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Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 4 days ago
How many we know who have...

How many we know who have fled the sweetness of a tranquil life in their homes, among their friends, to seek the horror of uninhabitable deserts; who have flung themselves into humiliation, degradation, and the contempt of the world, and have enjoyed these and even sought them out.

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Ch. 14 (tr. Donald M. Frame)
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 3 weeks ago
Natural religion supplies still all the...

Natural religion supplies still all the facts which are disguised under the dogma of popular creeds. The progress of religion is steadily to its identity with morals.

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p. 223
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
5 days ago
If we accept values as given...

If we accept values as given and consistent, if we postulate an objective description of the world as it really is, and if we assume that the decision maker's computational powers are unlimited, then two important consequences follow. First, we do not need to distinguish between the real world and the decision maker's perception of it: he or she perceives the world as it really is. Second, we can predict the choices that will be made by a rational decision maker entirely from our knowledge of the real world and without a knowledge of the decision maker's perceptions or modes of calculation. (We do, of course, have to know his or her utility function.)

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 weeks 6 days ago
Government is a contrivance of human...

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 weeks 5 days ago
But everyone who hears these sayings...

But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.

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Matthew 7:24-27 (NKJV) (Also Luke 6:47-49)
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
2 months 3 weeks ago
The person who is going to...

The person who is going to preach ought to live in the Christian thoughts and ideas: they ought to be his daily life. If so, this is the view of Christianity, then you, too, will have eloquence enough and precisely that which is needed when you speak extemporaneously without specific preparation. However, it is fallacious eloquence if someone, without otherwise occupying himself with, without living in these thoughts, once in a while sits down and laboriously collects such thoughts, perhaps in the field of literature, and then works them into a well-composed discourse, which is then committed to memory and delivered superbly, with respect both to voice and diction and gestures.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
1 month 3 weeks ago
Diversity makes critical argument fruitful. ...[P]artners...

Diversity makes critical argument fruitful. ...[P]artners in an argument must share ...the wish to know, and the readiness to learn from the other ...by severely criticizing his views... and hearing... [the] reply. ...the so-called method of science consists in this kind of criticism.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 2 days ago
Vague a l'ame - melancholy yearning...

Vague a l'ame - melancholy yearning for the end of the world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
3 weeks 6 days ago
To kill someone for committing murder...

To kill someone for committing murder is a punishment incomparably worse than the crime itself. Murder by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than murder by brigands.

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Part 1, Chapter 2
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
2 weeks 3 days ago
Now, apparently, many men are again...

Now, apparently, many men are again feeling homesick for the herd. They devote themselves passionately to whatever there is left in them of the sheep. They want to march through life together, along the collective path, shoulder to shoulder, wool rubbing wool, and the head down. This is the reason why so many European peoples are looking for a shepherd and a sheep dog.

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p. 170
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
6 days ago
What is called an acute knowledge...

What is called an acute knowledge of human nature is mostly nothing but the observer's own weaknesses reflected back from others.

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G 7
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
2 months 5 days ago
For man seeketh in society comfort,...

For man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection: and they be three wisdoms of divers natures, which do often sever: wisdom of the behaviour, wisdom of business, and wisdom of state.

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Book II, xxiii
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 2 days ago
But where is the antidote for...

But where is the antidote for lucid despair, perfectly articulated, proud, and sure? All of us are miserable, but how many know it? The consciousness of misery is too serious a disease to figure in an arithmetic of agonies or in the catalogues of the Incurable. It belittles the prestige of hell, and converts the slaughterhouses of time into idyls. What sin have you committed to be born, what crime to exist? Your suffering like your fate is without motive. To suffer, truly to suffer, is to accept the invasion of ills without the excuse of causality, as a favor of demented nature, as a negative miracle. . .

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
6 days ago
I believe that man is in...

I believe that man is in the last resort so free a being that his right to be what he believes himself to be cannot be contested.

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L 98
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 2 days ago
He who created...
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Main Content / General
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 weeks 6 days ago
...the French business is no light...

...the French business is no light or trivial thing, or such as has commonly occurd in the course of political Events. At present the whole political State of Europe hinges upon it. On the Continent there is little doubt; every thing will take is future shape and colour from the good or ill success of the Duke of Brunswick. In my opinion, it is the most important crisis that ever existed in the World. ... My poor opinion is, that these principles...cannot possibly be realized in practice in France, without an absolute certainty and that at no remote period, of overturning the whole fabrick of the British Constitution.

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Letter to the Foreign Secretary, Lord Grenville (19 September 1792), quoted in P. J. Marshall and John A. Woods (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VII: January 1792-August 1794 (1968), pp. 218-219
Philosophical Maxims
Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Berdyaev
1 week 6 days ago
Objectification is above all exteriorization, the...

Objectification is above all exteriorization, the alienation of spirit from itself.

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p. 63
Philosophical Maxims
Willard van Orman Quine
Willard van Orman Quine
1 week 5 days ago
The issue over there being classes...

The issue over there being classes seems more a question of convenient conceptual scheme; the issue over there being centaurs, or brick houses on Elm Street, seems more a question of fact. But I have been urging that this difference is only one of degree, and that it turns upon our vaguely pragmatic inclination to adjust one strand of the fabric of science rather than another in accommodating some particular recalcitrant experience. Conservatism figures in such choices, and so does the quest for simplicity.

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"Two Dogmas of Empiricism"
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 1 day ago
That history just unfolds, independently of...

That history just unfolds, independently of a specified direction, of a goal, no one is willing to admit.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 4 days 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
Voltaire
Voltaire
1 month 4 weeks ago
Il vaut mieux hasarder de sauver...

It is better to risk sparing a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.

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Zadig, 1747
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 3 weeks ago
Knowledge is in the end...

Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement.

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Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
1 month 1 day ago
Pithy sentences are like sharp nails...

Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.

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As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts : Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations (1908) by Tryon Edwards, p. 338
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
2 months 3 weeks ago
Misfortune shows those who are not...

Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 weeks 6 days ago
The arrogance of age must submit...

The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.

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Letter to Frances Burney
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 2 days ago
Knowledge, having irritated and stimulated our...

Knowledge, having irritated and stimulated our appetite for power, will lead us inexorably to our ruin.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
2 weeks 4 days ago
The ground of democratic ideas and...

The ground of democratic ideas and practices is faith in the potentialities of individuals, faith in the capacity for positive developments if proper conditions are provided. The weakness of the philosophy originally advanced to justify the democratic movement was that it took individuality to be something given ready-made, that is, in abstraction from time, instead of as a power to develop.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 3 weeks ago
The soul is subject to dollars....

The soul is subject to dollars.

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par. 6
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
2 months 1 week ago
All those of you who rejoice...

All those of you who rejoice in peace, now it is time to judge the truth....Undoubtedly in days gone by there were holy men as Scripture tells,For God stated that he left behind seven thousand men in safety,And there are many priests and kings who are righteous under the law,There you find so many of the prophets, and many of the people too.Tell me which of the righteous of that time claimed an altar for himself?That wicked nation perpetrated a very large number of crimes,They sacrificed to idols and may prophets were put to death,Yet not a single one of the righteous withdrew from unity.The righteous endured the unrighteous while waiting for the winnower:They all mingled in one temple but were not mingled in their hearts;They said such things against them yet they had a single altar.

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Early Christian Latin Poets, 2000, Carolinne White, Routledge, London, ISBN 0415187826 ISBN 9780415187824 p. 55.
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 3 weeks ago
The Religion that is afraid of...

The Religion that is afraid of science dishonours God and commits suicide. It acknowledges that it is not equal to the whole of truth, that it legislates, tyrannizes over a village of God's empires but is not the immutable universal law. Every influx of atheism, of skepticism is thus made useful as a mercury pill assaulting and removing a diseased religion and making way for truth.

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March 4, 1831
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
1 month 3 weeks ago
I believe Buddhism to be a...

I believe Buddhism to be a simplification of Hinduism and Islam to be a simplification of Xianity.

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Letter to Sheldon Vanauken (14 December 1950), quoted in Sleuthing C. S. Lewis (2001) by Kathryn Ann Lindskoog, p. 393
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
1 month 4 weeks ago
What good would it be to...

What good would it be to possess the whole universe if one were its only survivor?

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A Lasting Peace Through the Federation of Europe, 1756
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 weeks 5 days ago
Since it cannot be overlooked by...

Since it cannot be overlooked by the Doctrine of Knowledge that Actual Knowledge does by no means present itself as a Unity, such as is assumed above but as a multiplicity, there is consequently a second task imposed upon it, - that of setting forth the ground of this apparent Multiplicity. It is of course understood that this ground is not to be derived from any outward source, but must be shown to be contained in the essential Nature of Knowledge itself as such; - and that therefore this problem, although apparently two-fold, is yet but one and the same, - namely, to set forth the essential Nature of Knowledge.

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Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
1 month 3 weeks ago
The most radical revolutionary will become...

The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.

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The New Yorker
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
1 week 1 day ago
In erotic love, two people who...

