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Emperor Julian
Emperor Julian
1 month 2 days ago
By the gods I do not...

By the gods I do not want the Galileans to be killed or beaten unjustly nor to suffer any other ill. I do, however, state that the god-fearing (theosebeis) should be preferred to them ... honour should go to the gods and to the men and cities that worship them.

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As quoted in Julian the Apostate (1978), by G. W. Bowersock, Ch. 8 : The Puritanical Pagan, p, 83
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
3 months 2 weeks ago
There is no cure for birth...

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.

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"War Shrines"
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
As the years pass, the number...

As the years pass, the number of those we can communicate with diminishes. When there is no longer anyone to talk to, at last we will be as we were before stooping to a name.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
3 months 2 weeks ago
Having destroyed the social power of...

Having destroyed the social power of the nobility and the guildmasters, the bourgeois also destroyed their political power. Having raised itself to the actual position of first class in society, it proclaims itself to be also the dominant political class. This it does through the introduction of the representative system which rests on bourgeois equality before the law and the recognition of free competition, and in European countries takes the form of constitutional monarchy. In these constitutional monarchies, only those who possess a certain capital are voters - that is to say, only members of the bourgeoisie. These bourgeois voters choose the deputies, and these bourgeois deputies, by using their right to refuse to vote taxes, choose a bourgeois government.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
The premonition of madness is complicated...

The premonition of madness is complicated by the fear of lucidity in madness, the fear of the moments of return and reunion, when the intuition of disaster is so painful that it almost provokes a greater madness. One would welcome chaos if one were not afraid of lights in it.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
4 months 3 weeks ago
The good King of France desires...

The good King of France desires only that you would take his word and let him be quiet till he has got the West Indies into his hands and his grandson well established in Spain, and then you may be sure you shall be as safe as he will let you be in your religion, property and trade, to all which who can be such an infidel as not to believe him a great friend?

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Letter to Peter King (5 April 1701), quoted in Maurice Cranston, John Locke: A Biography (1957; 1985), p. 452
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
3 weeks 2 days ago
At every moment of crisis an...

At every moment of crisis an array of men risk their lives in the front ranks as standard-bearers of God to fight and take upon themselves the whole responsibility of the battle. Once long ago it was the priests, the kings, the noblemen, or the burghers who created civilizations and set divinity free. Today God is the common worker made savage by toil and rage and hunger

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
When I found myself regarded as...

When I found myself regarded as respectable, I began to wonder what sins I had committed. I must be very wicked, I thought. I began to engage in the most uncomfortable introspection. Interview with Irwin Ross, September 1957;If there were a God, I think it very unlikely that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt his existence.

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Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell (2005), p. 385
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
2 months ago
Ichthyophils imagine that human beings want...

Ichthyophils imagine that human beings want a life in which they can make their own choices. But what if they can be fulfilled only by a life in which they follow each other? The majority who obey the fashion of the day may be acting on a secret awareness that they lack the potential for a truly individual existence. Liberalism - the ichthyophil variety, at any rate - teaches that everyone yearns to be free. Herzen's experience of the abortive European revolutions of 1848 led him to doubt that this was so. It was because of his disillusionment that he criticized Mill so sharply. But if it is true that Mill was deluded in thinking that everyone loves freedom, it may also be true that without this illusion there would be still less freedom in the world. The charm of a liberal way of life is that it enables most people to renounce their freedom unknowingly.

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An Old Chaos: Ichthyophils and Liberals (p. 62)
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
3 months 2 weeks ago
Even to-day, in spite of some...

Even to-day, in spite of some signs which are making a tiny breach in that sturdy faith, even to-day, there are few men who doubt that motorcars will in five years' time be more comfortable and cheaper than to-day. They believe in this as they believe that the sun will rise in the morning. The metaphor is an exact one. For, in fact, the common man, finding himself in a world so excellent, technically and socially, believes that it has been produced by nature, and never thinks of the personal efforts of highly-endowed individuals which the creation of this new world presupposed. Still less will he admit the notion that all these facilities still require the support of certain difficult human virtues, the least failure of which would cause the rapid disappearance of the whole magnificent edifice.... These traits together make up the well-known psychology of the spoilt child. Chap.

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VI: The Dissection Of The Mass-Man Begins
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
2 months 1 week ago
Try to learn something about everything...

Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.

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A favourite comment, inscribed on his memorial at Ealing, quoted in Nature Vol. XLVI (30 October 1902), p. 658
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
4 months 3 weeks ago
Most human beings have an almost...

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.

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"Variations on a Philosopher" in Themes and Variations, 1950
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 3 weeks ago
The wraith of Sigmund said. "You...

The wraith of Sigmund said. "You know what this is, I suppose. Religious melancholia. Stop while there is time. If you dive, you dive into insanity."

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Pilgrim's Regress 168
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
The only thing that will redeem...

