Skip to main content
Image removed.

Main navigation

☰ ˟
  • Home
  • Articulation
  • Contact
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1 month 4 weeks ago
One of the most striking signs...

One of the most striking signs of the decay of art is the intermixing of different genres.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Propylaea (1798) Introduction
Philosophical Maxims
Emperor Julian
Emperor Julian
1 month 2 weeks ago
No wild beasts….

No wild beasts are such enemies to mankind as are most of the Christians in their deadly hatred of one another.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Reported in Ammianus, Res gestae, bk. 22, ch. 5, sec. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes
3 months 3 weeks ago
When I was a student I...

When I was a student I was assigned "Mythologies" and "A Lover's Discourse," by Roland Barthes, and felt at once that something momentous had happened to me, that I had met a writer who had changed my course in life somehow; and looking back now, I think he did.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Zadie Smith Interview
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 month 3 days ago
Be like a rocky promontory against...

Be like a rocky promontory against which the restless surf continually pounds; it stands fast while the churning sea is lulled to sleep at its feet. I hear you say, "How unlucky that this should happen to me!" Not at all! Say instead, "How lucky that I am not broken by what has happened and am not afraid of what is about to happen. The same blow might have struck anyone, but not many would have absorbed it without capitulation or complaint."

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
IV. 49, trans. Hicks
Philosophical Maxims
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee
2 months 2 weeks ago
On this showing, the nature of...

On this showing, the nature of the breakdowns of civilizations can be summed up in three points: a failure of creative power in the minority, an answering withdrawal of mimesis on the part of the majority, and a consequent loss of social unity in the society as a whole.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Vol. 4 (1955 ), part B, p. 6
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
5 months 1 week ago
In reality, during the continuance of...

In reality, during the continuance of any one regulated proportion, between the respective values of the different values of the different metals in the coin, the value of the most precious metal regulates the value of the whole coin.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter V, p. 50.
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
3 months 3 weeks ago
The characteristic activity of science is...

The characteristic activity of science is not construction, but induction. The more often something has occurred in the past, the more certain that it will in all the future. Knowledge relates solely to what is and to its recurrence. New forms of being, especially those arising from the historical activity of man, lie beyond empiricist theory. Thoughts which are not simply carried over from the prevailing pattern of consciousness, but arise from the aims and resolves of the individual, in short, all historical tendencies that reach beyond what is present and recurrent, do not belong to the domain of science.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 144.
Philosophical Maxims
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei
2 months ago
My purpose is to set forth...

My purpose is to set forth a very new science dealing with a very ancient subject. There is, in nature, perhaps nothing older than motion, concerning which the books written by philosophers are neither few nor small; nevertheless I have discovered by experiment some properties of it which are worth knowing and which have not hitherto been either observed or demonstrated. Some superficial observations have been made, as, for instance, that the free motion [naturalem motum] of a heavy falling body is continuously accelerated; but to just what extent this acceleration occurs has not yet been announced; for so far as I know, no one has yet pointed out that the distances traversed, during equal intervals of time, by a body falling from rest, stand to one another in the same ratio as the odd numbers beginning with unity.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Author, Third Day. Change of Position
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
5 months 6 days ago
We inherit the warlike type; and...

We inherit the warlike type; and for most of the capacities of heroism that the human race is full of we have to thank this cruel history. Dead men tell no tales, and if there were any tribes of other type than this they have left no survivors. Our ancestors have bred pugnacity into our bone and marrow, and thousands of years of peace won't breed it out of us. The popular imagination fairly fattens on the thought of wars. Let public opinion once reach a certain fighting pitch, and no ruler can withstand it. In the Boer war both governments began with bluff, but they couldn't stay there; the military tension was too much for them.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 2 days ago
No one can enjoy freedom without...

No one can enjoy freedom without trembling.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
1 month 6 days ago
It is wrong to condemn people...

It is wrong to condemn people for doing a thing and then offer no alternative but failure. A person could get mad about that.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"The Problem of Tobacco"
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 months 2 weeks ago
My theory was that we are...

