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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 3 weeks ago
For there's no rood has not...

For there's no rood has not a star above it; The cordial quality of pear or plum Ascends as gladly in a single tree, As in broad orchards resonant with bees; And every atom poises for itself, And for the whole.

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Musketaquid, st. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 weeks 2 days ago
Ye know not what manner of...

Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. (KJV) 9:55-56 Rebuking James and John for asking if he would command fire to come down from heaven, to consume a village of Samaritans for not receiving them, because they seemed to be headed for Jerusalem.

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Jesus on usury from the Sermon on the Mount, Luke 6:34-35
Philosophical Maxims
Zeno of Citium
Zeno of Citium
1 month 5 days ago
No one entrusts a secret to...

No one entrusts a secret to a drunken man; but one will entrust a secret to a good man; therefore, the good man will not get drunk.

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As quoted in Epistulae morales ad Lucilium by Seneca, Epistle LXXXIII (trans. R. M. Gummere)
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
1 month 3 weeks ago
All that we call human history-money,...

All that we call human history-money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery-the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.

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Book II, Chapter 3, "The Shocking Alternative"
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
2 months 1 week ago
Appearances to the mind are of...

Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man's task.

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Book I, ch. 27, § 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
2 months 1 week ago
Virtuous, worthy, wise and capable people...

Virtuous, worthy, wise and capable people are chosen as leaders.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
1 month 3 weeks ago
With regard to politics and the...

With regard to politics and the character of princes and great men, I think I am very moderate. My views of things are more conformable to Whig principles; my representation of persons to Tory prejudices. Nothing can so much prove that men commonly regard more persons than things, as to find that I am commonly numbered among the Tories.

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E. C. Mossner, Life of David Hume (Clarendon Press, 2001), p. 311.
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
1 month 3 weeks ago
The rich man... is always sold...

The rich man... is always sold to the institution which makes him rich.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
4 weeks ago
General ideas are no proof of...

General ideas are no proof of the strength, but rather of the insufficiency of the human intellect.

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Book One, Chapter III.
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 weeks 3 days ago
Vice itself lost half its evil...

Vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.

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Volume iii, p. 332
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 2 weeks ago
There are two godheads: the world...

There are two godheads: the world and my independent I. I am either happy or unhappy, that is all. It can be said: good or evil do not exist. A man who is happy must have no fear. Not even in the face of death. Only a man who lives not in time but in the present is happy.

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Journal entry (8 July 1916), p. 74e
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
1 month 3 weeks ago
It's so much easier to pray...

It's so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see one.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 week 3 days ago
To know something is to make...

To know something is to make this something that I know myself; but to avail myself of it, to dominate it, it has to remain distinct from myself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 weeks 5 days ago
To suffer is to produce knowledge.

To suffer is to produce knowledge.

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Philosophical Maxims
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam
1 day ago
Even though the model referred to...

Even though the model referred to satisfies the theory, etc., it is 'unintended'; and we recognize that it is unintended from the description through which it is given (as in the intuitionist case). Models are not lost noumenal waifs looking for someone to name them; they are constructions within our theory itself. and they have names from birth.

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Models and Reality
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
4 weeks ago
In America, more than anywhere else...

In America, more than anywhere else in the world, care has been taken constantly to trace clearly distinct spheres of action for the two sexes, and both are required to keep in step, but along paths that are never the same.

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Book Three, Chapter XII.
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
2 months 3 weeks ago
A robot must protect its own...

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
1 month 3 weeks ago
The extreme nature of dominant-end views...

The extreme nature of dominant-end views is often concealed by the vagueness and ambiguity of the end proposed.

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Chapter IX, Section 83, p. 554
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
1 month 3 weeks ago
Whatever you do, He will make...

Whatever you do, He will make good of it. But not the good He had prepared for you if you had obeyed him.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
1 month 2 weeks ago
I would in fact tend to...

I would in fact tend to have more confidence in the outcome of a democratic decision if there was a minority that voted against it, than if it was unanimous... Social psychology has amply shown the strength of this bandwagon effect.

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Habermas (1993) "Further reflections on the public sphere", in: Craig Calhoun Eds. Habermas and the Public Sphere. MIT Press. p. 441
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
2 months 6 days ago
All the excesses, all the violence,...