The only thing that will redeem mankind is co-operation, and the first step towards co-operation lies in the hearts of individuals.

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p. 212
Philosophical Maxims
Leszek Kołakowski
Leszek Kołakowski
1 month 2 weeks ago
... Marx and Bakunin were engaged...

... Marx and Bakunin were engaged in a conflict in which it is hard to distinguish political from personal animosities. Marx did his best to persuade everybody that Bakunin was only using the International for his private ends, and in March 1870 he circulated a confidential letter to this effect. He also saw the hand of Bakunin (whom he never met after 1864) on every occasion when his own policies were opposed in the International. Bakunin, for his part, not only combated Marx's political programme but, as he often wrote, regarded Marx as a disloyal, revengeful man, obsessed with power and determined to impose his own despotic authority on the whole revolutionary movement. Marx, he said, had all the merits and defects of the Jewish character; he was highly intelligent and deeply read, but an inveterate doctrinaire and fantastically vain, an intriguer and morbidly envious of all who, like Lassalle, had cut a more important figure than himself in public life.

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(pp. 247-8)
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
4 months 2 weeks ago
In everything well known something worthy...

In everything well known something worthy of thought still lurks.

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p. xxxix
Philosophical Maxims
Antonio Negri
Antonio Negri
1 month 2 weeks ago
It is a commonplace of the...

It is a commonplace of the classical literature on Empire, from Polybius to Montesquieu and Gibbon, that Empire is from its inception decadent and corrupt.

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201
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 months 3 weeks ago
Truth is ... one approach to...

Truth is ... one approach to the attainment of the good, but in and of itself, it is neither the good nor the beautiful ... Socrates, Pascal, and others regarded knowledge of the truth with regard to purposeless objects as incongruous with the good ... by exposing deception, truth destroys illusion, which is the principle attribute of beauty.

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Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
4 months 1 week ago
Thou shouldst not become presumptuous through...

Thou shouldst not become presumptuous through great connections and race; for in the end thy trust is on thine own deeds.

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(p. 60)
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 months 3 weeks ago
To be good and lead a...

To be good and lead a good life means to give to others more than one takes from them.

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Ch. VII
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
4 months 3 weeks ago
What interest, zest, or excitement can...

What interest, zest, or excitement can there be in achieving the right way, unless we are enabled to feel that the wrong way is also a possible and a natural way, - nay, more, a menacing and an imminent way? And what sense can there be in condemning ourselves for taking the wrong way, unless we need have done nothing of the sort, unless the right way was open to us as well? I cannot understand the willingness to act, no matter how we feel, without the belief that acts are really good and bad.

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The Dilemma of Determinism, 1884
Philosophical Maxims
Antonio Negri
Antonio Negri
1 month 2 weeks ago
The refusal of work and authority,...

The refusal of work and authority, or really the refusal of voluntary servitude, is the beginning of liberatory politics.

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204
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1 month 2 weeks ago
When young, one is confident to...

When young, one is confident to be able to build palaces for mankind, but when the time comes one has one's hands full just to be able to remove their trash.

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Letter to Johann Kaspar Lavatar
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks 4 days ago
Man is condemned...
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Main Content / General
Antonio Negri
Antonio Negri
1 month 2 weeks ago
Reality and history, however, are not...

Reality and history, however, are not dialectical, and no idealist rhetorical gymnastics can make them conform to the dialect.

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131
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 3 weeks ago
For man holds his ground only...

For man holds his ground only by surpassing himself, in the same sense in which it is said that one ceases to love if one does not love increasingly everyday.

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p. 238
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
3 months 5 days ago
All men are in need of...

All men are in need of help and depend on one another. Human solidarity is the necessary condition for the unfolding of any one individual.

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Ch. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
4 months 3 weeks ago
It appears, accordingly, from the experience...

It appears, accordingly, from the experience of all ages and nations, I believe, that the work done by freemen comes cheaper in the end than that performed by slaves.

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Chapter VIII.
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 3 weeks ago
Heroism feels and never reasons and...

Heroism feels and never reasons and therefore is always right.

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Heroism
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
5 months 3 weeks ago
Magister Adler was deeply moved by...

Magister Adler was deeply moved by something higher, but now when he wants to express his thoughts in words, wants to communicate, he confuses the subjective with the objective, his altered subjective state with an external event, the dawning of a light upon him with the coming into existence of something new outside him, the falling of the veil from his eyes with his having had a revelation. Subjectively his emotion is carried to the extreme; he wants to select the most powerful expression to describe it and by means of a mental deception grasps the objective qualification: having had a revelation.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
3 months 2 weeks ago
It is a universal revolution and...

It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
4 months 3 weeks ago
It is an odd circumstance that...

It is an odd circumstance that neither the old nor the new, by itself, is interesting; the absolutely old is insipid; the absolutely new makes no appeal at all. The old in the new is what claims the attention,-the old with a slightly new turn.

