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Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 4 weeks ago
A genius and an Apostle are...

A genius and an Apostle are qualitatively different, they are definitions which each belong in their own spheres: the sphere of immanence, and the sphere of transcendence.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
2 months 3 weeks ago
It is no longer a question...

It is no longer a question anywhere of inventing interconnections from out of our brains, but of discovering them in the facts.

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Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 4 weeks ago
Fanaticism is the danger of the...

Fanaticism is the danger of the world, and always has been, and has done untold harm. I might almost say that I was fanatical against fanaticism.

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The Future of Science (1959), p. 79; also in BBC The Listener, Vol. 61 (1959), p. 505
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
2 months 3 weeks ago
I must also have a dark...

I must also have a dark side if I am to be whole.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 1 day ago
The world would...
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Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 weeks 5 days ago
Civil government does by its nature...

Civil government does by its nature include much that is mechanical, and must be treated accordingly. We term it indeed, in ordinary language, the Machine of Society, and talk of it as the grand working wheel from which all private machines must derive, or to which they must adapt, their movements.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
4 months 3 weeks ago
Writing is hard work. The fact...

Writing is hard work. The fact that I love doing it doesn't make it less hard work. People who love tennis will sweat themselves to exhaustion playing it, and the love of the game doesn't stop the sweating. The casual assumption that writers are unemployed bums because they don't go to the office and don't have a boss is something every writer has to live with. I have never known a writer who hasn't suffered as a result of this, hasn't resented it, and hasn't dreamed of murdering the next person who says "Boy, you've sure got it made. You just sit there and toss off a story or something whenever you feel like it."

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 5 days ago
In plain truth, lying is an...

In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have any other tie upon another, but by our word.

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Book I, Ch. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 3 weeks ago
For man holds his ground only...

For man holds his ground only by surpassing himself, in the same sense in which it is said that one ceases to love if one does not love increasingly everyday.

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p. 238
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
2 months 1 week ago
A farewell does not dilute the...

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

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Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
2 months 1 week ago
One cannot be deeply responsive to...

One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often.

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ABC TV
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 4 weeks ago
The world is upheld by the...

The world is upheld by the veracity of good men: they make the earth wholesome.

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Uses of Great Men
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
3 months 2 days ago
In any country where talent and...

In any country where talent and virtue produce no advancement, money will be the national god. Its inhabitants will either have to possess money or make others believe that they do. Wealth will be the highest virtue, poverty the greatest vice. Those who have money will display it in every imaginable way. If their ostentation does not exceed their fortune, all will be well. But if their ostentation does exceed their fortune they will ruin themselves. In such a country, the greatest fortunes will vanish in the twinkling of an eye. Those who don't have money will ruin themselves with vain efforts to conceal their poverty. That is one kind of affluence: the outward sign of wealth for a small number, the mask of poverty for the majority, and a source of corruption for all.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
2 months 2 weeks ago
The wretched consciousness shrinks from it...

The wretched consciousness shrinks from it own annihilation, and just as an animal spirit newly severed from the womb of the world, finds itself confronted with the world and knows itself distinct from it, so consciousness must needs desire to possess another life than that of the world itself.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
2 months 2 weeks ago
The animating purpose of James was,...

The animating purpose of James was, on the other hand, primarily moral and artistic. It is expressed in his phrase, "block universe," employed as a term of adverse criticism. Mechanism and idealism were abhorrent to him because they both hold to a closed universe in which there is no room for novelty and adventure. Both sacrifice individuality and all the values, moral and aesthetic, which hang upon individuality; for according to absolute idealism, as to mechanistic materialism, the individual is simply a part determined by the whole of which he is a part. Only a philosophy of pluralism, of genuine indetermination, and of change which is real and intrinsic gives significance to individuality. It alone justifies struggle in creative activity and gives opportunity for the emergence of the genuinely new.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 3 weeks ago
A writer who takes political, social...