My theory was that we are all fundamentally 'multiple personalities', beginning with the baby and the child, and slowly developing into more complex selves. If, for some reason, we abruptly cease to develop -- through some trauma that undermines self-confidence -- all those potential personalities are stunted and repressed. And some accident or violent shock may give one of them the opportunity to 'take over'. This suggests, of course, that in some mysterious sense, our 'future' personalities are already there, in embryo, so to speak, and that they also develop as we mature. We move from personality to personality, as we might climb a ladder. The Beethovens and Leonardos got further up the ladder than most of us; yet even they failed to reach the top, as we can see if we study their lives.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
pp. 228- 229
Philosophical Maxims
Cisero
Cisero
5 months 3 weeks ago
I am a Roman citizen.

I am a Roman citizen.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Against Verres [In Verrem], part 2, book 5, section 57; reported in Cicero, The Verrine Orations, trans. L. H. G. Greenwood (1935), vol. 2, p. 629
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
5 months 5 days ago
My sympathies are, of course, with...

My sympathies are, of course, with the Government side, especially the Anarchists; for Anarchism seems to me more likely to lead to desirable social change than highly centralized, dictatorial Communism.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War (1937) edited by Nancy Cunard and publisehd by the Left Review
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 6 days ago
Of the various executive abilities, no...

Of the various executive abilities, no one excited more anxious concern than that of placing the interests of our fellow-citizens in the hands of honest men, with understanding sufficient for their stations. No duty is at the same time more difficult to fulfil. The knowledge of character possessed by a single individual is of necessity limited. To seek out the best through the whole Union, we must resort to the information which from the best of men, acting disinterestedly and with the purest motives, is sometimes incorrect.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Letter to Elias Shipman and others of New Haven (12 July 1801).
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
6 months 3 days ago
The Bible and science agree in...

The Bible and science agree in being unable to say anything certainly about what happened before the beginning. There is this difference. The Bible will never be able to tell us. It has reached its final form, and it simply doesn't say. Science, on the other hand, is still developing, and the time may come when it can answer questions that, at present, it cannot.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
5 months 1 week ago
That which parents should take care...

That which parents should take care of... is to distinguish between the wants of fancy, and those of nature.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Sec. 107
Philosophical Maxims
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
5 months ago
If we compare the third-person attitude...

If we compare the third-person attitude of someone who simply says how things stand (this is the attitude of the scientist, for example) with the performative attitude of someone who tries to understand what is said to him (this is the attitude of the interpreter, for example), the implications ... become clear. ... First, interpreters relinquish superiority that observers have by virtue of their privileged position, in that they themselves are drawn, at least potentially, into negotiations about the meaning and validity of utterances. By taking part in communicative action, they accept in principle the same status as those whose utterances they are trying to understand. ... It is impossible to decide a priori who is to learn from whom.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 26
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
5 months 6 days ago
Disobedience is the true foundation of...

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
1847
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 months 5 days ago
Those attacks upon language and religion...

Those attacks upon language and religion in Poland, the Baltic provinces, Alsace, Bohemia, upon the Jews in Russia, in every place that such acts of violence occur-in what name have they been, and are they, perpetrated? In none other than the name of that patriotism which you defend. Ask our savage Russifiers of Poland and the Baltic provinces, ask the persecutors of the Jews, why they act thus. They will tell you it is in defence of their native religion and language; they will tell you that if they do not act thus, their religion and language will suffer-the Russians will be Polonised, Teutonised, Judaised.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
A Reply to Criticisms
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
5 months 1 week ago
The guidelines for achieving wisdom consist...

The guidelines for achieving wisdom consist of three leading maxims: 1) Think for yourself; 2) (in communication with other people) Put yourself in the place of the other person; 3) Always think by remaining faithful to your own self.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Kant, Immanuel (1996), page 95
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
4 months 3 weeks ago
If the world should break….

If the world should break and fall on him, it would strike him fearless.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book III, ode iii, line 7
Philosophical Maxims
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
2 months 4 weeks ago
I am an American, Chicago born...

I am an American, Chicago born - Chicago, that somber city - and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 1 (opening line)
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 2 days ago
Creation is in fact a fault,...

