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Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 month 4 days ago
Without Justice, no realm may prosper.

Without Justice, no realm may prosper.

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
1 month 3 weeks ago
It is forbidden to kill….

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

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"Rights", 1771
Philosophical Maxims
Willard van Orman Quine
Willard van Orman Quine
1 week 1 day ago
Modern empiricism has been conditioned in...

Modern empiricism has been conditioned in large part by two dogmas. One is a belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded in meanings independently of matters of fact, and truths which are synthetic, or grounded in fact. The other dogma is reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience. Both dogmas, I shall argue, are ill-founded. One effect of abandoning them is, as we shall see, a blurring of the supposed boundary between speculative metaphysics and natural science. Another effect is a shift toward pragmatism.

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"Two dogmas of Empiricism"
Philosophical Maxims
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam
Just now
Now, moral philosophers generally prefer to...

Now, moral philosophers generally prefer to talk about virtues, or about (specific) duties, rights, and so on, rather than about moral images of the world. There are obvious reasons for this; nevertheless, I think that it is a mistake, and that Kant is profoundly right. What we require in moral philosophy is, first and foremost, a moral image of the world, or rather--since, here again, I am more of a pluralist than Kant--a number of complementary moral images of the world.

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Lecture III: Equality and Our Moral Image of the World
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
2 weeks 1 day ago
I was still "at the church...

I was still "at the church door". Yet in belief, in the clarification of my philosophy, I had taken an important step. I no longer wavered between alternative views of the world, to be put on or taken off like alternative plays at the theatre. I now saw that there was only one possible play, the actual history of nature and of mankind, although there might well be ghosts among the characters and soliloquies among the speeches. Religions, all religions, and idealistic philosophies, all idealistic philosophies, were the soliloquies and the ghosts. They might be eloquent and profound. Like Hamlet's soliloquy they might be excellent reflective criticisms of the play as a whole. Nevertheless they were only parts of it, and their value as criticisms lay entirely in their fidelity to the facts, and to the sentiments which those facts aroused in the critic.

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p. 169
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months ago
Rejoice in the things that are...

Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 weeks 4 days ago
Knowledge is the plague of life,...

Knowledge is the plague of life, and consciousness, an open wound in its heart.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 weeks 6 days ago
Furthermore, when citizens are all almost...

Furthermore, when citizens are all almost equal, it becomes difficult for them to defend their independence against the aggressions of power.

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Chapter III.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 3 weeks ago
The worker becomes all the poorer...

The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and range. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates. With the increasing value of the world of things proceeds in direct proportion the devaluation of the world of men. Labour produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity - and does so in the proportion in which it produces commodities generally.

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p. 71, The Marx-Engels Reader
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 3 weeks ago
It makes a great difference in...

It makes a great difference in the force of a sentence whether a man be behind it or no.

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p. 261
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 weeks 1 day ago
Those who exalt themselves will be...

Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

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18:14 NIV
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
5 days ago
The free expression of the hopes...

The free expression of the hopes and aspirations of a people is the greatest and only safety in a sane society.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
1 month 3 weeks ago
Consciousness, then, does not appear to...

Consciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits ... A 'river' or a 'stream' are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life.

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Ch. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 week 2 days ago
And this God, the living God,...

And this God, the living God, your God, our God, is in me, is in you, lives in us, and we live and move and have our being in Him. And he is in us by virtue of the hunger, the longing, which we have for Him, He is Himself creating the longing for Himself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
1 month 3 weeks ago
We all look for hapiness…

We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it: like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly that they have one.

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Notebooks (c.1735-c.1750)
Philosophical Maxims
Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes
1 week 1 day ago
The Text is plural. Which is...

The Text is plural. Which is not simply to say that it has several meanings, but that it accomplishes the very plural of meaning: an irreducible (and not merely an acceptable) plural. The Text is not a co-existence of meanings but a passage, an overcrossing; thus it answers not to an interpretation, even a liberal one, but to an explosion, a dissemination.

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Proposition 4
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 weeks 2 days ago
My Lords, to obtain empire is...

