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Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 week 5 days ago
Look to the essence of a...

Look to the essence of a thing, whether it be a point of doctrine, of practice, or of interpretation.

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VIII, 22
Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
3 months 1 day ago
The jargon of authenticity ... is...

The jargon of authenticity ... is a trademark of societalized chosenness, ... sub-language as superior language.

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pp. 5-6
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle
1 week 4 days ago
But for my part (Continues Carneades)...

But for my part (Continues Carneades) what my Indignation at this Un-philosophical way of teaching Principles has now extorted from me, is meant chiefly to excuse my self, if I shall hereafter oppose any Particular Opinion or assertion, that some Follower of Paracelsus or any Eminent Artist may pretend not to be his Masters. For, as I told you long since, I am not Oblig'd to examine private mens writings, (which were a Labour as endless as unprofitable) being only engag'd to examine those Opinions about the Tria Prima, which I find those Chymists I have met with to agree in most: And I Doubt not but my Arguments against their Doctrine will be in great part easily enough applicable ev'n to those private Opinions, which they do not so directly and expresly oppose.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
2 months 3 days ago
The conformation of his mind was...

The conformation of his mind was such that whatever was little seemed to him great, and whatever was great seemed to him little. Serious business was a trifle to him, and trifles were his serious business.

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'Horace Walpole', The Edinburgh Review (October 1833), quoted in T. B. Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to The Edinburgh Review, Vol. II (1843), p. 99
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 6 days ago
Literary men are...a perpetual priesthood. The...

Literary men are...a perpetual priesthood.

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The State of German Literature.
Philosophical Maxims
Hermann Weyl
Hermann Weyl
3 weeks 4 days ago
All characteristics of material things as...

All characteristics of material things as they are presented to us in the acts of external perception (e.g. colour) are endowed with the separateness of spatial extension, but it is only when we build up a single connected real world out of all our experiences that the spatial extension, which is a constituent of every perception, becomes a part of one and the same all-inclusive space. ... every material thing can, without changing content, equally well occupy a position in Space different from its present one. This immediately gives us the property of the homogeneity of space which is the root of the conception, Congruence.

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Introduction
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 2 weeks ago
Most people would sooner die than...

Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
4 months 1 week ago
We may become the makers of...

We may become the makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.

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Introduction
Philosophical Maxims
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva
1 month 4 weeks ago
Whenever we engage in consumption or...

Whenever we engage in consumption or production patterns which take more than we need, we are engaging in violence.

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(p116)
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
5 months 4 days ago
If the Superior Man is...

If the Superior Man is not serious, then he will not inspire awe in others. If he is not learned, then he will not be on firm ground. He takes loyalty and good faith to be of primary importance, and has no friends who are not of equal (moral) caliber. When he makes a mistake, he doesn't hesitate to correct it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
2 months 1 week ago
When a man is in a...

When a man is in a fair way and sees all life open in front of him, he seems to himself to make a very important figure in the world. His horse whinnies to him; the trumpets blow and the girls look out of window as he rides into town before his company; he receives many assurances of trust and regard--sometimes by express in a letter--sometimes face to face, with persons of great consequence falling on his neck. It is not wonderful if his head is turned for a time. But once he is dead, were he as brave as Hercules or as wise as Solomon, he is soon forgotten.

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The Sire de Maletroit's Door.
Philosophical Maxims
Susan Neiman
Susan Neiman
2 months 5 days ago
The picture of modern philosophy as...

The picture of modern philosophy as centered in epistemology and driven by the desire to ground our representations is so tenacious that some philosophers are prepared to bite the bullet and declare the effort simply wasted. Rorty, for example, finds it easier to reject modern philosophy altogether than to reject the standard accounts of its history. His narrative is more polemical than most, but it's a polemical version of the story told in most philosophy departments in the second half of the twentieth century. The story is one of tortuously decreasing interest. Philosophy, like some people, was prepared to accept boredom in exchange for certainty as it grew to middle age.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 1 week ago
Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid...

Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense.

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p. 56e
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
3 months 1 week ago
The manufacturing worker almost always lives...

The manufacturing worker almost always lives in the countryside and in a more or less patriarchal relation to his landlord or employer; the proletarian lives, for the most part, in the city and his relation to his employer is purely a cash relation. The manufacturing worker is torn out of his patriarchal relation by big industry, loses whatever property he still has, and in this way becomes a proletarian.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
2 months 3 weeks ago
Human beings, viewed as behaving systems,...

Human beings, viewed as behaving systems, are quite simple. The apparent complexity of our behavior over time is largely a reflection of the complexity of the environment in which we find ourselves.

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p. 53.
Philosophical Maxims
William Whewell
William Whewell
2 weeks ago
The Construction of the Conception very...

The Construction of the Conception very often includes, in a great measure, the Determination of the Magnitudes. The true construction of the conception is frequently suggested by some hypothesis; and in these cases, the hypothesis may be useful, though containing superfluous parts.

