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Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 2 weeks ago
Whatever can be done another day...

Whatever can be done another day can be done today.

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Ch. 20. Of the Force of Imagination (tr. Donald M. Frame)
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 4 days ago
Judge not, that ye be not...

Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

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(Matthew 7:1-2) (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 1 week ago
The soul active sees absolute truth;...

The soul active sees absolute truth; and utters truth, or creates.

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par. 17
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 months 1 week ago
We must plow through the whole...

We must plow through the whole of language.

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Ch. 7 : Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 131
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 month 1 week ago
A fair exterior is a silent...

A fair exterior is a silent recommendation.

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Maxin 267
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
2 months 4 weeks ago
Lysander, when Dionysius sent him two...

Lysander, when Dionysius sent him two gowns, and bade him choose which he would carry to his daughter, said, "She can choose best," and so took both away with him.

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Of Lysander
Philosophical Maxims
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee
3 weeks 3 days ago
Societies, not states, are 'the social...

Societies, not states, are 'the social atoms' with which students of history have to deal.

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Vol. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 1 week ago
A European who goes to New...

A European who goes to New York and Chicago sees the future... when he goes to Asia he sees the past.

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Ch. 8: Eastern and Western Ideals of Happiness
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 1 week ago
Exchange value forms the substance of...

Exchange value forms the substance of money, and exchange value is wealth.

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Notebook II, The Chapter on Money, p. 141.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
3 months 1 week ago
It is a want of feeling...

It is a want of feeling to talk of priests and bells while so many infants are perishing in the hospitals, and aged and infirm poor in the streets, from the want of necessaries.

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Worship and Church Bells, 1797
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 1 week ago
It is experience, rather than understanding,...

It is experience, rather than understanding, that influences behaviour.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
1 month ago
Hence it may be concluded that...

Hence it may be concluded that the happiest state of society is that in which supreme power resides in the whole body of a well-informed people. This is an imaginary, perhaps an unattainable, state of things. Yet, in some measure, we may approximate to it; and he alone deserves the name of a great statesman, whose principle it is to extend the power of the people in proportion to the extent of their knowledge, and to give them every facility for obtaining such a degree of knowledge as may render it safe to trust them with absolute power. In the mean time, it is dangerous to praise or condemn constitutions in the abstract; since, from the despotism of St. Petersburg to the democracy of Washington, there is scarcely a form of government which might not, at least in some hypothetical case, be the best possible.

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pp. 161-162
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
4 months 1 week ago
To the rest of the Galaxy,...

To the rest of the Galaxy, if they are aware of us at all, Earth is but a pebble in the sky. To us it is home, and all the home we know.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 3 weeks ago
It was Rousseau who was largely...

It was Rousseau who was largely responsible for the problem by giving currency to the idea that freedom can exist without responsibility and discipline.

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Introductory Essay, p. xx
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 1 week ago
The South has conquered nothing -...

The South has conquered nothing - but a graveyard.

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
3 months 1 week ago
Quite a heavy weight…

Quite a heavy weight, a name too quickly famous.

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La Henriade, chant troisième, l.41, 1722
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 1 week ago
A regret understood by no one:...

A regret understood by no one: the regret to be a pessimist. It's not easy to be on the wrong foot with life

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 1 week ago
Let them have what instructions you...

Let them have what instructions you will, and ever so learned lectures of breeding daily inculcated into them, that which will most influence their carriage will be the company they converse with, and the fashion of those about them.

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Sec. 67
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
2 months 1 day ago
Logical empiricism holds the view, notwithstanding...

Logical empiricism holds the view, notwithstanding some its assertions, that the forms of knowledge and consequently the relations of man to nature and to other men never change. According to rationalism, too, all subjective and objective potentialities are rooted in insights which the individual already possesses, but rationality uses existing objects as well as the active inner striving and ideas of man to construct standards for the future. In this regard, it is not so closely associated with the present order as is empiricism.

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p. 148.
Philosophical Maxims
Will Durant
Will Durant
1 day ago
Power dements even more than it...

Power dements even more than it corrupts, lowering the guard of foresight and raising the haste of action.

