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John Gray
John Gray
3 weeks ago
For Leopardi evil is integral to...

For Leopardi evil is integral to the way the world works; but when he talks of evil he does not mean any kind of malign agency of the sort that Gnostics imagined. Evil is the suffering that is built into the scheme of things. 'What hope is there when evil is ordinary?' he asks. 'I mean, in an order where evil is necessary?' These rhetorical questions show why Leopardi had no interest in projects of revolution and reform. No type of human action - least of all the harlequinade of politics - could fundamentally alter a world in which evil was ordinary.

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The Faith of Puppets: Leopardi and the Souls of Machines (p.35-6)
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
5 days ago
Consider the great elements of human...

Consider the great elements of human enjoyment, the attainments and possessions that exalt man's life to its present height, and see what part of these he owes to institutions, to Mechanism of any kind; and what to the instinctive, unbounded force, which Nature herself lent him.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 2 weeks ago
The two parties which divide the...

The two parties which divide the State, the party of Conservatism and that of Innovation are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made ... Now one, now the other gets the day, and still the fight renews itself as if for the first time, under new names and hot personalities ... Innovation is the salient energy; Conservatism the pause on the last movement.

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Via Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Cycles of American History (Houghton Mifflin, 1986) p. 23
Philosophical Maxims
Antisthenes
Antisthenes
3 months 4 days ago
States are doomed when they are...

States are doomed when they are unable to distinguish good men from bad.

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§ 5
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Rorty
Richard Rorty
3 months 5 days ago
Anything can be made to look...

Anything can be made to look good or bad by being redescribed.

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Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989), p. 73
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 month 4 weeks ago
I have always noticed that deeply...

I have always noticed that deeply and truly religious persons are fond of a joke, and I am suspicious of those who aren't.

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As quoted in Church and Home, Vol. 1 (1964) by United Methodist Church, and Evangelical United Brethren Church, p. 21.
Philosophical Maxims
Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch
2 months 6 days ago
The sin of pride may be...

The sin of pride may be a small or a great thing in someone's life, and hurt vanity a passing pinprick or a self-destroying or even murderous obsession. Possibly, more people kill themselves and others out of hurt vanity than out of envy, jealousy, malice or desire for revenge.

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The Philosopher's Pupil (1983) p. 76.
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 2 weeks ago
Upstart greatness is everywhere less respected...

Upstart greatness is everywhere less respected than ancient greatness.

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Chapter I, Part II, p. 773.
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 2 weeks ago
Science does not know its debt...

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

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Poetry and Imagination
Philosophical Maxims
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
1 month 1 week ago
The late philosopher Morris R. Cohen...

The late philosopher Morris R. Cohen of CCNY was asked by a student in the metaphysics course, "Professor Cohen, how do I know that I exist?" The keen old prof replied, "And who is asking?"

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Humboldt's Gift (1996), p. 163
Philosophical Maxims
Will Durant
Will Durant
4 days ago
She is a woman now, and...

She is a woman now, and not an idle girl, not a domestic ornament or a sexual convenience anymore.

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On the maturation of women, Ch. 4 : On Old Age
Philosophical Maxims
Averroes
Averroes
4 months 3 days ago
This is one of the most...

This is one of the most intricate problems of religion. For if you look into the traditional arguments (Hadith) about this problem you will find them contradictory; such also being the case with arguments of reason. The contradiction in the arguments of the first kind is found in the Qur'an and the Hadith.

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Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
4 months 1 week ago
Whatever the subject of your...

Parmenides: Whatever the subject of your hypothesis, if you suppose that it is or is not, or that it experiences any other affection, you must consider what happens to it and to any other particular things you may choose, and to a greater number and to all in the same way; and you must consider other things in relation to themselves and to anything else you may choose in any instance, whether you suppose that the subject of your hypothesis exists or does not exist, if you are to train yourself completely to see the truth perfectly.

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Philosophical Maxims
Judith Butler
Judith Butler
1 month 2 weeks ago
The ethical and political practice of...

The ethical and political practice of nonviolence can rely neither exclusively on the dyadic encounter, nor on the bolstering of a prohibition; it requires a political opposition to the biopolitical forms of racism and war logics that rely on phantasmagoric inversions that occlude the binding and interdependent character of the social bond. It requires, as well, an account of why, and under what conditions, the frameworks for understanding violence and nonviolence, or violence and self-defense, seem to invert into one another, causing confusion about how best to pin down those terms.

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p. 62
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
2 months 1 week ago
Skepticism is the chastity of the...

Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer: there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness.

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The Works of George Santayana p. 65
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 months 2 weeks ago
I have never in my life...

I have never in my life met a man like him for noble simplicity, and boundless truthfulness. I understood from the way he talked that anyone who chose could deceive him, and that he would forgive anyone afterwards who had deceived him, and that was why I grew to love him.

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Part 4, Chapter 8
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1 week ago
We can't form our children on...

We can't form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.

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Hermann und Dorothea
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
3 months 2 weeks 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.

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 months ago
There are two atheisms of which...

There are two atheisms of which one is a purification of the notion of God.

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As quoted in The New Christianity (1967) edited by William Robert Miller
Philosophical Maxims
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
1 month 2 weeks ago
There is a similarity between writers...

There is a similarity between writers and SDS [Students for a Democratic Society, a radical left-wing group]: Plenty of paranoia, but no ideas.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 1 week ago
Those who need myths are indeed...

Those who need myths are indeed poor. Here the gods serve as beds or resting places as the day races across the sky.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 2 weeks ago
The opinions that are held with...

The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder's lack of rational conviction.

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Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately. Introduction to 1961 edition of Sceptical Essays, 1961
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
3 months 2 weeks ago
In modern eyes, precious though wars...

In modern eyes, precious though wars may be they must not be waged solely for the sake of the ideal harvest. Only when forced upon one, is a war now thought permissible. It was not thus in ancient times. The earlier men were hunting men, and to hunt a neighboring tribe, kill the males, loot the village and possess the females, was the most profitable, as well as the most exciting, way of living. Thus were the more martial tribes selected, and in chiefs and peoples a pure pugnacity and love of glory came to mingle with the more fundamental appetite for plunder. Modern war is so expensive that we feel trade to be a better avenue to plunder; but modern man inherits all the innate pugnacity and all the love of glory of his ancestors. Showing war's irrationality and horror is of no effect on him. The horrors make the fascination. War is the strong life; it is life in extremis; war taxes are the only ones men never hesitate to pay, as the budgets of all nations show us.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 1 week ago
The kingdom of heaven is like...

The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.

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13:33 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 2 weeks ago
Monopoly of one kind or another,...

Monopoly of one kind or another, indeed, seems to be the sole engine of the mercantile system.

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Chapter VII, Part Third, p. 684.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
3 months 2 weeks ago
The atheist who affects to reason,...

The atheist who affects to reason, and the fanatic who rejects reason, plunge themselves alike into inextricable difficulties. The one perverts the sublime and enlightening study of natural philosophy into a deformity of absurdities by not reasoning to the end. The other loses himself in the obscurity of metaphysical theories, and dishonours the Creator, by treating the study of his works with contempt. The one is a half-rational of whom there is some hope, the other a visionary to whom we must be charitable.

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A Discourse, &c. &c.
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 1 week ago
To become god....
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Main Content / General
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 1 week ago
I do nothing, granted. But I...

I do nothing, granted. But I see the hours pass - which is better than trying to fill them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
1 month 3 days ago
No doubt a tumult caused by...

No doubt a tumult caused by local and temporary irritation ought to be suppressed with promptitude and vigour. Such disturbances, for example, as those which Lord George Gordon raised in 1780, should be instantly put down with the strong hand. But woe to the Government which cannot distinguish between a nation and a mob! Woe to the Government which thinks that a great, a steady, a long continued movement of the public mind is to be stopped like a street riot! This error has been twice fatal to the great House of Bourbon. God be praised, our rulers have been wiser. The golden opportunity which, if once suffered to escape, might never have been retrieved, has been seized. Nothing, I firmly believe, can now prevent the passing of this noble law, this second Bill of Rights.

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Speech in the House of Commons on the Reform Bill (5 July 1831), quoted in Speeches of the Right Honourable T. B. Macaulay, M.P. (1854), pp. 34-35
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
2 months 6 days ago
Art expresses, it does not state;...

Art expresses, it does not state; it is concerned with existences in their perceived qualities, not with conceptions symbolized in terms.

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p. 139
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 3 weeks ago
What of a truth…

What of a truth that is bounded by these mountains and is falsehood to the world that lives beyond?

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Ch. 12
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
2 months 5 days ago
This grave dissociation of past and...

This grave dissociation of past and present is the generic fact of our time and the cause of the suspicion, more or less vague, which gives rise to the confusion characteristic of our present-day existence. We feel that we actual men have suddenly been left alone on the earth; that the dead did not die in appearance only but effectively; that they can no longer help us. Any remains of the traditional spirit have evaporated. Models, norms, standards are no use to us. We have to solve our problems without any active collaboration of the past, in full actuality, be they problems of art, science, or politics. The European stands alone, without any living ghosts by his side; like Peter Schlehmil he has lost his shadow. This is what always happens when midday comes.

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"The Dehumanisation of Art"; Ortega y Gasset later used this passage in The Revolt of the Masses (1929), quoting it in Ch. III: The Height Of The Times
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
4 months 2 weeks ago
Again, it is possible to fail...

Again, it is possible to fail in many ways (for evil belongs to the class of the unlimited ... and good to that of the limited), while to succeed is possible only in one way (for which reason also one is easy and the other difficult—to miss the mark easy, to hit it difficult); for these reasons also, then, excess and defect are characteristic of vice, and the mean of virtue; For men are good in but one way, but bad in many.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 2 weeks ago
We have to learn to think...

