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William James
William James
6 months 2 weeks 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.

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Lecture II, "Circumscription of the Topic"
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
6 months 2 weeks ago
Secrets in manufactures are capable of...

Secrets in manufactures are capable of being longer kept than secrets in trade.

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Chapter VII, p. 72.
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
3 months 3 weeks ago
There are not two kinds of...

There are not two kinds of human being, savage and civilized. There is only the human animal, forever at war with itself.

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An Old Chaos: Frozen Horses and Deserts of Brick (p. 25)
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
5 months 3 weeks ago
The God of the Christians is...

The God of the Christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children.

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No. 16
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
6 months 2 weeks ago
When Descartes said, "Conquer yourself rather...

When Descartes said, "Conquer yourself rather than the world," what he meant was, at bottom, - the same - that we should act without hope. Marxists, to whom I have said thus have answered: "Your action is limited, obviously, by your death: but you can rely upon the help of others.

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p. 39
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
4 months 3 weeks ago
Modem mainstream economic theory bravely assumes...

Modem mainstream economic theory bravely assumes that people make their decisions in such a way as to maximize their utility. Accepting this assumption enables economics to predict a great deal of behavior (correctly or incorrectly) without ever making empirical studies of human actors.

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Simon (1990) "Invariants of Human Behavior" in: Annu. Rev. Psychol. 41: p. 6.
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
6 months 2 weeks ago
I do not understand! I understand...

I do not understand! I understand nothing! I cannot understand nor do I want to understand! I want to believe! To Believe!

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Act 1
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
2 months 2 weeks ago
Our different States have differently modified...

Our different States have differently modified their several judiciaries as to the tenure of office. Some appoint their judges for a given term of time; some continue them during good behavior, and that to be determined on by the concurring vote of two-thirds of each legislative House. In England they are removable by a majority only of each House. The last is a practicable remedy; the second is not. The combination of the friends and associates of the accused, the action of personal and party passions, and the sympathies of the human heart, will forever find means of influencing one-third of either the one or the other House, will thus secure their impunity, and establish them in fact for life. The first remedy is the best, that of appointing for a term of years only, with a capacity of reappointment if their conduct has been approved.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
5 months 1 week ago
The notion of nothingness is not...

The notion of nothingness is not characteristic of laboring humanity: those who toil have neither time nor inclination to weigh their dust; they resign themselves to the difficulties or the doltishness of fate; they hope: hope is a slave's virtue.

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Philosophical Maxims
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
3 months 4 weeks ago
When one is a stranger to...

When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
6 months 3 weeks ago
We can be knowledgeable with other...

We can be knowledgeable with other men's knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.

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Book I, Ch. 25
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
7 months 2 weeks ago
There is no version of primeval...

There is no version of primeval history, preceding the discoveries of modern science, that is as rational and as inspiring as that of the first eleven chapters of the Book of Genesis.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
5 months 3 days ago
Hegel made famous his aphorism that...

Hegel made famous his aphorism that all the rational is real and all the real rational; but there are many of us who, unconvinced by Hegel, continue to believe that the real, the really real, is irrational, that reason builds upon irrationalities. Hegel, a great framer of definitions, attempted with definitions to reconstruct the universe, like that artillery sergeant who said that cannon were made by taking a hole and enclosing it with steel.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
5 months 1 week ago
The wrinkles of a nation are...

The wrinkles of a nation are as visible as those of an individual.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
6 months 2 weeks ago
It is not because men's desires...

It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.

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On Liberty, 1859
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
5 months 2 weeks ago
The free being with absolute freedom...

The free being with absolute freedom proposes to itself certain ends. It wills because it wills, and the willing of an object is itself the last ground of such willing. Thus we have previously determined a free being, and any other determination would destroy the conception of an Ego, or of a free being. Now, if it could be so arranged that the willing of an unlawful end would necessarily - in virtue of an always effective law - result in the very reverse of that end, then the unlawful will would always ANNIHILATE ITSELF. A person could not will that end for the very reason because he did will it; his unlawful will would become the ground of its own annihilation, as the will is indeed always its own last ground.

