Skip to main content

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
1 month 3 weeks ago

It was mathematics, the non-empirical science par excellence, wherein the mind appears to play only with itself, that turned out to be the science of sciences, delivering the key to those laws of nature and the universe that are concealed by appearances.

0
0
Source
source
p. 7
1 week 1 day ago

There is absolute truth in anarchism and it is to be seen in its attitude to the sovereignty of the state and to every form of state absolutism. ... The religious truth of anarchism consists in this, that power over man is bound up with sin and evil, that a state of perfection is a state where there is no power of man over man, that is to say, anarchy. The Kingdom of God is freedom and the absence of such power... the Kingdom of God is anarchy.

0
0
Source
source
Slavery and Freedom (1939), p. 147
2 weeks 5 days ago

Not wise does it seem to attempt comprehending and understanding a Human World without full perfected Humanity. No talent must sleep; and if all are not alike active, all must be alert, and not oppressed and enervated. As we see a future Painter in the boy who fills every wall with sketches and variedly adds colour to figure; so we see a future Philosopher in him who restlessly traces and questions all natural things, pays heed to all, brings together whatever is remarkable, and rejoices when he has become master and possessor of a new phenomenon, of a new power and piece of knowledge.

0
0
2 months 1 week ago

A young man should serve his parents at home and be respectful to elders outside his home. He should be earnest and truthful, loving all, but become intimate with humaneness. After doing this, if he has energy to spare, he can study literature and the arts.

0
0
1 month 2 weeks ago

Philosophy's position with regard to science, which at one time could be designated with the name "theory of knowledge," has been undermined by the movement of philosophical thought itself. Philosophy was dislodged from this position by philosophy.

0
0
Source
source
p. 4
1 month 3 weeks ago

It is better; heavier, crueler. The mouth you wear for hell.

0
0
Source
source
Inès to Estelle after she has applied lipstick, Act 1, sc. 5
1 month 3 weeks ago

There ought to be some regulation with respect to the spirit of denunciation that now prevails. If every individual is to indulge his private malignancy or his private ambition, to denounce at random and without any kind of proof, all confidence will be undermined and all authority be destroyed. Calumny is a species of treachery that ought to be punished as well as any other kind of treachery. It is a private vice productive of public evils; because it is possible to irritate men into disaffection by continual calumny who never intended to be disaffected. It is therefore equally as necessary to guard against the evils of unfounded or malignant suspicion as against the evils of blind confidence. It is equally as necessary to protect the characters of public officers from calumny as it is to punish them for treachery or misconduct.

0
0
Source
source
Letter to George Jacques Danton
1 month 3 weeks ago

Free in this world as the birds in the air, disengaged from every kind of chains, those who have practiced the Yoga gather in Brahmin the certain fruit of their works. Depend upon it; rude and careless as I am, I would fain practice the yoga faithfully. This Yogi, absorbed in contemplation, contributes in his degree to creation; he breathes a divine perfume, he heard wonderful things. Divine forms traverse him without tearing him and he goes, he acts as animating original matter. To some extent, and at rare intervals, even I am a Yogi.

0
0
Source
source
Letter to H. G. O. Blake, November 20, 1849
1 month 3 weeks ago

Such arguments ill become us, since the time of reformation came, under Gospel light. All distinctions of nations, and privileges of one above others, are ceased; Christians are taught to account all men their neighbours; and love their neighbours as themselves; and do to all men as they would be done by; to do good to all men; and Man-stealing is ranked with enormous crimes. Is the barbarous enslaving our inoffensive neighbours, and treating them like wild beasts subdued by force, reconcilable with all these Divine precepts? Is this doing to them as we would desire they should do to us? If they could carry off and enslave some thousands of us, would we think it just?-One would almost wish they could for once; it might convince more than Reason, or the Bible.

0
0
4 weeks 1 day ago

To a body of infinite size there can be ascribed neither centre nor boundary... Thus the Earth no more than any other world is at the centre.

0
0

God is nothingness: He is 'beyond all speech.'

0
0
2 months 1 day ago

The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.

0
0
Source
source
Essex's Device
5 days ago

You', the ego, live in your left brain. When we say that man is the only creature who spends 99 per cent of his time inside his own head, we mean, in fact, inside his left cerebral hemisphere. And in the basement of the left hemisphere is the library full of filing cabinets -- the stuffy room that we mistake for reality.

0
0
Source
source
p. 9
2 months 1 week ago

Shut out the evil love of the world, that you may be filled with the love of God. You are a vessel that was already full: you must pour away what you have, that you may take in what you have not.

0
0
Source
source
Second Homily, as translated by John Burnaby (1955), p. 274
2 weeks 4 days ago

In the torments of the intellect, there is a certain bearing which is to be sought in vain among those of the heart. Skepticism is the elegance of anxiety.

0
0
2 weeks 1 day ago

Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me; I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to him.

0
0

We have reached the point where the Objective Logic turns into the Subjective Logic, or, where subjectivity emerges as the true form of objectivity. We may sum up Hegel's analysis in the following schema: The true form of reality requires freedom. Freedom requires self-consciousness and knowledge of the truth. Self-consciousness and knowledge of the truth are the essentials of the subject. The form of reality must be conceived as subject.

0
0
Source
source
P. 154-155
1 month 1 week ago

When one told Plistarchus that a notorious railer spoke well of him, "I 'll lay my life," said he, "somebody hath told him I am dead, for he can speak well of no man living."

0
0
Source
source
Of Plistarchus
1 month 3 weeks ago

I grasp at each second, trying to suck it dry: nothing happens which I do not seize, which I do not fix forever in myself, nothing, neither the fugitive tenderness of those lovely eyes, nor the noises of the street, nor the false dawn of early morning: and even so the minute passes and I do not hold it back, I like to see it pass.

0
0

We think in generalities, but we live in detail. To make the past live, we must perceive it in detail in addition to thinking of it in generalities.

0
0
Source
source
"The Education of an Englishman" in The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 138 (1926), p. 192.

The word 'definition' has come to have a dangerously reassuring sound, owing no doubt to its frequent occurrence in logical and mathematical writings.

0
0
Source
source
"Two dogmas of Empiricism", p. 26
2 months ago

If we allow them any influence in our conscience, they become the cloak of evil, heresies and blasphemies.

0
0
Source
source
Marthin Luther, Comment, ad Galat., 310. As cited by Rev. Msgr. Patrick F. O'Hare (1916), The Facts about Luther, p. 119. OCLC 4200594.
3 weeks 1 day ago

Supreme power rests in the will of all or of the majority.

0
0
1 month 1 week ago

I'd rather be mad than feel pleasure.

0
0
Source
source
§ 3; quoted also by Eusebius of Caesarea, Praeparatio Evangelica xv. 13

The freedom of the 'everyday mind' consists rather in not kneeling down in awe. Its mental attitude is better expressed as sitting unmoveable like an object.

0
0
2 weeks 5 days ago

It is false that kings are entitled to the eminence they obtain. They possess no intrinsic superiority over their subjects. The line of distinction that is drawn is the offspring of pretense, an indirect means employed for effecting certain purposes, and not the language of truth. It tramples upon the genuine nature of things, and depends for its support upon this argument, 'that, were it not for impositions of a similar nature, mankind would be miserable.'

0
0
Source
source
Book V, Ch. 6, "Of Subjects"
1 week 5 days ago

The complexity of the connection between the world of perception and the world of physics does not preclude that such a connection can be shown to exist at any time.

0
0
Source
source
p. 133.
1 month 2 weeks ago

Freud's fanciful pseudo-explanations (precisely because they are brilliant) perform a disservice. (Now any ass has these pictures available to use in "explaining" symptoms of an illness).

0
0
Source
source
p. 55e
2 months 1 week ago

The wise is one only. It is unwilling and willing to be called by the name of Zeus.

0
0
2 weeks 1 day ago

When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times? A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas.

0
0
Source
source
16:2-4 (KJV)
2 months 1 week ago

Perfect is the virtue which is according to the Mean! Rare have they long been among the people, who could practice it!

0
0
2 months 1 week ago

There is nothing more visible than what is secret, and nothing more manifest than what is minute. Therefore the superior man is watchful over himself, when he is alone.

0
0
1 month 3 weeks ago

The First [Friend] is the alter ego, the man who first reveals to you that you are not alone in the world by turning out (beyond hope) to share all your most secret delights. There is nothing to be overcome in making him your friend; he and you join like raindrops on a window. But the Second Friend is the man who disagrees with you about everything... Of course he shares your interests; otherwise he would not become your friend at all. But he has approached them all at a different angle. he has read all the right books but has got the wrong thing out of every one... How can he be so nearly right, and yet, invariably, just not right? He is as fascinating (and infuriating) as a woman.

0
0
3 weeks 6 days ago

He was as great as a man can be without morality.

0
0
Source
source
Said of Napoleon (1842)
1 month 3 weeks ago

What a monstrous thing that a University should teach journalism! I thought that was only done at Oxford. This respect for the filthy multitude is ruining civilisation.

0
0
Source
source
Letter to Lucy Martin Donnely, July 6, 1902

In contrast to festivals, events do not create community.

0
0
2 months 1 week ago

Pleasure and distress, fear and courage, desire and aversion, where have these affections and experiences their seat? Clearly, either in the Soul alone, or in the Soul as employing the body, or in some third entity deriving from both. And for this third entity, again, there are two possible modes: it might be either a blend or a distinct form due to the blending.

0
0
2 weeks 4 days ago

Is it conceivable to adhere to a religion founded by someone else?

0
0
2 weeks 4 days ago

True confessions are written with tears only. But my tears would drown the world, as my inner fire would reduce it to ashes.

0
0
2 months 3 weeks ago

Concerning the generation of animals akin to them, as hornets and wasps, the facts in all cases are similar to a certain extent, but are devoid of the extraordinary features which characterize bees; this we should expect, for they have nothing divine about them as the bees have.

0
0
1 month 3 weeks ago

There is only one way to science-or to philosophy... to meet a problem, to see its beauty and fall in love with it; to get married to it, and to live with it happily, till death do ye part-unless you should meet another... more fascinating problem, or... obtain a solution. But even if you do... you may... discover, to your delight, the... a whole family of enchanting... perhaps difficult problem children for whose welfare you may work, with a purpose, to the end of your days.

0
0

To him who looks upon the world rationally, the world in its turn presents a rational aspect. The relation is mutual.

0
0
1 month 3 weeks ago

But the chief design of this paper is not to disprove it, which many have sufficiently done; but to entreat Americans to consider.

0
0
1 month 3 weeks ago

There is room in the world, no doubt, and even in old countries, for a great increase of population, supposing the arts of life to go on improving, and capital to increase. But even if innocuous, I confess I see very little reason for desiring it. The density of population necessary to enable mankind to obtain, in the greatest degree, all the advantages both of co-operation and of social intercourse, has, in all the most populous countries, been attained. If the earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to things that the unlimited increase of wealth and population would extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger but not a better or a happier population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will be content to be stationary, long before necessity compels them to it..

0
0
Source
source
Book IV, Chapter VI, §3, p. 516
1 month 3 weeks ago

The love of God consists in an ardent desire to procure the general welfare, and reason teaches me that there is nothing which contributes more to the general welfare of mankind than the perfection of reason.

0
0
Source
source
Closing sentence of the Preface to the general science (1677) (in P. Wiener (ed.), Leibniz Selections, Macmilland Press Ltd, 1951).
1 month 3 weeks ago

Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness.

0
0
3 weeks 5 days ago

What most astonishes me in the United States, is not so much the marvelous grandeur of some undertakings, as the innumerable multitude of small ones.

0
0
Source
source
Book Two, Chapter XIX.
1 month 3 weeks ago

How you produce volume after volume the way you do is more than I can conceive. ...But you haven't to forge every sentence in the teeth of irreducible and stubborn facts as I do. It is like walking through the densest brush wood.

0
0
Source
source
Letter to Henry James (ca. 1890) as quoted by Robert D. Richardson, William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism (2007) p. 297.
1 week 1 day ago

We must wish either for that which actually exists or for that which cannot in any way exist - or, still better, for both. That which is and that which cannot be are both outside the realm of becoming.

0
0
Source
source
p. 154

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia