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Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
1 month 4 weeks ago
But what then is this confrontation...

But what then is this confrontation below the language of reason? Where might this interrogation lead, following not reason in its horizontal becoming, but seeking to retrace in time this constant verticality, which, the length of Western culture, confronts it with what it is not, measuring it with its own extravagance?

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Preface to 1961 edition
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 months 6 days ago
As the biggest library if it...

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself; because only through ordering what you know by comparing every truth with every other truth can you take complete possession of your knowledge and get it into your power. You can think about only what you know, so you ought to learn something; on the other hand, you can know only what you have thought about.

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Vol. 2, Ch. 22, § 257 "On Thinking for Yourself" as translated in Essays and Aphorisms(1970) as translated by R. J. Hollingdale
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 5 days ago
Acquisitiveness - the wish to possess...

Acquisitiveness - the wish to possess as much as possible of goods, or the title to goods - is a motive which, I suppose, has its origin in a combination of fear with the desire for necessaries.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
1 month 4 days ago
Well, which is the most rational...

Well, which is the most rational theory about these ten millions of species? Is it most likely that there have been ten millions of special creations? or is it most likely that, by continual modifications due to change of circumstances, ten millions of varieties have been produced, as varieties are being produced still?

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Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
2 months 1 week ago
Not to be a proud and...

Not to be a proud and haughty person, you have to follow the old proverb and "know thyself." That is to say, you must regard your special talents, whatever beauty or fame you have, as gifts from God, and not as things you earned for yourself. Whatever is low and mean is not God's doing, however. Here you can only blame yourself. Remember the squalor of your birth and how naked and poor you were when you crawled into the light of day like a little animal.

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p.154
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 5 days ago
I soon perceived that she possessed...

I soon perceived that she possessed in combination, the qualities which in all other persons whom I had known I had been only too happy to find singly. In her, complete emancipation from every kind of superstition (including that which attributes a pretended perfection to the order of nature and the universe), and an earnest protest against many things which are still part of the established constitution of society, resulted not from the hard intellect, but from strength of noble and elevated feeling, and co-existed with a highly reverential nature.

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(p. 186)
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
2 months 3 days ago
Man's urge for change and his...

Man's urge for change and his need for stability have always balanced and checked each other, and our current vocabulary, which distinguishes between two factions, the progressives and the conservatives, indicates a state of affairs in which this balance has been thrown out of order. No civilization - the man-made artifact to house successive generations - would ever have been possible without a framework of stability, to provide the wherein for the flux of change. Foremost among the stabilizing factors, more enduring than customs, manners and traditions, are the legal systems that regulate our life in the world and our daily affairs with each other.

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"Civil Disobedience"
Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
2 months 3 weeks ago
We must consider both the ultimate...

We must consider both the ultimate end and all clear sensory evidence, to which we refer our opinions; for otherwise everything will be full of uncertainty and confusion.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 5 days ago
The Grecian are youthful and erring...

The Grecian are youthful and erring and fallen gods, with the vices of men, but in many important respects essentially of the divine race. In my Pantheon, Pan still reigns in his pristine glory, with his ruddy face, his flowing beard, and his shaggy body, his pipe and his crook, his nymph Echo, and his chosen daughter Iambe; for the great god Pan is not dead, as was rumored. No god ever dies. Perhaps of all the gods of New England and of ancient Greece, I am most constant at his shrine.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 weeks 6 days ago
It is written, My house shall...

It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

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21:13 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
1 month 3 weeks ago
Bear no improper envy, so that...

Bear no improper envy, so that thy life may not become tasteless.

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 weeks 6 days ago
The Great Beast is the only...

The Great Beast is the only object of idolatry, the only ersatz of God, the only imitation of something which is infinitely far from me and which is I myself.

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p. 121; footnote in Gravity and Grace
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
Just now
But the more he is alone...

But the more he is alone with nature, the greater man and his doings bulk in the consideration of his fellow-men.

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Toils And Pleasures.
Philosophical Maxims
John Searle
John Searle
1 week ago
Where questions of style and exposition...

Where questions of style and exposition are concerned I try to follow a simple maxim: if you can't say it clearly you don't understand it yourself.

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P. x.
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 5 days ago
We do not live for idle...

We do not live for idle amusement. I would not run round a corner to see the world blow up.

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p. 491
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
4 days ago
The attitude of the ruling classes...

The attitude of the ruling classes to the laborers is that of a man who has felled his adversary to the earth and holds him down, not so much because he wants to hold him down, as because he knows that if he let him go, even for a second, he would himself be stabbed, for his adversary is infuriated and has a knife in his hand. And therefore, whether their conscience is tender or the reverse, our rich men cannot enjoy the wealth they have filched from the poor as the ancients did who believed in their right to it. Their whole life and all their enjoyments are embittered either by the stings of conscience or by terror.