We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all parties?

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 2 weeks ago
The imagination is always restless and...

The imagination is always restless and suggests a variety of thoughts, and the will, reason being laid aside, is ready for every extravagant project; and in this State, he that goes farthest out of the way, is thought fittest to lead, and is sure of most followers: And when Fashion hath once Established, what Folly or craft began, Custom makes it Sacred, and 'twill be thought impudence or madness, to contradict or question it. He that will impartially survey the Nations of the World, will find so much of the Governments, Religion, and Manners brought in and continued amongst them by these means, that they will have but little Reverence for the Practices which are in use and credit amongst Men.

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First Treatise of Government
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 1 week ago
Life creates itself in delirium and...

Life creates itself in delirium and is undone in ennui.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 2 weeks ago
The mass of men lead lives...

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

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p. 10
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
3 months 2 weeks ago
It is error only, and not...

It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.

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Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
2 months 1 week ago
Till mankind be satisfied with the...

Till mankind be satisfied with the naked statement of what they really perceive, till they confess virtue to be then most illustrious, when she more disdains the aid of ornament, they will never arrive at that manly justice of sentiment at which they seem destined one day to arrive. By his scheme of naked virtue will be every day a gainer; every succeeding observer willl more fully do her justice, while vice, deprived of that varnish with which she delighted to glow her actions of that gaudy exhibition which may be made alike by every pretender will speedily sink into unheeded contempt.

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Book V, Chapter 12, "Of Titles"
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 2 weeks ago
The softer you find your child...

The softer you find your child is, the more you are to seek occasions, at fit times, thus to harden him. The great art in this is, to begin with what is but very little painful, and to proceed by insensible degrees, when you are playing, and in good humour with him, and speaking well of him: and when you have once got him to think himself made amends for his suffering by the praise is given him for his courage; when he can take pride in giving such marks of his manliness, and can prefer the reputation of being brave and stout, to the avoiding a little pain, or the shrinking under it; you need nor despair in time and by the assistance of his growing reason, to master his timorousness, and mend the weakness of his constitution.

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Sec. 115
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 1 week ago
[W]e only become what we are...

[W]e only become what we are by the radical and deep-seated refusal of that which others have made of us.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 2 weeks ago
Good is a good doctor, but...

Good is a good doctor, but Bad is sometimes a better.

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Considerations by the Way
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
2 months 1 week ago
The abolition of private property has...

The abolition of private property has become not only possible but absolutely necessary. ... The outcome can only be the victory of the proletariat.

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Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
1 month 4 weeks ago
In classroom settings I have often...

In classroom settings I have often listened to groups of students tell me that racism really no longer shapes the contours of our lives, that there is no such thing as racial difference, that "we are all just people." Then a few minutes later I give them an exercise. I ask if they were about to die and could choose to come back as a white male, a white female, a black female, or a black male, which identity would they choose. Each time I do this exercise, most individuals, irrespective of gender or race invariably choose whiteness, and most often male whiteness. Black females are the least chosen. When I ask students to explain their choice they proceed to do a sophisticated analysis of privilege based on race (with perspectives that take gender and class into consideration).

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Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 1 week ago
As for me, I am mean:...

As for me, I am mean: that means that I need the suffering of others to exist. A flame. A flame in their hearts. When I am all alone, I am extinguished.

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Inès, describing her path to Hell, Act 1, sc. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
5 days ago
A poet without love were a...

A poet without love were a physical and metaphysical impossibility.

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Burns (1828).
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 2 weeks ago
We have been given free will,...

We have been given free will, in order that we may will our self-will out of existence and so come to live continuously in a 'state of grace.' All our actions must be directed, in the last analysis, to making ourselves passive in relation to the activity and the being of divine reality. We are, as it were, aeolian harps, endowed with the power either to expose themselves to the wind of the Spirit or to shut themselves away from it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 2 weeks ago
Who lives longer? the man who...

Who lives longer? the man who takes heroin for two years and dies, or a man who lives on roast beef, water and potatoes 'till 95? One passes his 24 months in eternity. All the years of the beefeater are lived only in time.

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The Shortcut: 20 Stories To Get You From Here To There (2006) by Kevin A Fabiano, p. 179
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
2 months 1 week ago
We are accustomed to speak of...

We are accustomed to speak of ideas as reproduced, as passed from mind to mind, as similar or dissimilar to one another, and, in short, as if they were substantial things; nor can any reasonable objection be raised to such expressions. But taking the word "idea" in the sense of an event in an individual consciousness, it is clear that an idea once past is gone forever, and any supposed recurrence of it is another idea. These two ideas are not present in the same state of consciousness, and therefore cannot possibly be compared.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
3 months 3 weeks ago
Faith ever says, "If Thou wilt,"...

Faith ever says, "If Thou wilt," not "If Thou canst."

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p. 241
Philosophical Maxims
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