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Ch. IV : The Convention: September 21, 1792 - October 26, 1795, Part V : The Reign of Terror: September 17, 1793 - July 28, 1794, § 4 : The Revolution Eats Its Children
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 days ago
Curious, if we will reflect on...

Curious, if we will reflect on it, this of having no books. Except by what he could see for himself, or hear of by uncertain rumor of speech in the obscure Arabian Desert, he could know nothing. The wisdom that had been before him or at a distance from him in the world, was in a manner as good as not there for him. Of the great brother souls, flame-beacons through so many lands and times, no one directly communicates with this great soul. He is alone there, deep down in the bosom of the Wilderness; has to grow up so,-alone with Nature and his own Thoughts. But, from an early age, he had been remarked as a thoughtful man.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 1 week ago
Only it takes....

Only it takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a long patience.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
2 months 3 days ago
If one examines the reason why...

If one examines the reason why certain works of art offend us, one is likely to find that the cause is that there is no personally felt emotion guiding the selecting the assembling of the materials presented. We derive the impression that the artist, say the author of a novel, is trying to regulate by conscious intent the nature of the emotion aroused. We are irritated by a feeling that he is manipulating materials to secure an effect decided upon in advance. The facets of the work, the variety so indispensable to it, are held together by some external force. The movement of the parts and the conclusion disclose no logical necessity. The author, not the subject matter, is the arbiter.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 1 week ago
The world would be a happier...

The world would be a happier place than it is if acquisitiveness were always stronger than rivalry. But in fact, a great many men will cheerfully face impoverishment if they can thereby secure complete ruin for their rivals. Hence the present level of taxation. Vanity is a motive of immense potency. Anyone who has much to do with children knows how they are constantly performing some antic, and saying "Look at me." "Look at me" is one of the most fundamental desires of the human heart. It can take innumerable forms, from buffoonery to the pursuit of posthumous fame.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 days ago
To fall into mere unreasoning deliquium...

To fall into mere unreasoning deliquium of love and admiration, was not good; but such unreasoning, nay irrational supercilious no-love at all is perhaps still worse!-It is a thing forever changing, this of Hero-worship: different in each age, difficult to do well in any age. Indeed, the heart of the whole business of the age, one may say, is to do it well.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 months 1 week ago
The ceremonial (hot or cold) as...

The ceremonial (hot or cold) as opposed to the haphazard (lukewarm) characterizes piety.

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Ch. 7 : Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 127
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
3 months 2 days ago
In speaking of the fear of...

In speaking of the fear of religion, I don't mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper-namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that.

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The Last Word, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 130-131.
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 2 weeks ago
Of all human and ancient opinions...

Of all human and ancient opinions concerning religion, that seems to me the most likely and most excusable, that acknowledged God as an incomprehensible power, the original and preserver of all things, all goodness, all perfection, receiving and taking in good part the honour and reverence that man paid him, under what method, name, or ceremonies soever

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Ch. 12
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 1 week ago
We define only out of despair,...

We define only out of despair, we must have a formula... to give a facade to the void.

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
3 months 1 week ago
"You're a bitter man," said Candide....

"You're a bitter man," said Candide. "That's because I've lived," said Martin.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 2 weeks ago
God gave us....
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Karl Popper
Karl Popper
3 months 1 week ago
It seems to me that I...

It seems to me that I may be living too long. Indeed: my nearest relations have all died, and so have some of my best friends, and even some of my best pupils. However, I do not have a reason to complain. I am grateful and happy to be alive, and still be able to continue with my work, if only just. My work seems to me more important than ever.

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As quoted in "At 90, and Still Dynamic : Revisiting Sir Karl Popper and Attending His Birthday Party" by Eugene Yue-Ching Ho, in Intellectus 23
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
1 month 3 weeks ago
Art is the symbol of the...

Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.

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The Pre-War Notebook (1933-1939), published in First and Last Notebooks (1970) edited by Richard Rees
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 1 week ago
The African [slave] trade was, in...

The African [slave] trade was, in his opinion, an absolute robbery. It therefore could not be a doubt with the House, whether it was proper to abolish it.

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Speech in the House of Commons (12 May 1789), quoted in The Parliamentary History of England, From the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, Vol. XXVIII (1816), column 96
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
3 months 2 weeks ago
To require that a so-called layman...

To require that a so-called layman should not use his own reason in religious matters, particularly since religion is to be appreciated as moral, but instead follow the appointed clergyman and thus someone else's reason, is an unjust demand because as to morals every man must account for all his doings. The clergyman will not and even cannot assume such a responsibility.

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Kant, Immanuel (1996), pages 94-95
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 4 days ago
Ask, and it will be given...

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

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Matthew 7:7-8 (NKJV) (Also Luke 11:9-13)
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
2 months 6 days ago
The abolition of private property is,...

The abolition of private property is, doubtless, the shortest and most significant way to characterize the revolution in the whole social order which has been made necessary by the development of industry - and for this reason it is rightly advanced by communists as their main demand.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 1 week ago
Computers can do better than ever...

Computers can do better than ever what needn't be done at all. Making sense is still a human monopoly.

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(p. 109)
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
5 days ago
Thought must never submit…

Thought must never submit, neither to a dogma, nor to a party, nor to a passion, nor to an interest, nor to a preconceived idea, nor to whatever it may be, save to the facts themselves, because, for thought, submission would mean ceasing to be.

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Speech, University of Brussels (19 November 1909), during the festival for the 75th anniversary of the university's foundation; published in Œuvres de Henri Poincaré (1956), p. 152
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
4 months 2 weeks ago
We are, all of us, growing...
We are, all of us, growing volcanoes that approach the hour of their eruption; but how near or distant that is, nobody knows not even God.
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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 4 days ago
It is written, My house shall...

It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

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21:13 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Gottlob frege
Gottlob frege
2 months 4 days ago
We suppose, it would seem, that...

We suppose, it would seem, that concepts grow in the individual mind like leaves on a tree, and we think to discover their nature by studying their growth; we seek to define them psychologically, in terms of the human mind. But this account makes everything subjective, and if we follow it through to the end, does away with truth. What is known as the history of concepts is really a history either of our knowledge of concepts or of the meanings of words.

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Translation J. L. Austin (Oxford, 1950) as quoted by Stephen Toulmin, Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972) Vol. 1, p. 56.
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
2 months 2 days ago
The real struggle is not between...

The real struggle is not between East and West, or capitalism and communism, but between education and propaganda.

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As quoted in Encounter with Martin Buber (1972) by Aubrey Hodes, p. 135
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 months 2 weeks ago
If your little savage were left...

If your little savage were left to himself and be allowed to retain all his ignorance, he would in time join the infant's reasoning to the grown man's passion, he would strangle his father and sleep with his mother.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
3 months 2 weeks ago
I know God only as he...

I know God only as he became human, so shall I have him in no other way.

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Das Marburger religionsgesprach 1529: Versuch einer Rekonstruction (Leipzig, 1929), p. 27; also LW 38, 3-90
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
5 days ago
Thought is only a flash between...

Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything.

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Quoted in H. L. Mencken, A New Dictionary of Quotations
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
2 months 1 week ago
Life is a disease of the...

Life is a disease of the spirit; a working incited by Passion. Rest is peculiar to the spirit.

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Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
1 month 3 weeks ago
Violence may capture space, but it...

Violence may capture space, but it does not create space.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
1 month 3 weeks ago
Regardless of the present trend toward...

Regardless of the present trend toward the strong-armed man, the totalitarian states, or the dictatorship from the left, my ideas have remained unshaken. In fact, they have been strengthened by my personal experience and the world events through the years. I see no reason to change, as I do not believe that the tendency of dictatorship can ever successfully solve our social problems. As in the past, so I do now insist that freedom is the soul of progress and essential to every phase of life. I consider this as near a law of social evolution as anything we can postulate. My faith is in the individual and in the capacity of free individuals for united endeavor.

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Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
3 months 1 day ago
Verily we know nothing. Truth is...

Verily we know nothing. Truth is buried deep.

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(Another translation: "Of truth we know nothing, for truth is in a well." Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers R.D. Hicks, Ed.)
Philosophical Maxims
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