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Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 week 5 days ago
In that strange island Iceland,-burst up,...

In that strange island Iceland,-burst up, the geologists say, by fire from the bottom of the sea; a wild land of barrenness and lava; swallowed many months of every year in black tempests, yet with a wild gleaming beauty in summertime; towering up there, stern and grim, in the North Ocean with its snow jokuls, roaring geysers, sulphur-pools and horrid volcanic chasms, like the waste chaotic battle-field of Frost and Fire;-where of all places we least looked for Literature or written memorials, the record of these things was written down.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 4 weeks ago
God never sends evils…

God never sends evils.

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Ch. 12
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick
3 weeks 4 days ago
Utopia is a meta-utopia: the environment...

Utopia is a meta-utopia: the environment in which Utopian experiments may be tried out; the environment in which people are free to do their own thing; the environment which must, to a great extent, be realized first if more particular Utopian visions are to be realized stably.

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Ch. 10 : A Framework for Utopia; The Framework, p. 312
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
4 months 3 weeks ago
Where there have been powerful governments,...
Where there have been powerful governments, societies, religions, public opinions, in short wherever there has been tyranny, there the solitary philosopher has been hated; for philosophy offers an asylum to a man into which no tyranny can force it way, the inward cave, the labyrinth of the heart.
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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
3 months 2 weeks ago
Nevertheless, the ultimate business of philosophy...

Nevertheless, the ultimate business of philosophy is to preserve the force of the most elemental words in which Dasein expresses itself, and to keep the common understanding from levelling them off to that unintelligibility which functions in turn as a source of pseudo-problems.

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Macquarrie & Robinson translation
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 2 weeks ago
Her face seems ravaged by both...

Her face seems ravaged by both lightning and hail. But on yours there is something like the promise of a storm: one day passion will burn it to the bone.

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Act 1
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 week 5 days ago
One life; a little gleam of...

One life; a little gleam of Time between two Eternities; no second chance to us for evermore!

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Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 months 6 days ago
Creativity is the universal of universals...

Creativity is the universal of universals characterizing ultimate matter of fact. It is that ultimate principle by which the many, which are the universe disjunctively, become the one actual occasion, which is the universe conjunctively. It lies in the nature of things that the many enter into complex unity.

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Pt. I, ch. 2, sec. 2.
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 3 weeks ago
"How then shall they have the...

"How then shall they have the play-games you allow them, if none must be bought for them?" I answer, they should make them themselves, or at least endeavour it, and set themselves about it. ...And if you help them where they are at a stand, it will more endear you to them than any chargeable toys that you shall buy for them.

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Sec. 130
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
3 months 4 weeks ago
Peace is more important than all...

Peace is more important than all justice; and peace was not made for the sake of justice, but justice for the sake of peace.

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On Marriage
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
4 months ago
The things that we can see...

The things that we can see with our physical eyes are mere shadows of reality. If they appear ugly and ill formed, then what must be the ugliness of the soul in sin, deprived of all light? The soul, like the body, can undergo transformation in appearance. In sin it appears as completely ugly to the beholder. In virtue it shines resplendently before God.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 3 weeks ago
Truth never turns...
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Main Content / General
Will Durant
Will Durant
1 week 4 days ago
Youth is learning to read (which...

Youth is learning to read (which is all that one learns in school), and is learning where and how to find what he may later need to know (which is the best of the arts that he acquires in college). Nothing learned from a book is worth anything until it is used and verified in life; only then does it begin to affect behavior and desire. It is Life that educates, and perhaps love more than anything else in life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
2 months 3 days ago
Just as modern mass production requires...

Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of commodities, so the social process requires standardization of man, and this standardization is called equality.

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Ch. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
3 months 3 weeks ago
This art is music. It stands...

This art is music. It stands quite apart from all the others. In it we do not recognize the copy, the repetition, of any Idea of the inner nature of the world. Yet it is such a great and exceedingly fine art, its effect on man's innermost nature is so powerful, and it is so completely and profoundly understood by him in his innermost being as an entirely universal language, whose distinctness surpasses even that of the world of perception itself, that in it we certainly have to look for more than that.

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Vol. I, Ch. III, The World As Representation: Second Aspect, as translated by Eric F. J. Payne, 1958
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 3 weeks ago
If we command our wealth, we...

If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.

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No. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
1 month 2 weeks ago
Fiction is to the grown man...

Fiction is to the grown man what play is to the child; it is there that he changes the atmosphere and tenor of his life.

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A Gossip on Romance, printed in Longman's Magazine (November 1882).
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
4 months 4 days ago
Whilst in speaking of human things,...

Whilst in speaking of human things, we say that it is necessary to know them before we can love them...the saints on the contrary say in speaking of divine things that it is necessary to love them in order to know them, and that we only enter truth through charity.

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Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
4 months 4 days ago
Several particular maxims... are as powerful,...

Several particular maxims... are as powerful, although false, in carrying away belief, as those the most true.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
Sadness makes you God's prisoner.

Sadness makes you God's prisoner.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 2 weeks ago
They are in bad faith -...

They are in bad faith - they are afraid - and fear, bad faith have an aroma that the gods find delicious. Yes, the gods like that, the pitiful souls.

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Act 1
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 3 weeks ago
The softer you find your child...

The softer you find your child is, the more you are to seek occasions, at fit times, thus to harden him. The great art in this is, to begin with what is but very little painful, and to proceed by insensible degrees, when you are playing, and in good humour with him, and speaking well of him: and when you have once got him to think himself made amends for his suffering by the praise is given him for his courage; when he can take pride in giving such marks of his manliness, and can prefer the reputation of being brave and stout, to the avoiding a little pain, or the shrinking under it; you need nor despair in time and by the assistance of his growing reason, to master his timorousness, and mend the weakness of his constitution.

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Sec. 115
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 3 weeks ago
Do not be too timid and...

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

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November 11, 1842
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
2 months 4 days ago
It is not honourable to attack...

It is not honourable to attack an enemy without putting yourself at risk.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
2 months ago
It is not my aim to...

It is not my aim to surprise or shock you - but the simplest way I can summarize is to say that there are now in the world machines that think, that learn and that create. Moreover, their ability to do these things is going to increase rapidly until - in a visible future - the range of problems they can handle will be coextensive with the range to which the human mind has been applied.

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Newell & Simon (1958), quoted in AI, by Daniel Crevier
Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
1 month ago
It is easy to romanticise, say,...

It is easy to romanticise, say, tigers or lions and cats. We admire their magnificent beauty, strength and agility. But we would regard their notional human counterparts as wanton psychopaths of the worst kind.

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1.10 On the Misguided Romanticisation of Feline Psychopaths
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 3 weeks ago
Not without a slight shudder at...

Not without a slight shudder at the danger, I often perceive how near I had come to admitting into my mind the details of some trivial affair, - the news of the street; and I am astonished to observe how willing men are to lumber their minds with such rubbish, - to permit idle rumors and incidents of the most insignificant kind to intrude on ground which should be sacred to thought. Shall the mind be a public arena, where the affairs of the street and the gossip of the tea-table chiefly are discussed? Or shall it be a quarter of heaven itself, - an hypæthral temple, consecrated to the service of the gods? I find it so difficult to dispose of the few facts which to me are significant, that I hesitate to burden my attention with those which are insignificant, which only a divine mind could illustrate. Such is, for the most part, the news in newspapers and conversation. It is important to preserve the mind's chastity in this respect.

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pp. 491-2
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 2 weeks ago
Faced with information overload, we have...

Faced with information overload, we have no alternative but pattern-recognition.

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(p. 132)
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 months 3 days ago
Sobriety is the strength of the...

Sobriety is the strength of the soul, for it preserves its reason unclouded by passion.

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As quoted in The History of Philosophy: From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Present Century (1819) by William Enfield Sobriety is the strength of the mind
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 months 3 weeks ago
It was not only that I...

It was not only that I could not become spiteful, I did not know how to become anything; neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. Now, I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot become anything seriously, and it is only the fool who becomes anything.

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Part 1, Chapter 1
Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
3 months 1 week ago
With a drunken man do not...

With a drunken man do not walk on the road.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 4 weeks ago
It is good to rub and...

