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Confucius
Confucius
5 months 1 week ago
Before you embark on a journey...

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

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
4 months 3 weeks ago
It is sometimes said….

It is sometimes said, common sense is very rare.

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Philosophical Dictionary ('Sens Commun') (1767). Compare Juvenal, Satires, viii:73: Original Latin: rarus enim ferme sensus communis in illa fortuna.
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
5 months 3 weeks ago
Universal is known according to reason,...

Universal is known according to reason, but that which is particular, according to sense...

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
Beware of thinkers whose minds function...

Beware of thinkers whose minds function only when they are fueled by a quotation.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leszek Kołakowski
Leszek Kołakowski
1 month 2 weeks ago
We sometimes imagine, under the influence...

We sometimes imagine, under the influence of Spenglerian philosophy or some other kind of "historical morphology," that we live in a similar age [to the Romans], the last witnesses of a condemned civilization. But condemned by whom? Not by God, but by some supposed "historical laws." For although we do not know any historical laws, we are in fact able of inventing them quite freely, and such laws, once invented, can then be realized in the form of self-fulfilling prophecies.

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Looking for the Barbarians
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 months 6 days ago
The methods of coping with crime...

The methods of coping with crime have no doubt undergone several changes, but mainly in a theoretic sense. In practice, society has retained the primitive motive in dealing with the offender; that is, revenge.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months 3 weeks ago
I am not sure but I...

I am not sure but I should betake myself in extremities to the liberal divinities of Greece, rather than to my country's God. Jehovah, though with us he has acquired new attributes, is more absolute and unapproachable, but hardly more divine, than Jove. He is not so much of a gentleman, not so gracious and catholic, he does not exert so intimate and genial an influence on nature, as many a god of the Greeks.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 months 3 weeks ago
The precise reason why abstinence from...

The precise reason why abstinence from animal food will be the first act ... of a moral life is admirably explained in the book, The Ethics of Diet [by Howard Williams]; and not by one man only, but by all mankind in the persons of its best representatives during all the conscious life of humanity. ... the moral progress of humanity - which is the foundation of every other kind of progress - is always slow; but ... the sign of true, not casual, progress is its uninterruptedness and its continual acceleration. And the progress of vegetarianism is of this kind. That progress, is expressed both in the words of the writers cited in the above-mentioned book and in the actual life of mankind, which from many causes is involuntarily passing metre and more from carnivorous habits to vegetable food, and is also deliberately following the same path in a movement which shows evident strength, and which is growing larger and larger - viz., vegetarianism.

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Ch. X
Philosophical Maxims
Georges Sorel
Georges Sorel
1 month 3 days ago
It seems that it was the...

It seems that it was the Jews who had entered the revolutionary movement who are primarily responsible for the terroristic measures blamed upon the bolsheviks. This hypothesis appears to me to be all the more reasonable given that the intervention of the Jews in the Hungarian Soviet Republic has not been a happy one.

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p. 290
Philosophical Maxims
Henry George
Henry George
3 weeks 1 day ago
To prevent government from becoming corrupt...

To prevent government from becoming corrupt and tyrannous, its organization and methods should be as simple as possible, its functions be restricted to those necessary to the common welfare, and in all its parts it should be kept as close to the people and as directly within their control as may be.

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Ch. 17 : The Functions of Government
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 2 weeks ago
Master, we saw one casting out...

Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us. But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is on our part.

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Mark 9:38-40 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 months 6 days ago
So long as one can use...

So long as one can use scented candy to abate the foul breath of hypocrisy, Puritanism is triumphant.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
4 months 3 weeks ago
There are many kinds of gods....

There are many kinds of gods. Therefore there are many kinds of men.

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"One and Many," p. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 1 week ago
Our feeling about…

Our feeling about every obligation depends in each case upon the spirit in which the benefit is conferred; we weigh not the bulk of the gift, but the quality of the good-will which prompted it.

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Line 6
Philosophical Maxims
Edward Said
Edward Said
3 months 6 days ago
In the end, I am moved...

In the end, I am moved by causes and ideas that I can actually choose to support because they conform to values and principles that I believe in.

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p. 88
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
3 months 3 weeks ago
In a word, we reject all...

In a word, we reject all legislation, all authority, and all privileged, licensed, official, and legal influence, even though arising from universal suffrage, convinced that it can turn only to the advantage of a dominant minority of exploiters against the interest of the immense majority in subjection to them. This is the sense in which we are really Anarchists.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 1 week ago
Science is a cemetery of dead...