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Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
3 months 3 weeks ago
Even to have come forth is...

Even to have come forth is something, since I see that being able to conquer is placed in the hands of fate. However, there was in me, whatever I was able to do, that which no future century will deny to be mine, that which a victor could have for his own: Not to have feared to die, not to have yielded to any equal in firmness of nature, and to have preferred a courageous death to a noncombatant life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
2 months 1 week ago
I've never been an optimist but...

I've never been an optimist but that's fine because pessimists have the possibility of being agreeably surprised, and that's a reason for being pessimistic, but I've always defended a certain kind of pessimism because what is known as optimism is really a collection of illusions and I think one must recognise what all religious people know, which is that human beings are imperfect and fallen and there's no way in which they can alone surmount the problems which they themselves create.

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From an interview with George Eaton "The Roger Scruton interview: the full transcript", New Statesman
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 3 weeks ago
Nothing is so firmly…

Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.

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Ch. 31. Of Divine Ordinances, tr. Cotton, rev. W. Hazlitt, 1842
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 1 week ago
I am sitting with a...

I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again "I know that that's a tree", pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell them: "This fellow isn't insane. We are only doing philosophy."

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Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
3 months 2 weeks ago
Genius is present in every age,...

Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
4 months 2 weeks ago
Proverbs are always platitudes until you...

Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them.

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Part IV: America,Jesting Pilate: The Diary of a Journey, 1926
Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
4 months 2 weeks ago
Extreme pride or dejection….

Extreme pride or dejection indicates extreme ignorance of self.

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Part IV, Prop. LV
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
5 days ago
We are inclined to overemphasize...

We are inclined to overemphasize the material influences in history. The Russians especially make this mistake. Intellectual values and ethnic influences, tradition and emotional factors are equally important. If this were not the case, Europe would today be a federated state, not a madhouse of nationalism.

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Philosophical Maxims
kalokagathia
kalokagathia
8 months 4 weeks ago
Exclude those that exclude

We cannot stand by while the social contract is broken by those who chose conflict over equality. Those that want equal treatment for themselves have to treat others equally. They cannot lead with exclusion, then turn around and demand equal treatment. It is a double standard. If they are going to exclude first, then justice demands that we, the group that stands with universality, follow our duty to react and exclude those that exclude.

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Propositions / General
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
5 months 1 week ago
There's something about a pious man...

There's something about a pious man such as he. He will cheerfully cut your throat if it suits him, but he will hesitate to endanger the welfare of your immaterial and problematical soul.

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Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
2 months 1 week ago
The world becomes full of organisms...

The world becomes full of organisms that have what it takes to become ancestors. That, in a sentence, is Darwinism.

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Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
4 months 3 weeks ago
In order to enter into a...

In order to enter into a real knowledge of your condition, consider it in this image: A man was cast by a tempest upon an unknown island, the inhabitants of which were in trouble to find their king, who was lost; and having a strong resemblance both in form and face to this king, he was taken for him, and acknowledged in this capacity by all the people.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
1 month 3 weeks ago
Might there not be a connection...

Might there not be a connection between the attempt to eradicate religion and the loss of freedom? It is unlikely that Mao, who launched his assault on the people and culture of Tibet with the slogan "Religion is poison," would have agreed that his atheist world-view had no bearing on his policies.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 3 weeks ago
The value of life lies not...

The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.

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Book I, Ch. 20
Philosophical Maxims
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
1 month 1 week ago
In a free society the state...

In a free society the state does not administer the affairs of men. It administers justice among men who conduct their own affairs.

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Ch. XII: "The Political Principles of Liberalism", §6, p. 267
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
3 months 2 weeks ago
How shall the dead arise, is...

How shall the dead arise, is no question of my faith; to believe only possibilities, is not faith, but mere philosophy.

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Section 48
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
5 months 2 weeks ago
Therefore create me! You, the most...

Therefore create me! You, the most esteemed, cultured public, are in possession of nervus rerum gerendarum [the moving force to accomplish something]. Just a word from you, a promise to purchase what I write, or, if it is possible, so that everything can be in order immediately, a little advance payment, and I am an author; I shall remain one as long as this favor lasts.

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
4 months 2 weeks ago
What a pity and what a...

What a pity and what a poverty of spirit, to assert that beasts are machines deprived of knowledge and sentiment, which affect all their operations in the same manner, which learn nothing, never improve, &c. [...] Some barbarians seize this dog, who so prodigiously excels man in friendship, they nail him to a table, and dissect him living, to show the mezarian veins. You discover in him all the same organs of sentiment which are in yourself. Answer me, machinist, has nature arranged all the springs of sentiment in this animal that he should not feel? Has he nerves to be incapable of suffering? Do not suppose this impertinent contradiction in nature. [...] The animal has received those of sentiment, memory, and a certain number of ideas. Who has bestowed these gifts, who has given these faculties? He who has made the herb of the field to grow, and who makes the earth gravitate towards the sun.