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Chapter V, Contradiction Between our Life and our Christian Conscience
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 weeks ago
Good taste is either that which...

Good taste is either that which agrees with my taste or that which subjects itself to the rule of reason. From this we can see how useful it is to employ reason in seeking out the laws of taste.

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E 69
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
3 months 5 days ago
Plato... introduces two infinities, because both...

Plato... introduces two infinities, because both in increase and diminution there appears to be transcendency, and a progression to infinity. Though... he did not use them: for neither is there infinity in numbers by diminution or division; since unity is a minimum: nor by increase; for he extends number as far as to the decad.

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Philosophical Maxims
A. J. Ayer
A. J. Ayer
1 month 1 day ago
No moral system can rest solely...

No moral system can rest solely on authority.

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Humanist Outlook (1968), p. 4.
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 5 days ago
My Lords, to obtain empire is...

My Lords, to obtain empire is common; to govern it well has been rare indeed. To chastise the guilt of those who have been instruments of imperial sway over other nations by the high superintending justice of the sovereign state has not many striking examples among any people.

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Speech in opening the impeachment of Warren Hastings (16 February 1788), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Volume the Ninth (1899), p. 398
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 5 days ago
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its...

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.

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Section 1, paragraph 14.
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
2 months 4 days ago
In the deepest heart of all...

In the deepest heart of all of us there is a corner in which the ultimate mystery of things works sadly.

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"Is Life Worth Living?"
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 weeks ago
Glorious is the risk! - καλος...

Glorious is the risk! - καλος γαρ ο κινδυνος, glorious is the risk that we are able to run of our souls never dying ... Faced with this risk, I am presented with arguments designed to eliminate it, arguments demonstrating the absurdity of the belief in the immortality of the soul; but these arguments fail to make any impression on me, for they are reasons and nothing more than reasons, and it is not with reasons that the heart is appeased. I do not want to die - no; I neither want to die nor do I want to want to die; I want to live for ever and ever and ever. I want this "I" to live - this poor "I" that I am and that I feel myself to be here and now, and therefore the problem of the duration of my soul, of my own soul, tortures me.

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Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
1 month ago
Indeed, even this last moment will...

Indeed, even this last moment will be recognized like the rest, at least, be just beginning to be so.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
3 weeks 5 days ago
The determination of the mot juste,...

The determination of the mot juste, of the right incident in the right place, of exquisiteness of proportion, of the precise tone, hue, and shade that helps unify the whole while it defines a part, is accomplished by emotion. Not every emotion, however, can do this work, but only one informed by material that is grasped and gathered. Emotion is informed and carried forward when it is spent indirectly in search for material and in giving it order, not when it is directly expended.

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p. 73
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
2 weeks 3 days ago
Truths dead and forgotten long ago,...

Truths dead and forgotten long ago, conceptions of the world and its people, covered with mould, even during the times of our grandmothers, are being hammered into the heads of our young generation.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month ago
The farther men get from God,...

The farther men get from God, the farther they advance into the knowledge of religions.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months ago
At the core of all...

At the core of all well-founded belief, lies belief that is unfounded.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 5 days ago
It is the nature of all...

It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 4 days ago
And every man, in love or...

And every man, in love or pride, Of his fate is ever wide.

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Nemesis
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
1 month ago
So long as it is not...

So long as it is not possible to produce so much that there is enough for all, with more left over for expanding the social capital and extending the forces of production - so long as this is not possible, there must always be a ruling class directing the use of society's productive forces, and a poor, oppressed class. How these classes are constituted depends on the stage of development.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
1 month 1 week ago
I look upon you as a...

I look upon you as a gem of the old rock. Dedication

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 weeks ago
Man is to be found in...

Man is to be found in reason, God in the passions.

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K 21
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 weeks ago
So-called professional mathematicians have, in their...

So-called professional mathematicians have, in their reliance on the relative incapacity of the rest of mankind, acquired for themselves a reputation for profundity very similar to the reputation for sanctity possessed by theologians.

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K 52
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 5 days ago
The circulation of capital realizes value,...

The circulation of capital realizes value, while living labour creates value.

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Notebook V, The Chapter on Capital, p. 463.
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
2 weeks 3 days ago
I could see clearly that this...

I could see clearly that this problem could only be solved on the individual and personal level; political revolt is irrelevant. Both Camus and Sartre had been neatly hog-tied by their earlier radicalism. Camus came to see that rebellion is a political roundabout that revolves back to the same old tyranny; too ashamed to admit that he had outgrown his leftism, he found himself in an intellectual cul-de-sac. Sartre accused Camus of being a reactionary; but he paid for his own refusal to reexamine his political convictions by congealing into a grotesque attitude of permanent indignation, shaking his fist at some abstract Authority. Where politics is concerned, he seemed determined to be guided by his emotions.