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p. 193
Philosophical Maxims
Willard van Orman Quine
Willard van Orman Quine
5 months 2 days ago
Wyman's overpopulated universe is in many...

Wyman's overpopulated universe is in many ways unlovely. It offends the aesthetic sense of us who have a taste for desert landscapes.

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"On What There Is", p. 4. a humorous comment on the idea "unactualized possible".
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
5 months 2 days ago
There are necessities and impossibilities in...

There are necessities and impossibilities in reality which do not obtain in fiction, any more than the law of gravity to which we are subject controls what is represented in a picture. ... It is the same with pure good; for a necessity as strong as gravity condemns man to evil and forbids him any good, or only within the narrowest limits and laboriously obtained and soiled and adulterated with evil. ... The simplicity which makes the fictional good something insipid and unable to hold the attention becomes, in the real good, an unfathomable marvel.

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"Morality and literature," pp. 160-161
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
6 months 2 weeks ago
The most violent revolutions in an...

The most violent revolutions in an individual's beliefs leave most of his old order standing. Time and space, cause and effect, nature and history, and one's own biography remain untouched. New truth is always a go-between, a smoother-over of transitions. It marries old opinion to new fact so as ever to show a minimum of jolt, a maximum of continuity.

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"What Pragmatism Means," Pragmatism, pp. 60-61 (1931); lectures delivered at the Lowell Institute, Boston, Massachusetts
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
6 months 2 weeks ago
The History of the world is...

The History of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of Freedom; a progress whose development according to the necessity of its nature, it is our business to investigate. 

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Part III. Philosophic History; § 21, as translated by John Sibree; p. 19, (1900 edition) Variant translated by Robert S. Hartman, in Reason In History, A General Introduction to the Philosophy of History (1953) , 3/1/2007
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
6 months 3 weeks ago
We have now completed both the...

We have now completed both the spiritual and the temporal government, that is, the divine and the paternal authority and obedience. But here now we go forth from our house among our neighbors to learn how we should live with one another, every one himself toward his neighbor. Therefore God and government are not included in this commandment nor is the power to kill, which they have taken away. For God has delegated His authority to punish evil-doers to the government instead of parents, who aforetime (as we read in Moses) were required to bring their own children to judgment and sentence them to death. Therefore, what is here forbidden is forbidden to the individual in his relation to any one else, and not to the government.

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[The Large Catechism] by Martin Luther, Translated by F. Bente and W.H.T. Dau Published in: Triglot Concordia: The Symbolical Books of the Ev. Lutheran Church (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921) pp. 565-773,
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
5 months 1 week ago
In all probability, the proletarian revolution...

In all probability, the proletarian revolution will transform existing society gradually and will be able to abolish private property only when the means of production are available in sufficient quantity. What will be the course of this revolution? Above all, it will establish a democratic constitution, and through this, the direct or indirect dominance of the proletariat.

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Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
4 months 4 weeks ago
The reason that people take selfies...

The reason that people take selfies is not narcissism. Rather, it is inner emptiness. There is no meaning to stabilize the ego. Faced with its inner emptiness, the ego constantly produces itself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
6 months 3 weeks ago
It is manifest that there is...

It is manifest that there is no danger at all in the proportion or quantity of knowledge, how large soever, lest it should make it swell or out-compass itself; no, but it is merely the quality of knowledge, which, be it in quantity more or less, if it be taken without the true corrective thereof, hath in it some nature of venom or malignity, and some effects of that venom, which is ventosity or swelling. This corrective spice, the mixture whereof maketh knowledge so sovereign, is charity, which the Apostle immediately addeth to the former clause; for so he saith, "Knowledge bloweth up, but charity buildeth up".

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Book I
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle
2 months 1 week ago
That then, that I wish for,...

That then, that I wish for, as to systems, is this, that men, in the first place, would forbear to establish any theory, till they have consulted with (though not a fully competent number of experiments, such as may afford them all the phænomena to be explicated by that theory, yet) a considerable number of experiments, in proportion to the comprehensiveness of the theory to be erected on them. And, in the next place, I would have such kind of supestructures looked upon only as temporary ones; which though they may be preferred before any others, as being the least imperfect, or, if you please, the best in their kind that we yet have, yet are they not entirely to be acquiesced in, as absolutely perfect, or uncapable of improving alterations.