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Chapter XI: Attention
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
5 months 1 day ago
All seed except Mary was vitiated...

All seed except Mary was vitiated [by original sin].

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Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works, English translation edited by J. Pelikan [Concordia: St. Louis], Vol. 11, WA, 39, II:107
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
2 months 1 week ago
There were gentlemen and there were...

There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles II. But the seamen were not gentlemen, and the gentlemen were not seamen.

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Vol. I, ch. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
4 months 1 week ago
Satisfaction linked with dishonor or with...

Satisfaction linked with dishonor or with harm to others is a prison for the seeker.

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Vahishto-Ishti Gatha; Yasna 53, 6.
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 3 weeks ago
All human activities are equivalent ......

All human activities are equivalent ... and ... all are on principle doomed to failure.

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Conclusion, II
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
5 months 1 week ago
Though absent from our eyes, Christ...

Though absent from our eyes, Christ our Head is bound to us by love. Since the whole Christ is Head and body, let us so listen to the voice of the Head that we may also hear the body speak.He no more wished to speak alone than He wished to exist alone, since He says: Behold, I am with you all days, unto the consummation of the world (Matt. 28:20). If He is with us, then He speaks in us, He speaks of us, and He speaks through us; and we too speak in Him.

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pp. 420-421
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
3 months 1 week ago
If the result of a war...

If the result of a war is to change nothing, but only to destroy, with the mere result that a group of human beings who do not differ notably from the conquered acquires preponderant advantages for the future, there is lacking the affective strength of an existence that has inspired faith, of an existence whose destiny would have been decided by the war.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 2 weeks ago
Elias truly shall first come, and...

Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them.

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17:11-12 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 months 6 days ago
Society creates the victims that it...

Society creates the victims that it afterwards vainly attempts to get rid of.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 weeks 6 days ago
A little time, and thou shalt...

A little time, and thou shalt close thy eyes; and him who has attended thee to thy grave, another soon will lament.

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X, 34
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
4 months 3 weeks ago
The defiance of established authority, religious...

The defiance of established authority, religious and secular, social and political, as a world-wide phenomenon may well one day be accounted the outstanding event of the last decade.

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"Civil Disobedience"
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 1 week ago
"God does not think, He creates;...

"God does not think, He creates; He does not exist, He is eternal," wrote Kierkegaard (Afslutende uvidenskabelige Efterskrift); but perhaps it is more exact to say with Mazzini, the mystic of the Italian city, that "God is great because his thought is action" (Ai giovani d'Italila), because with Him to think is to create, and He gives existence to that which exists in His thought by the mere fact of thinking it, and the impossible is unthinkable by God. It is not written in the Scriptures that God creates with His word - that is to say, with His thought - and that by this, by His Word, He made everything that exists? And what God has once made does He ever forget? May it not be that all the thoughts that have ever passed through the Supreme Consciousness still subsist therein? In Him, who is eternal, is not all existence eternalized?

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months 3 weeks ago
The soldier is applauded who refuses...

The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war; is applauded by those whose own act and authority he disregards and sets at naught; as if the state were penitent to that degree that it hired one to scourge it while it sinned, but not to that degree that it left off sinning for a moment.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
There is something feeble and a...

There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dare not face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not rational, he becomes furious when they are disputed.

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p. 219-220
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 1 week ago
If you would not have a...

If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 3 weeks ago
I have been quoted as saying...

I have been quoted as saying captious things about travel; but I mean to do justice. I think, there is a restlessness in our people, which argues want of character. All educated Americans, first or last, go to Europe; - perhaps, because it is their mental home, as the invalid habits of this country might suggest. An eminent teacher of girls said, "the idea of a girl's education, is, whatever qualifies them for going to Europe." Can we never extract this tape-worm of Europe from the brain of our countrymen?

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Culture
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 months 6 days ago
No sacrifice is lost for a...

No sacrifice is lost for a great ideal!

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(p. 135)
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
3 weeks 2 days ago
An hereditary chief, strictly limited, the...

An hereditary chief, strictly limited, the right of war vested in the legislative body, a rigid economy of the public contributions, and absolute interdiction of all useless expenses, will go far towards keeping the government honest and unoppressive. But the only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted, when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure.

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Letter to Marquis de la Fayette (November 4, 1823); in: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Memorial Edition (ME) (Lipscomb and Bergh, editors), 20 Vols., Washington, D.C., 1903-04, Volume 15, page 491
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
4 months 1 week ago
I do not believe that the...

I do not believe that the source of value is unitary - displaying apparent multiplicity only in its application to the world. I believe that value has fundamentally different kinds of sources, and that they are reflected in the classification of values into types. Not all values represent the pursuit of some single good in a variety of settings.

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"The Fragmentation of Value" (1977), pp. 131-132.
Philosophical Maxims
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