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comfortdragon
comfortdragon
4 days ago
It is not that...
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Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
1 month 2 weeks ago
Complete ignorance with regard to certain...

Complete ignorance with regard to certain matters is perhaps the best thing for children; but let them learn very early what it is impossible to conceal from them permanently. Either their curiosity must never be aroused, or it must be satisfied before the age when it becomes a source of danger. Your conduct towards your pupil in this respect depends greatly on his individual circumstances, the society in which he moves, the position in which he may find himself, etc. Nothing must be left to chance; and if you are not sure of keeping him in ignorance of the difference between the sexes till he is sixteen, take care you teach him before he is ten.

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Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
2 months 2 weeks ago
Some say that the body is...

Some say that the body is the "tomb" of the soul, their notion being that the soul is buried in the present life; and again, because by its means the soul gives any signs which it gives, it is for this reason also properly called "sign". But I think it most likely that the Orphic poets gave this name, with the idea that the soul is undergoing punishment for something; they think it has the body as an enclosure to keep it safe, like a prison, and this is, as the name itself denotes, the "safe" for the soul, until the penalty is paid, and not even a letter needs to be changed.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 weeks 3 days ago
...he always firmly believed that they...

...he always firmly believed that they were purely on the defensive in that rebellion. He considered the Americans as standing at that time, and in that controversy, in the same relation to England, as England did to king James the Second, in 1688.

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p. 396
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
1 month 3 weeks ago
Cato said the best way to...

Cato said the best way to keep good acts in memory was to refresh them with new.

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No. 247
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
1 month 3 weeks ago
He who does not give himself...

He who does not give himself leisure to be thirsty cannot take pleasure in drinking.

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Ch. 42
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
2 weeks 3 days ago
There is but One Principle that...

There is but One Principle that proceeds from God; and thus, in consequence of the unity of the Power, it is possible for each Individual to schematise his World of Sense in accordance with the law of that original harmony; - and every Individual, under the condition of being found on the way towards the recognition of the Imperative, must so schematise it. I might say: - Every Individual can and must, under the given condition, construct the True World of Sense, - for this indeed has beyond the universal and formal laws above deduced, no other Truth and Reality than this universal harmony.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 2 weeks ago
Beauty is the main positive form...

Beauty is the main positive form of the aesthetic assimilation of reality, in which aesthetic ideal finds it direct expression... 

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About Beauty
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
1 week 6 days ago
So it is that you come...

So it is that you come to know what a real God is. ... The God wants my life. He wants to go with me, sit at the table with me, work with me. Above all he wants to be ever-present.

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P. 291
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 1 week ago
A philosopher who is not taking...

A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.

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Conversation of 1930
Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
2 months 6 days ago
It is impossible for a man...

It is impossible for a man who secretly violates the terms of the agreement not to harm or be harmed to feel confident that he will remain undiscovered, even if he has already escaped ten thousand times; for until his death he is never sure that he will not be detected.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
2 months 2 weeks ago
It is not enough to prove...
It is not enough to prove something, one has also to seduce or elevate people to it. That is why the man of knowledge should learn how to speak his wisdom: and often in such a way that it sounds like folly!
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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
1 month 3 weeks ago
To God, truly, the Giver and...

To God, truly, the Giver and Architect of Forms, and it may be to the angels and higher intelligences, it belongs to have an affirmative knowledge of forms immediately, and from the first contemplation. But this assuredly is more than man can do, to whom it is granted only to proceed at first by negatives, and at last to end in affirmatives, after exclusion has been exhausted.

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Aphorism XV
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
1 month 2 weeks ago
One always speaks badly….

One always speaks badly when one has nothing to say.

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1827
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
2 months 2 weeks ago
Most men are too concerned with...
Most men are too concerned with themselves to be malicious.
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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
3 weeks 1 day ago
What song the Syrens sang, or...

What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture.

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Chapter V. Cf Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars: "Tiberius," Ch 70
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
3 weeks 3 days ago
I understand Being in all and...

I understand Being in all and over all, as there is nothing without participation in Being, and there is no being without Essence. Thus nothing can be free of the Divine Presence.

