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Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
1 month 4 weeks ago
A book can never be anything...

A book can never be anything more than the impression of its author's thoughts [Ein Buch kann nie mehr seyn, als der Abdruck der Gedanken des Verfassers]. The value of these thoughts lies either in the matter about which he has thought, or in the form in which he develops his matter - that is to say, what he has thought about it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
3 months ago
But let us not forget this...
But let us not forget this either: it is enough to create new names and estimations and probabilities in order to create in the long run new "things."
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Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
2 weeks 4 days ago
Meditation on any theme, if positive...

Meditation on any theme, if positive and honest, inevitably separates him who does the meditating from the opinion prevailing around him, from that which ... can be called "public" or "popular" opinion.

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p. 15
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 month 1 week ago
Honor Wisdom; and deny it not...

Honor Wisdom; and deny it not to them that would learn; and shew it unto them that dispraise it! Sow not the sea fields!

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Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
1 month 2 weeks ago
An evil and foolish and intemperate...

An evil and foolish and intemperate and irreligious life should not be called a bad life, but rather, dying long drawn out.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 4 weeks ago
Can a society in which thought...

Can a society in which thought and technique are scientific persist for a long period, as, for example, ancient Egypt persisted, or does it necessarily contain within itself forces which must bring either decay or explosion? "Can a Scientific Community Be Stable?,"

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Lecture, Royal Society of Medicine, London, 11/29/1949
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
1 month 4 weeks ago
The owl of Minerva first begins...

The owl of Minerva first begins her flight with the onset of dusk.

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Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
2 months ago
The spurious axioms of the third...

The spurious axioms of the third kind from conditions proper to the subject whence they are transferred rashly to the object are plentiful, not, as in those of the Second Class, because the only way to the intellectual concept lies through the sensuous data, but because only by aid of the latter can the concept be applied to that which is given by experience, that is, can we know whether something is contained under a certain intellectual concept or not. To this class belongs the threadbare one of the schools: whatever exists contingently does at some time not exist. This spurious principle springs from the poverty of the intellect, having insight frequently into the nominal, rarely into the real, marks of contingency or necessity.

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
4 weeks ago
It was evident that he revived...

It was evident that he revived by fits and starts. He would suddenly come to himself from actual delirium for a few minutes; he would remember and talk with complete consciousness, chiefly in disconnected phrases which he had perhaps thought out and learnt by heart in the long weary hours of his illness, in his bed, in sleepless solitude.

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Part 2, Chapter 10
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
1 month 3 weeks ago
When I was a student in...

When I was a student in the 1950s, I read Husserl, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty. When you feel an overwhelming influence, you try to open a window. Paradoxically enough, Heidegger is not very difficult for a Frenchman to understand. When every word is an enigma, you are in a not-too-bad position to understand Heidegger. Being and Time is difficult, but the more recent works are clearer. Nietzsche was a revelation to me. I felt that there was someone quite different from what I had been taught. I read him with a great passion and broke with my life, left my job in the asylum, left France: I had the feeling I had been trapped. Through Nietzsche, I had become a stranger to all that.

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Truth, Power, Self : An Interview with Michel Foucault
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
1 month 3 weeks ago
Let any one try, I will...

Let any one try, I will not say to arrest, but to notice or attend to, the present moment of time. One of the most baffling experiences occurs. Where is it, this present? It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming.

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Ch. 15
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
2 months 3 weeks ago
We certainly must contend by every...

We certainly must contend by every argument against him who does away with knowledge or reason or mind and then makes any dogmatic assertion about anything. The philosopher, who pays the highest honor to these things, must necessarily, as it seems, because of them refuse to accept the theory of those who say the universe is at rest, whether as a unity or in many forms, and must also refuse utterly to listen to those who say that being is universal motion; he must say that being and the universe consist of both.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 week ago
With prophecies the commentator is often...

With prophecies the commentator is often a more important man than the prophet.

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H 23
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
3 months ago
That immense framework and planking of...
That immense framework and planking of concepts to which the needy man clings his whole life long in order to preserve himself is nothing but a scaffolding and toy for the most audacious feats of the liberated intellect. And when it smashes this framework to pieces, throws it into confusion, and puts it back together in an ironic fashion, pairing the most alien things and separating the closest, it is demonstrating that it has no need of these makeshifts of indigence and that it will now be guided by intuitions rather than by concepts. There is no regular path which leads from these intuitions into the land of ghostly schemata, the land of abstractions. There exists no word for these intuitions; when man sees them he grows dumb, or else he speaks only in forbidden metaphors and in unheard of combinations of concepts. He does this so that by shattering and mocking the old conceptual barriers he may at least correspond creatively to the impression of the powerful present intuition.
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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 week 3 days ago
The 'open' mind of the poet...