Creation is in fact a fault, man's famous sin thereby appearing as a minor version of a much graver one. What are we guilty of, except of having followed, more or less slavishly, the Creator's example? Easy to recognize in ourselves the fatality which was His: not for nothing have we issued from the hands of a wicked and woebegone god, a god accursed.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
4 months 1 week ago
The universal Intellect is the intimate,...

The universal Intellect is the intimate, most real, peculiar and powerful part of the soul of the world. This is the single whole which filleth the whole, illumineth the universe and directeth nature to the production of natural things, as our intellect with the congruous production of natural kinds.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 1 week ago
I have no doubt...
0
⚖0
Main Content / General
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 1 week ago
An irrational fear should never be...

An irrational fear should never be simply let alone, but should be gradually overcome by familiarity with its fainter forms.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
On Education, Especially in Early Childhood (1926), Ch. 4: Fear
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 6 days ago
This is the value of the...

This is the value of the Communities; not what they have done, but the revolution which they indicate as on the way.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
5 months 1 week ago
A merchant, it has been said...

A merchant, it has been said very properly, is not necessarily the citizen of any particular country.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter IV, p. 456.
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 months 2 weeks ago
This provides us with our first...

This provides us with our first major clue to the solutions of the problem. Even if the left cannot see the world as full of potentiality, it can hold on to the moments of insight and refuse to let go of them. If I know that present difficulties will end in triumph, I am un-discourageable; I merely have to know it intellectually. And if I can 'know' that reality actually has a third dimension, I shall never fall into the mistake of complaining that there is nothing new under the sun and that life is futile.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 13
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
5 months 1 week ago
It is easier to discover a...

It is easier to discover a deficiency in individuals, in states, and in providence, than to see their real import or value.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 2 days ago
I am displeased with everything. If...

I am displeased with everything. If they made me God, I would immediately resign.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
4 months 6 days ago
The best definition of man is:...

The best definition of man is: a being that goes on two legs and is ungrateful.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Part 1, Chapter 8 (tr. David Magarshack, 1950) The best definition of man is: a biped, ungrateful.
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
2 months ago
There is no science apart from...

There is no science apart from the general. It may even be said that the very object of the exact sciences is to spare us these direct verifications.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. I. (1905) Tr. George Bruce Halstead
Philosophical Maxims
Niels Bohr
Niels Bohr
1 month 2 weeks ago
Every valuable human being must be...

Every valuable human being must be a radical and a rebel, for what he must aim at is to make things better than they are.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in The World of the Atom (1966) by Henry Abraham Boorse and Lloyd Motz, p. 741
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
3 months 2 weeks ago
The main importance of Francis Bacon's...

The main importance of Francis Bacon's influence does not lie in any peculiar theory of inductive reasoning which he happened to express, but in the revolt against second-hand information of which he was a leader.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei
2 months ago
What has philosophy got to do...

What has philosophy got to do with measuring anything? It's the mathematicians you have to trust, and they measure the skies like we measure a field.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Matteo in Concerning the New Star
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
2 months 3 weeks ago
Our liberty is neither Greek nor...

Our liberty is neither Greek nor Roman; but essentially English. It has a character of its own,-a character which has taken a tinge from the sentiments of the chivalrous ages, and which accords with the peculiarities of our manners and of our insular situation. It has a language, too, of its own, and a language singularly idiomatic, full of meaning to ourselves, scarcely intelligible to strangers.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
History', The Edinburgh Review (May 1828), quoted in The Miscellaneous Writings of Lord Macaulay, Vol. I (1860), pp. 252-253
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
5 months 6 days ago
No production without a need. But...

No production without a need. But consumption reproduces the need.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Introduction, p. 12.
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 1 week ago
And to bring in a new...

And to bring in a new word by the head and shoulders, they leave out the old one.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book III, Ch. 5. Upon some Verses of Virgil
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
3 months 3 weeks ago
The mass-man sees in the State...