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As quoted in "Giordano Bruno" - Theosophy Vol. 26, No. 8
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 2 weeks ago
The old often envy the young;...

The old often envy the young; when they do, they are apt to treat them cruelly.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 1 week ago
Philosophical problems can be compared to...

Philosophical problems can be compared to locks on safes, which can be opened by dialing a certain word or number, so that no force can open the door until just this word has been hit upon, and once it is hit upon any child can open it.

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Ch. 9 : Philosophy, p. 175
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
1 month 3 weeks ago
With the greater part of rich...

With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches, which in their eye is never so complete as when they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves.

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Chapter XI, Part II, p. 202 (See also Thorstein Veblen).
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 2 weeks ago
Our responsibility is much greater than...

Our responsibility is much greater than we might have supposed, because it involves all mankind.

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Existentialism and Human Emotions
Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
2 weeks ago
Till society is very differently constituted,...

Till society is very differently constituted, parents, I fear, will still insist on being obeyed, because they will be obeyed, and constantly endeavour to settle that power on a Divine right, which will not bear the investigation of reason.

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Ch. 11
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
4 days ago
If a philosopher is not a...

If a philosopher is not a man, he is anything but a philosopher; he is above all a pedant, and a pedant is a caricature of a man. The cultivation of any branch of science - of chemistry, of physics, of geometry, of philology - may be a work of differentiated specialization, and even so, only within very narrow limits and restrictions; but philosophy, like poetry, is a work of integration and synthesis, or else it is merely pseudo-philosophical erudition.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
1 month 2 weeks ago
Be gentle with them, Timothy. They...

Be gentle with them, Timothy. They want to be free, but they don't know how. Teach them. Reassure them.

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Reported to be Huxley's last words to Timothy Leary, which Huxley whispered from his deathbed. Quoted in Leary, Timothy (1990) . "Life on a Grounded Space Colony".
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
1 week 5 days ago
For the first time in the...

For the first time in the revolutionary movement of 1848, for the first time since 1793, a nation surrounded by superior counter-revolutionary forces dares to counter the cowardly counter-revolutionary fury by revolutionary passion, the terreur blanche by the terreur rouge. For the first time after a long period we meet with a truly revolutionary figure, a man who in the name of his people dares to accept the challenge of a desperate struggle, who for his nation is Danton and Carnot in one person - Lajos Kossuth.

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The Magyar Struggle in Neue Rheinische Zeitung (13 January 1849).
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 2 weeks ago
I am sorry to say that...

I am sorry to say that at the moment I am so busy as to be convinced that life has no meaning whatever... I do not see that we can judge what would be the result of the discovery of truth, since none has hitherto been discovered.

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Letter to Will Durant, 20 June, 1931
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
1 month 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
Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri
1 month 4 weeks ago
She is the sum….

She is the sum of nature's universe.To her perfection all of beauty tends.

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Chapter XIV, lines 49-50 (tr. Barbara Reynolds)
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
1 month 2 weeks ago
The art of music is good,...

The art of music is good, for the reason, among others, that it produces pleasure; but what proof is it possible to give that pleasure is good? If, then, it is asserted that there is a comprehensive formula, including all things which are in themselves good, and that whatever else is good, is not so as an end, but as a mean, the formula may be accepted or rejected, but is not a subject of what is commonly understood by proof.

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Ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
2 months 1 day ago
Who are those people by whom...

Who are those people by whom you wish to be admired? Are they not these about whom you are in the habit of saying that they are mad? What then? Do you wish to be admired by the mad?

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Book I, ch. 21, 4.
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
2 months 2 weeks ago
I have worked for this restlessness...

I have worked for this restlessness oriented toward inward deepening. But without authority. Instead of conceitedly making myself out to be a witness for the truth and causing others rashly to want to be the same, I am an unauthorized poet who influences by means of the ideas.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 week 6 days ago
I have never taken myself for...

I have never taken myself for a being. A non-citizen, a marginal type, a nothing who exists only by the excess, by the superabundance of his nothingness.

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Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
4 weeks ago
Step not beyond the beam of...