The 'open' mind of the poet and artist can sense realities beyond the reach of our normal senses. The real problem is that our materialistic assumptions have a number of false premises built into them: it is only when we recognize this that we see there is no sharp dividing line between the everyday world and the invisible world of the clairvoyant.

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p. 294
Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
2 months 5 days ago
When evening comes, I return home...

When evening comes, I return home and enter my study; on the threshold I take off my workday clothes, covered with mud and dirt, and put on the garments of court and palace. Fitted out appropriately, I step inside the venerable courts of the ancients, where, solicitously received by them, I nourish myself on that food that alone is mine and for which I was born; where I am unashamed to converse with them and to question them about the motives for their actions, and they, out of their human kindness, answer me. And for four hours at a time I feel no boredom, I forget all my troubles, I do not dread poverty, and I am not terrified by death. I absorb myself into them completely.

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Letter to Francesco Vettori (10 December 1513), as translated by James Atkinson, in Prince Machiavelli (1976), p. 19
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 weeks ago
I considerd a general War against...

I considerd a general War against Jacobins and Jacobinism, as the only possible chance of saving Europe, (and England as included in Europe) from a truly frightful revolution. ... It is my Protest against the delusion, by which some have been taught to look upon this Jacobin contest at home as an ordinary party squabble about place or Patronage; and to regard this Jacobin War abroad as a common War about Trade, or Territorial Boundaries, or about a political Balance of power among Rival or jealous States.

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Letter to the Duke of Portland (29 September 1793), quoted in P. J. Marshall and John A. Woods (eds.)
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
1 month 3 weeks ago
Both of us victims of the...

Both of us victims of the same twentieth-century plague. Not the Black Death, this time; the Grey Life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 week 5 days ago
Religion is the vision of something...

Religion is the vision of something which stands beyond, behind and within the passing flux of immediate things; something which is real, and yet waiting to be realized; something which is a remote possibility, and yet the greatest of present facts; something that gives meaning to all that passes, and yet eludes apprehension; something whose possession is the final good, and yet is beyond all reach; something which is the ultimate ideal, and the hopeless quest.

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Ch. 12: "Religion and Science", pp. 267-268
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 2 days ago
So it is that after each...

So it is that after each night, facing a new day, the impossible necessity of dealing with it fills us with dread; exiled in light as if the world had just started, inventing the sun, we flee from tears-just one of which would be enough to wash us out of time.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
1 month 3 weeks ago
Piecemeal social engineering resembles physical engineering...

Piecemeal social engineering resembles physical engineering in regarding the ends as beyond the province of technology. (All that technology may say about ends is whether they are compatible with each other or realizable.)

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The Poverty of Historicism (1957) Ch. 22 The Unholy Alliance with Utopianism
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
2 months 5 days ago
I am entirely of the opinion...

I am entirely of the opinion that the papacy is the Antichrist. But if anyone wants to add the Turk, then the Pope is the spirit of the Antichrist, and the Turk is the flesh of the Antichrist. They help each other in their murderous work. The latter slaughters bodily and by the sword, the former spiritually and by doctrine.

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330
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
2 months 5 days ago
They are splendidly built [Italian Hospitals],...

They are splendidly built [Italian Hospitals], the best food and drink are at hand, the attendants are very diligent, the physicians are learned, the beds and coverings are very clean, and the bedsteads are painted. As soon as a sick man is brought in, all his clothes are taken off in the presence of a notary and are faithfully kept for him. He is then laid in a handsomely painted bed with clean sheets. Two physicians are fetched at once. Attendants come with food and drink, served in immaculate glass vessels; these are not touched with as much as a finger but are brought on a tray.

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3930
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 weeks ago
All persons possessing any portion of...

All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of society.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
1 month 4 weeks ago
Human beings have faculties more elevated...

Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification. I do not, indeed, consider the Epicureans to have been by any means faultless in drawing out their scheme of consequences from the utilitarian principle. To do this in any sufficient manner, many Stoic, as well as Christian elements require to be included. But there is no known Epicurean theory of life which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation.

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Ch. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 2 days ago
I do not forgive myself for...

I do not forgive myself for being born. It is as if, creeping into this world, I had profaned a mystery, betrayed some momentous pledge, committed a fault of nameless gravity. Yet in a less assured mood, birth seems a calamity I would be miserable not having known.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
2 months 1 day ago
Corn is a necessary, silver is...

Corn is a necessary, silver is only a superfluity.

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Chapter XI, Part III, (First Period) p. 223.
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 week 5 days ago
Einstein analyses the ideas of time-order...

Einstein analyses the ideas of time-order and of simultaneity. Primarily (according to his analysis) time-order only refers to the succession of events at a given place. Accordingly each given place has its own time-order. But these time-orders are not independent in the system of nature, and their correlation is known to us by means of physical measurement. Now ultimately all physical measurement depends upon coincidence in time and place.

