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John Rawls
John Rawls
2 months 3 weeks ago
Let us now consider whether justice...

Let us now consider whether justice requires the toleration of the intolerant, and if so under what conditions. There are a variety of situations in which this question arises. Some political parties in democratic states hold doctrines that commit them to suppress the constitutional liberties whenever they have the power. Again, there are those who reject intellectual freedom but who nevertheless hold positions in the university. It may appear that toleration in these cases is inconsistent with the principles of justice, or at any rate not required by them.

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p. 216
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 weeks 3 days ago
World War I a railway war...

World War I a railway war of centralization and encirclement. World War II a radio war of decentralization concluded by the Bomb. World War III a TV guerrilla war with no divisions between civil and military fronts.

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(p. 152)
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 3 weeks ago
If we cannot "practice the presence...

If we cannot "practice the presence of God," it is something to practice the absence of God, to become increasingly aware of our unawareness till we feel like man who should stand beside a great cataract and hear no noise, or like a man in a story who looks in a mirror and finds no face there, or a man in a dream who stretches his hand to visible objects and gets no sensation of touch. To know that one is dreaming is to no longer be perfectly asleep. Bur for news of the fully waking world you must go to my betters.

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"Charity"
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
1 week 5 days ago
The life, the fortune, and the...

The life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmated - without haste, but without remorse.

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Philosophical Maxims
Willard van Orman Quine
Willard van Orman Quine
1 month 1 week ago
Life is agid. Life is fulgid....

Life is agid. Life is fulgid. Life is a burgeoning, a quickening of the dim primordial urge in the murky wastes of time. Life is what the least of us make most of us feel the least of us make the most of.

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Quine's response in 1988 when asked his philosophy of life. (He invented the word "agid".) It makes up the entire Chapter 54 in Quine in Dialogue (2008).
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
Every really able man, in whatever...

Every really able man, in whatever direction he work,-a man of large affairs, an inventor, a statesman, an orator, a poet, a painter,-if you talk sincerely with him, considers his work, however much admired, as far short of what it should be.

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Immortality
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 3 weeks ago
...man first of all exists, encounters...

...man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world - and defines himself afterwards.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 3 weeks ago
The tendency has always been strong...

The tendency has always been strong to believe that whatever received a name must be an entity or thing, having an independent existence of its own; and if no real entity answering to the name could be found, men did not for that reason suppose that none existed, but imagined that it was something peculiarly abstruse and mysterious, too high to be an object of sense. The meaning of all general, and especially of all abstract terms, became in this way enveloped in a mystical base...

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Note to Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (1829) by James Mill, edited with additional notes by John Stuart Mill, 1869
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
2 months 3 weeks ago
A philosophy without heart and a...

A philosophy without heart and a faith without intellect are abstractions from the true life of knowledge and faith. The man whom philosophy leaves cold, and the man whom real faith does not illuminate, may be assured that the fault lies in them, not in knowledge and faith. The former is still an alien to philosophy, the latter an alien to faith.

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Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
2 months 2 weeks ago
Thou shouldst not become presumptuous through...

Thou shouldst not become presumptuous through great connections and race; for in the end thy trust is on thine own deeds.

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(p. 60)
Philosophical Maxims
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
2 weeks 5 days ago
A great deal of intelligence can...

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep. To Jerusalem and Back: A Personal Account (1976), p. 127 Compare: It's a point so blindingly obvious that only an extraordinarily clever and sophisticated person could fail to grasp it.

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John Bercow, 2016.
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
2 months 1 week ago
Do not even think of doing...

Do not even think of doing what ought not to be done.

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Pythagorean Ethical Sentences From Stobæus
Philosophical Maxims
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
2 months 2 weeks ago
Other dogs bite their enemies…

Other dogs bite only their enemies, whereas I bite also my friends in order to save them.

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Stobaeus, iii. 13. 44
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 3 weeks ago
The opposite of an idealist is...

The opposite of an idealist is too often a man without love.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 weeks 3 days ago
We have become like the most...

We have become like the most primitive Palaeolithic man, once more global wanderers, but information gatherers rather than food gatherers. From now on the source of food, wealth and life itself will be information.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
For nature beats in perfect tune,...

For nature beats in perfect tune, And rounds with rhyme her every rune, Whether she work in land or sea, Or hide underground her alchemy. Thou canst not wave thy staff in air, Or dip thy paddle in the lake, But it carves the bow of beauty there, And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake.

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Wood-notes, no. II, st. 7
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
2 months 2 weeks ago
Being nimble and light-footed, his father...

Being nimble and light-footed, his father encouraged him to run in the Olympic race. "Yes," said he, "if there were any kings there to run with me."

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41 Alexander
Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
2 months 3 weeks ago
I remind young people everywhere I...

I remind young people everywhere I go, one of the worst things the older generation did was to tell them for twenty-five years "Be successful, be successful, be successful" as opposed to "Be great, be great, be great". There's a qualitative difference.

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Speech in San Francisco: Democracy Matters
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
3 months 1 week ago
Life is one…

Life is one long struggle in the dark.

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Book II, line 54 (tr. Rouse)
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
To think is to submit to...

To think is to submit to the whims and commands of an uncertain health.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
2 weeks 1 day ago
To have been a Sovereign, yet...

To have been a Sovereign, yet the champion of liberty,-a revolutionary leader, yet the supporter of social order, is the peculiar glory of William. Till his accession the British Constitution was in its Chaos. It had contained, from a very remote period, the simple elements of an harmonious government. But they were in a state not of amalgamation, but of conflict,-not of equilibrium but of alternate elevation and depression. The tyranny of Charles the first produced civil war and anarchy. Tyranny had now again produced resistance and revolution. And, but for the wisdom of the new King, it seems probable that the same cycle of misery would have been again described.

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'Essay on the Life and Character of King William III' (1822), written for the Greaves Historical Prize at Cambridge, quoted in The Times Literary Supplement (1 May 1969), p. 469
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 3 weeks ago
Homeliness is almost as great a...

Homeliness is almost as great a merit in a book as in a house, if the reader would abide there. It is next to beauty, and a very high art.

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Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 32
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
1 month 1 week ago
Exploitation and manipulation produce boredom and...

Exploitation and manipulation produce boredom and triviality; they cripple man, and all factors that make man into a psychic cripple turn him also into a sadist or a destroyer. This position will be characterized by some as "overoptimistic," "utopian," or "unrealistic." In order to appreciate the merits of such criticism a discussion of the ambiguity of hope and the nature of optimism and pessimism seems called for.

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p. 483
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
3 months 3 weeks ago
You want to know whether I...

You want to know whether I can make a long speech, such as you are in the habit of hearing; but that is not my way. Socrates speaking to Alcibiades

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Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
2 months 2 weeks ago
People are enticed….

People are enticed by a desire which continually cheats them.'Nothing is enough,' they say, 'for you're only worth what you have.'

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Book I, satire i, lines 61-62, as translated by N. Rudd
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
1 month 2 weeks ago
Man's being is made of such...

Man's being is made of such strange stuff as to be partly akin to nature and partly not, at once natural and extranatural, a kind of ontological centaur, half immersed in nature, half transcending it.

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"Man has no nature"
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
3 months 3 weeks ago
This is the end of the...

This is the end of the web of the statesman activity: the direct interweaving of the characters of restrained and courageous men, when the kingly science has drawn them together by friendship and community of sentiment into a common life, and having perfected the most glorious and the best of all textures, clothes with it all the inhabitants of the state, both slaves and freemen, holds them together by this fabric, and omitting nothing which ought to belong to a happy state, rules and watches over them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
2 weeks 1 day ago
If we consider merely the subtlety...

If we consider merely the subtlety of disquisition, the force of imagination, the perfect energy and elegance of expression, which characterise the great works of Athenian genius, we must pronounce them intrinsically most valuable; but what shall we say when we reflect that from hence have sprung, directly or indirectly, all the noblest creations of the human intellect; that from hence were the vast accomplishments, and the brilliant fancy of Cicero; the withering fire of Juvenal; the plastic imagination of Dante; the humour of Cervantes; the comprehension of Bacon; the wit of Butler; the supreme and universal excellence of Shakspeare? All the triumphs of truth and genius over prejudice and power, in every country and in every age, have been the triumphs of Athens. Wherever a few great minds have made a stand against violence and fraud, in the cause of liberty and reason, there has been her spirit in the midst of them; inspiring, encouraging, consoling.

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p. 178
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 3 weeks ago
It is very likely that there...

It is very likely that there are many, many planets carrying life, even intelligent life, throughout the universe, because there are so many stars. By sheer chance, even if those chances are small, a great many life forms and a great many intelligences may exist.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
All traditional logic habitually assumes that...

All traditional logic habitually assumes that precise symbols are being employed. It is therefore not applicable to this terrestial life but only to an imagined celestial existence... logic takes us nearer to heaven than other studies.

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Vagueness', first published in The Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy, 1 June, 1923
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
3 months 3 weeks ago
Those who purge the soul believe...

Those who purge the soul believe that the soul can receive no benefit from any teachings offered to it until someone by cross-questioning reduces him who is cross-questioned to an attitude of modesty, by removing the opinions that obstruct the teachings, and thus purges him and makes him think that he knows only what he knows, and no more.

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Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
2 months 3 days ago
It is manifest that every soul...

It is manifest that every soul has a certain continuity with the soul of the Universe, so that it must be understood to exist and to be included not only there where it liveth and feeleth, but it is also by its essence and substance diffused throughout immensity. The power of each soul is itself somehow present afar in the Universe. It is not mixed, yet is there in some presence.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 3 weeks ago
We face eternity now. We have...

We face eternity now. We have no universe left, no outside phenomena, no emotions, no passions. Nothing but ourselves and thought. We face an eternity of introspection, when all through history we have never known what to do with ourselves on a rainy Sunday.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
2 months 2 weeks ago
Everyone is entitled to commit murder...

Everyone is entitled to commit murder in the imagination once in a while, not to mention lesser infractions.

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Concealment and Exposure and Other Essays (1998).
Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
1 month 3 weeks ago
Perfectibility is one of the most...

Perfectibility is one of the most unequivocal characteristics of the human species.

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Vol. 1, bk. 1 : Of the Powers of Man Considered in his Social Capacity, ch. 2
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 weeks 1 day ago
It is the duty...
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Main Content / General
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
2 months 4 weeks ago
When the qualification to vote is...

When the qualification to vote is regulated by years, it is placed on the firmest possible ground, because the qualification is such as nothing but dying before the time can take away; and the equality of Rights, as a principle, is recognized in the act of regulating the exercise. But when Rights are placed upon, or made dependent upon property, they are on the most precarious of all tenures. "Riches make themselves wings, and fly away," and the rights fly with them ; and thus they become lost to the man when they would be of most value.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
3 weeks 1 day ago
It seems as if marriage were...

It seems as if marriage were the royal road through life, and realised, on the instant, what we have all dreamed on summer Sundays when the bells ring, or at night when we cannot sleep for the desire of living. They think it will sober and change them. Like those who join a brotherhood, they fancy it needs but an act to be out of the coil and clamour for ever. But this is a wile of the devil's. To the end, spring winds will sow disquietude, passing faces leave a regret behind them, and the whole world keep calling and calling in their ears. For marriage is like life in this - that it is a field of battle, and not a bed of roses.

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Virginibus Puerisque, Ch. 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
Why in any case, this glorification...

Why in any case, this glorification of man? How about lions and tigers? They destroy fewer animals or human lives than we do, and they are much more beautiful than we are. How about ants? They manage the Corporate State much better than any Fascist. Would not a world of nightingales and larks and deer be better than our human world of cruelty and injustice and war? The believers in Cosmic Purpose make much of our supposed intelligence, but their writings make one doubt it. If I were granted omnipotence, and millions of years to experiment in, I should not think Man much to boast of as the final result of all my efforts.

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Religion and Science, 1935
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
Two men who differ as to...

Two men who differ as to the ends of life cannot hope to agree about education.

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Ch. 12: Education and Discipline
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
Philosophy seems to me on the...

Philosophy seems to me on the whole a rather hopeless business.

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Letter to Gilbert Murray, December 28, 1902
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
2 months 2 weeks ago
No one deserves to live who...

No one deserves to live who has not at least one good-man-and-true for a friend.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 3 weeks ago
A writer who takes political, social...

A writer who takes political, social or literary positions must act only with the means that are his. These means are the written words.

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Refusing the Nobel Prize, New York Times
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
2 months 3 days ago
The wise soul feareth not death;...

The wise soul feareth not death; rather she sometimes striveth for death, she goeth beyond to meet her. Yet eternity maintaineth her substance throughout time, immensity throughout space, universal form throughout motion.

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I 1
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 months 1 day ago
The best doctor is the one...

The best doctor is the one you run for and can't find.

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As quoted in Selected Thoughts from the French: XV Century - XX Century, with English Translations (1913) by James Raymond Solly, p. 67
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 3 weeks ago
The devil...the prowde spirit...cannot endure to...

The devil...the prowde spirit...cannot endure to be mocked.

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Thomas More, quoted at the beginning of The Screwtape Letters
Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
5 days ago
Today, status quo bias runs deep....

Today, status quo bias runs deep. Conservation biology is an ideology masquerading as a science. Many researchers seek to extend the tenets of conservation biology to humans. By contrast, a benevolent superintelligence might view Darwinian life on Earth as an infestation of biological malware and act accordingly. The amount of suffering caused by Homo sapiens is hard to quantify. But the suffering is immense and growing daily with the spread of industrialised animal abuse. Reply to "Why would someone want to end humanity?"

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, Quora, 10 Mar. 2018
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 2 weeks ago
I am Alpha and Omega, the...

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

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Revelation 22:13
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 3 weeks ago
The essential is to cease being...

The essential is to cease being free and to obey, in repentance, a greater rogue than oneself. When we are all guilty, that will be democracy.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 weeks 5 days ago
The man is making preparations for...

The man is making preparations for a year, and does not know that he will die before evening. And I remembered God's second saying, "Learn what is not given to man." 'What dwells in man" I already knew. Now I learnt what is not given him. It is not given to man to know his own needs.

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Ch. XI
Philosophical Maxims
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