Step not beyond the beam of the balance.

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Symbol 14
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
Just now
The huge laugh is a most...

The huge laugh is a most extreme expression of freedom.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
3 weeks 1 day ago
I am not so much afraid...

I am not so much afraid of death, as ashamed thereof; 'tis the very disgrace and ignominy of our natures, that in a moment can so disfigure us that our nearest friends, Wife, and Children stand afraid and start at us.

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Section 40
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
2 months 2 weeks ago
I am not a visual person....

I am not a visual person. I have spent so many bounded years in my childhood that I have grown used to having books as my window on reality.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 2 weeks ago
I trust a good deal to...

I trust a good deal to common fame, as we all must. If a man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.

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February 1855
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
4 days ago
An eternal purgatory, then, rather than...

An eternal purgatory, then, rather than a heaven of glory; an eternal ascent. If there is an end to all suffering, however pure and spiritualized we may suppose it to be, if there is an end to all desire, what is it that makes the blessed in paradise go on living? If in paradise they do not suffer for want of God, how shall they love Him? And if there, in the heaven of glory, while they behold God little by little and closer and closer, yet without ever wholly attaining Him, there does not always remain something more for them to know and desire, if there does not always remain a substratum of doubt, how shall they not fall asleep?

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
1 month 3 weeks ago
The value of life lies not...

The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.

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Book I, Ch. 20
Philosophical Maxims
Chrysippus
Chrysippus
1 month 1 week ago
Living virtuously is equal to living...

Living virtuously is equal to living in accordance with one's experience of the actual course of nature.

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As quoted by Diogenes Laërtius, vii. 182.
Philosophical Maxims
George Berkeley
George Berkeley
3 weeks 3 days ago
In the pursuit of truth we...

In the pursuit of truth we must beware of being misled by terms which we do not rightly understand. That is the chief point. Almost all philosophers utter the caution; few observe it.

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Paragraph 1
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
1 month 4 weeks ago
In reading this author Montaigne...

In reading this author Montaigne and comparing him with Epictetus, I have found that they are assuredly the two greatest defenders of the two most celebrated sects of the world, and the only ones conformable to reason, since we can only follow one of these two roads, namely: either that there is a God, and then we place in him the sovereign good; or that he is uncertain, and that then the true good is also uncertain, since he is incapable of it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 2 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
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
1 month 2 weeks ago
Now the maximum of perfection is...

Now the maximum of perfection is called ideal, by Plato, Idea - for instance, his Idea of a Republic - and is the principle of all that is contained under the general notion of any perfection, inasmuch as the lesser grades are not thought determinable but by limiting the maximum. But God, the Ideal of perfection, and hence the principle of cognition, is also, as existing really, the principle of the creation of all perfection.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 1 week ago
If a lion could talk, we...

If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.

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Pt II, p. 223 of the 1968 English edition
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 2 weeks ago
When one admits that nothing is...

When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others. It is much more nearly certain that we are assembled here tonight than it is that this or that political party is in the right. Certainly there are degrees of certainty, and one should be very careful to emphasize that fact, because otherwise one is landed in an utter skepticism, and complete skepticism would, of course, be totally barren and completely useless.

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"Skepticism"
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
2 months 1 day ago
What should a philosopher say, then,...

What should a philosopher say, then, in the face of each of the hardships of life? "It was for this that I've been training myself, it was for this that I was practising."

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Book III, ch. 10,7.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 2 weeks ago
Every step of real movement is...

Every step of real movement is more important than a dozen programmes.

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Letter to W. Bracke, 5 May 1875
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 2 weeks ago
Every book is a quotation...

Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests and mines and stone-quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

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Quotation and Originality
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
1 month 2 weeks ago
The chief reason warfare is still...

The chief reason warfare is still with us is neither a secret death-wish of the human species, nor an irrepressible instinct of aggression, nor, finally and more plausibly, the serious economic and social dangers inherent in disarmament, but the simple fact that no substitute for this final arbiter in international affairs has yet appeared on the political scene.

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"On Violence"
Philosophical Maxims
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