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p. 51
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
1 month 4 days ago
It is manifest that every soul...

It is manifest that every soul has a certain continuity with the soul of the Universe, so that it must be understood to exist and to be included not only there where it liveth and feeleth, but it is also by its essence and substance diffused throughout immensity. The power of each soul is itself somehow present afar in the Universe. It is not mixed, yet is there in some presence.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 week 3 days ago
The vitality of the ordinary members...

The vitality of the ordinary members of society is dependent on its Outsiders.

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Chapter Three, The Romantic Outsider
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
2 months 1 day ago
That the sun will not rise...

That the sun will not rise to-morrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise.

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§ 4.8
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 days ago
Knowing that certain nights...
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Main Content / General
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 weeks ago
Better to be despised for too...

Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
1 month 2 weeks 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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"Subjective and Objective" (1979), p. 196.
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 3 weeks ago
We must plow through the whole...

We must plow through the whole of language.

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Ch. 7 : Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 131
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 weeks 6 days ago
The true Christian knows no Covenant...

The true Christian knows no Covenant or Mediation with God, but only the Old, Eternal, and Unchangeable Relation, that in Him we live, and move, and have our being; and he asks not who has said this, but only what has been said;-even the book wherein this may be written is nothing to him as a proof, but only as a means of culture; he bears the proof in his own breast. This is my view of the matter...

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p. 105
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
1 month 4 weeks ago
Intellect is invisible to the man...

Intellect is invisible to the man who has none.

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Our Relation to Others, § 23
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 4 weeks ago
In civil law the existing property...

In civil law the existing property relationships are declared to be the result of the general will. The jus utendi et abutendi itself asserts on the one hand the fact that private property has become entirely independent of the community, and on the other the illusion that private property itself is based solely on the private will, the arbitrary disposal.

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ibid, pp. 188
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 2 days ago
We should, out of decency, choose...

We should, out of decency, choose for ourselves the moment to disappear.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
1 month 3 weeks ago
All those movements which took place...

All those movements which took place in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and which had the Reformation as their main expression and result should be analyzed as a great crisis of the Western experience of subjectivity and a revolt against the kind of religious and moral power which gave form, during the Middle Ages, to this subjectivity. The need to take a direct part in spiritual life, in the work of salvation, in the truth which lies in the Book-all that was a struggle for a new subjectivity.

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p. 782
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 weeks ago
Parliament is not a congress of...

Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament.

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Speech to the Electors of Bristol (3 November 1774); as published in The Works of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 weeks ago
They defend their errors as if...

They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 3 weeks ago
You must be afraid, my son....

You must be afraid, my son. That is how one becomes an honest citizen.

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Mother to her young son, Act 1
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
1 month 4 weeks ago
The scene should be gently open'd,...

The scene should be gently open'd, and his entrance made step by step, and the dangers pointed out that attend him from several degrees, tempers, designs, and clubs of men. He should be prepared to be shocked by some, and caress'd by others; warned who are like to oppose, who to mislead, who to undermine him, and who to serve him. He should be instructed how to know and distinguish them; where he should let them see, and when dissemble the knowledge of them and their aims and workings.

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Sec. 94
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
1 month 2 weeks ago
He who does wrong is more...

He who does wrong is more unhappy than he who suffers wrong.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
2 months 6 days ago
The human understanding is of its...

The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds. And though there be many things in nature which are singular and unmatched, yet it devises for them parallels and conjugates and relatives which do not exist. Hence the fiction that all celestial bodies move in perfect circles, spirals and dragons being (except in name) utterly rejected.

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Aphorism 45
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
1 month 3 weeks ago
You can do everything with bayonets...

You can do everything with bayonets except sit on them. If you want to preserve your power indefinitely you have to get the consent of the ruled. And this they will do partly by drugs as I foresaw in "Brave new World", and partly by these new techniques of propaganda. They will do it by bypassing the sort of rational side of man and appealing to his subconscious, and his deeper emotions, and his physiology, even, and so making him actually love his slavery. I mean I think this is the danger that actually people may be, in some ways, happy under the new regime. But they will be happy in situations when they oughtn't be happy.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
2 months 4 weeks ago
The next thing you can learn...

The next thing you can learn from the woman who was a sinner, something she herself understood, is that with regard to finding forgiveness she is able to do nothing at all.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
1 month 3 weeks ago
To see ourselves as others see...

To see ourselves as others see us is a most salutary gift. Hardly less important is the capacity to see others as they see themselves.

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Page 159
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
2 weeks 6 days ago
In conditions of private property ......

In conditions of private property ... "life-activity" stands in the service of property instead of property standing the service of free life-activity.

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"The Foundations of Historical Materialism," Studies in Critical Philosophy (1972), p. 32
Philosophical Maxims
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