Skip to main content

Main navigation

☰ ˟
  • Home
  • Articulation
  • Contact
  • Shop
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 5 days ago
Classics which at home are drowsily...

Classics which at home are drowsily read have a strange charm in a country inn, or in the transom of a merchant brig.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Voyage to England
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
2 months 2 weeks ago
It is the act of an...

It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for his own bad condition; it is the act of one who has begun to be instructed, to lay the blame on himself; and of one whose instruction is completed, neither to blame another, nor himself.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
(5) [tr. George Long (1888)].
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 weeks 1 day ago
May not the absolute and perfect...

May not the absolute and perfect eternal happiness be an eternal hope, which would die if it were realized? Is it possible to be happy without hope? And there is no place for hope once possession has been realized, for hope, desire, is killed by possession. May it not be, I say, that all souls grow without ceasing, some in a greater measure than others, but all having to pass some time through the same degree of growth, whatever that degree may be, and yet without ever arriving at the infinite, at God, to whom they continually approach? Is not eternal happiness an eternal hope, with its eternal nucleus of sorrow in order that happiness shall not be swallowed up in nothingness?

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
4 weeks ago
Not everyone who says to Me,...

Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Matthew 7:21-23 (NKJV) (Also Luke 6:24; 13:26, 27)
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 1 day ago
What I hold fast to...

What I hold fast to is not one proposition but a nest of propositions.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
2 months 2 weeks ago
So it is more…

So it is more useful to watch a man in times of peril, and in adversity to discern what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off, reality remains.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book III, lines 55-58 (reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations)
Philosophical Maxims
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
2 months ago
Although objectively greater demands are placed...

Although objectively greater demands are placed on this authority, it operates less as a public opinion giving a rational foundation to the exercise of political and social authority, the more it is generated for the purpose of an abstract vote that amounts to no more than an act of acclamation within a public sphere temporarily manufactured for show or manipulation.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 222
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 1 week ago
How many things served us…

How many things served us yesterday for articles of faith, which today are fables for us?

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 27. Of Friendship
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
2 months 1 week ago
Covetousness, and the desire of having...

Covetousness, and the desire of having in our possession, and under our dominion, more than we have need of, being the root of all evil, should be early and carefully weeded out, and the contrary quality of a readiness to impart to others, implanted. This should be encourag'd by great commendation and credit, and constantly taking care that he loses nothing by his liberality.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Sec. 110
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
1 month 2 days ago
If there is anything that we...

If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 285
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 weeks 6 days ago
What the learned world tends to...

What the learned world tends to offer is one second-hand scrap of information illustrating ideas derived from another second-hand scrap of information. The second-handedness of the learned world is the secret of its mediocrity.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 5 days ago
People seem not to see that...

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Worship
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 6 days ago
In the name of national security,...

In the name of national security, the Commission's hearings were held in secret, thereby continuing the policy which has marked the entire course of the case. This prompts my second question: If, as we are told, Oswald was the lone assassin, where is the issue of national security? Indeed, precisely the same question must be put here as was posed in France during the Dreyfus case: If the Government is so certain of its case, why has it conducted all its inquiries in the strictest secrecy? "

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
16 Questions on the Assassination" in The Minority of One, ed. M.S. Arnoni (1964-09-06), pp. 6-8
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
4 weeks ago
Nobody really thinks who does not...

Nobody really thinks who does not abstract from that which is given, who does not relate the facts to the factors which have made them, who does not - in his mind - undo the facts. Abstractness is the very life of thought, the token of its authenticity.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 134
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
3 months 6 days ago
If, then, in the sphere of...

If, then, in the sphere of action there is some one end which we desire for its own sake, and for the sake of which we desire every thing else; and if we do not choose every thing for the sake of something else, for this would go on without limit, and our desire would be idle and futile, it is clear that this must be the supreme good, and the best thing of all.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 4 days ago
In some places the metropolis makes...

In some places the metropolis makes do with paying a clique of feudal overlords; in others, it has fabricated a fake bourgeoisie of colonized subjects in a system of divide and rule; elsewhere, it has killed two birds with one stone: the colony is both settlement and exploitation.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. xlvi
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
1 month 5 days ago
The Doctrine of Knowledge, apart from...

The Doctrine of Knowledge, apart from all special and definite knowing, proceeds immediately upon Knowledge itself, in the essential unity in which it recognises Knowledge as existing; and it raises this question in the first place - How this Knowledge can come into being, and what it is in its inward and essential Nature? The following must be apparent: - There is but One who is absolutely by and through himself, - namely, God; and God is not the mere dead conception to which we have thus given utterance, but he is in himself pure Life. He can neither change nor determine himself in aught within himself, nor become any other Being; for his Being contains within it all his Being and all possible Being, and neither within him nor out of him can any new Being arise.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 6 days ago
As we passed under the last...

As we passed under the last bridge over the canal, just before reaching the Merrimack, the people coming out of church paused to look at us from above, and apparently, so strong is custom, indulged in some heathenish comparisons; but we were the truest observers of this sunny day.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 weeks 1 day ago
Every man has his moral backside...

Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered as long as possible with the trousers of decorum.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
B 12 Variant translation: Everyone has a moral backside, which he does not show except in case of need and which he covers as long as possible with the breeches of respectability.
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
4 months 4 days ago
It's a Bad Religion....
0
⚖0
Main Content / General
Ian Hacking
Ian Hacking
1 week 6 days ago
To conclude: there are two well-known...

To conclude: there are two well-known minor ways in which language has mattered to philosophy. On the one hand there is a belief that if only we produce good definitions, often marking out different senses of words that are confused in common speech, we will avoid the conceptual traps that ensnared our forefathers. On the other hand is a belief that if only we attend sufficiently closely to our mother tongue and make explicit the distinctions there implicit, we shall avoid the conceptual traps. One or the other of these curiously contrary beliefs may nowadays be most often thought of as an answer to the question Why does language matter to philosophy? Neither seems to me enough.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ian Hacking (1975), Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy?, p. 7.
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
2 months 1 week ago
He is happy, whose circumstances suit...

He is happy, whose circumstances suit his temper; but he is more excellent, who can suit his temper to any circumstances.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
§ 6.9 : Of Qualities Useful to Ourselves, Pt. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 1 day ago
This morning I thought, hence lost...

This morning I thought, hence lost my bearings, for a good quarter of an hour.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1 month 6 days ago
"You're a gentleman," they used to...

"You're a gentleman," they used to say to him. "You shouldn't have gone murdering people with a hatchet; that's no occupation for a gentleman."

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 months 5 days ago
I don't think that there are...

I don't think that there are any sinister persons deliberately trying to rob people of their freedom but I do think, first of all, that there are a number of impersonal forces which are pushing in the direction of less and less freedom. And I also thing there are a number of technological devices which anybody who wishes to use, can use, to accelerate this process of going away from freedom, of imposing control.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
1 month 3 weeks ago
I will now tell you who...

I will now tell you who are assembled here the wise sayings of Mazda, the praises of Ahura and the hymns of the Good Spirit, the sublime truth which I see rising out of these flames. You shall therefore harken to the Soul of Nature. Contemplate the beams of fire with a most pious mind. Every one, both men and women, ought to-day to choose his creed. Ye offspring of renowned ancestors, awake to agree with us. So preached Zoroaster, the proph of the Parsis, in one of his earliest sermons nearly 3,500 years ago.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 15 (Introduction), S. A. Kapadia
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
2 months 1 week ago
To understand political power aright, and...

To understand political power aright, and derive from it its original, we must consider what estate all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of Nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Second Treatise of Government, Ch. II, sec. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 3 days ago
Now any dogma, based primarily on...

Now any dogma, based primarily on faith and emotionalism, is a dangerous weapon to use on others, since it is almost impossible to guarantee that the weapon will never be turned on the user.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
2 months 1 week ago
All that time is lost which...

All that time is lost which might be better employed.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in A Dictionary of Quotations in Most Frequent Use: Taken Chiefly from the Latin and French, but comprising many from the Greek, Spanish, and Italian Languages, translated into English (1809) by David Evans Macdonnel
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
1 month 1 week ago
The territorial aristocracy of former ages...

The territorial aristocracy of former ages was either bound by law, or thought itself bound by usage, to come to the relief of its serving-men and to relieve their distresses. But the manufacturing aristocracy of our age first impoverishes and debases the men who serve it and then abandons them to be supported by the charity of the public.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book Two, Chapter XX.
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 months 5 days ago
The poet is, etymologically, the maker....

The poet is, etymologically, the maker. Like all makers, he requires a stock of raw materials - in his case, experience. Now experience is not a matter of having actually swum the Hellespont, or danced with the dervishes, or slept in a doss-house. It is a matter of sensibility and intuition, of seeing and hearing the significant things, of paying attention at the right moments, of understanding and co-ordinating. Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him. It is a gift for dealing with the accidents of existence, not the accidents themselves. By a happy dispensation of nature, the poet generally possesses the gift of experience in conjunction with that of expression. What he says so well is therefore intrinsically of value.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
1 month 5 days ago
Every man is free to do...

Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 6, The Formula of Justice
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
3 days ago
It is a very hard undertaking...

It is a very hard undertaking to seek to please everybody.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Maxim 675
Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
3 weeks ago
In both positivism and Heidegger-at least...

In both positivism and Heidegger-at least in his later work-speculation is the target of attack. In both cases the thought that autonomously raises itself above the facts through interpreting them and that cannot be reclaimed by them without leaving a surplus is condemned for being empty and vain concept-mongering.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
3 weeks ago
Gregorian chant, Romanesque architecture, the Iliad,...

Gregorian chant, Romanesque architecture, the Iliad, the invention of geometry were not, for the people through whom they were brought into being and made available to us, occasions for the manifestation of personality.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 55
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
1 month 3 weeks ago
Scilurus on his death-bed, being about...

