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Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
4 weeks ago
A man who chooses between drinking...

A man who chooses between drinking a glass of milk and a glass of a solution of potassium cyanide does not choose between two beverages; he chooses between life and death. A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.

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1963 edition, p. 680
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 months 3 weeks ago
Take not thine enemy for thy...

Take not thine enemy for thy friend; nor thy friend for thine enemy!

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 1 week ago
"I am like a broken puppet...

"I am like a broken puppet whose eyes have fallen inside." This remark of a mental patient weighs more heavily than a whole stack of works on introspection.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
1 month 4 weeks ago
A small beginning has led us...

A small beginning has led us to a great ending. If I were to put the bit of chalk with which we started into the hot but obscure flame of burning hydrogen, it would presently shine like the sun. It seems to me that this physical metamorphosis is no false image of what has been the result of our subjecting it to a jet of fervent, though nowise brilliant, thought to-night. It has become luminous, and its clear rays, penetrating the abyss of the remote past, have brought within our ken some stages of the evolution of the earth. And in the shifting "without haste, but without rest" of the land and sea, as in the endless variation of the forms assumed by living beings, we have observed nothing but the natural product of the forces originally possessed by the substance of the universe.

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Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
4 months 2 weeks ago
Man can, indeed, act contrarily to...

Man can, indeed, act contrarily to the decrees of God, as far as they have been written like laws in the minds of ourselves or the prophets, but against that eternal decree of God, which is written in universal nature, and has regard to the course of nature as a whole, he can do nothing.

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Ch. 2, Of Natural Right
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 1 week ago
Justice is itself the great standing...

Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
4 months 1 week ago
The end cannot justify the means...

The end cannot justify the means for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature of the ends produced.

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Ch. 1, p. 10 [2012 reprint]
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 1 week ago
Emptiness is not....
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Main Content / General
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
4 months 2 days ago
If you are to be kept...

If you are to be kept right, you must possess either good friends or red-hot enemies. The one will warn you, the other will expose you.

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Plutarch, Moralia, 74C
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
1 month 2 weeks ago
Humanists today, who claim to take...

Humanists today, who claim to take a wholly secular view of things, scoff at mysticism and religion. But the unique status of humans is hard to defend, and even to understand, when it is cut off from any idea of transcendence. In a strictly naturalistic view - one in which the world is taken on its own terms, without reference to a creator or any spiritual realm - there is no hierarchy of value with humans at the top. There are simply multifarious animals, each with their own needs. Human uniqueness is a myth inherited from religion, which humanists have recycled into science.

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An Old Chaos: Humanism and Flying Saucers (p. 77)
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
2 months 3 weeks ago
Historical time knows no lasting present.

Historical time knows no lasting present.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
4 months 1 week ago
Many people think they are thinking...

Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. 

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To his young son from the Yosemite Valley on
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
4 months 1 week ago
To aspire to be superhuman is...

To aspire to be superhuman is a most discreditable admission that you lack the guts, the wit, the moderating judgment to be successfully and consummately human.

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Spinoza's Worm," p. 75
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 week 2 days ago
As thou thyself art a component...

As thou thyself art a component part of a social system, so let every act of thine be a component part of social life. Whatever act of thine that has no reference, either immediately or remotely, to a social end, this tears asunder thy life, and does not allow it to be one, and it is of the nature of a mutiny, just as when in a popular assembly a man acting by himself stands apart from the general agreement.

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IX, 23
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 3 days ago
It is now almost my sole...

It is now almost my sole rule of life to clear myself of cants and formulas, as of poisonous Nessus shirts.

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Letter to His Wife (1835).
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
4 months 3 weeks ago
Since it is Reason which shapes...

Since it is Reason which shapes and regulates all other things, it ought not itself to be left in disorder.

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Book I, ch. 17, 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Henry George
Henry George
1 week 4 days ago
All large political questions are at...

All large political questions are at bottom economic questions.

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General Introduction
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
2 months 3 weeks ago
If a person loves only one...

If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to all others, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism.

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Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
4 months 2 weeks ago
The woman wants to dominate, the...

The woman wants to dominate, the man wants to be dominated.

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Kant, Immanuel (1996), page 220
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1 month 5 days ago
If I work incessantly to the...

If I work incessantly to the last, nature owes me another form of existence when the present one collapses.

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Letter to Eckermann
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
4 months 2 weeks ago
Let the punishments of criminals…

Let the punishments of criminals be useful. A hanged man is good for nothing; a man condemned to public works still serves the country, and is a living lesson.

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"Civil and Ecclesiastical Laws," Dictionnaire philosophique (1785-1789)
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
3 weeks 6 days ago
Unjust dominion…

Unjust dominion cannot be eternal.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
2 months 4 weeks ago
Little can be hoped for from...

Little can be hoped for from a ruler... who has not at some time or other been preoccupied, even if only confusedly, with the first beginning and ultimate end of all things, and above all of man, with the "why" of his origin and the "wherefore" of his destiny.

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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
3 weeks 6 days ago
A great pilot…

A great pilot can sail even when his canvas is rent.

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Line 3.
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
3 months 1 week ago
When men hire themselves out to...

When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don't care if they are shot themselves.

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"Patriotism", p. 126
Philosophical Maxims
Alan Watts
Alan Watts
3 weeks 2 days ago
So in this idea, then, everybody...

So in this idea, then, everybody is fundamentally the ultimate reality. Not God in a politically kingly sense, but God in the sense of being the self, the deep-down basic whatever there is. And you're all that, only you're pretending you're not. And it's perfectly OK to pretend you're not, to be perfectly convinced, because this is the whole notion of drama.

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The Nature of Consciousness; also published as What Is Reality?
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months 3 weeks ago
Cautiousness in judgment is nowadays to...

Cautiousness in judgment is nowadays to be recommended to each and every one: if we gained only one incontestable truth every ten years from each of our philosophical writers the harvest we reaped would be sufficient. ... To grow wiser means to learn to know better and better the faults to which this instrument with which we feel and judge can be subject.

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A 38
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 1 week ago
Gentlemen, the melancholy event of yesterday...

Gentlemen, the melancholy event of yesterday reads to us an awful lesson against being too much troubled about any of the objects of ordinary ambition. The worthy gentleman, who has been snatched from us at the moment of the election, and in the middle of contest, whilst his desires were as warm, and his hopes as eager as ours, has feelingly told us, what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue.

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Speech at Bristol on declining the poll, referring to a Mr. Richard Coombe (9 September 1780), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II (1855), p. 171
Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
1 month 3 weeks ago
To be sure, risks abound; but...

To be sure, risks abound; but no one is proposing compassionate stewardship of ecosystems by philosophers. Humans are capable of choosing our own future pain-sensitivity too; but any species-wide genomic shift in human pain tolerance will depend on the willingness of prospective parents to use preimplantation genetic screening.

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Compassionate Biology: How CRISPR-based gene drives" could cheaply, rapidly and sustainably reduce suffering throughout the living world", BLTC Research, 2016
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
4 months 2 days ago
The right-minded man, ever inclined to...

The right-minded man, ever inclined to righteous and lawful deeds, is joyous day and night, and strong, and free from care. But if a man take no heed of the right, and leave undone the things he ought to do, then will the recollection of no one of all his transgressions bring him any joy, but only anxiety and self-reproaching.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 1 week ago
It is the poets and painters...

It is the poets and painters who react instantly to a new medium like radio or TV.

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(p. 53)
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
2 days ago
The only progress I can...

The only progress I can see is progress in the organization. The ordinary human being does not live long enough to draw any substantial benefit from his own experience. And no one, it seems, can benefit by the experiences of others. Being both a father and teacher, I know we can teach our children nothing. We can transmit to them neither our knowledge of life nor of mathematics. Each must learn its lesson anew.

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Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
3 months 1 week ago
Poets and priests were one in...

Poets and priests were one in the beginning, and they only separated in later times. But the real poet is always a priest, just as the real priest always remains a poet.

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Fragment No. 71
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
4 months 3 weeks ago
In the same manner as we...

In the same manner as we are cautioned by religion to show our faith by our works we may very properly apply the principle to philosophy, and judge of it by its works; accounting that to be futile which is unproductive, and still more so, if instead of grapes and olives it yield but the thistle and thorns of dispute and contention.

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Aphorism 73
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
2 months 1 day ago
I would rather be a poor...

I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a king who did not love reading.

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Letter to his Niece, 15 September 1842
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
4 months 2 weeks ago
It is the nature and intention...

It is the nature and intention of a constitution to prevent governing by party, by establishing a common principle that shall limit and control the power and impulse of party, and that says to all parties, thus far shalt thou go and no further. But in the absence of a constitution, men look entirely to party; and instead of principle governing party, party governs principle.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 1 week ago
The only thing that will redeem...

The only thing that will redeem mankind is co-operation, and the first step towards co-operation lies in the hearts of individuals.

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p. 212
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 week 2 days ago
Marcus Aurelius wrote the following about...

Marcus Aurelius wrote the following about Severus (a person who is not clearly identifiable according to the footnote): Through him I became acquainted with the conception of a community based on equality and freedom of speech for all, and of a monarchy concerned primarily to uphold the liberty of the subject.

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I. 14, trans. Maxwell Staniforth
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
3 months 3 days ago
Scientific truth is characterized by its...

Scientific truth is characterized by its exactness and the certainty of its predictions. But these admirable qualities are contrived by science at the cost of remaining on a plane of secondary problems. leaving intact the ultimate and decisive questions. ... Yet science is but a small part of the human mind and organism. Where it stops, man does not stop.

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p. 13
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick
1 month 2 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
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 1 week ago
Illusion begets and sustains the world;...

Illusion begets and sustains the world; we do not destroy one without destroying the other. Which is what I do every day. An apparently ineffectual operation, since I must begin all over again the next day.

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Philosophical Maxims
Willard van Orman Quine
Willard van Orman Quine
2 months 4 weeks 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
Auguste Comte
Auguste Comte
3 months 2 weeks ago
Reorganisation, irrespectively of God or king,...

Reorganisation, irrespectively of God or king, by the worship of Humanity, systematically adopted. Man's only right is to do his duty. The Intellect should always be the servant of the Heart, and should never be its slave.

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Title Page
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 week 5 days ago
What all agree upon is probably...

What all agree upon is probably right; what no two agree in most probably is wrong.

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Letter to John Adams (11 January 1817) This statement has been referred to as "Jefferson's Axiom"
Philosophical Maxims
Julius Evola
Julius Evola
2 weeks 6 days ago
One of the commonplaces of modern...

One of the commonplaces of modern historiography is the polemical exaltation of the civilization of the Renaissance over and against medieval civilization. This is not just the expression of a typical misunderstanding, since this mentality is the effect of one among the innumerable deceptions purposely spread in modern culture by the leaders of global subversion. The truth is that after the collapse of the ancient world, if there ever was a civilization that deserves the name of Renaissance, this was the civilization of the Middle Ages. In its objectivity, its virile spirit, its hierarchical structure, its proud antihumanistic simplicity so often permeated by the sense of the sacred, the Middle Ages represented a return to the origins.

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p.309
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
3 months 4 days ago
The recurrence of relations-not of elements-in...

The recurrence of relations-not of elements-in different contexts, which constitutes transposition is qualitative and hence directly experienced in perception.

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p. 219
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
4 months 1 week ago
The main characteristic of any event...

The main characteristic of any event is that it has not been foreseen. We don't know the future but everybody acts into the future. Nobody knows what he is doing because the future is being done, action is being done by a "we" and not an "I." Only if I were the only one acting could I foretell the consequences of what I'm doing. What actually happens is entirely contingent, and contingency is indeed one of the biggest factors in all history.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 1 week ago
The whole mystery of commodities, all...

The whole mystery of commodities, all the magic and necromancy that surrounds the products of labor as long as they take the form of commodities, vanishes therefore, so soon as we come to other forms of production.

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Vol. I, ch.1, section 4.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 1 week ago
Without the faculty of forgetting, our...

Without the faculty of forgetting, our past would weigh so heavily on our present that we should not have the strength to confront another moment, still less to live through it. Life would be bearable only to frivolous natures, those in fact who do not remember.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson
3 months 5 days ago
Why did we obey? The question...

Why did we obey? The question hardly occurred to us. We had formed the habit of deferring to our parents and teachers. All the same we knew very well that it was because they were our parents, because they were our teachers. Therefore, in our eyes, their authority came less from themselves than from their status in relation to us.

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Chapter I: Moral Obligation
Philosophical Maxims
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