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John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 2 weeks ago
The object of this Essay is...

The object of this Essay is to explain as clearly as I am able grounds of an opinion which I have held from the very earliest period when I had formed any opinions at all on social political matters, and which, instead of being weakened or modified, has been constantly growing stronger by the progress reflection and the experience of life. That the principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes - the legal subordination of one sex to the other - is wrong itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.

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Ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 2 weeks ago
First of all: what is work?...

First of all: what is work? Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.

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Ch. 1: In Praise of Idleness
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
2 months 1 week ago
So our self-feeling in this world...

So our self-feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do.

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Ch. 10
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
1 week 6 days ago
In life, in true life, there...

In life, in true life, there can be nothing better than what is. Wanting something different than what is, is blasphemy.

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p. 209
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
2 months 3 days ago
I would rather discover one cause...

I would rather discover one cause than gain the kingdom of Persia.

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Freeman (1948), p. 155
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 2 weeks ago
I do not think that the...

I do not think that the real reason why people accept religion has anything to do with argumentation. They accept religion on emotional grounds. One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it.

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"The Emotional Factor"
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
2 months 1 week ago
Pretend what we may, the whole...

Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. Intellect, will, taste, and passion co-operate just as they do in practical affairs; and lucky it is if the passion be not something as petty as a love of personal conquest over the philosopher across the way.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
2 months 1 week ago
Every way of classifying a thing...

Every way of classifying a thing is but a way of handling it for some particular purpose.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 1 week ago
The humans live in time but...

The humans live in time but our Enemy (God) destines them for eternity.

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Letter XV
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
2 months 3 weeks ago
It cannot be that axioms established...

It cannot be that axioms established by argumentation should avail for the discovery of new works, since the subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of argument. But axioms duly and orderly formed from particulars easily discover the way to new particulars, and thus render sciences active.

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Aphorism 24
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 6 days ago
Why do ye also transgress the...

Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

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15:3-9 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 1 week ago
The past is the luxury of...

The past is the luxury of proprietors.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
1 month 5 days ago
No work of art can be...

No work of art can be instantaneously perceived because there is the no opportunity for conservation and increase in tension, and hence none for that release and unfolding which gives volume to a work of art.

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p. 189
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
2 months 2 weeks ago
Virtue is a state of war…

Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it means one always has some battle to wage against oneself.

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Julie ou la Nouvelle Héloïse (French), Sixième partie, Lettre VII Réponse (1761) Julie, or The New Heloise (English), Part Six, Letter VII Response, pg 560
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 2 weeks ago
Two men who differ as to...

Two men who differ as to the ends of life cannot hope to agree about education.

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Ch. 12: Education and Discipline
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 2 weeks ago
I would rather sleep in the...

I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard, than in the tombs of the Capulets.

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Letter to Matthew Smith
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
3 months 3 days ago
Before you embark on a journey...

Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.

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Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
3 months 3 days ago
Pleasure, or pain, is not only...

Pleasure, or pain, is not only good, or evil, in itself, but the measure of what is good or evil, in every object of desire or aversion; for the ultimate reason why we pursue one thing, and avoid another, is because we expect pleasure from the former, and apprehend pain from the latter. If we sometimes decline a present pleasure, it is not because we are averse to pleasure itself, but because we conceive, that in the present instance, it will be necessarily connected with a greater pain. In like manner, if we sometimes voluntarily submit to a present pain, it is because we judge that it is necessarily connected with a greater pleasure.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 1 week ago
A novel is never anything but...

A novel is never anything but a philosophy put into images. And in a good novel, the whole of the philosophy has passed into the images. But if once the philosophy overflows the characters and action, and therefore looks like a label stuck on the work, the plot loses its authenticity and the novel its life. Nevertheless, a work that is to last cannot dispense with profound ideas. And this secret fusion between experiences and ideas, between life and reflection on the meaning of life, is what makes the great novelist.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 1 week ago
I am sitting with a...

I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again "I know that that's a tree", pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell them: "This fellow isn't insane. We are only doing philosophy."

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Philosophical Maxims
Porphyry
Porphyry
1 month 3 weeks ago
Every body is in place; but...

Every body is in place; but nothing essentially incorporeal, or any thing of this kind, has any locality.

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
2 months 2 weeks ago
I opened with that which good...

I opened with that which good Catholics have more than once made to Huguenots. "My dear sir," said I, "were you ever baptized?" "No, friend," replied the Quaker, "nor any of my brethren." "Zounds!" said I to him, "you are not Christians then!" "Friend," replied the old man, in a soft tone of voice, "do not swear; we are Christians, but we do not think that sprinkling a few drops of water on a child's head makes him a Christian." "My God!" exclaimed I, shocked at his impiety, "have you then forgotten that Christ was baptized by St. John?" "Friend," replied the mild Quaker, "once again, do not swear. Christ was baptized by John, but He Himself never baptized any one; now we profess ourselves disciples of Christ, and not of John." "Mercy on us," cried I, "what a fine subject you would be for the holy inquisitor! In the name of God, my good old man, let me baptize you."

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Voltaire's account of his conversations with Andrew Pit
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
1 week 6 days ago
The peculiar and amusing nature of...

The peculiar and amusing nature of those answers stems from the fact that modern history is like a deaf person who is in the habit of answering questions that no one has put to them. If the purpose of history be to give a description of the movement of humanity and of the peoples, the first question - in the absence of a reply to which all the rest will be incomprehensible - is: what is the power that moves peoples? To this, modern history laboriously replies either that Napoleon was a great genius, or that Louis XIV was very proud, or that certain writers wrote certain books. All that may be so and mankind is ready to agree with it, but it is not what was asked.

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Vol 2, pt 5, p 236 - Selected Works, Moscow, 1869
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 weeks 6 days ago
Now, obviously, the human race is...

Now, obviously, the human race is on the point of an extremely interesting evolutionary development. The first step towards escape from this vicious circle is to recognize that the apparent "ordinariness" of the world is a delusion. If we could become deeply and permanently convinced that the world "out there" is endlessly exciting, we would never again allow ourselves to become trapped in the swamp of "taken-for-grantedness". And we would become practically unkillable. Shaw says of his "Ancients" in Back to Methuselah "Even in the moment of death, their life does not fail them". "Life failure" is that feeling that there is nothing new under the sun, and that we all have to accept defeat in the end. If we could learn the mental trick of causing the dynamo to accelerate, this illusion would never again be able to exert its power over us.

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p. 14
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 2 weeks ago
Capacity for the nobler feelings is...

Capacity for the nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by the mere want of sustenance; and in the majority of young persons it speedily dies away if the occupations to which their position in life has devoted them, and the society into which it has thrown them, are not favourable to keeping that higher capacity in existence.

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Ch. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 6 days ago
Who is my mother? and who...

Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.

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12:48-50 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 2 weeks ago
Fear not, then, thou child infirm,...

Fear not, then, thou child infirm, There's no god dare wrong a worm.

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Compensation, st. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
1 month 6 days ago
The will is a unity of...

The will is a unity of two different aspects or moments: first, the individual's ability to abstract from every specific condition and, by negating it, to return to the absolute liberty of the pure ego; secondly, the individual's act of freely adopting a concrete condition, freely affirming his existence as a particular, limited ego.

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P. 185
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
1 month 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
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 6 days ago
The sun will be darkened, and...

The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory... I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.

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24:29-34 (NIV)
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 1 week ago
Make sure that your religion is...

Make sure that your religion is a matter between you and God only.

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Comment to Maurice O'Connor Drury, as quoted in Wittgenstein Reads Freud : The Myth of the Unconscious (1996) by Jacques Bouveresse, as translated by Carol Cosman, p. 14
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
1 month 2 weeks ago
Not only does democracy make every...

Not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but also clouds their view of their descendants and isolates them from their contemporaries. Each man is for ever thrown back on himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart.

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Book Two, Chapter II.
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
1 month 1 week ago
The will is the living principle...

The will is the living principle of the rational soul, is indeed itself reason, when purely and simply apprehended. That reason is itself active, means, that the pure will, as such, rules and is effectual. The infinite reason alone lies immediately and entirely in the purely spiritual order. The finite being lives necessarily at the same time in a sensuous order; that is to say, in one which presents to him other objects than those of pure reason; a material object, to be advanced by instruments and powers, standing indeed under the immediate command of the will, but whose efficacy is conditional also on its own natural laws.

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Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p.104
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 weeks 6 days ago
The "passion for incredulity" can produce...

The "passion for incredulity" can produce as much self-deception as the uncritical will to believe.

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p. 209
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 2 weeks ago
An extra-terrestrial philosopher, who had watched...

An extra-terrestrial philosopher, who had watched a single youth up to the age of twenty-one and had never come across any other human being, might conclude that it is the nature of human beings to grow continually taller and wiser in an indefinite progress towards perfection; and this generalisation would be just as well founded as the generalisation which evolutionists base upon the previous history of this planet.

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Ch. 6: On the Scientific Method in Philosophy.Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for co-operation with oneself.
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 6 days ago
Can the children of the bridechamber...

Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast. No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse. Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.

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9:15-17 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
2 months 1 week ago
The only knowledge that can truly...

The only knowledge that can truly orient action is knowledge that frees itself from mere human interests and is based in Ideas-in other words knowledge that has taken a theoretical attitude.

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p. 301
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
2 months 3 weeks ago
It might be wiser for me...

It might be wiser for me to avoid Camarina and say nothing of theologians. They are a proud, susceptible race. They will smother me under six hundred dogmas. They will call me heretic and bring thunderbolts out of their arsenals, where they keep whole magazines of them for their enemies. Still they are Folly's servants, though they disown their mistress. They live in the third heaven, adoring their own persons and disdaining the poor crawlers upon earth. They are surrounded with a bodyguard of definitions, conclusions, corollaries, propositions explicit, and propositions implicit. ...They will tell you how the world was created. They will show you the crack where Sin crept in and corrupted mankind.

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as quoted by James Anthony Froude, Life and Letters of Erasmus: Lectures Delivered at Oxford 1893-4
Philosophical Maxims
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
1 month 4 days ago
Machiavelli is the complete contrary of...

Machiavelli is the complete contrary of a machiavellian, since he describes the tricks of power and "gives the whole show away." The seducer and the politician, who live in the dialectic and have a feeling and instinct for it, try their best to keep it hidden.

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p. 59
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 1 week ago
One does not inhabit a country;...

One does not inhabit a country; one inhabits a language. That is our country, our fatherland - and no other. Variant translation: We inhabit a language rather than a country.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 months 2 weeks ago
Intellect is invisible to the man...

Intellect is invisible to the man who has none.

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Our Relation to Others, § 23
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 months 1 week ago
At least two thirds of our...

At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice, and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.

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Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, 1952
Philosophical Maxims
Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard
1 month 6 days ago
A man is a man to...

A man is a man to the extent that he is a superman. A man should be defined by the sum of those tendencies which impel him to surpass the human condition.

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Introduction
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 weeks 6 days ago
One gloomy and pessimistic writer with...

One gloomy and pessimistic writer with a powerful style affects a whole generation of writers, who in turn affect almost every educated person in the country.

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p. 79
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 month 3 weeks ago
Tell not abroad what thou intendest...

Tell not abroad what thou intendest to do; for if thou speed not, thou shalt be mocked!

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 2 weeks ago
Any man more right than his...

Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
1 month 2 weeks ago
There is something beautiful about virtue,...

There is something beautiful about virtue, Captain. But I am just a poor guy.

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Scene VI.
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks 4 days ago
But the individual....
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Main Content / General
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
4 weeks ago
Whether or no it be for...

Whether or no it be for the general good, life is robbery. It is at this point that with life morals become acute. The robber requires justification.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 week 4 days ago
Violence is the effort to maintain...

Violence is the effort to maintain and restore a weakened psyche.

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(p. 377)
Philosophical Maxims
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