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Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
1 month 2 weeks ago
The desire to philosophize from the...

The desire to philosophize from the standpoint of standpointlessness, as a purportedly genuine and superior objectivity, is either childish, or, as is usually the case, disingenuous.

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The Essence of Truth, 1931-32
Philosophical Maxims
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
5 months 3 weeks ago
Subdue petty bourgeois passions and prejudices

First, [the bourgeoisie] must recognize his own impotence, his incapacity to believe in a sense of history, even if his reason leans towards the truth, the passions and prejudices produced by his class position, prevent him from accepting it. So he should not exert himself with proving the truth of the historical mission of the working class; rather, he should learn to subdue his petty bourgeois passions and prejudices. He should take lessons from those who were once as important as he is now but are ready to risk all for the revolutionary Cause.

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Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
3 days ago
I believe that none can "save"...

I believe that none can "save" his fellow man by making a choice for him. To help him, he can indicate the possible alternatives, with sincerity and love, without being sentimental and without illusion. The knowledge and awareness of the freeing alternatives can reawaken in an individual all his hidden energies and put him on the path to choosing respect for "life" instead of for "death."

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
1 month 3 weeks ago
Other curious and rather ominous consequences...

Other curious and rather ominous consequences of war are the increased anti-Semitism which one meets in all classes, particularly the common people, and the strong recrudescence of anti-negro passions in the South. The first is due to the age-old dislike of a monied, influential and pushing minority, coupled with a special grudge against the Jews as being chiefly instrumental, in public opinion, in getting America into the war.

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Letter to Julian Huxley (1943), published in Letters of Aldous Huxley (1970), p. 486, also in Aldous Huxley: A Quest for Values, 2017
Philosophical Maxims
Bernard Williams
Bernard Williams
5 days ago
Positivism ... implies the double falsehood...

Positivism ... implies the double falsehood that no interpretation is needed, and that it is not needed because the story which the positivist writer tells, such as it is, is obvious. The story he or she tells is usually a bad one, and its being obvious only means that it is familiar.

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p. 12
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 2 weeks ago
As for us, my little friend,...

As for us, my little friend, we entered [the Communist Party] because we were tired of dying of hunger.

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Act 3, sc. 2
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
1 month 3 weeks ago
Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by...

Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called, and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.

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Ch. III: Of Individuality, As One of the Elements of Well-Being
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
1 month 3 weeks ago
The sad truth of the matter...

The sad truth of the matter is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either evil or good.

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The Life of the Mind (1978), "Thinking"
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 month 3 days ago
Know that death comes to everyone,...

Know that death comes to everyone, and that wealth will sometimes be acquired, sometimes lost. Whatever griefs mortals suffer by divine chance, whatever destiny you have, endure it and do not complain. But it is right to improve it as much as you can, and remember this: Fate does not give very many of these griefs to good people.

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As quoted in Divine Harmony: The Life and Teachings of Pythagoras by John Strohmeier and Peter Westbrook.
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
5 days ago
It is remarkable...
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John Locke
John Locke
1 month 3 weeks ago
Wherever Law ends, Tyranny begins. Second...

Wherever Law ends, Tyranny begins.

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Second Treatise of Government, Sec. 202
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
1 month 1 week ago
Scilurus on his death-bed, being about...

Scilurus on his death-bed, being about to leave four-score sons surviving, offered a bundle of darts to each of them, and bade them break them. When all refused, drawing out one by one, he easily broke them,-thus teaching them that if they held together, they would continue strong; but if they fell out and were divided, they would become weak.

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31 Scilurus
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
2 weeks 4 days ago
We are living in what the...

We are living in what the Greeks called the right time for a "metamorphosis of the gods," i.e. of the fundamental principles and symbols. This peculiarity of our time, which is certainly not of our conscious choosing, is the expression of the unconscious man within us who is changing. Coming generations will have to take account of this momentous transformation if humanity is not to destroy itself through the might of its own technology and science.

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p 110
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
1 month 3 weeks ago
People are often reproached because their...

People are often reproached because their desires are directed mainly to money and they are fonder of it than of anything else. Yet it is natural and even inevitable for them to love that which, as an untiring Proteus, is ready at any moment to convert itself into the particular object of our fickle desires and manifold needs. Thus every other blessing can satisfy only one desire and one need; for instance, food is good only to the hungry, wine only for the healthy, medicine for the sick, a fur coat for winter, women for youth, and so on. Consequently, all these are only ... relatively good. Money alone is the absolutely good thing because it meets not merely one need in concreto, but needs generally in abstracto.

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E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 347
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 3 weeks ago
Everything intercepts us from ourselves...

Everything intercepts us from ourselves.

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1833
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
6 days ago
A philosopher of imposing stature doesn't...

A philosopher of imposing stature doesn't think in a vacuum. Even his most abstract ideas are, to some extent, conditioned by what is or is not known in the time when he lives.

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Ch. 29, June 10, 1943.
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
2 months 1 week ago
(On the Trinitarian indwelling personally experienced...

(On the Trinitarian indwelling personally experienced by Saint Augustine) But what is it that I love in loving You? Not corporeal beauty, nor the splendour of time, nor the radiance of the light, so pleasant to our eyes, nor the sweet melodies of songs of all kinds, nor the fragrant smell of flowers, and ointments, and spices, not manna and honey, not limbs pleasant to the embracements of flesh. I love not these things when I love my God; and yet I love a certain kind of light, and sound, and fragrance, and food, and embracement in loving my God, who is the light, sound, fragrance, food, and embracement of my inner man — where that light shines unto my soul which no place can contain, where that sounds which time snatches not away, where there is a fragrance which no breeze disperses, where there is a food which no eating can diminish, and where that clings which no satiety can sunder. This is what I love, when I love my God.

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X, 6, 8
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
2 weeks 5 days ago
What all other men are is...

What all other men are is of the greatest importance to me. However independent I may imagine myself to be, however far removed I may appear from mundane considerations by my social status, I am enslaved to the misery of the meanest member of society. The outcast is my daily menace. Whether I am Pope, Czar, Emperor, or even Prime Minister, I am always the creature of their circumstance, the conscious product of their ignorance, want and clamoring. They are in slavery, and I, the superior one, am enslaved in consequence.

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Solidarity in Liberty: The Workers' Path to Freedom
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
2 weeks ago
Domination has its own aesthetics, and...

Domination has its own aesthetics, and democratic domination has its democratic aesthetics.

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p. 65
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
2 weeks 4 days ago
That higher and "complete" man is...

That higher and "complete" man is begotten by the "unknown" father and born from Wisdom, and it is he who, in the figure of the puer aeternus-"vultu mutabilis albus et ater"-represents our totality, which transcends consciousness. It was this boy into whom Faust had to change, abandoning his inflated onesidedness which saw the devil only outside. Christ's "Except ye become as little children" is a prefiguration of this, for in them the opposites lie close together; but what is meant is the boy who is born from the maturity of the adult man, and not the unconscious child we would like to remain.

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Answer to Job, R. Hull, trans. (1984), pp. 157-158
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
1 month 3 weeks ago
The doctrine of the Second Coming...

The doctrine of the Second Coming teaches us that we do not and cannot know when the world drama will end. The curtain may be rung down at any moment: say, before you have finished reading this paragraph.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 2 weeks ago
It seems to me as good...

It seems to me as good as certain that we cannot get the upper hand against England. The English - the best race in the world - cannot lose! We, however, can lose and shall lose, if not this year then next year. The thought that our race is going to be beaten depresses me terribly, because I am completely German.

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Writing about the eventual outcome of World War I, in which he was a volunteer in the Austro-Hungarian army (25 October 1914), as quoted in The First World War (2004) by Martin Gilbert, p. 104
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
1 month 3 weeks ago
What are the earth and all...

What are the earth and all its interests beside the deep surmise which pierces and scatters them?