The mass-man sees in the State an anonymous power, and feeling himself, like it, anonymous, he believes that the State is something of his own. Suppose that in the public life of a country some difficulty, conflict, or problem presents itself, the mass-man will tend to demand that the State intervene immediately and undertake a solution directly with its immense and unassailable resources. This is the gravest danger that to-day threatens civilisation: State intervention; the absorption of all spontaneous social effort by the State.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter XIII: The Greatest Danger, The State
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
4 months 2 days ago
All nature abounds in proofs of...

All nature abounds in proofs of other influences than merely mechanical action, even in the physical world. They crowd in upon us at the rate of several every minute. And my observation of men has led me to this little generalization. Speaking only of men who really think for themselves and not of mere reporters, I have not found that it is the men whose lives are mostly passed within the four walls of a physical laboratory who are most inclined to be satisfied with a purely mechanical metaphysics. On the contrary, the more clearly they understand how physical forces work the more incredible it seems to them that such action should explain what happens out of doors. A larger proportion of materialists and agnostics is to be found among the thinking physiologists and other naturalists, and the largest proportion of all among those who derive their ideas of physical science from reading popular books.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Lecture II : The Universal Categories, §3. Laws: Nominalism, CP 5.65
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 4 weeks ago
I am the door: by me...

I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
10:9-11
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
6 months 1 week ago
Since my earliest childhood a barb...

Since my earliest childhood a barb of sorrow has lodged in my heart. As long as it stays I am ironic - if it is pulled out I shall die.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
5 months ago
The question here is the same...

The question here is the same as the question I addressed with regard to madness, disease, delinquency and sexuality. In all of these cases, it was not a question of showing how these objects were for a long time hidden before being finally discovered, nor of showing how all these objects are only wicked illusions or ideological products to be dispelled in the light of reason finally having reached its zenith. It was a matter of showing by what conjunctions a whole set of practices-from the moment they become coordinated with a regime of truth-was able to make what does not exist (madness, disease, delinquency, sexuality, etcetera), nonetheless become something.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Lecture 1, January 10, 1979, p. 19
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 month 3 days ago
Keep this thought handy when you...

Keep this thought handy when you feel a bit of rage coming on - it isn't manly to be enraged. Rather, gentleness and civility are more human, and therefore manlier. A real person doesn't give way to anger and discontent, and such a person has strength, courage, and endurance - unlike the angry and complaining. The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
XI 11.18.5b:41
Philosophical Maxims
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
1 month 3 days ago
There comes up another difficulty which...

There comes up another difficulty which more nearly concerns our vanity: namely, the impossibility of our conceiving this property [the faculty of feeling] as a dependence or attribute of matter.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. VI Concerning the Sensitive Faculty of Matter
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
4 months 1 week ago
The Universe is one, infinite, immobile....

The Universe is one, infinite, immobile. The absolute potential is one, the act is one, the form or soul is one, the material or body is one, the thing is one, the being in one, one is the maximum and the best... It is not generated, because there is no other being it could desire or hope for, since it comprises all being. It does not grow corrupt. because there is nothing else into which it could change, given that it is itself all things. It cannot diminish or grow, since it is infinite.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As translated by Paul Harrison
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 4 weeks ago
And having said this, Jesus smote...

And having said this, Jesus smote his face with both his hands, and then smote the ground with his head. And having raised his head, he said: "Cursed be every one who shall insert into my sayings that I am the son of God." At these words the disciples fell down as dead, whereupon Jesus lifted them up, saying: 'Let us fear God now, if we would not be affrighted in that day.'

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 53
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
4 months 1 week ago
Given that annihilation of nature in...

Given that annihilation of nature in its entirety is impossible, and that death and dissolution are not appropriate to the whole mass of this entire globe or star, from time to time, according to an established order, it is renewed, altered, changed, and transformed in all its parts.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Fifth Dialogue
Philosophical Maxims
  • Load More

User login

  • Create new account
  • Reset your password

Social

☰ ˟
  • Main Feed
  • Philosophical Maxims

Civic

☰ ˟
  • Propositions
  • Issue / Solution

Users

☰ ˟
  • All users
  • Historical Figures

Who's new

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

Who's online

There are currently 1 users online.
  • comfortdragon

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia