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Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 4 weeks ago
The new education must consist essentially...

The new education must consist essentially in this, that it completely destroys freedom of will in the soil which it undertakes to cultivate, and produces on the contrary strict necessity in the decisions of the will, the opposite being impossible. Such a will can henceforth be relied on with confidence and certainty.

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Addresses to the German Nation (1807), Second Address : "The General Nature of the New Education". Chicago and London, The Open Court Publishing Company, 1922, p. 20.
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
3 months 2 weeks ago
Individuality, conceived as a temporal development...

Individuality, conceived as a temporal development involves uncertainty, indeterminacy, or contingency. Individuality is the source of whatever is unpredictable in the world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
3 months 4 weeks ago
Strong as it looks at the...

Strong as it looks at the outset, State-agency perpetually disappoints every one. Puny as are its first stages, private efforts daily achieve results that astound the world.

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Vol. 3, Ch. VII, Over-Legislation
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
3 months 3 weeks ago
Fourth, this supreme law, which is...

Fourth, this supreme law, which is celestial and living harmony, does not so much as demand that the special ideas shall surrender their peculiar arbitrariness and caprice entirely; for that would be self-destructive. It only requires that they influence and be influenced by one another.

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Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
3 months 2 weeks ago
He [the "specialist"] is one who,...

He [the "specialist"] is one who, out of all that has to be known in order to be a man of judgment, is only acquainted with one science, and even of that one only knows the small corner in which he is an active investigator. He even proclaims it as a virtue that he takes no cognisance of what lies outside the narrow territory specially cultivated by himself, and gives the name of "dilettantism" to any curiosity for the general scheme of knowledge.

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Chapter XII: The Barbarism Of "Specialisation"
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
3 months 1 week ago
Organizations and institutions permit stable expectations...

Organizations and institutions permit stable expectations to be formed by each member of the group as to the behavior of the other members under specified conditions.

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p. 100.
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
2 weeks 4 days ago
Sometimes one pays most for...

Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.

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Quoted in The Ultimate Quotable Einstein by Alice Calaprice (2010), p. 230
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
3 months 3 weeks ago
Great and enduring civilizations like those...

Great and enduring civilizations like those of the Hindus and the Chinese were built upon this foundation and developed from it a discipline of self-knowledge which they brought to a high pitch of refinement both in philosophy and practice.

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Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul. quoted in Hindu Culture, K. Guru Dutt, and quoted in Gewali, Salil (2013). Great Minds on India. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.
Philosophical Maxims
Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Berdyaev
3 months 2 weeks ago
There is absolute truth in anarchism...

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.

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Slavery and Freedom (1939), p. 147
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
4 months 3 days ago
There is no kind of harassment...

There is no kind of harassment that a man may not inflict on a woman with impunity in civilized societies.

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"On Women" (1772), as translated in Selected Writings (1966) edited by Lester G. Crocker
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 2 weeks ago
One of those leaders of what...

One of those leaders of what they call the social revolution has said that religion is the opiate of the people. Opium...opium...opium, yes. Let us give them opium so that they can sleep and dream.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
5 months 6 days ago
Omnipotence and foreknowledge of God, I...

Omnipotence and foreknowledge of God, I repeat, utterly destroy the doctrine of 'free-will' ... doubtless it gives the greatest possible offense to common sense or natural reason, that God, Who is proclaimed as being full of mercy and goodness, and so on, should of His own mere will abandon, harden and damn men, as though He delighted in the sins and great eternal torments of such poor wretches. It seems an iniquitous, cruel, intolerable thought to think of God; and it is this that has been such a stumbling block to so many great men down through the ages. And who would not stumble at it? I have stumbled at it myself more than once, down to the deepest pit of despair, so that I wished I had never been made a man.

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(That was before I knew how health-giving that despair was, and how close to grace p. 217)
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
3 weeks 4 days ago
You're better off not giving the...

You're better off not giving the small things more time than they deserve.

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(Hays translation) IV, 32
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 4 weeks ago
The determination to print them (his...

The determination to print them (his lectures), and to communicate them to the General Public, must also speak for itself; and should it not do so, any other recommendation of them would be thrown away. Thus, with respect to the appearance of this work, I have nothing further to say to the Public, than that I have nothing to say.

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Preface
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 months 1 week ago
Now he saw the problem with...

Now he saw the problem with great clarity. If he lived here, life would be pleasant and safe. But it would also be predictable. A child could be born here, grow up here, die here, without ever experiencing the excitement of discovery. Why did Dona question him endlessly about his life in the burrow and his journey to the country of the ants? Because for her, it represented a world that was dangerous and full of fascinating possibilities. For the children of this underground city, life was a matter of repetition, of habit. And this, he suddenly realized, was the heart of the problem. Habit. Habit was a stifling, warm blanket that threatened you with suffocation and lulled the mind into a state of perpetual nagging dissatisfaction. Habit meant the inability to escape from yourself, to change and develop . . .

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pp. 132-133
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
4 months 4 weeks ago
The individual, so far as he...

The individual, so far as he suffers from his wrongness and criticizes it, is to that extent consciously beyond it, and in at least possible touch with something higher, if anything higher exist. Along with the wrong part there is thus a better part of him, even though it may be but a most helpless germ. With which part he should identify his real being is by no means obvious at this stage; but when stage 2 (the stage of solution or salvation) arrives, the man identifies his real being with the germinal higher part of himself; and does so in the following way. He becomes conscious that this higher part is coterminous and continuous with a more of the same quality, which is operative in the universe outside of him, and which he can keep in working touch with, and in a fashion get on board of and save himself when all his lower being has gone to pieces in the wreck.

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Lecture XX, "Conclusions"
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 months 1 week ago
One gloomy and pessimistic writer with...

One gloomy and pessimistic writer with a powerful style affects a whole generation of writers, who in turn affect almost every educated person in the country.

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p. 79
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
4 months 4 weeks ago
Moreover, if the character is formed,...

Moreover, if the character is formed, and the mind made up, on the few cardinal points of human opinion, agreement of conviction and feeling on these, has been felt in all times to be an essential requisite of anything worthy the name of friendship, in a really earnest mind. All these circumstances united, made the number very small of those whose society, and still more whose intimacy, I now voluntarily sought.

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(p. 229)
Philosophical Maxims
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
1 month 6 days ago
A mellow understanding of life and...

A mellow understanding of life and of human nature is, and always has been, the Chinese ideal of character, and from that understanding other qualities are derived, such as pacifism, contentment, calm and strength of endurance which distinguish the Chinese character.

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p. 43
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
3 weeks 4 days ago
The nature of the All moved...

The nature of the All moved to make the universe.

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VII, 75
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 4 weeks ago
I must confess that I am...

I must confess that I am deeply troubled. I fear that human beings are intent upon acting out a vast deathwish and that it lies with us now to make every effort to promote resistance to the insanity and brutality of policies which encompass the extermination of hundreds of millions of human beings.

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Letter to Rudolf Carnap, June 21, 1962
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
5 months 1 week 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
William James
William James
4 months 4 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
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
5 months 2 days ago
The value of money is in...

The value of money is in proportion to the quantity of the necessaries of life which it will purchase.

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Chapter II, Part II, Article IV.
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
2 months 5 days ago
If our universe is one of...

If our universe is one of many, unlike others in containing observers like ourselves, there is no need to posit a designer. Most universes will be too chaotic to allow the emergence of life or mind. In that case, the fact that humans exist in this universe needs no special explanation.

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Sweet Morality (p. 222)
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
1 month 2 weeks ago
...racial hatred is not a natural...

...racial hatred is not a natural phenomenon innate in man. It is the product of ideologies. But even if such a thing as a natural and inborn hatred between various races existed, it would not render social cooperation futile and would not invalidate Ricardo's theory of association. Social cooperation has nothing to do with personal love or with a general commandment to love one another. People do not cooperate under the division of labor because they love or should love one another. They cooperate because this best serves their own interests. Neither love nor charity nor any other sympathetic sentiments but rightly understood selfishness is what originally impelled man to adjust himself to the requirements of society, to respect the rights and freedoms of his fellow men and to substitute peaceful collaboration for enmity and conflict.

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Part 2, VIII.84
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
5 months 4 weeks ago
It belongs to the imperfection of...

It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 3 weeks ago
Die before you Die. There is...

Die before you Die. There is no chance after.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 months 1 week ago
My theory was that we are...

My theory was that we are all fundamentally 'multiple personalities', beginning with the baby and the child, and slowly developing into more complex selves. If, for some reason, we abruptly cease to develop -- through some trauma that undermines self-confidence -- all those potential personalities are stunted and repressed. And some accident or violent shock may give one of them the opportunity to 'take over'. This suggests, of course, that in some mysterious sense, our 'future' personalities are already there, in embryo, so to speak, and that they also develop as we mature. We move from personality to personality, as we might climb a ladder. The Beethovens and Leonardos got further up the ladder than most of us; yet even they failed to reach the top, as we can see if we study their lives.

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pp. 228- 229
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 4 weeks ago
But simultaneously with the development of...

But simultaneously with the development of capitalist production the credit system also develops. The money-capital which the capitalist cannot as yet employ in his own business is employed by others, who pay him interest for its use.

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Vol. II, Ch. XVII, p. 325.
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 1 week ago
"You will have less money." Yes,...

"You will have less money." Yes, and less trouble. "Less influence." Yes, and less envy.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
2 weeks 4 days ago
It has often been said,...

It has often been said, and certainly not without justification, that the man of science is a poor philosopher. Why then should it not be the right thing for the physicist to let the philosopher do the philosophizing? Such might indeed be the right thing to do at a time when the physicist believes he has at his disposal a rigid system of fundamental laws which are so well established that waves of doubt can't reach them; but it cannot be right at a time when the very foundations of physics itself have become problematic as they are now. At a time like the present, when experience forces us to seek a newer and more solid foundation, the physicist cannot simply surrender to the philosopher the critical contemplation of theoretical foundations; for he himself knows best and feels more surely where the shoe pinches. In looking for an new foundation, he must try to make clear in his own mind just how far the concepts which he uses are justified, and are necessities.

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
3 months 2 weeks ago
Men ... ask nothing better, it...

Men ... ask nothing better, it would seem, than to leave their destiny, their life, and all their thoughts in the hands of a few men with a gift for the exclusive manipulation of this or that technique.

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"Wave Mechanics," p. 75
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 3 weeks ago
We have two bits of evidence...

We have two bits of evidence about the Somebody. One is the universe He has made. If we used that as our only clue, I think we should have to conclude that He was a great artist (for the universe is a very beautiful place), but also that He is quite merciless and no friend to man (for the universe is a very dangerous and terrifying place.) ...The other bit of evidence is that Moral Law which He has put in our minds. And this is a better bit of evidence than the other, because it is inside information. You find out more about God from the Moral Law than from the universe in general just as you find out more about a man by listening to his conversation than by looking at a house he has built.

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Book I, Chapter 5, "We Have Cause to Be Uneasy"
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
5 months 2 days ago
When national debts have once been...

When national debts have once been accumulated to a certain degree, there is scarce, I believe, a single instance of their having been fairly and completely paid. The liberation of the public revenue, if it has ever been brought about at all, has always been brought about by bankruptcy; sometimes by an avowed one, but always by a real one, though frequently by a pretend payment.

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Chapter III, Part V, p. 1012.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
I am enraptured by Hindu philosophy,...

I am enraptured by Hindu philosophy, whose essential endeavor is to surmount the self; and everything I do, everything I think is only myself and the selfs humiliations.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
2 months 2 weeks ago
The ambassador of Russia and the...

The ambassador of Russia and the grandees who accompanied him were so gorgeous that all London crowded to stare at them, and so filthy that nobody dared to touch them. They came to the court balls dropping pearls and vermin.

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Vol. V, ch. 23
Philosophical Maxims
Heraclitus
Heraclitus
5 months 2 weeks ago
Greater fates gain greater rewards.

Greater fates gain greater rewards.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
5 months 1 day ago
Remorse sleeps...

Remorse sleeps during a prosperous period but wakes up in adversity. 

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Variant translations: Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity. Remorse goes to sleep during a prosperous period and wakes up in adversity.
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months 4 weeks ago
They who know of no purer...

They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the Constitution, and drink at it there with reverence and humility; but they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that pool, gird up their loins once more, and continue their pilgrimage toward its fountain-head.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Searle
John Searle
3 months 1 day ago
The Intentionality of the mind not...

The Intentionality of the mind not only creates the possibility of meaning, but limits its forms.

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P. 166.
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 3 weeks ago
Since Sputnik there is no Nature....

Since Sputnik there is no Nature. Nature is an item contained in a man-made environment of satellites and information.

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Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
4 months 3 days ago
We swallow greedily any lie that...

We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.

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Philosophical Maxims
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
3 weeks 4 days ago
Write as if thou wert alone...

Write as if thou wert alone in the universe and hadst nothing to fear from the jealousies and prejudices of the people. Otherwise thou wilt miss thy purpose.

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Preface, Oeuvres philosophiques de Monsieur de La Mettrie (1764) as quoted by Paul Carus, The Mechanistic Principle and the Non-mechanical (1913) p. 102.
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
4 months 1 week ago
A dog cannot...
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Main Content / General
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
4 months 2 weeks ago
I believe that there is a...

I believe that there is a necessary connection in both directions between the physical and the mental, but that it cannot be discovered a priori. Opinion is strongly divided on the credibility of some kind of functionalist reductionism, and I won't go through my reasons for being on the antireductionist side of that debate. Despite significant attempts by a number of philosophers to describe the functional manifestations of conscious mental states, I continue to believe that no purely functionalist characterization of a system entails - simply in virtue of our mental concepts - that the system is conscious.

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"Conceiving the Impossible and the Mind-Body Problem," Royal Institute of Philosophy annual lecture, given in London on February 18, 1998, published in Philosophy vol. 73 no. 285, July 1998, pp 337-352, Cambridge University Press, p. 337.
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
5 months 1 week ago
Cosmus, Duke of Florence, was wont...

Cosmus, Duke of Florence, was wont to say of perfidious friends, that "We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends."

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No. 206
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 4 weeks ago
One must look into hell before...

One must look into hell before one has any right to speak of heaven.

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Letter to Colette O'Niel, October 23, 1916; published in The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell: The Public Years, 1914-1970, p. 87
Philosophical Maxims
Henry George
Henry George
3 weeks 6 days ago
It is impossible to read the...

It is impossible to read the works of the economists who since the time of Smith have endeavored to build up and elucidate the science of political economy without seeing how, over and over again, they stumble over the law of wages without once recognizing it. Yet, "if it were a dog it would bite them!" Indeed, it is difficult to resist the impression that some of them really saw this law of wages, but, fearful of the practical conclusions to which it would lead, preferred to ignore and cover it up, rather than use it as the key to problems which without it are so perplexing. A great truth to an age which has rejected and trampled on it, is not a word of peace, but a sword!

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Philosophical Maxims
Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes
3 months 2 weeks ago
Language is a skin: I rub...

Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.

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Talking, in A Lover's Discourse
Philosophical Maxims
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