encourages the activity of observing, comparing, measuring and ordering the physical characteristics of human bodies.... Cartesian epistemology and classical ideals produced forms of rationality, scientificity and objectivity that, though efficacious in the quest for truth and knowledge, prohibited the intelligibility and legitimacy of black equality.... In fact, to "think" such an idea was to be deemed irrational, barbaric or mad.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Prophesy Deliverance!
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 1 week ago
Great men, great nations, have not...

Great men, great nations, have not been boasters and buffoons, but perceivers of the terror of life, and have manned themselves to face it.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Fate
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
1 month 1 week ago
And therefore just as a brigand...

And therefore just as a brigand caught in broad daylight in the act cannot persuade us that he did not lift his knife in order to rob his victim of his purse, and had no thought of killing him, we too, it would seem, cannot persuade ourselves or others that the soldiers and policemen around us are not to guard us, but only for defense against foreign foes, and to regulate traffic and fetes and reviews; we cannot persuade ourselves and others that we do not know that the men do not like dying of hunger, bereft of the right to gain their subsistence from the earth on which they live; that they do not like working underground, in the water, or in the stifling heat, for ten to fourteen hours a day, at night in factories to manufacture objects for our pleasure. One would imagine it impossible to deny what is so obvious. Yet it is denied.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter XII, Conclusion-Repent Ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 3 days ago
I will destroy this house, and...

I will destroy this house, and no one will be able to build it....

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 months 6 days ago
If life becomes hard to bear...

If life becomes hard to bear we think of improvements. But the most important and effective improvement, in our own attitude, hardly occurs to us, and we can decide on this only with the utmost difficulty.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 60e
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 3 weeks ago
But now we come to the...

But now we come to the real paradox: that something as explosive as sexual excitement can nevertheless become a matter of habit, But then that applies to all our pleasures. We discover some new product in the supermarket, and become addicted to it. Then our tastebuds become accustomed to its flavour, and or interest fades. In the same way a honeymoon couple may find an excuse to hurry off to the bedroom half a dozen times a day; but after a month or so sex has taken its place among the many routines of their lives. They still enjoy it, but it no longer has quite the same power to excite the imagination. Sex, like every other pleasure, can become mechanical.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 14
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 1 week ago
When the evolutionary process shifts from...

When the evolutionary process shifts from biology to software technology the body becomes the old hardware environment. The human body is now a probe, a laboratory for experiments.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
(p. 180)
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 1 week ago
Philosophy offers an antidote to melancholy....

Philosophy offers an antidote to melancholy. And many still believe in the depth of philosophy!

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 1 week ago
Better to be an animal than...

Better to be an animal than a man, an insect than an animal, a plant than an insect, and so on. Salvation? Whatever diminishes the kingdom of consciousness and compromises its supremacy.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
2 months 1 week ago
The saying that beauty is but...

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

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Vol. 2, Ch. XIV, Personal Beauty
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
1 month 2 weeks ago
At the time of its initial...

At the time of its initial publication, Public Administration helped to define this field of study and practice by introducing two major new emphases: an orientation toward human behavior and human relations in organizations, and an emphasis on the interaction between administration, politics, and policy. Without neglecting more traditional concerns with organization structure, Simon, Thompson, and Smithburg viewed administration in its behavioral and political contexts. The viewpoints they express still are at the center of public administration's concerns.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book abstract, 1991
Philosophical Maxims
  • Load More

User login

  • Create new account
  • Reset your password

Social

☰ ˟
  • Main Feed
  • Philosophical Maxims

Civic

☰ ˟
  • Propositions
  • Issue / Solution

Who's new

  • Søren Kierkegaard
  • Jesus
  • Friedrich Nietzsche
  • VeXed
  • Slavoj Žižek

Who's online

There are currently 0 users online.

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia