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Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
2 months 2 weeks ago
It would be some consolation for...

It would be some consolation for the feebleness of ourselves and our works, if all things should perish as slowly as they come into being; but as it is, increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid.

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Letters to Lucilius, letter 91, page 294.
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
6 months 1 day ago
The emotions I feel are no...

The emotions I feel are no more meant to be shown in their unadulterated state than the inner organs by which we live.

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pp. 31-32
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
6 months 3 days ago
It's not too much to say...

It's not too much to say that every indication of Design in the Kosmos is evidence against the Omnipotence of the Designer. For what is meant by Design? Contrivance: the adaptation of means to an end. But the necessity for contrivance - the need of employing means - is a consequence of the limitation of power. Who would have recourse to means if to attain his end his mere word was sufficient? The very idea of means implies that the means have an efficacy which the direct action of the being who employs them has not. ...

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
4 months 1 week ago
The Greeks possessed a knowledge of...

The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.

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F 44
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
5 months 2 days ago
This education, therefore, results at the...

This education, therefore, results at the very outset in knowledge which transcends all experience, which is abstract, absolute, and strictly universal, and which includes within itself beforehand all subsequently possible experience. On the other hand, the old education was concerned, as a rule, only with the actual qualities of things as they are and as they should be believed and rioted, without anyone being able to assign a reason for them. It aimed, therefore, at purely passive reception by means of the power of memory, which was completely at the service of things. It was, therefore, impossible to have any idea of the mind as an independent original principle of things themselves.

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General Nature of New Eduction p. 28
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 4 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
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
6 months 4 days ago
It is the duty of every...

It is the duty of every patriot to protect his country from its government.

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Edward Abbey, "A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." as written in "A Voice Crying in the Wilderness" (Vox Clamantis en Deserto): Notes from a Secret Journal (1990), ISBN 0312064888
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
4 months 1 week ago
All mathematical laws which we find...

All mathematical laws which we find in Nature are always suspect to me, in spite of their beauty. They give me no pleasure. They are merely auxiliaries. At close range it is all not true.

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As quoted in Lichtenberg : A Doctrine of Scattered Occasions (1959) by Joseph Peter Stern, p. 84
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
6 months 4 days ago
Religion has two principal enemies, fanaticism...

Religion has two principal enemies, fanaticism and infidelity, or that which is called atheism. The first requires to be combated by reason and morality, the other by natural philosophy.

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A Discourse, &c. &c.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
6 months 2 weeks ago
With regard to the abuse of...

With regard to the abuse of authority, this also may come about in two ways. First, when what is ordered by an authority is opposed to the object for which that authority was constituted (if, for example, some sinful action is commanded or one which is contrary to virtue, when it is precisely for the protection and fostering of virtue that authority is instituted). In such a case, not only is there no obligation to obey the authority, but one is obliged to disobey it, as did the holy martyrs who suffered death rather than obey the impious commands of tyrants. Secondly, when those who bear such authority command things which exceed the competence of such authority; as, for example, when a master demands payment from a servant which the latter is not bound to make, and other similar cases. In this instance the subject is free to obey or disobey.

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in Aquinas: Selected Political Writings (Basil Blackwell: 1974), p. 183
Philosophical Maxims
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
5 months 3 weeks ago
The interpretation of a case is...

The interpretation of a case is corroborated only by the successful continuation of a self-formative process, that is by the completion of self-reflection, and not in any unmistakable way by what the patient says or how he behaves.

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p. 266
Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
5 months ago
If women be educated for dependence;...

If women be educated for dependence; that is, to act according to the will of another fallible being, and submit, right or wrong, to power, where are we to stop?

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Ch. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
7 months 3 days ago
How close men, despite all their...

How close men, despite all their knowledge, usually live to madness? What is truth but to live for an idea? When all is said and done, everything is based on a postulate; but not until it no longer stands on the outside, not until one lives in it, does it cease to be a postulate.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 4 weeks ago
To conceive a thought - just...

To conceive a thought - just one, but one that would tear the universe to pieces.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
4 months 2 weeks ago
And why be scandalized by the...

And why be scandalized by the infallibility of a man, of the Pope? What difference does it make whether it be a book that is infallible - the Bible, or a society of men - the Church, or a single man? Does it make any essential change in the rational difficulty? And since the infallibility of a book or of a society of men is not more rational than that of a single man, this supreme offense to the eyes of reason has to be postulated.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
4 months 3 weeks ago
If any man will come after...

If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.

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16:24-28 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 3 weeks ago
Where this will end? In the...

Where this will end? In the Abyss, one may prophecy; whither all Delusions are, at all moments, travelling; where this Delusion has now arrived. For if there be a Faith, from of old, it is this, as we often repeat, that no Lie can live for ever. The very Truth has to change its vesture, from time to time; and be born again. But all Lies have sentence of death written down against them, and Heaven's Chancery itself; and, slowly or fast, advance incessantly towards their hour.

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Pt. I, Bk. VI, ch. 3.
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
5 months 2 weeks ago
Socrates thought that if all our...

Socrates thought that if all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, whence every one must take an equal portion, most persons would be contented to take their own and depart.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
2 months 2 weeks ago
From a correct Marxian point of...

From a correct Marxian point of view ... all measures designed to restrain, to regulate and to improve capitalism were simply "petty-bourgeois" nonsense ... True socialists should not place any obstacles in the way of capitalist evolution. For only the full maturity of capitalism could bring about socialism. It is not only vain, but harmful to the interests of the proletarians to resort to such measures.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
4 months 2 weeks ago
In conclusion, I wish to say...

In conclusion, I wish to say that my attitude to the whole tragic question is not dictated by my Jewish antecedents. It is motivated by my abhorrence of injustice, and man's inhumanity to man. It is because of this that I have fought all my life for anarchism which alone will do away with the horrors of the capitalist régime and place all races and peoples, including the Jews, on a free and equal basis. Until then I consider it highly inconsistent for socialists and anarchists to discriminate in any shape or form against the Jews.

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Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
2 months 2 days ago
Whether we and our politicians know...

Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.

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Part of an endorsement statement for The Dying of the Trees (1997) by Charles E. Little
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
4 months 5 days ago
"If he is this good at...

"If he is this good at acting crazy, it's because he is." Nor is military psychology mistaken in this regard: in this sense, all crazy people simulate, and this lack of distinction is the worst kind of subversion. It is against this lack of distinction that classical reason armed itself in all its categories. But it is what today again outflanks them, submerging the principle of truth.

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"The Precession of Simulacra," p. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
4 months 2 weeks ago
Can the "word" be pinned down...

Can the "word" be pinned down to either one period or one church? All churches are, of course, only more or less unsuccessful attempts to represent the unseen to the mind.

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Letter quoted in Florence Nightingale in Rome : Letters Written by Florence Nightingale in Rome in the Winter of 1847-1848 (1981)
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 3 weeks ago
The English are a dumb people....

The English are a dumb people. They can do great acts, but not describe them.

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Bk. III, ch. 5.
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
7 months ago
The newsmen were writing down sentences...

The newsmen were writing down sentences busily as Hoskins spoke to them. They did not understand and they were sure their readers would not, but it sounded scientific and that was what counted.

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Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
5 months 3 weeks ago
In these downbeat times, we need...

In these downbeat times, we need as much hope and courage as we do vision and analysis; we must accent the best of each other even as we point out the vicious effects of our racial divide and pernicious consequences of our maldistribution of wealth and power. We simply cannot enter the twenty-first century at each other's throats, even as we acknowledge the weighty forces of racism, patriarchy, economic inequality, homophobia, and ecological abuse on our necks. We are at a crucial crossroad in the history of this nation--and we either hang together by combating these forces that divide and degrade us or we hang separately. Do we have the intelligence, humor, imagination, courage, tolerance, love, respect, and will to meet the challenge? Time will tell. None of us alone can save the nation or world. But each of us can make a positive difference if we commit ourselves to do so.

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(p 109)
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
3 months 4 weeks ago
Sight-seeing is the art of disappointment....

Sight-seeing is the art of disappointment.

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Pt. I, ch. II.
Philosophical Maxims
Will Durant
Will Durant
2 months 3 weeks ago
To speak ill of others is...

To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves; let us be above such transparent egotism. If you can't say good and encouraging things, say nothing. Nothing is often a good thing to do, and always a clever thing to say.

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We Have a Right To Be Happy Today, commencement address at the Webb School of Claremont, California
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
6 months 1 day ago
He was free, free in every...

He was free, free in every way, free to behave like a fool or a machine, free to accept, free to refuse, free to equivocate; to marry, to give up the game, to drag this death weight about with him for years to come. He could do what he liked, no one had the right to advise him, there would be for him no Good or Evil unless he thought them into being.

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L'âge de raison (The Age of Reason)
Philosophical Maxims
Polybius
Polybius
2 months 3 weeks ago
The only method of learning to...

The only method of learning to bear with dignity the vicissitudes of fortune is to recall the catastrophes of others.

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Polybius. The Histories of Polybius, trans. Evelyn S. Shuckburgh. London, New York: Macmillan and Co., 1889. Book I, Chapter 1
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
5 months 4 weeks ago
Language is a part of our...

Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.

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Journal entry (14 May 1915), p. 48
Philosophical Maxims
Gottlob frege
Gottlob frege
4 months 3 weeks ago
If I compare arithmetic with a...

If I compare arithmetic with a tree that unfolds upward into a multitude of techniques and theorems while its root drives into the depths, then it seems to me that the impetus of the root.

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Gottlob Frege, Montgomery Furth (1964). The Basic Laws of Arithmetic: Exposition of the System. p. 10
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 3 weeks ago
Democracy is, by the nature of...

Democracy is, by the nature of it, a self-canceling business; and it gives in the long run a net result of zero.