Scilurus on his death-bed, being about to leave four-score sons surviving, offered a bundle of darts to each of them, and bade them break them. When all refused, drawing out one by one, he easily broke them,-thus teaching them that if they held together, they would continue strong; but if they fell out and were divided, they would become weak.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
31 Scilurus
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
3 weeks 5 days ago
As one advances in life, one...

As one advances in life, one realises more and more that the majority of men - and of women - are incapable of any other effort than that strictly imposed on them as a reaction to external compulsion. And for that reason, the few individuals we have come across who are capable of a spontaneous and joyous effort stand out isolated, monumentalised, so to speak, in our experience. These are the select men, the nobles, the only ones who are active and not merely reactive, for whom life is a perpetual striving, an incessant course of training. Training = askesis. These are the ascetics.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chap. VII: Noble Life And Common Life, Or Effort And Inertia
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 days ago
Until writing was invented, we lived...

Until writing was invented, we lived in acoustic space: boundless, directionless, horizonless, the dark of the mind, the world of emotion, primordial intuition, terror. Speech is a social chart of this bog.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
(p. 13)
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 month 2 weeks ago
A blow from your friend is...

A blow from your friend is better than a kiss from your enemy.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists‎ (2007) by James Geary, p. 118
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
2 months 1 week ago
Criticism alone can sever the root...

Criticism alone can sever the root of materialism, fatalism, atheism, free-thinking, fanaticism, and superstition, which can be injurious universally; as well as of idealism and skepticism, which are dangerous chiefly to the Schools, and hardly allow of being handed on to the public.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
B xxxiv
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
1 month 1 week ago
Life itself is but the shadow...

Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living: All things fall under this name. The Sun itself is but the dark simulacrum, and the light but the shadow of God.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
4 weeks ago
Are ye come out as against...

Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me. But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
26:55-56 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 5 days ago
People do not deserve to have...

People do not deserve to have good writing, they are so pleased with bad.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
1841
Philosophical Maxims
A. J. Ayer
A. J. Ayer
1 month 2 days ago
I am using the word "perceive"....

I am using the word "perceive". I am using it here in such a way that to say of an object that it is perceived does not entail saying that it exists in any sense at all. And this is a perfectly correct and familiar usage of the word. If there is thought to be a difficulty here, it is perhaps because there is also a correct and familiar usage of the word "perceive", in which to say of an object that it is perceived does carry the implication that it exists.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge (1940).
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
2 weeks 3 days ago
At present we live to impede...

At present we live to impede each other's satisfactions; competition, domestic life, society, what is it all but this? We go somewhere where we are not wanted and where we don't want to go. What else is conventional life? Passivity when we want to be active. So many hours spent every day in passively doing what conventional life tells us, when we would so gladly be at work. And is it a wonder that all individual life is extinguished?

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 1 week ago
For truth itself does not have...

For truth itself does not have the privilege to be employed at any time and in every way; its use, noble as it is, has its circumscriptions and limits.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 13
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
2 months 1 day ago
Nevertheless, the ultimate business of philosophy...

Nevertheless, the ultimate business of philosophy is to preserve the force of the most elemental words in which Dasein expresses itself, and to keep the common understanding from levelling them off to that unintelligibility which functions in turn as a source of pseudo-problems.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Macquarrie & Robinson translation
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
2 weeks 4 days ago
Time begins to emit a scent...

Time begins to emit a scent when it gains duration; when it is given a narrative or deep tension; when it gains depth and breadth, even space.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
2 weeks 3 days ago
The great reformers of the world...

The great reformers of the world turn into the great misanthropists, if circumstances or organisation do not permit them to act. Christ, if He had been a woman, might have been nothing but a great complainer. Peace be with the misanthropists! They have made a step in progress; the next will make them great philanthropists; they are divided but by a line. The next Christ will perhaps be a female Christ. But do we see one woman who looks like a female Christ? or even like "the messenger before" her "face", to go before her and prepare the hearts and minds for her? To this will be answered that half the inmates of Bedlam begin in this way, by fancying that they are "the Christ." People talk about imitating Christ, and imitate Him in the little trifling formal things, such as washing the feet, saying His prayer, and so on; but if anyone attempts the real imitation of Him, there are no bounds to the outcry with which the presumption of that person is condemned.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 3 days ago
Of all the books I have...

Of all the books I have ever worked on, I think Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare gave me the most pleasure, day in, day out. For months and months I lived and thought Shakespeare, and I don't see how there can be any greater pleasure in the world, any pleasure, that is, that one can indulge in for as much as ten hours without pause, day after day indefinitely.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
  • Load More

User login

  • Create new account
  • Reset your password

Social

☰ ˟
  • Main Feed
  • Philosophical Maxims

Civic

☰ ˟
  • Propositions
  • Issue / Solution

Who's new

  • Søren Kierkegaard
  • Jesus
  • Friedrich Nietzsche
  • VeXed
  • Slavoj Žižek

Who's online

There are currently 0 users online.

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia