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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 4 days ago
A sect or party is an...

A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.

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June 20, 1831
Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
4 months 1 week ago
It is easier for the prince...

It is easier for the prince to make friends of those men who were contented under the former government, and are therefore his enemies, than of those who, being discontented with it, were favourable to him and encouraged him to seize it. 

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Ch. 20
Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
3 months 2 days ago
Situation seems to be the mould...

Situation seems to be the mould in which men's characters are formed.

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Letter 23
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 5 days ago
It is said...

It is said (I do not know with what truth) that a certain Hindu thinker believed the earth to rest upon an elephant. When asked what the elephant rested upon, he replied that it rested upon a tortoise. When asked what the tortoise rested upon, he said, "I am tired of this. Suppose we change the subject." This illustrates the unsatisfactory character of the First-Cause argument.

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"Is There a God?", 1952
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
5 months 6 days ago
Pardon me, my friends, I have...
Pardon me, my friends, I have ventured to paint my happiness on the wall.
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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
3 months 3 weeks ago
I do not believe that the...

I do not believe that the source of value is unitary - displaying apparent multiplicity only in its application to the world. I believe that value has fundamentally different kinds of sources, and that they are reflected in the classification of values into types. Not all values represent the pursuit of some single good in a variety of settings.

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"The Fragmentation of Value" (1977), pp. 131-132.
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months 2 weeks ago
Food probably has a very great...

Food probably has a very great influence on the condition of men. Wine exercises a more visible influence, food does it more slowly but perhaps just as surely. Who knows if a well-prepared soup was not responsible for the pneumatic pump or a poor one for a war?

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A 14
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
4 months 1 week ago
It is the natural effect of...

It is the natural effect of improvement, however, to diminish gradually the real price of almost all manufactures.

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Chapter XI, Part III, (Conclusion..) p. 282.
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
2 months 2 weeks ago
I believe that the unity of...

I believe that the unity of man as opposed to other living things derives from the fact that man is the conscious life of himself. Man is conscious of himself, of his future, which is death, of his smallness, of his impotence; he is aware of others as others; man is in nature, subject to its laws even if he transcends it with his thought.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
4 days ago
I know, indeed, that some honest...

I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
3 months 4 days ago
What man calls Absolute Being, his...

What man calls Absolute Being, his God, is his own being. The power of the object over him is therefore the power of his own being. Thus, the power of the object of feeling is the power of feeling itself; the power of the object of reason is the power of reason itself; and the power of the object of will is the power of will itself.

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Introduction, Z. Hanfi, trans., in The Fiery Brook (1972), p. 102
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 months 2 weeks ago
Write in the sand the flaws...

Write in the sand the flaws of your friend.

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As quoted in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists‎ (2007) by James Geary
Philosophical Maxims
John Searle
John Searle
2 months 1 week ago
Well, what does "good" mean anyway...?...

Well, what does "good" mean anyway...? As Wittgenstein suggested, "good," like "game," has a family of meanings. Prominent among them is this one: "meets the criteria or standards of assessment or evaluation."

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P. 152.
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 2 days ago
I've always been careful never to...

I've always been careful never to predict anything that had not already happened.

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Interview: Tom Wolfe, TVOntario, August 1970
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
3 weeks 4 days ago
These are the two vices that...

These are the two vices that beset Government Offices; both of them originating in insufficient Intellect,-that sad insufficiency from which, directly or indirectly, all evil whatsoever springs!

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin
2 months 3 weeks ago
By freedom he meant a condition...

By freedom he meant a condition in which men were not prevented from choosing both the object and the manner of their worship. For him only a society in which this condition was realised could be called fully human. Its realisation was an ideal which Mill regarded as more precious than life itself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
1 month 2 weeks ago
The whole analogy of natural operations...

The whole analogy of natural operations furnishes so complete and crushing an argument against the intervention of any but what are termed secondary causes, in the production of all the phenomena of the universe; that, in view of the intimate relations between Man and the rest of the living world; and between the forces exerted by the latter and all other forces, I can see no excuse for doubting that all are co-ordinated terms of Nature's great progression, from the formless to the formed-from the inorganic to the organic-from blind force to conscious intellect and will.

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Ch.2, p. 128
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 5 days ago
Freedom of opinion can only exist...

Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure...

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A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42 (1996), p. 443
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
2 weeks 5 days ago
Now a life of honour includes...

Now a life of honour includes various kinds of conduct; it may include the chest in which Regulus was confined, or the wound of Cato which was torn open by Cato's own hand, or the exile of Rutilius, or the cup of poison which removed Socrates from gaol to heaven.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
2 months 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
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
4 days ago
Our opinion here is that that...

Our opinion here is that that place has been so deeply concerned in smuggling, that if it wants it is because it has illegally sent away what it ought to have retained for its own consumption.

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Letter to Lieutenant Governor Levi Lincoln of Massachusetts (November 13, 1808) concerning a petition from the island of Nantucket for food during the American embargo.
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
4 months 1 week ago
In a word, human life is...

In a word, human life is more governed by fortune than by reason; is to be regarded more as a dull pastime than as a serious occupation; and is more influenced by particular humour, than by general principles. Shall we engage ourselves in it with passion and anxiety? It is not worthy of so much concern. Shall we be indifferent about what happens? We lose all the pleasure of the game by our phlegm and carelessness. While we are reasoning concerning life, life is gone; and death, though perhaps they receive him differently, yet treats alike the fool and the philosopher.

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Part I, Essay 18: The Sceptic
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 months 2 weeks ago
Without doubt, if we are to...

Without doubt, if we are to go back to that ultimate, integral experience, unwarped by the sophistications of theory, that experience whose elucidation is the final aim of philosophy, the flux of things is one ultimate generalization around which we must weave our philosophical system.

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Pt. II, ch. 10, sec. 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 5 days ago
It is clear that thought is...

It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living. It is clear also that thought is not free if all the arguments on one side of a controversy are perpetually presented as attractively as possible, while the arguments on the other side can only be discovered by diligent search.

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Ch. 12: Free Thought and Official Propaganda, books.google.com, archive.org
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
4 months 3 weeks ago
The superior man has neither anxiety...

The superior man has neither anxiety nor fear. When internal examination discovers nothing wrong, what is there to be anxious about, what is there to fear?

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 4 days ago
Political Economy regards the proletarian ......

Political Economy regards the proletarian ... like a horse, he must receive enough to enable him to work. It does not consider him, during the time when he is not working, as a human being. It leaves this to criminal law, doctors, religion, statistical tables, politics, and the beadle. ... (1) What is the meaning, in the development of mankind, of this reduction of the greater part of mankind to abstract labor? (2) What mistakes are made by the piecemeal reformers, who either want to raise wages and thereby improve the situation of the working class, or - like Proudhon - see equality of wages as the goal of social revolution?.

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First Manuscript - Wages of Labour, p. 6.
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
4 months 1 week ago
All registers which, it is acknowledged,...

All registers which, it is acknowledged, ought to be kept secret, ought certainly never to exist.

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Chapter II, Part II, Appendix to Articles I and II, p. 935.
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 3 days ago
"Then those people are right who...

"Then those people are right who say that Heaven and Hell are only states of mind?" "Hush," he said sternly. "Do not blaspheme. Hell is a state of mind - ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind - is, in the end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly."

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Ch. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Humphry Davy
Humphry Davy
3 days ago
Fortunately science, like that nature to...

Fortunately science, like that nature to which it belongs, is neither limited by time nor by space. It belongs to the world, and is of no country and of no age. The more we know, the more we feel our ignorance; the more we feel how much remains unknown; and in philosophy, the sentiment of the Macedonian hero can never apply, - there are always new worlds to conquer.

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Discourse Delivered at the Royal Society (30 November 1825)
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
2 months 3 weeks ago
No criticism can be brought against...

No criticism can be brought against a branch of technical science from outside; no thought fitted out with the knowledge of a period and setting its course by definite historical aims could have anything to say to the specialist. Such thought and the critical, dialectical element it communicates to the process of cognition, thereby maintaining conscious connection between that process and historical life, do not exist for empiricism; nor do the associated categories, such as the distinction between essence and appearance, identity in change, and rationality of ends, indeed, the concept of man, of personality, even of society and class taken in the sense that presupposes specific viewpoints and directions of interest.

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p. 145.
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
3 months ago
Were the ends of a person...

Were the ends of a person already explicit, there would be no room for development, for growth, for life; and consequently there would be no personality. The mere carrying out of predetermined purposes is mechanical. This remark has an application to the philosophy of religion. It is that genuine evolutionary philosophy, that is, one that makes the principle of growth a primordial element of the universe, is so far from being antagonistic to the idea of a personal creator, that it is really inseparable from that idea; while a necessitarian religion is in an altogether false position and is destined to become disintegrated. But a pseudo-evolutionism which enthrones mechanical law above the principle of growth is at once scientifically unsatisfactory, as giving no possible hint of how the universe has come about, and hostile to all hopes of personal relations to God.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
4 months 1 week ago
Oh providence! Oh nature! Treasure of...

Oh providence! Oh nature! Treasure of the poor, resource of the unfortunate. The person who feels, knows your holy laws and trusts them, the person whose heart is at peace and whose body does not suffer, thanks to you is not entirely prey to adversity.

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Second Dialogue; translated by Judith R. Bush, Christopher Kelly, Roger D. Masters
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
4 months 6 days ago
Divorce is probably….

Divorce is probably of nearly the same age as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.

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"Divorce", 1771
Philosophical Maxims
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
2 months 6 days ago
What should young people do with...

What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.

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Commencement Address to Hobart and William Smith Colleges, May 26, 1974
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
2 months 2 weeks ago
The Outsider cannot accept life as...

The Outsider cannot accept life as it is, who cannot consider his own existence or anyone else's necessary. He sees 'too deep and too much'. It is still a question of self-expression.

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Chapter Four The Attempt to Gain Control
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 day ago
The other reason is that what...

The other reason is that what happens to the individual is a cause of well-being in what directs the world--of its well-being, its fulfillment, or its very existence, even. Because the whole is damaged if you cut away anything--anything at all--from its continuity and its coherence. Not only its parts, but its purposes. And that's what you're doing when you complain: hacking and destroying.

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(Hays translation) V, 7
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 4 days ago
Ramsgate is full of Jews and...

Ramsgate is full of Jews and fleas.

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MEKOR IV, 490, 25 August 1879
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
4 months 4 days ago
The normal process of life contains...

The normal process of life contains moments as bad as any of those which insane melancholy is filled with, moments in which radical evil gets its innings and takes its solid turn. The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony. If you protest, my friend, wait till you arrive there yourself! ... Here on our very hearths and in our gardens the infernal cat plays with the panting mouse, or holds the hot bird fluttering in her jaws. Crocodiles and rattlesnakes and pythons are at this moment vessels of life as real as we are; their loathsome existence fills every minute of every day that drags its length along; and whenever they or other wild beasts clutch their living prey, the deadly horror which an agitated melancholiac feels is the literally right reaction on the situation.

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Lectures VI and VII, "The Sick Soul"
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
4 months 1 week ago
Grief and disappointment give rise to...

Grief and disappointment give rise to anger, anger to envy, envy to malice, and malice to grief again, till the whole circle be completed.

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Part 1, Section 4
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
2 months ago
The fact that life evolved out...

The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing, is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice.

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From tail to tale on the path of pilgrims in life, The Scotsman
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 4 days ago
A spider conducts operations that resemble...

A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst of architects from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality.

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Vol. I, Ch. 7, pg. 198.
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Simmel
Georg Simmel
2 weeks ago
Objectivity may also be defined as...

Objectivity may also be defined as freedom: the objective individual is bound by no commitments which could prejudice his perception, understanding, and evaluation of the given.

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p. 403
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
3 months 1 week ago
The created World is but a...

The created World is but a small Parenthesis in Eternity.

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Part III, Section XXIX
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 3 weeks ago
Since the great foundation...
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Main Content / General
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
3 months 1 week ago
We do not know nature...

We do not know nature; causes hidden in her breast might have produced everything. In your turn, observe the polyp of Trembley: does it not contain in itself the causes which bring about regeneration? Why then would it be absurd to think that there are physical causes by reason of which everything has been made, and to which the whole chain of this vast universe is so necessarily bound and held that, nothing which happens, could have failed to happen,-causes, of which we are so invincibly ignorant that we have had recourse to a God, who, as some aver, is not so much as a logical entity? Thus to destroy chance is not to prove the existence of a supreme being, since there may be some other thing which is neither chance nor God-I mean, nature. It follows that the study of nature can make only unbelievers; and the way of thinking of all its more successful investigators proves this.

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As quoted by Julien Offray de La Mettrie, Man a Machine (1747) Tr. Gertrude Carman Bussey
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
1 month 3 weeks ago
There were gentlemen and there were...

There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles II. But the seamen were not gentlemen, and the gentlemen were not seamen.

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Vol. I, ch. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
2 months ago
The successful scientist and the raving...

The successful scientist and the raving crank are separated by the quality of their inspirations. But I suspect that this amounts, in practice, to a difference, not so much in ability to notice analogies as in ability to reject foolish analogies and pursue helpful ones.

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Chapter 8 "Explosions and Spirals" (pp. 195-196)
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 months 2 weeks ago
Those who keep the masses of...

Those who keep the masses of men in subjection by exercising force and cruelty deprive them at once of two vital foods, liberty and obedience; for it is no longer within the power of such masses to accord their inner consent to the authority to which they are subjected. Those who encourage a state of things in which the hope of gain is the principal motive take away from men their obedience, for consent which is its essence is not something which can be sold.

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p. 97
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 5 days ago
I may as well say at...

I may as well say at once that I do not distinguish between inference and deduction. What is called induction appears to me to be either disguised deduction or a mere method of making plausible guesses.

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Principles of Mathematics (1903), Ch. II: Symbolic Logic, p. 11
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
4 days ago
The moral sense, or conscience, is...

The moral sense, or conscience, is as much a part of man as his leg or arm. It is given to all human beings in a stronger or weaker degree, as force of members is given them in a greater or less degree. It may be strengthened by exercise, as may any particular limb of the body. This sense is submitted, indeed, in some degree, to the guidance of reason; but it is a small stock which is required for this: even a less one than what we call common sense. State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.

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Philosophical Maxims
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