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Ch. 6, Laissez-Faire.
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
6 months 3 days ago
You ask particularly after my health....

You ask particularly after my health. I suppose that I have not many months to live; but, of course, I know nothing about it. I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing.

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Last letter, to Myron Benton, March 31, 1862
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
6 months 2 days ago
The plain fact is that men's...

The plain fact is that men's minds are built, as has been often said, in water-tight compartments. Religious after a fashion, they yet have many other things in them beside their religion, and unholy entanglements and associations inevitably obtain. The basenesses so commonly charged to religion's account are thus, almost all of them, not chargeable at all to religion proper, but rather to religion's wicked practical partner, the spirit of corporate dominion. And the bigotries are most of them in their turn chargeable to religion's wicked intellectual partner, the spirit of dogmatic dominion, the passion for laying down the law in the form of an absolutely closed-in theoretic system. The ecclesiastical spirit in general is the sum of these two spirits of dominion.

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Lectures XIV and XV, "The Value of Saintliness"
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
6 months 1 week ago
Faith, like light, should ever be...

Faith, like light, should ever be simple and unbending; while love, like warmth, should beam forth on every side, and bend to every necessity of our brethren.

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p. 220
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
6 months 3 days ago
It is, of course, clear that...

It is, of course, clear that a country with a large foreign population must endeavour, through its schools, to assimilate the children of immigrants. It is, however, unfortunate that a large part of this process should be effected by means of a somewhat blatant nationalism.

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Ch. 10: Modern Homogeneity
Philosophical Maxims
Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard
4 months 3 weeks ago
Man is a creation of desire,...

Man is a creation of desire, not a creation of need.

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The Psychoanalysis of Fire, ch. 2, "Fire and Reverie"
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
4 months 3 weeks ago
Skepticism, like chastity, should not be...

Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.

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George Santayana, as quoted in Quotations for Our Time (1977) edited by Laurence J. Peter
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
5 months 3 weeks ago
Death takes the mean man….

Death takes the mean man with the proud; The fatal urn has room for all.

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Book III, ode i, line 14 (trans. John Conington)
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 months 3 weeks ago
We often contradict...
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Main Content / General
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
4 months ago
Radical changes of identity, happening suddenly...

Radical changes of identity, happening suddenly and in very brief intervals of time, have proved more deadly and destructive of human values than wars fought with hardware weapons.

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p. 97
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
5 months 3 weeks ago
Sweet exists….

Sweet exists by convention, bitter by convention, colour by convention; atoms and Void [alone] exist in reality.

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(trans. Freeman 1948), p. 92.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
2 months 2 days ago
Certainly no nation ever before abandoned...

Certainly no nation ever before abandoned to the avarice and jugglings of private individuals to regulate according to their own interests, the quantum of circulating medium for the nation - to inflate, by deluges of paper, the nominal prices of property, and then to buy up that property at 1s. in the pound, having first withdrawn the floating medium which might endanger a competition in purchase. Yet this is what has been done, and will be done, unless stayed by the protecting hand of the legislature. The evil has been produced by the error of their sanction of this ruinous machinery of banks; and justice, wisdom, duty, all require that they should interpose and arrest it before the schemes of plunder and spoliation desolate the country.

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Letter to William C. Rives (1819) ME 15:232
Philosophical Maxims
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Leibniz
6 months 6 days ago
Even in the games…

Even in the games of children there are things to interest the greatest mathematician.

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1688-1690
Philosophical Maxims
Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch
4 months 3 weeks ago
Serious reflexion about one's own character...

Serious reflexion about one's own character will often induce a curious sense of emptiness; and if one knows another person well, one may sometimes intuit a similar void in him. (This is one of the strange privileges of friendship.)

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Ch. 8, p. 119
Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
5 months 3 weeks ago
For a thinking man is where...

For a thinking man is where Wisdom is at home.

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Ahunuvaiti Gatha; Yasna 30, 9.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
3 months 2 weeks ago
Mr. Darwin's hypothesis is not, so...

Mr. Darwin's hypothesis is not, so far as I am aware, inconsistent with any known biological fact; on the contrary, if admitted, the facts of Development, of Comparative Anatomy, of Geographical Distribution, and of Palaeontology, become connected together, and exhibit a meaning such as they never possessed before; and I, for one, am fully convinced that if not precisely true, that hypothesis is as near an approximation to the truth as, for example, the Copernican hypothesis was to the true theory of the planetary motions.

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Ch.2, p. 127
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
6 months 2 days ago
If a man own land, the...

If a man own land, the land owns him.

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Wealth
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
6 months 2 weeks ago
These two states which it is...

These two states which it is necessary to know together in order to see the whole truth, being known separately, lead necessarily to one of these two vices, pride or indolence, in which all men are invariably led before grace, since if they do not remain in their disorders through laxity, they forsake them through vanity, so true is that which you have just repeated to me from St. Augustine, and which I find to a great extent; for in fact homage is rendered to them in many ways.

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Philosophical Maxims
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