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Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
5 months 1 week ago
The consciousness of a general idea...

The consciousness of a general idea has a certain "unity of the ego" in it, which is identical when it passes from one mind to another. It is, therefore, quite analogous to a person, and indeed, a person is only a particular kind of general idea.

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Man's Glassy Essence in The Monist, Vol. III, No. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
6 months 1 week ago
I do not believe that the...

I do not believe that the source of value is unitary - displaying apparent multiplicity only in its application to the world. I believe that value has fundamentally different kinds of sources, and that they are reflected in the classification of values into types. Not all values represent the pursuit of some single good in a variety of settings.

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"The Fragmentation of Value" (1977), pp. 131-132.
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
2 months 2 weeks ago
Gather together in your heart all...

Gather together in your heart all terrors, recompose all details. Salvation is a circle; close it!

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Philosophical Maxims
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
2 months 3 weeks ago
Let us not violate the RIGHT...

Let us not violate the RIGHT of the artist to express exclusively his own experiences and introspections, disregarding everything that happens in the world beyond. Let us not DEMAND of the artist, but - reproach, beg, urge and entice him - that we may be allowed to do. After all, only in part does he himself develop his talent; the greater part of it is blown into him at birth as a finished product, and the gift of talent imposes responsibility on his free will. Let us assume that the artist does not OWE anybody anything: nevertheless, it is painful to see how, by retiring into his self-made worlds or the spaces of his subjective whims, he CAN surrender the real world into the hands of men who are mercenary, if not worthless, if not insane.

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
5 months 2 weeks ago
And now once again I asked...

And now once again I asked myself the question: do I love her? And once more I could not answer, that is to say, again, for the hundredth time, I answered that I hated her.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
4 months 4 weeks ago
Atheism ... in its philosophic aspect...

Atheism ... in its philosophic aspect refuses allegiance not merely to a definite concept of God, but it refuses all servitude to the God idea, and opposes the theistic principle as such. Gods in their individual function are not half as pernicious as the principle of theism which represents the belief in a supernatural, or even omnipotent, power to rule the earth and man upon it. It is the absolutism of theism, its pernicious influence upon humanity, its paralyzing effect upon thought and action, which Atheism is fighting with all its power.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
6 months 2 weeks ago
We are told that a utilitarian...

We are told that a utilitarian will be apt to make his own particular case an exception to moral rules, and, when under temptation, will see a utility in the breach of a rule, greater than he will see in its observance. But is utility the only creed which is able to furnish us with excuses for evil doing, and means of cheating our own conscience? They are afforded in abundance by all doctrines which recognise as a fact in morals the existence of conflicting considerations; which all doctrines do, that have been believed by sane persons. It is not the fault of any creed, but of the complicated nature of human affairs, that rules of conduct cannot be so framed as to require no exceptions, and that hardly any kind of action can safely be laid down as either always obligatory or always condemnable.

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Ch. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
7 months 1 week ago
"My field," said Goethe, "is time."...

"My field," said Goethe, "is time." That is indeed the absurd speech. What, in fact, is the Absurd Man? He who, without negating it, does nothing for the eternal. Not that nostalgia is foreign to him. But he prefers his courage and his reasoning. The first teaches him to live without appeal and to get along with what he has; the second informs him of his limits. Assured of his temporally limited freedom, of his revolt devoid of future, and of his mortal consciousness, he lives out his adventure within the span of his lifetime.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
6 months 2 weeks ago
We are in hell and I...

We are in hell and I will have my turn!

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Inès warns Garcin and Estelle not to make love in her presence, Act 1, sc. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Sir Thomas Browne
Sir Thomas Browne
5 months 3 weeks ago
It is the common wonder of...

It is the common wonder of all men, how among so many million of faces there should be none alike.

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Section 2
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
4 months 4 weeks ago
militarism, the destroyer of youth, the...