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
1 month 3 weeks ago
How vain it is to sit...

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

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August 19, 1851
Philosophical Maxims
Cisero
Cisero
2 months 1 week ago
The greatest states..

The greatest states have been overthrown by the young and sustained and restored by the old. ... Rashness is the product of the budding-time of youth, prudence of the harvest-time of age.

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section 20
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 3 weeks ago
I regard it as the irresistible...

I regard it as the irresistible effect of the Copernican astronomy to have made the theological scheme of redemption absolutely incredible.

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Quoted in Robert D. Richardson, Jr., Emerson, the Mind On Fire (Univ. of Calif Press 1995), p. 124
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
Just now
The first consequence of the principle...

The first consequence of the principle of bounded rationality is that the intended rationality of an actor requires him to construct a simplified model of the real situation in order to deal with it. He behaves rationally with respect to this model, and such behavior is not even approximately optimal with respect to the real world. To predict his behavior we must understand the way in which this simplified model is constructed, and its construction will certainly be related to his psychological properties as a perceiving, thinking, and learning animal.

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p. 198; Cited in P. Slovic (1972, p. 2).
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
2 months 4 days ago
Rules for Definitions. I. Not to...

Rules for Definitions. I. Not to undertake to define any of the things so well known of themselves that the clearer terms cannot be had to explain them. II. Not to leave any terms that are at all obscure or ambiguous without definition. III. Not to employ in the definition of terms any words but such as are perfectly known or already explained.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
1 month 3 weeks ago
And, oddly enough, even at times...

And, oddly enough, even at times when the current style permitted a treatment of the less epileptic aspects of religion, no fully adequate rendering of the contemplative life was ever achieved in the plasdc arts of Christendom. The peace that passes all understanding was often sung and spoken; it was hardly ever painted or carved. Thus, in the writings of St. Bernard, of Albertus Magnus, of Eckhart and Tauler and Ruysbroeck one may find passages that express very clearly the nature and significance of mystical contemplation. But the saints who figure in medieval painting and sculpture tell us next to nothing about this anticipation of the beatific vision. There are no equivalents of those Far Eastern Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who incarnate, in stone and paint, the experience of ultimate reality.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
3 weeks 1 day ago
Death is the most blessed dream....

Death is the most blessed dream.

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Act II.
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 week 1 day ago
This mortal Don Quixote died and...

This mortal Don Quixote died and descended into hell, which he entered lance on rest, and freed all the condemned, as he freed the galley slaves, and he shut the gates of hell, and tore down the scroll that Dante saw there and replaced it by one on which was written "Long live hope!" and escorted by those whom he had freed, and they laughing at him, he went to heaven. And God laughed paternally at him, and this divine laughter filled his soul with eternal happiness.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 2 weeks ago
Yes, I am so free...

Yes, I am so free. And what a superb absence is my soul.

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Orestes, Act 1
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
1 month 3 weeks ago
It is the character of the...

It is the character of the British people, or at least of the higher and middle classes who pass muster for the British people, that to induce them to approve of any change, it is necessary that they should look upon it as a middle course: they think every proposal extreme and violent unless they hear of some other proposal going still farther, upon which their antipathy to extreme views may discharge itself. So it proved in the present instance; my proposal was condemned, but any scheme for Irish Land reform, short of mine, came to be thought moderate by comparison.

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(pp. 294-295)
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
1 month 2 weeks ago
Form displays the relation...

Form displays the relation itself as the state of original comportment toward beings, the festive state in which the being itself in its essence is celebrated and thus for the first time placed in the open.

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p. 119
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 3 weeks ago
Every natural fact is a symbol...

Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.

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Language
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 weeks 4 days ago
Three in the morning. I realize...

Three in the morning. I realize this second, then this one, then the next: I draw up the balance sheet for each minute. And why all this? Because I was born. It is a special type of sleeplessness that produces the indictment of birth.

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
1 week ago
We should have with each person...