A writer who takes political, social or literary positions must act only with the means that are his. These means are the written words.

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Refusing the Nobel Prize, New York Times
Philosophical Maxims
Niels Bohr
Niels Bohr
6 days ago
Those who are not shocked when...

Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.

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In a 1952 conversation with Heisenberg and Pauli in Copenhagen; quoted in Heisenberg, Werner, Physics and Beyond. (New York: Harper & Row, 1971) p. 206.
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
1 month 3 weeks ago
The imagination loves to trifle with...

The imagination loves to trifle with what is not.

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The Sea Fogs
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
4 months 2 weeks ago
To rank the effort above the...

To rank the effort above the prize may be called love.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 3 weeks ago
Whatever you do, He will make...

Whatever you do, He will make good of it. But not the good He had prepared for you if you had obeyed him.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
3 months 4 weeks ago
Compassion for animals is intimately connected...

Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he, who is cruel to living creatures, cannot be a good man. Moreover, this compassion manifestly flows from the same source whence arise the virtues of justice and loving-kindness towards men.

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Part III, Ch. VIII, 7, p. 223
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
2 months 3 weeks ago
It is a woman's outstanding characteristic...

It is a woman's outstanding characteristic that she can do anything for the love of a man. But those women who can achieve something important for the love of a thing are most exceptional, because this does not really agree with their nature. Love for a thing is a man's prerogative. But since masculine and feminine elements are united in our human nature, a man can live in the feminine part of himself, I and a woman in her masculine part. None the less the feminine element in man is only something in the background, as is the masculine element in woman. If one lives out the opposite sex in oneself one is living in one's own background, and one's real individuality suffers. A man should live as a man and a woman as a woman.

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P. 243
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
3 months 2 weeks ago
When he was wounded with an...

When he was wounded with an arrow in the ankle, and many ran to him that were wont to call him a god, he said smiling, "That is blood, as you see, and not, as Homer saith, 'such humour as distils from blessed gods.'"

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43 Alexander
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 3 weeks ago
Each human reality is at the...

Each human reality is at the same time a direct project to metamorphose its own For-itself into an In-itself-For-itself, a project of the appropriation of the world as a totality of being-in-itself, in the form of a fundamental quality. Every human reality is a passion in that it projects losing itself so as to found being and by the same stroke to constitute the In-itself which escapes contingency by being its own foundation, the Ens causa sui, which religions call God. Thus the passion of man is the reverse of that of Christ, for man loses himself as man in order that God may be born. But the idea of God is contradictory and we lose ourselves in vain.

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Man is a useless passion. Part 4, Chapter 2, III
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
4 months 1 week ago
For freedom is not acquired by...

For freedom is not acquired by satisfying yourself with what you desire, but by destroying your desire.

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Book IV, ch. 1, 175.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
I thought that the only action...

I thought that the only action a man could perform without shame was to take his life; that he had no right to diminish himself in the succession of days and the inertic of misery. No elect, I kept telling myself, but those who committed suicide.

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Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
4 months 2 weeks ago
When you serve your mother...

When you serve your mother and father it is okay to try to correct them once in a while. But if you see that they are not going to listen to you, keep your respect for them and don't distance yourself from them. Work without complaining.

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Philosophical Maxims
Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
1 month 3 weeks ago
[Asked "Do you still favour English...

[Asked "Do you still favour English independence?"] No, I don't think I've ever really favoured English independence. My view is that if the Scots want to be independent then we should aim for the same thing. Scottish independence, I don't think the Welsh want independence, the Northern Irish certainly don't. The Scottish desire for independence is, to some extent, a fabrication. They want to identify themselves as Scots but still to be part of a,[sic] to enjoy the subsidy they get from being part of the kingdom. I can see there are Scottish nationalists who envision something more than that, but if that becomes a real political force then yeah, we should try for independence too. As it is, as you know, the Scots have two votes: they can vote for their own parliament and vote to put their people into our parliament, who come to our parliament with no interest in Scotland but an interest in bullying us.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
4 months 3 weeks ago
There is a cult of ignorance...

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 4 weeks ago
The pursuit of philosophy is founded...

The pursuit of philosophy is founded on the belief that knowledge is good, even if what is known is painful. A man imbued with the philosophic spirit, whether a professional philosopher or not, will wish his beliefs to be as true as he can make them, and will, in equal measure, love to know and hate to be in error. This principle has a wider scope than may be apparent at first sight.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 months 1 week ago
Error is the price we pay...

Error is the price we pay for progress.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
1 week 6 days ago
If historical experience could teach us...

If historical experience could teach us anything, it would be that private property is inextricably linked with civilization.

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Chapter XV. The Market, § 4 The Scope and Method of Catallactics
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 month 3 weeks ago
Even a single hair casts its...

Even a single hair casts its shadow.

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Maxim 228
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
2 months 1 week ago
Man is born as a freak...

Man is born as a freak of nature, being within nature and yet transcending it. He has to find principles of action and decision-making which replace the principles of instincts. He has to have a frame of orientation which permits him to organize a consistent picture of the world as a condition for consistent actions. He has to fight not only against the dangers of dying, starving, and being hurt, but also against another danger which is specifically human: that of becoming insane. In other words, he has to protect himself not only against the danger of losing his life but also against the danger of losing his mind.

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The Revolution of Hope: Toward a Humanized Technology (1968), p. 61
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
4 months 1 week ago
Since you cannot do good to...

Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special regard to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstance, are brought into closer connection with you.

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1:28:29 English Latin Latin: Sed cum omnibus prodesse non possis, his potissimum consulendum est, qui pro locorum et temporum vel quarumlibet rerum opportunitatibus constrictius tibi quasi quadam sorte iunguntur.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 4 weeks ago
Every emancipation is a restoration of...

Every emancipation is a restoration of the human world and of human relationships to a man himself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 4 weeks ago
The hopes which inspire communism are,...

The hopes which inspire communism are, in the main, as admirable as those instilled by the Sermon on the Mount, but they are held as fanatically and are as likely to do as much harm.

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Part I, The Present Condition of Russia, Ch. 1: What Is Hoped From Bolshevism
Philosophical Maxims
Mencius
Mencius
2 weeks 6 days ago
The superior man has three things...

The superior man has three things in which he delights, and to be ruler over the kingdom is not one of them. That his father and mother are both alive, and that the condition of his brothers affords no cause for anxiety;-this is one delight. That, when looking up, he has no occasion for shame before Heaven, and, below, he has no occasion to blush before men;-this is a second delight. That he can get from the whole kingdom the most talented individuals, and teach and nourish them;-this is the third delight.

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7A:20, as translated by James Legge in The Chinese Classics, Vol. II (1861), p. 335
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 3 weeks ago
I am a pattern watcher.

I am a pattern watcher.

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(p. 311)
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
2 months 3 weeks ago
It is important to understand what...

It is important to understand what I mean by semiosis. All dynamic action, or action of brute force, physical or psychical, either takes place between two subjects, - whether they react equally upon each other, or one is agent and the other patient, entirely or partially, - or at any rate is a resultant of such actions between pairs. But by "semiosis" I mean, on the contrary, an action, or influence, which is, or involves, a cooperation of three subjects, such as a sign, its object, and its interpretant, this tri-relative influence not being in any way resolvable into actions between pairs.

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"Pragmatism" (1907) in The Essential Peirce : Selected Philosophical Writings (1998) edited by the Peirce Edition Project, Vol. 2, p. 411, Indiana University Press.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 weeks 5 days ago
Do nothing, only keep agitating, debating;...

Do nothing, only keep agitating, debating; and things will destroy themselves.

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Pt. I, Bk. VI, ch. 3.
Philosophical Maxims
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
1 month 3 weeks ago
As for types like my own,...