Science is a cemetery of dead ideas, even though life may issue from them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 2 weeks ago
Has any man, or any society...

Has any man, or any society of men, a truth to speak, a piece of spiritual work to do; they can nowise proceed at once and with the mere natural organs, but must first call a public meeting, appoint committees, issue prospectuses, eat a public dinner; in a word, construct or borrow machinery, wherewith to speak it and do it. Without machinery, they were hopeless, helpless.

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Philosophical Maxims
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
1 month 1 day ago
I do not think that any...

I do not think that any civilization can be called complete until it has progressed from sophistication to unsophistication, and made a conscious return to simplicity of thinking and living, and I call no man wise until he has made the progress from the wisdom of knowledge to the wisdom of foolishness, and become a laughing philosopher, feeling first life's tragedy and then life's comedy. For we must weep before we can laugh. Out of sadness comes the awakening, and out of the awakening comes the laughter of the philosopher, with kindliness and tolerance to boot.

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Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 13
Philosophical Maxims
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
2 weeks 5 days ago
Without the collapse of capitalism the...

Without the collapse of capitalism the expropriation of the capitalist class is impossible.

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Ch. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
4 months 1 week ago
To the question what wine he...

To the question what wine he found pleasant to drink, he replied, "That for which other people pay."

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Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 54
Philosophical Maxims
Humphry Davy
Humphry Davy
3 weeks 1 day ago
I envy no quality of the...

I envy no quality of the mind or intellect in others; not genius, power, wit, nor fancy; but, if I could choose what would be most delightful, and, I believe, most useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing.

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In Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 241
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
The real, the unique misfortune...

The real, the unique misfortune: to see the light of day. A disaster which dates back to aggressiveness, to the seed of expansion and rage within origins, to the tendency to the worst which first shook them up.

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Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
4 months 5 days ago
Wish not the thing, which thou...

Wish not the thing, which thou mayest not obtain!

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Philosophical Maxims
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
8 months 4 weeks ago
Perception is part of the problem

I think that the task of philosophy is not to provide answers, but to show how the way we perceive a problem can be itself part of a problem.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
3 weeks 2 days ago
If by religion, we are understand...

If by religion, we are understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, "that this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." But if the moral precepts, innate in man, and made a part of his physical constitution, as necessary for a social being, if the sublime doctrines of philanthropism and deism taught us by Jesus of Nazareth, in which all agree, constitute true religion, then, without it, this would be, as you again say, "something not fit to be named, even indeed, a hell."

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
I shall keep it [the manuscript]...

I shall keep it [the manuscript] by me until the end of May for purposes of revision, and of adding malicious foot-notes.

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Letter to W. W. Norton, 17 February, 1931
Philosophical Maxims
Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin
3 months 2 weeks ago
The notion that one can discover...

The notion that one can discover large patterns or regularities in the procession of historical events is naturally attractive to those who are impressed by the success of the natural sciences in classifying, correlating, and above all predicting.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 months 3 weeks ago
The Churches as Churches have always...

The Churches as Churches have always been and cannot fail to be institutions not only alien to, but directly hostile towards, Christ's teaching.

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Chapter III, Christianity Misunderstood by Believers
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 months 4 weeks ago
"Everything" is a subject...
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Main Content / General
Voltaire
Voltaire
4 months 3 weeks ago
What is tolerance…

What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.

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"Tolerance", 1764
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 1 week ago
For what else are you busied...

For what else are you busied with except improving yourself every day, laying aside some error, and coming to understand that the faults which you attribute to circumstances are in yourself?

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
4 months 3 weeks ago
As usurpation is the exercise of...

As usurpation is the exercise of power which another has a right to, so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to...

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Second Treatise of Government, Ch. XVIII, sec. 199
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
3 months 5 days ago
Religious men are and must be...

Religious men are and must be heretics now - for we must not pray, except in a "form" of words, made beforehand - or think of God but with a prearranged idea.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
4 months 3 weeks ago
Ignore death up to the last...

Ignore death up to the last moment; then, when it can't be ignored any longer, have yourself squirted full of morphia and shuffle off in a coma. Thoroughly sensible, humane and scientific, eh?

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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
4 months 3 weeks ago
The same good sense, that directs...