We should have with each person the relationship of one conception of the universe to another conception of the universe, and not to a part of the universe.

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p. 129
Philosophical Maxims
Edward Said
Edward Said
4 days ago
There is no getting around authority...

There is no getting around authority and power, and no getting around the intellectual's relationship to them. How does the intellectual address authority: as a professional supplicant or as its unrewarded, amateurish conscience?

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p. 83
Philosophical Maxims
Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin
1 week 6 days ago
To confuse our own constructions and...

To confuse our own constructions and inventions with eternal laws or divine decrees is one of the most fatal delusions of men. 

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Essays in Honour of E. H. Carr (1974) edited by Chimen Abramsky, p. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
2 months 2 weeks ago
So when the universe was quickened...

So when the universe was quickened with soul, God was well pleased; and he bethought him to make it yet more like its type. And whereas the type is eternal and nought that is created can be eternal, he devised for it a moving image of abiding eternity, which we call time. And he made days and months and years, which are portions of time; and past and future are forms of time, though we wrongly attribute them also to eternity. For of eternal Being we ought not to say 'it was', 'it shall be', but 'it is' alone: and in like manner we are wrong in saying 'it is' of sensible things which become and perish; for these are ever fleeting and changing, having their existence in time.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 3 weeks ago
Sunshine cannot bleach the snow...

Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, Nor time unmake what poets know.

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"The Test", as quoted in Emerson As A Poet (1883) by Joel Benton, p. 40
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
1 month 3 weeks ago
The man, who in a fit….

The man, who in a fit of melancholy, kills himself today, would have wished to live had he waited a week.

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"Cato", 1764
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
2 weeks 3 days ago
Since the communists cannot enter upon...

Since the communists cannot enter upon the decisive struggle between themselves and the bourgeoisie until the bourgeoisie is in power, it follows that it is in the interest of the communists to help the bourgeoisie to power as soon as possible in order the sooner to be able to overthrow it.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
1 month 2 weeks ago
Justice does not require that men...

Justice does not require that men must stand idly by while others destroy the basis of their existence.

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Chapter IV, Section 35, p. 218
Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
2 months 1 week ago
A true friend will partake of...

A true friend will partake of the wants and sorrows of his friend, as if they were his own; if he be in want, he will relieve him; if he be in prison, he will visit him; if he be sick, he will come to him; nay-situations may occur, in which he would not scruple to die for him. It cannot then be doubted, that friendship is one of the most useful means of procuring a secure, tranquil, and happy life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
2 months 1 day ago
Once we have tasted the sweetness...

Once we have tasted the sweetness of what is spiritual, the pleasures of the world will have no attraction for us. If we disregard the shadows of things, then we will penetrate their inner substance.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Schelling
Friedrich Schelling
3 weeks 1 day ago
What is Europe really but a...

What is Europe really but a sterile trunk which owes everything to oriental grafts?

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Letter of 18 December 1806 to Windischmann, quoted by Rene Gerard, L'Orient et la pensée romantique allemande, Paris 1963,, p. 213. quoted in Poliakov, L. (1974).
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
1 month 3 weeks ago
The New Testament is an invaluable...

The New Testament is an invaluable book, though I confess to having been slightly prejudiced against it in my very early days by the church and the Sabbath school, so that it seemed, before I read it, to be the yellowest book in the catalogue. Yet I early escaped from their meshes. It was hard to get the commentaries out of one's head and taste its true flavor. - I think that Pilgrim's Progress is the best sermon which has been preached from this text; almost all other sermons that I have heard, or heard of, have been but poor imitations of this. - It would be a poor story to be prejudiced against the Life of Christ because the book has been edited by Christians.

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
3 weeks 1 day ago
Pass by us, and forgive us...

Pass by us, and forgive us our happiness.

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Part 4, Chapter 5
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
1 week 6 days ago
In all ranges of experience, externality...

In all ranges of experience, externality of means defines the mechanical.

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p. 206
Philosophical Maxims
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