Militarism, the destroyer of youth, the raper of women, the annihilator of the best in the race, the very mower of life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
5 months 3 weeks ago
In America, conscription is unknown; men...

In America, conscription is unknown; men are enlisted for payment. Compulsory recruitment is so alien to the ideas and so foreign to the customs of the people of the United States that I doubt whether they would ever dare to introduce it into their law.

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Chapter XIII.
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
5 months 2 weeks ago
Should the believers in special creations...

Should the believers in special creations consider it unfair thus to call upon them to describe how special creations take place, I reply that this is far less than they demand from the supporters of the Development Hypothesis. They are merely asked to point out a conceivable mode. On the other hand, they ask, not simply for a conceivable mode, but for the actual mode.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
5 months 1 week ago
The Austrian Germans and Magyars will...

The Austrian Germans and Magyars will be set free and wreak a bloody revenge on the Slav barbarians. The general war which will then break out will smash this Slav Sonderbund and wipe out all these petty hidebound nations, down to their very names. The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward.

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The Magyar Struggle in Neue Rheinische Zeitung (13 January 1849) Referring to the Serb uprising of 1848-49
Philosophical Maxims
Emperor Julian
Emperor Julian
2 months 3 weeks ago
Inasmuch as it is my wish...

Inasmuch as it is my wish only to compose a hymn of thanksgiving in honour of the god, I have deemed it quite sufficient to discourse to the best of my ability concerning his nature. I do not think I have wasted words to no purpose: the maxim, "Sacrifice to the immortal gods according to thy means," I accept as applying not merely to burnt-offerings, but also to our praises addressed unto the gods. I pray for the third time, in return for this my good intention, the Sun lord of the universe to be propitious to me, and to bestow on me a virtuous life, a more perfect understanding, and a superhuman intellect, and a very easy release from the trammels of life at the time appointed: and after that release, an ascension up to himself, and an abiding place with him, if possible, for all time to come; or if that be too great a recompense for my past life, many and long-continued revolutions around his presence!

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 1 week ago
The only way out....
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Main Content / General
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
5 months 1 week ago
Ennui is the echo in us...

Ennui is the echo in us of time tearing itself apart.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
5 months 3 days ago
Reason perhaps teaches certain bourgeois virtues,...

Reason perhaps teaches certain bourgeois virtues, but it does not make either heroes or saints.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
6 months 1 week ago
One age misunderstands another; and a...

One age misunderstands another; and a petty age misunderstands all the others in its own ugly way.

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p. 98e
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
3 months 1 day ago
Why does...

Why does God afflict the best of men with ill-health, or sorrow, or other troubles? Because in the army the most hazardous services are assigned to the bravest soldiers: a general sends his choicest troops to attack the enemy in a midnight ambuscade, to reconnoitre his line of march, or to drive the hostile garrisons from their strong places. No one of these men says as he begins his march, " The general has dealt hardly with me," but "He has judged well of me."

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De Providentia (On Providence), 4.8, translated by Aubrey Stewart
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
5 months 3 weeks ago
History, it is easily perceived, is...

History, it is easily perceived, is a picture-gallery containing a host of copies and very few originals.

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p. 88
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
6 months 2 weeks ago
Skepticism is slow suicide.

Skepticism is slow suicide.

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p. 240
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
6 months 2 weeks ago
The presence of thought…

The presence of a thought is like the presence of a lover.

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Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
6 months 6 days ago
Now as of old the gods...

Now as of old the gods give men all good things, excepting only those that are baneful and injurious and useless. These, now as of old, are not gifts of the gods: men stumble into them themselves because of their own blindness and folly.

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Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
6 months 1 week ago
The blues is relevant today because...

The blues is relevant today because when we look down through the corridors of time, the black American interpretation of tragicomic hope in the face of dehumanizing hate and oppression will be seen as the only kind of hope that has any kind of maturity in a world of overwhelming barbarity and bestiality. That barbarity is found not just in the form of terrorism but in the form of the emptiness of our lives - in terms of the wasted human potential that we see around the world. In this sense, the blues is a great democratic contribution of black people to world history.

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(p20)
Philosophical Maxims
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