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p. 101
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 weeks ago
Warmth, warmth, more warmth! for we...

Warmth, warmth, more warmth! for we are dying of cold and not of darkness. It is not the night that kills, but the frost.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month ago
Each of us is born with...

Each of us is born with a share of purity, predestined to be corrupted by our commerce with mankind, by that sin against solitude.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 5 days ago
That power should be exercised over...

That power should be exercised over any portion of mankind without any obligation of consulting them, is only tolerable while they are in an infantine, or a semi-barbarous state. In any civilized condition, power ought never to be exempt from the necessity of appealing to the reason, and recommending itself by motives which justify it to the conscience and feelings, of the governed.

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Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform (1859), p. 24
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
3 weeks 6 days ago
The mind celebrates a little triumph...

The mind celebrates a little triumph whenever it can formulate a truth, however unwelcome to the flesh, or discover an actual force, however unfavourable to given interests.

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Ch. IV.: Music
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Just now
I am extremely pleased by Daniel...

I am extremely pleased by Daniel Fincke's article, which says exactly what I SHOULD have said and, to my regret, didn't make sufficiently clear in my Reason Rally speech. The best way to summarise it would be to modify the quotation from Johann Hari. Johann said, "I respect you too much to respect your ridiculous beliefs". From now on, my version will be, "I respect you too much to accept that you really believe anything so ridiculous as you claim. Please either defend those beliefs and explain why they are not ridiculous, or else declare that you do not hold them and publicly disown the church to which you claim loyalty."

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comment on Daniel Fincke (2 April 2012), "In Defense of Dawkins's Reason Rally Speech", RichardDawkins.net, retrieved on 1 May 2012
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 4 days ago
Now shall we say that only...

Now shall we say that only the first men were well alive, and the existing generation is invalided and degenerate? ... A more subtle and severe criticism might suggest that some dislocation has befallen the race; that men are off their centre; that multitudes of men do not live with Nature, but behold it as exiles. People go out to look at sunrises and sunsets who do not recognize their own quietly and happily, but know that it is foreign to them. As they do by books, so they quote the sunset and the star, and do not make them theirs. Worse yet, they live as foreigners in the world of truth, and quote thoughts, and thus disown them. Quotation confesses inferiority.

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Quotation and Originality
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 5 days ago
How much good it would do...

How much good it would do if one could exterminate the human race.

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A characteristic saying of Russell, reported by Aldous Huxley in a letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell dated 8 October 1917, as quoted in Bibliography of Bertrand Russell, Routledge, 2013
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
1 month 4 days ago
Speculative philosophy as the realisation of...

Speculative philosophy as the realisation of God is the positing of God, and at the same time his cancellation or negation; theism and at the same time atheism: for God - in the sense of theology - is God only as long as he is taken to be a being distinguished from and independent of the being of man as well as of nature. The theism that as the positing of God is simultaneously his negation or, conversely, as the negation of God equally his affirmation, is pantheism. Theological theism - that is, theism properly speaking - is nothing other than imaginary pantheism which itself is nothing other than real and true theism.

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Part I, Section 14
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 5 days ago
Ironclads and Maxim guns must be...

Ironclads and Maxim guns must be the ultimate arbiters of metaphysical truth.

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Quoted in The Edinburgh Review: Or Critical Journal, Vol. 209 (1909), p. 387
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks ago
No man's knowledge...
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Main Content / General
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 5 days ago
Consumption is also immediately production, just...

Consumption is also immediately production, just as in nature the consumption of the elements and chemical substances is the production of the plant.

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Introduction, p. 10.
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
1 month 3 weeks ago
My enemy is not the man...

My enemy is not the man who wrongs me, but the man who means to wrong me.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
2 months 6 days ago
Popery so threatens and so nearly...

Popery so threatens and so nearly surrounds us...every sober man would think it seasonable at this time that all dissenting Protestants should be brought to a good understanding and compliance one with another...I think all Protestants ought now by all ways to be stirred up against them [Catholics] as People that have declared themselves ready by blood, violence, and destruction to ruine our Religion and Government...[they] are nothing but either Enemys in our bowells or spies among us, whilst their General commanders whom they blindly obey declare warr, and an unalterable designe to destroy us.

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Critical Notes Upon Edward Stillingfleet's Mischief and Unreasonableness of Separation' (c. May 1681), quoted in John Marshall, John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 110
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 3 days ago
Whenever a theory appears to you...

Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.

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Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach
Philosophical Maxims
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