All the excesses, all the violence, and all the vanity of great men, come from the fact that they know not what they are: it being difficult for those who regard themselves at heart as equal with all men... For this it is necessary for one to forget himself, and to believe that he has some real excellence above them, in which consists this illusion that I am endeavoring to discover to you.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
1 month 3 weeks ago
Correct and accurate conclusions may be...

Correct and accurate conclusions may be arrived at if we carefully observe the relation of the spheres of concepts, and only conclude that one sphere is contained in a third sphere, when we have clearly seen that this first sphere is contained in a second, which in its turn is contained in the third. On the other hand, the art of sophistry lies in casting only a superficial glance at the relations of the spheres of the concepts, and then manipulating these relations to suit our purposes, generally in the following way: - When the sphere of an observed concept lies partly within that of another concept, and partly within a third altogether different sphere, we treat it as if it lay entirely within the one or the other, as may suit our purpose.

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Vol. I, Ch. 10, as translated by R. B. Haldane
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
2 weeks 4 days ago
The slave frees himself when, of...

The slave frees himself when, of all the relations of private property, he abolishes only the relation of slavery and thereby becomes a proletarian; the proletarian can free himself only by abolishing private property in general.

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Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
4 weeks ago
Man was born to live with...

Man was born to live with his fellow human beings. Separate him, isolate him, his character will go bad, a thousand ridiculous affects will invade his heart, extravagant thoughts will germinate in his brain, like thorns in an uncultivated land.

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The character Suzanne Simon, in La Religieuse [The Nun]
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 3 weeks ago
Obscenity is whatever happens to shock...

Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.

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Quoted in Look (New York, 23 February 1954). Cf. Russell (1928), Sceptical Essays
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
1 month 3 weeks ago
This actual world of what is...

This actual world of what is knowable, in which we are and which is in us, remains both the material and the limit of our consideration.

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Vol I, Ch. 4, The World As Will: Second Aspect, § 53, as translated by Eric F. J. Payne, 1958
Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
1 week ago
The significance of feminist movement (when...

The significance of feminist movement (when it is not co-opted by opportunistic, reactionary forces) is that it offers a new ideological meeting ground for the sexes, a space for criticism, struggle, and transformation.

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Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
2 weeks ago
If it were not for the...

If it were not for the founder of the school, Charles S. Pierce, who has told us that he 'learned philosophy out of Kant,' one might be tempted to deny any philosophical pedigree to a doctrine that holds not that our expectations are fulfilled and our actions successful because our ideas are true, but rather that our ideas are true because our expectations are fulfilled and our actions successful. describing the pragmatist view,

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p. 42.
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
3 weeks 2 days ago
With a higher moral nature will...

With a higher moral nature will come a restriction on the multiplication of the inferior.

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The Principles of Biology, Vol. II (1867), Part VI: Laws of Multiplication, ch. 8: Human Population in the Future
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 3 weeks ago
Since the working-class lives from hand...

Since the working-class lives from hand to mouth,it buys as long as it has the means to buy.

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Vol. II, Ch. XX, p. 449.
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
1 month 3 weeks ago
His reputation will go…

His reputation will go on increasing because scarcely anyone reads him.

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"Dante", 1765
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
1 month 3 weeks ago
What interest, zest, or excitement can...

What interest, zest, or excitement can there be in achieving the right way, unless we are enabled to feel that the wrong way is also a possible and a natural way, - nay, more, a menacing and an imminent way? And what sense can there be in condemning ourselves for taking the wrong way, unless we need have done nothing of the sort, unless the right way was open to us as well? I cannot understand the willingness to act, no matter how we feel, without the belief that acts are really good and bad.

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The Dilemma of Determinism, 1884
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
1 month 2 weeks ago
The painter is turning his eyes...

The painter is turning his eyes towards us only in so far as we happen to occupy the same position as his subject. We, the spectators, are an additional factor. Though greeted by that gaze, we are also dismissed by it, replaced by that which was always there before we were: the model itself. But, inversely, the painter's gaze, addressed to the void confronting him outside the picture, accepts as many models as there are spectators; in this precise but neutral place, the observer and the observed take part in a ceaseless exchange.

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Las Menias
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
2 weeks 5 days ago
The anarchists put the thing upside...