The same good sense, that directs men in the ordinary occurrences of life, is not hearkened to in religious matters, which are supposed to be placed altogether above the cognizance of human reason.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
Each of us believes, quite unconsciously...

Each of us believes, quite unconsciously of course, that we alone pursue the truth, which the rest are incapable of seeking out and unworthy of attaining. This madness is so deep-rooted and so useful that it is impossible to realize what would become of each of us if it were someday to disappear.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 3 weeks ago
If you are tired of the...

If you are tired of the real landscape, look at it in a mirror. By putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it. As long as the story lingers in our mind, the real things are more themselves. This book applies the treatment not only to bread or apple but to good and evil, to our endless perils, our anguish, and our joys. By dipping them in myth we see them more clearly.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 2 weeks ago
Innumerable men had passed by, across...

Innumerable men had passed by, across this Universe, with a dumb vague wonder, such as the very animals may feel; or with a painful, fruitlessly inquiring wonder, such as men only feel;-till the great Thinker came, the original man, the Seer; whose shaped spoken Thought awakes the slumbering capability of all into Thought. It is ever the way with the Thinker, the spiritual Hero. What he says, all men were not far from saying, were longing to say. The Thoughts of all start up, as from painful enchanted sleep, round his Thought; answering to it, Yes, even so! Joyful to men as the dawning of day from night;-is it not, indeed, the awakening for them from no-being into being, from death into life? We still honor such a man; call him Poet, Genius, and so forth: but to these wild men he was a very magician, a worker of miraculous unexpected blessing for them; a Prophet, a God!

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Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
3 weeks 3 days ago
As long as our souls remain...

As long as our souls remain strong, that is all that matters; as long as they don't decline. Because with the fall of certain souls in this world, the world itself will collapse. These are the pillars which support it. They are few, but enough.

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"My Friend Poet. Mount Athos.", Ch. 19, p. 215
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
I pride myself on my capacity...

I pride myself on my capacity to perceive the transitory character of everything. An odd gift which has spoiled all my joys; better: all my sensations.

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Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
5 months 1 day ago
A prudent man…

A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent.

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The Prince (1513), Ch. 6; translated by Luigi Ricci
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 3 weeks ago
Pornography and violence are by-products of...

Pornography and violence are by-products of societies in which private identity has been...destroyed by sudden environmental change.

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Letter to Clare Westcott, November 26 1975. Letters of Marshall McLuhan, p. 514
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick
1 month 3 weeks ago
Our main conclusions about the state...

Our main conclusions about the state are that a minimal state, limited, to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on, is justified, but any more extensive state will violate persons' rights not to be forced to do certain things, and is unjustified; and that the minimal state is inspiring as well as right.

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Preface, p. ix
Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
3 months 3 weeks ago
How many women thus waste life...

How many women thus waste life away the prey of discontent, who might have practised as physicians, regulated a farm, managed a shop, and stood erect, supported by their own industry, instead of hanging their heads surcharged with the dew of sensibility, that consumes the beauty to which it at first gave lustre.

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Ch. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
3 months 2 weeks ago
The transition from philosophy to the...

The transition from philosophy to the domain of state and society had been an intrinsic part of Hegel's system.

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P. 251
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
2 months 1 week ago
Let us remember that the government...

Let us remember that the government and the society act and react on each other. Sometimes the government is in advance of the society, and hurries the society forward. So urged, the society gains on the government, comes up with the government, outstrips the government, and begins to insist that the government shall make more speed. If the government is wise, it will yield to that just and natural demand. The great cause of revolutions is this, that, while nations move onward, constitutions stand still. The peculiar happiness of England is that here, through many generations, the constitution has moved onward with the nation.

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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), p. 25
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 2 weeks ago
The force that had been lent...

The force that had been lent my father he honorably expended in manful well-doing. A portion of this planet bears beneficent traces of his strong hand and strong head. Nothing that he undertook to do but he did it faithfully and like a true man. I shall look on the houses he built with a certain proud interest. They stand firm and sound to the heart all over his little district.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
I think modern educational theorists are...

I think modern educational theorists are inclined to attach too much importance to the negative virtue of not interfering with children, and too little to the positive merit of enjoying their company.

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Ch. 12: Education and Discipline
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 3 weeks ago
Resolved to die in the last...

Resolved to die in the last dike of prevarication.

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Speech on the sixth article of charge in the impeachment of Warren Hastings (7 May 1789), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Volume the Tenth (1899), p. 406
Philosophical Maxims
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