In erotic love, two people who were separate become one. In motherly love, two people who were one become separate. The mother must not only tolerate, she must wish and support the child's separation.

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Ch. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
3 weeks 2 days ago
The great decisions of human life...

The great decisions of human life have as a rule far more to do with the instincts and other mysterious unconscious factors than with conscious will and well-meaning reasonableness. The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases. Each of us carries his own life-form-an indeterminable form which cannot be superseded by any other.

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p. 69
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
2 months ago
Eloquence, when at its highest pitch,...

Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection; but addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding. Happily, this pitch it seldom attains. But what a Tully or a Demosthenes could scarcely effect over a Roman or Athenian audience, every Capuchin, every itinerant or stationary teacher can perform over the generality of mankind, and in a higher degree, by touching such gross and vulgar passions.

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Section 10 : Of Miracles Pt. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
2 months 3 weeks ago
If, then, in the sphere of...

If, then, in the sphere of action there is some one end which we desire for its own sake, and for the sake of which we desire every thing else; and if we do not choose every thing for the sake of something else, for this would go on without limit, and our desire would be idle and futile, it is clear that this must be the supreme good, and the best thing of all.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
1 month 4 weeks ago
The evil that has resulted from...

The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools in teaching natural philosophy as an accomplishment only has been that of generating in the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking through the works of creation to the Creator Himself, they stop short and employ the knowledge they acquire to create doubts of His existence. They labor with studied ingenuity to ascribe everything they behold to innate properties of matter and jump over all the rest by saying that matter is eternal.

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A Discourse, &c. &c.
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
2 months 4 weeks ago
In Germany there is much complaining...
In Germany there is much complaining about my "eccentricities." But since it is not known where my center is, it won't be easy to find out where or when I have thus far been "eccentric." That I was a philologist, for example, meant that I was outside my center (which fortunately does not mean that I was a poor philologist). Likewise, I now regard my having been a Wagnerian as eccentric. It was a highly dangerous experiment; now that I know it did not ruin me, I also know what significance it had for me — it was the most severe test of my character.
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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
1 month 4 weeks ago
Good and evil, reward and punishment,...

Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature: these are the spur and reins whereby all mankind are set on work, and guided.

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Sec. 54
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 3 weeks ago
Only in thought is man a...

Only in thought is man a God; in action and desire we are the slaves of circumstance.

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Letter to Lucy Donnely, November 25, 1902
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
2 months ago
Every man is rich or poor...

Every man is rich or poor according to the degree in which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, conveniences, and amusements of human life. But after the division of labour has once thoroughly taken place, it is but a very small part of these with which a man's own labour can supply him. The far greater part of them he must derive from the labour of other people, and he must be rich or poor according to the quantity of that labour which he can command, or which he can afford to purchase. The value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities.

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Chapter V.
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
2 weeks 4 days ago
As long as politics is the...

As long as politics is the shadow cast on society by big business, the attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance.

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Quoted in John Dewey and American Democracy by Robert Westbrook (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), p. 440
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Schlegel
Friedrich Schlegel
3 weeks 6 days ago
Think of something finite…

Think of something finite molded into the infinite, and you think of man.

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"Selected Ideas (1799-1800)", Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms, Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, trans. (1968) #98
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Just now
It is indeed a matter of...

It is indeed a matter of great difficulty to discover, and effectually to distinguish, the true motions of particular bodies from the apparent; because the parts of that immovable space, in which those motions are performed, do by no means come under the observation of our senses. Yet the thing is not altogether desperate; for we have some arguments to guide us, partly from the apparent motions, which are the differences of the true motions; partly from the forces, which are the causes and effects of the true motions.

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Definitions - Scholium
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
3 weeks 1 day ago
The slave is sold once and...

The slave is sold once and for all; the proletarian must sell himself daily and hourly. The individual slave, property of one master, is assured an existence, however miserable it may be, because of the master's interest. The individual proletarian, property as it were of the entire bourgeois class which buys his labor only when someone has need of it, has no secure existence. This existence is assured only to the class as a whole.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
2 months 3 weeks ago
The tyrant dies and his rule...

The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies and his rule begins.

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Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
1 month 2 weeks ago
An evil and foolish and intemperate...

An evil and foolish and intemperate and irreligious life should not be called a bad life, but rather, dying long drawn out.

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Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
1 month 2 weeks ago
Thus to the Lord doth Asha,...

Thus to the Lord doth Asha, the Truth, reply:"No guide is known who can shelter the world from woe, None who knows what moves and works Thy lofty plans."

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Ahunuvaiti Gatha; Yasna 29, 3.
Philosophical Maxims
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