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"Beasts", in A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 2, J. and H. L. Hunt, 1824, p. 9
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 1 week ago
The pursuit of wealth...
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Proclus
Proclus
3 months 4 weeks ago
If two right lines cut one...

If two right lines cut one another, they will form the angles at the vertex equal. ...This... is what the present theorem evinces, that when two right lines mutually cut each other, the vertical angles are equal. And it was first invented according to Eudemus by Thales...

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Proposition XV. Thereom VIII.
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
2 weeks 1 day ago
Behind the stream of my mind...

Behind the stream of my mind and body, behind the stream of my race and all mankind, behind the stream of plants and animals, I watch with trembling the Invisible, treading on all visible things and ascending. Behind his heavy and blood-splattered feet I hear all living things being trampled on and crushed. His face is without laughter, dark and silent, beyond joy and sorrow, beyond hope.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
4 months 2 weeks ago
Generally speaking, the errors in religion...

Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.

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Part 4, Section 7
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
4 months 4 weeks ago
For every one….

For every one feels to what purpose he can use his own powers. Before the horns of a calf appear and sprout from his forehead, he butts with them when angry, and pushes passionately.

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Book V, lines 1033-1035 (tr. Bailey)
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
5 months 3 days ago
I am not my soul.

I am not my soul.

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Super I ad Corinthios, 15.2
Philosophical Maxims
Paracelsus
Paracelsus
1 month ago
What maintains the marriage and what...

What maintains the marriage and what is it? Only the knowledge of the hearts, that is its beginning and end.

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
3 months 1 day ago
If you say to someone who...

If you say to someone who has ears to hear: "What you are doing to me is not just," you may touch and awaken at its source the spirit of attention and love. But it is not the same with words like, "I have the right..." or "you have no right to..." They evoke a latent war and awaken the spirit of contention.

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p. 63
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
2 months 1 week ago
No tears are shed, when an...

No tears are shed, when an enemy dies.

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Maxim 376
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
2 months 3 weeks ago
I believe that if an individual...

I believe that if an individual is not on the path to transcending his society and seeing in what way it furthers or impedes the development of human potential, he cannot enter into intimate contact with his humanity. If the tabus, restrictions, distorted values appear "natural" to him, this is a clear indication that he cannot have a real knowledge of human nature. I believe that society, while having a function both stimulating and inhibiting at the same time, has always been in conflict with humanity. Only when the purpose of society is identified with that of humanity will society cease to paralyze man and encourage his dominance.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
5 months 1 week ago
To have time was at once...

To have time was at once the most magnificent and the most dangerous of experiments. Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
5 months 2 weeks ago
It is well said, then, that...

It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man; without doing these no one would have even a prospect of becoming good. But most people do not do these, but take refuge in theory and think they are being philosophers and will become good in this way, behaving somewhat like patients who listen attentively to their doctors, but do none of the things they are ordered to do.

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Philosophical Maxims
Allan Bloom
Allan Bloom
3 weeks 5 days ago
We witness a strange inversion: on...

We witness a strange inversion: on the one hand, the endeavor to turn the social contract into a less calculating and more feeling connection among its members; on the other hand, the endeavor to turn the erotic relationship into a contractual one.

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p. 15.
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
4 months 2 weeks ago
On the other hand, the cheapest...

On the other hand, the cheapest form of pride is national pride; for the man affected therewith betrays a want of individual qualities of which he might be proud, since he would not otherwise resort to that which he shares with so many millions. The man who possesses outstanding personal qualities will rather see most clearly the faults of his own nation, for he has them constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool, who has nothing in the world whereof he could be proud, resorts finally to being proud of the very nation to which he belongs. In this he finds compensation and is now ready and thankful to defend, ... all the faults and follies peculiar to it.

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From 'Parerga and Paralipomena', Vol. 1, Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life, 'What A Man Represents', pp. 360
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 1 week ago
We are all deep in a...

We are all deep in a hell each moment of which is a miracle. variant: The fact that living is an extraordinary thing seeing things as they are, That this life is theoretically completely worthless, Seems extraordinary compared to the actual level, This means Live despite all adversities, Every moment becomes a kind of heroism

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Philosophical Maxims
Willard van Orman Quine
Willard van Orman Quine
3 months 1 day ago
Life is agid. Life is fulgid....

Life is agid. Life is fulgid. Life is a burgeoning, a quickening of the dim primordial urge in the murky wastes of time. Life is what the least of us make most of us feel the least of us make the most of.

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Quine's response in 1988 when asked his philosophy of life. (He invented the word "agid".) It makes up the entire Chapter 54 in Quine in Dialogue (2008).
Philosophical Maxims
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