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Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
5 months 1 week ago
The question of the principle of...

The question of the principle of the form of the intelligible world turns, therefore, upon making apparent in what manner it is possible for several substances to be in mutual commerce, and for this reason to pertain to the same whole, which is called world. We do not here consider the world, let it be understood, as to matter, that is, as to the nature of the substances of which it consists, whether they be material or immaterial, but as to form, that is to say, how among several things taken separately a connection, and among them all, totality can have place.

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Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
1 month 6 days ago
The teachers are everywhere. What is...

The teachers are everywhere. What is wanted is a learner.

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"Healing"
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
5 months 2 days ago
What I give is the morphology...

What I give is the morphology of the use of an expression. I show that it has kinds of uses of which you had not dreamed. In philosophy one feels forced to look at a concept in a certain way. What I do is suggest, or even invent, other ways of looking at it. I suggest possibilities of which you had not previously thought. You thought that there was one possibility, or only two at most. But I made you think of others. Furthermore, I made you see that it was absurd to expect the concept to conform to those narrow possibilities. Thus your mental cramp is relieved, and you are free to look around the field of use of the expression and to describe the different kinds of uses of it.

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Lectures of 1946 - 1947, as quoted in Ludwig Wittgenstein : A Memoir (1966) by Norman Malcolm, p. 43
Philosophical Maxims
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee
2 months 2 weeks ago
I cannot think of any circumstances...

I cannot think of any circumstances in which advertising would not be an evil.

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In David Ogilvy, Confessions of an Advertising Man (New York: Atheneum, 1963) ch. 11
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
4 months 6 days ago
The blindness of those who think...

The blindness of those who think it absurd to suppose that complex organic forms may have arisen by successive modifications out of simple ones becomes astonishing when we remember that complex organic forms are daily being thus produced. A tree differs from a seed immeasurably in every respect... Yet is the one changed in the course of a few years into the other: changed so gradually, that at no moment can it be said - Now the seed ceases to be, and the tree exists.

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
5 months 3 weeks 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
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
3 months 2 weeks ago
The progressive world is necessarily divided...

The progressive world is necessarily divided into two classes - those who take the best of what there is and enjoy it - those who wish for something better and try to create it. Without these two classes the world would be badly off. They are the very conditions of progress, both the one and the other. Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.

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Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
4 months 3 weeks ago
Not from fear but from a...

Not from fear but from a sense of duty refrain from your sins.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
5 months 6 days ago
Most people live, whether physically, intellectually...

Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness, and of their soul's resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger. Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.

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To W. Lutoslawski, 5/6/1906
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
5 months 3 weeks ago
One who liberates his country by...

One who liberates his country by killing a tyrant is to be praised and rewarded.

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Trans. J.G. Dawson (Oxford, 1959), 44, 2 in O’Donovan, pp. 329-30
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
4 months 2 days ago
The entire universe is perfused with...

The entire universe is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs.

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Quoted in Essays in Zoosemiotics (1990) by Thomas A. Sebeok
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 1 week ago
Being doesn't know...

Being doesn't know.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
3 months 3 weeks ago
The general fellowship of our human...

The general fellowship of our human situation has been rendered even more dubious than before, inasmuch as, though the old ties of caste have been loosened, a new restriction of the individual to some prescribed status in society is manifest. Less than ever, perhaps, is it possible for a man to transcend the limitations imposed by his social origins.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 months 2 weeks ago
The outsider, Haller says, is a...

The outsider, Haller says, is a self-divided man; being self-divided, his chief desire is to be unified. He is selfish as a man with a lifelong raging toothache.

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Chapter Three, The Romantic Outsider
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
5 months 5 days ago
I exist, that is all, and...

I exist, that is all, and I find it nauseating.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin
3 months 4 weeks ago
If, as I believe, the ends...

If, as I believe, the ends of men are many, and not all of them are in principle compatible with each other, then the possibility of conflict - and of tragedy - can never wholly be eliminated from human life, either personal or social. The necessity of choosing between absolute claims is then an inescapable characteristic of the human condition. This gives its value to freedom as Acton conceived of it - as an end in itself, and not as a temporary need, arising out of our confused notions and irrational and disordered lives, a predicament which a panacea could one day put right.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 month 3 days ago
As thou thyself art a component...

As thou thyself art a component part of a social system, so let every act of thine be a component part of social life. Whatever act of thine that has no reference, either immediately or remotely, to a social end, this tears asunder thy life, and does not allow it to be one, and it is of the nature of a mutiny, just as when in a popular assembly a man acting by himself stands apart from the general agreement.

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IX, 23
Philosophical Maxims
William Whewell
William Whewell
1 month 6 days ago
The Process of Induction may be...

The Process of Induction may be resolved into three steps ; the 'Selection of the Idea', the 'Construction of the Conception', and the 'Determination of the Magnitudes'. These three steps correspond to the determination of the 'Independent Variable', the 'formula', and the 'coefficients', in mathematical investigations; or to the 'Argument', the 'Law', and the 'Numerical Data', in a Table of an Inequality. The conceptions involved in scientific truths have attained the requisite degree of clearness by means of the Discussions respecting ideas which have taken place among discoverers and their followers. Such discussions are very far from being unprofitable

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Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
4 months 1 week ago
Shakespeare's fault is not the greatest...

Shakespeare's fault is not the greatest into which a poet may fall. It merely indicates a deficiency of taste.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
5 months 2 days ago
To obey a rule, to make...

To obey a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of chess, are customs.

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(uses, institutions) § 199
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 6 days ago
United States! the ages plead, -...

United States! the ages plead, - Present and Past in under-song, - Go put your creed into your deed, Nor speak with double tongue.

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Ode, st. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
5 months 1 day ago
He who is subjected to a...

He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection.

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Part Three, Panopticism
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 4 weeks ago
Whoever drinks from my mouth will...

Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me; I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to him.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 2 days ago
By all evidence we are in...

By all evidence we are in the world to do nothing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
3 months 2 weeks ago
I believe in the possible realization...

I believe in the possible realization of a world in which man can be much, even if he has little; a world in which the dominant motivation of existence is not consumption; a world in which "man" is the end, first and last; a world in which man can find the way of giving a purpose to his life as well as the strength to live free and without illusions.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
5 months 1 week ago
Human nature is not a machine...

Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.

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Ch. III: Of Individuality, As One of the Elements of Well-Being
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
5 months 2 weeks ago
Books must follow sciences, and not...

Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.

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Proposition touching Amendment of Laws
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
6 months 3 days ago
Capital punishment is the most premeditated...

Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated, can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date on which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not to be encountered in private life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 6 days ago
There is no knowledge that is...

There is no knowledge that is not power.

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Old Age
Philosophical Maxims
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
1 month 2 days ago
Violated, dishonored, wading in blood, dripping...

Violated, dishonored, wading in blood, dripping filth - there stands bourgeois society. This is it [in reality]. Not all spic and span and moral, with pretense to culture, philosophy, ethics, order, peace, and the rule of law - but the ravening beast, the witches' sabbath of anarchy, a plague to culture and humanity. Thus it reveals itself in its true, its naked form.

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Ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes
3 months 3 weeks ago
The politician being interviewed clearly takes...

The politician being interviewed clearly takes a great deal of trouble to imagine an ending to his sentence: and if he stopped short? His entire policy would be jeopardized!

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Sentence, in The Pleasure of the Text
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
4 months 1 week ago
All is in a man's hands...

All is in a man's hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that's an axiom. It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most. Variant translation: "Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most."

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 4 days ago
I think the devil...
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Main Content / General
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
5 months 2 weeks ago
A theologian is born by living,...

A theologian is born by living, nay dying and being damned, not by thinking, reading, or speculating.

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352
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
5 months 5 days ago
We all want progress. But progress...

We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.

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Book I, Chapter 5, "We Have Cause to Be Uneasy"
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
5 months 1 week ago
Fire is the most tolerable third...

Fire is the most tolerable third party.

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January 2, 1853
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
3 months 4 weeks ago
And Beasts that have Deliberation, must...

And Beasts that have Deliberation, must necessarily also have Will.

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The First Part, Chapter 6, p. 28
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
3 weeks 5 days ago
I lie on the beach...

I lie on the beach like a crocodile and let myself be roasted by the sun. I never see a newspaper and don't give a damn for what is called the world.

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Letter to Max Born, 1918, from The Born-Einstein Letters: Friendship, Politics and Physics in Uncertain Times, Macmillan (2005 edition), pg 7.
Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
3 months 2 weeks ago
It is obvious that many women...

It is obvious that many women have appropriated feminism to serve their own ends, especially those white women who have been at the forefront of the movement; but rather than resigning myself to this appropriation I choose to re-appropriate the term "feminism," to focus on the fact that to be "feminist" in any authentic sense of the term is to want for all people, female and male, liberation from sexist role patterns, domination, and oppression.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 3 weeks ago
One of those leaders of what...

One of those leaders of what they call the social revolution has said that religion is the opiate of the people. Opium...opium...opium, yes. Let us give them opium so that they can sleep and dream.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
3 months 2 weeks ago
What is called an acute knowledge...

What is called an acute knowledge of human nature is mostly nothing but the observer's own weaknesses reflected back from others.

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G 7
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 3 weeks ago
Adversity is sometimes hard upon a...

Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity. (Often shortened to "can't stand prosperity" as an unknown quote).

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
1 month 2 weeks ago
The way to true mysticism leads...

The way to true mysticism leads up through rational thought to deep experience of the world and of our will-to-live. We must all venture once more to be "thinkers," so as to reach mysticism, which is the only direct and the only profound world-view. We must all wander in the field of knowledge to the point where knowledge passes over into experience of the world. We must all, through thought, become religious.This rational thought must become the prevailing force among us, for all the valuable ideas that we need develop out of it. In no other fire than that of the mysticism of reverence for life can the broken sword of idealism be forged anew.

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Philosophical Maxims
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam
3 months 2 weeks ago
To me it seems clear that...

To me it seems clear that the descriptions of human life we find in the novels of Tolstoy or George Eliot are not mere entertainment; they teach us to perceive what goes on in social and individual life. And such descriptions require the many subtle distinctions that ordinary language has made available to us. The question of the relevance or irrelevance of "how we speak" is not just a question for philosophers, although it is that too. It is a question for philosophers because once ordinary language is laughed out of the room, philosophical theories are no longer held responsible at all to the ways we actually speak and actually live; but it is a question for more than just philosophers because, at bottom, contempt for ordinary language is contempt for all the humanities.

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"Science and Philosophy"
Philosophical Maxims
Joseph de Maistre
Joseph de Maistre
1 month 4 days ago
The Constitution of 1795, like its...

The Constitution of 1795, like its predecessors, was made for man. But there is no such thing as man in the world. In my lifetime I have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, etc.; thanks to Montesquieu, I even know that one can be Persian. But as for man, I declare that I have never in my life met him; if he exists, he is unknown to me.

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Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
5 months 1 week ago
The perfection of a thing does...

The perfection of a thing does not annul its existence, but, on the contrary, asserts it. Imperfection, on the other hand, does annul it ; therefore we cannot be more certain of the existence of anything, than of the existence of a being absolutely infinite or perfect-that is, of God. For inasmuch as his essence excludes all imperfection, and involves absolute perfection, all cause for doubt concerning his existence is done away, and the utmost certainty on the question is given. This, I think, will be evident to every moderately attentive reader.

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Part I, Prop. XI
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 months 6 days ago
To recognize this clearly is enough...

To recognize this clearly is enough to drive a man out of his senses or to make him shoot himself. And this is just what does happen, and especially often among military men. A man need only come to himself for an instant to be impelled inevitably to such an end.

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Chapter V, Contradiction Between our Life and our Christian Conscience
Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
1 month 6 days ago
Love the quick profit, the annual...

Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay. Want more of everything ready-made. Be afraid to know your neighbors and to die. And you will have a window in your head. Not even your future will be a mystery any more. Your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer. When they want you to buy something they will call you. When they want you to die for profit they will let you know. So, friends, every day do somethingthat won't compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor.Love someone who does not deserve it. Denounce the government and embracethe flag. Hope to live in that freerepublic for which it stands. Give your approval to all you cannotunderstand. Praise ignorance, for what manhas not encountered he has not destroyed.

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"Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" in Farming: A Hand Book
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 2 days ago
Skepticism is an exercise in defascination.

Skepticism is an exercise in defascination.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 6 days ago
A man contains all that is...

A man contains all that is needful to his government within himself. He is made a law unto himself. All real good or evil that can befal him must be from himself. He only can do himself any good or any harm. Nothing can be given to him or can taken from him but always there is a compensation.. There is a correspondence between the human soul and everything that exists in the world; more properly, everything that is known to man. Instead of studying things without the principles of them, all may be penetrated unto with him. Every act puts the agent in a new position. The purpose of life seems to be to acquaint a man with himself. He is not to live the future as described to him but to live the real future to the real present. The highest revelation is that God is in every man.

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September 8, 1833
Philosophical Maxims
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