As for types like my own, obscurely motivated by the conviction that our existence was worthless if we didn't make a turning point of it, we were assigned to the humanities, to poetry, philosophy, painting - the nursery games of humankind, which had to be left behind when the age of science began. The humanities would be called upon to choose a wallpaper for the crypt, as the end drew near.

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Ch. 6
Philosophical Maxims
Ian Hacking
Ian Hacking
2 months 6 days ago
Pascal is called the founder of...

Pascal is called the founder of modern probability theory. He earns this title not only for the familiar correspondence with Fermat on games of chance, but also for his conception of decision theory, and because he was an instrument in the demolition of probabilism, a doctrine which would have precluded rational probability theory.

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Chapter 3, Opinion, p. 23.
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
4 months 2 days ago
The heroes in paganism correspond exactly...

The heroes in paganism correspond exactly to the saints in popery, and holy dervises in MAHOMETANISM. The place of, HERCULES, THESEUS, HECTOR, ROMULUS, is now supplied by DOMINIC, FRANCIS, ANTHONY, and BENEDICT. Instead of the destruction of monsters, the subduing of tyrants, the defence of our native country; whippings and fastings, cowardice and humility, abject submission and slavish obedience, are become the means of obtaining celestial honours among mankind.

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Part X - With regard to courage or abasement
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
4 months 1 week ago
The very elements themselves, though repugnant...

The very elements themselves, though repugnant in their nature, yet, by a happy equilibrium, preserve eternal peace; and amid the discordancy of their constituent principles, cherish, by a friendly intercourse and coalition, an uninterrupted concord.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
1 month 3 weeks ago
The vicomte was a nice-looking young...

The vicomte was a nice-looking young man with soft features and polished manners, who evidently considered himself a celebrity but out of politeness modestly placed himself at the disposal of the circle in which he found himself. Anna Pávlovna was obviously serving him up as a treat to her guests. As a clever maître d'hôtel serves up as a specially choice delicacy a piece of meat that no one who had seen it in the kitchen would have cared to eat, so Anna Pávlovna served up to her guests, first the vicomte and then the abbé, as peculiarly choice morsels. The group about Mortemart immediately began discussing the murder of the Duc d'Enghien. The vicomte said that the Duc d'Enghien had perished by his own magnanimity, and that there were particular reasons for Buonaparte's hatred of him.

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Bk. I, Ch. III
Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
4 months 2 weeks ago
It is impossible to live..

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and honorably and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and honorably and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking, when, for instance, the man is not able to live wisely, though he lives honorably and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasant life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
4 months 2 weeks ago
It is the way of the...

It is the way of the superior man to prefer the concealment of his virtue, while it daily becomes more illustrious, and it is the way of the mean man to seek notoriety, while he daily goes more and more to ruin. It is characteristic of the superior man, appearing insipid, yet never to produce satiety; while showing a simple negligence, yet to have his accomplishments recognized; while seemingly plain, yet to be discriminating. He knows how what is distant lies in what is near. He knows where the wind proceeds from. He knows how what is minute becomes manifested. Such a one, we may be sure, will enter into virtue.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
3 months 3 weeks ago
There is little in common between...

There is little in common between the organised parading of madness in the eighteenth century and the freedom with which madness came to the fore during the Renaissance. The earlier age had found it everywhere, an integral element of each experience, both in images and in real life dangers. During the classical period, it was also on public view, but behind bars. When it manifested itself it was at a carefully controlled distance, under the watchful eye of a reason that denied all kinship with it, and felt quite unthreatened by any hint of resemblance. Madness had become a thing to be observed, no longer the monster within, but an animal moved by strange mechanisms, more beast than man, where all humanity had long since disappeared.

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Part One: 5. The Insane
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
2 months 2 weeks ago
All journeys have secret destinations of...

All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.

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The Legend of the Baal-Shem (1955),1995 edition, p. 36
Philosophical Maxims
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