It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.

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Book I, Ch. 26
Philosophical Maxims
Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Berdyaev
2 months 1 week ago
What one needs to do at...

What one needs to do at every moment of one's life is to put an end to the old world and to begin a new world.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
2 months 1 week ago
Classical science was based upon the...

Classical science was based upon the belief that it is possible to formulate both the position and velocity at one time of any given particle. It followed that knowledge of the position and velocity of a given number of particles would enable the future behavior of the whole collection to be accurately predicted. The principle of Heisenberg is that given the determination of position, its velocity can be stated only as of a certain order of probability, while if its velocity is determined the correlative factor of position can be stated only as of a certain order of probability. Both cannot be determined at once, from which it follows necessarily that the future of the whole collection cannot possibly be foretold except in terms of some order of probability.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 3 weeks ago
To discover the various use of...

To discover the various use of things is the work of history.

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Vol. I, Ch. 1, Section 1, pg. 42.
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 2 weeks ago
If you fast, you will give...

If you fast, you will give rise to sin for yourselves; and if you pray, you will be condemned; and if you give alms, you will do harm to your spirits. When you go into any land and walk about in the districts, if they receive you, eat what they will set before you, and heal the sick among them. For what goes into your mouth will not defile you, but that which issues from your mouth—it is that which will defile you.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
2 months ago
Human beings, viewed as behaving systems,...

Human beings, viewed as behaving systems, are quite simple. The apparent complexity of our behavior over time is largely a reflection of the complexity of the environment in which we find ourselves.

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p. 53.
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
2 months 2 weeks ago
What will be the attitude of...

What will be the attitude of communism to existing nationalities? The nationalities of the peoples associating themselves in accordance with the principle of community will be compelled to mingle with each other as a result of this association and thereby to dissolve themselves, just as the various estate and class distinctions must disappear through the abolition of their basis, private property.

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Philosophical Maxims
Mencius
Mencius
1 week 6 days ago
The sense of mercy is found...

The sense of mercy is found in all men; the sense of shame is found in all men; the sense of respect is found in all men; the sense of right and wrong is found in all men.

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6A:6
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 3 weeks ago
Capitalist production does not exist at...

Capitalist production does not exist at all without foreign commerce.

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Vol. II, Ch. XX, p. 474 (See also...David Ricardo, The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, Ch. VII, p. 81).
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 3 weeks ago
Wherever there is great property, there...

Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.

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Chapter I, Part II, p. 770.
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
3 months 3 weeks ago
Freedom is only necessity understood. The...

Freedom is only necessity understood.

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The Dilemma of Determinism, 1884
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 3 weeks ago
The state of nature has a...

The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.

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Second Treatise of Government, Ch. II, sec. 6
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
6 days ago
Worse than war…

Worse than war is the very fear of war.

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line 572 (Chorus).
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
4 months ago
There is another ground of hope...

There is another ground of hope that must not be omitted. Let men but think over their infinite expenditure of understanding, time, and means on matters and pursuits of far less use and value; whereof, if but a small part were directed to sound and solid studies, there is no difficulty that might not be overcome.

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Aphorism 111
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
I do not forgive myself for...

I do not forgive myself for being born. It is as if, creeping into this world, I had profaned a mystery, betrayed some momentous pledge, committed a fault of nameless gravity. Yet in a less assured mood, birth seems a calamity I would be miserable not having known.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 3 weeks ago
I see again what I thought...

I see again what I thought I saw the first time, when I sent forth the little book that was compared to and in fact could best be compared to a humble little flower under the cover of the great forest.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 2 weeks ago
He discovered the cruel paradox by...

He discovered the cruel paradox by which we always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love — first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
2 months 2 weeks ago
The ontological concept of truth is...

The ontological concept of truth is in the centre of a logic which may serve as a model of pre- technological rationality. It is the rationality of a two-dimensional universe of discourse which, contrasts with the of thought and behavior that develop in the execution of the technological project.

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p. 130
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 4 weeks ago
The diversity of physical arguments and...

The diversity of physical arguments and opinions embraces all sorts of methods.

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Book III, Ch. 13. Of Experience
Philosophical Maxims
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