The anarchists put the thing upside down. They declare that the proletarian revolution must begin by doing away with the political organisation of the state. But after its victory the sole organisation which the proletariat finds already in existence is precisely the state. This state may require very considerable alterations before it can fulfil its new functions. But to destroy it at such a moment would be to destroy the only organism by means of which the victorious proletariat can assert its newly-conquered power, hold down its capitalist adversaries and carry out that economic revolution of society without which the whole victory must end in a new defeat and in a mass slaughter of the workers similar to those after the Paris Commune.

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Letter to Philipp Van Patten
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
4 weeks ago
No natural boundary seems to be...

No natural boundary seems to be set to the efforts of man; and what is not yet done is only what he has not yet attempted to do. Variant: What is not yet done is only what we have not yet attempted to do.

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Chapter XVIII.
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 weeks 2 days ago
It is so by nature that...

It is so by nature that the plant will develop with regularity, that the animal will move purposefully, and that human beings will think. Why should I take exception to recognizing also the last as the expression of an original force of nature, as I do the first and the second?

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P. Preuss, trans. (1987), p. 11
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
2 weeks 2 days ago
To call war the soil of...

To call war the soil of courage and virtue is like calling debauchery the soil of love.

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Ch. III: Industry, Government, the peasants
Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
1 month 3 weeks ago
Greater intelligence, wealth and opportunity, for...

Greater intelligence, wealth and opportunity, for example, allow a person to achieve ends he could not rationally contemplate otherwise.

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Chapter II, Section 15, pg. 93
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
1 month 3 weeks ago
I mean, a genuinely productive society....

I mean, a genuinely productive society. I mean you could produce plenty of goods without much freedom, but I think the whole sort of creative life of man is ultimately impossible without a considerable measure of individual freedom, of initiative, creation, all these things which we value, and I think value properly, are impossible without a large measure of freedom.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
1 month 3 weeks ago
That the outer man is a...

That the outer man is a picture of the inner, and the face an expression and revelation of the whole character, is a presumption likely enough in itself, and therefore a safe one to go on; borne out as it is by the fact that people are always anxious to see anyone who has made himself famous .... Photography ... offers the most complete satisfaction of our curiosity.

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Vol. 2, Ch. 29, § 377
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 2 days ago
A dog cannot...
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Main Content / General
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 1 day ago
I do not speak…

I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.

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Ch. 26. On the Education of Children
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
3 weeks 2 days ago
Throughout all organic nature there is...

Throughout all organic nature there is at work a modifying influence of the kind... as the cause, these specific differences: an influence which, though slow in its action, does, in time, if the circumstances demand it, produce marked changes-an influence, which to all appearance, would produce in the millions of years, and under the great varieties of condition which geological records imply, any amount of change.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
1 month 3 weeks ago
God will look to every soul...

God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first love.

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Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
2 months 6 days ago
Logic has borrowed, perhaps, the rules...

Logic has borrowed, perhaps, the rules of geometry, without comprehending their force... it does not thence follow that they have entered into the spirit of geometry, and I should be greatly averse... to placing them on a level with that science that teaches the true method of directing reason.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
1 month 3 weeks ago
The difference between the first- and...

The difference between the first- and second-best things in art absolutely seems to escape verbal definition - it is a matter of a hair, a shade, an inward quiver of some kind - yet what miles away in the point of preciousness!

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To Henry Rutgers Marshall, 7 February 1899
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
2 months 2 weeks ago
Query: How to contrive not to...

Query: How to contrive not to waste one's time? Answer: By being fully aware of it all the while. Ways in which this can be done: By spending one's days on an uneasy chair in a dentist's waiting room; by remaining on one's balcony all a Sunday afternoon; by travelling by the longest and least-convenient train routes, and of course standing all the way; by queueing at the box-office of theatres and then not booking a seat.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
1 month 3 weeks ago
Our moral virtues benefit mainly other...

Our moral virtues benefit mainly other people; intellectual virtues, on the other hand, benefit primarily ourselves; therefore the former make us universally popular, the latter unpopular.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
3 weeks 2 days ago
The primary use of knowledge is...

The primary use of knowledge is for such guidance of conduct under all circumstances as shall make living complete. All other uses of knowledge are secondary.

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Vol. 3, Ch. XV, The Americans
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
6 days ago
Following Foucault, we may define the...

Following Foucault, we may define the art of life as a practice of suicide, of giving oneself to death, of depsychologizing oneself, of playing.

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Philosophical Maxims
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