My Lords, to obtain empire is common; to govern it well has been rare indeed. To chastise the guilt of those who have been instruments of imperial sway over other nations by the high superintending justice of the sovereign state has not many striking examples among any people.

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Speech in opening the impeachment of Warren Hastings (16 February 1788), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Volume the Ninth (1899), p. 398
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
2 months 1 week ago
Does anyone bathe in a mighty...

Does anyone bathe in a mighty little time? Don't say that he does it ill, but in a mighty little time. Does anyone drink a great quantity of wine? Don't say that he does ill, but that he drinks a great quantity. For, unless you perfectly understand the principle from which anyone acts, how should you know if he acts ill? Thus you will not run the hazard of assenting to any appearances but such as you fully comprehend.

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(45).
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
2 weeks ago
Because rhythm is a universal scheme...

Because rhythm is a universal scheme of existence, underlying all realization of order in change, it pervades all the arts, literary, musical, plastic and architectural, as well as the dance. Since man succeeds only as he adapts his behavior to the order of nature, his achievements and victories, as they ensue upon resistance and struggle, become the matrix of all esthetic subject-matter; in some sense they constitute the common pattern of art, the ultimate conditions of form. Their cumulative orders of succession become without express intent the means by which man commemorates and celebrates the most intense and full moments of his experience. Underneath the rhythm of every art and every work of art there lies, as a substratum in the depths of the subconsciousness, the basic pattern of the relations of the live creature to his environment.

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p. 156
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
1 month 3 weeks ago
"Ah, Psyche," I said, "have I...

"Ah, Psyche," I said, "have I made you so little happy as that?"

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Orual
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
1 month 3 weeks ago
All wars are accordingly so many...

All wars are accordingly so many attempts (not in the intention of man, but in the intention of Nature) to establish new relations among states, and through the destruction or at least the dismemberment of all of them to create new political bodies, which, again, either internally or externally, cannot maintain themselves and which must thus suffer like revolutions; until finally, through the best possible civic constitution and common agreement and legislation in external affairs, a state is created which, like a civic commonwealth, can maintain itself automatically.

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Seventh Thesis
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
2 months 2 weeks ago
A robot must protect its own...

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 weeks 1 day ago
Jesus said to His disciples, "Compare...

Jesus said to His disciples, "Compare me to someone and tell Me whom I am like." Simon Peter said to Him, "You are like a righteous angel." Matthew said to Him, "You are like a wise philosopher." Thomas said to Him, "Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom You are like." Jesus said, "I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated by the bubbling spring which I have measured out." And He took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?" Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up."

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Philosophical Maxims
Ernst Mach
Ernst Mach
2 weeks 4 days ago
There was a loud echo of...

There was a loud echo of Hume in Mach's work, as both emphasized the tangibility of all knowledge-ultimately, all knowledge is based in the senses. Mach also emphasized the internal nature of all knowledge, in that it is experienced in the mind. Finally, he emphasized the importance of quantitative and mathematical methods and models to understand sensory experience.

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Alan Ebenstein, Hayek's Journey" The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003), Ch. 10 : Epistemology, Psychology, and Methodology
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
1 month 3 weeks ago
This disposition to admire, and almost...

This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and powerful, and to despise or, at least, neglect persons of poor and mean conditions, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.

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Section III, Chap. III.
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
2 weeks 5 days ago
The whole nature of man presupposes...

The whole nature of man presupposes woman, both physically and spiritually. His system is tuned into woman from the start, just as it is prepared for a quite definite world where there is water, light, air, salt, carbohydrates etc.

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"Two Essays in Analytical Psychology" In CW 7: P. 188
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
3 weeks 1 day ago
Christianity set itself the goal of...

Christianity set itself the goal of fulfilling man's unattainable desires, but for that very reason ignored his attainable desires. By promising man eternal life, it deprived him of temporal life, by teaching him to trust in God's help it took away his trust in his own powers; by giving him faith in a better life in heaven, it destroyed his faith in a better life on earth and his striving to attain such a life. Christianity gave man what his imagination desires, but for that very reason failed to give him what he really and truly desires.

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Lecture XXX, Atheism alone a Positive View
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 3 weeks ago
The method of "postulating" what we...

The method of "postulating" what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil.

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Ch. 7: Rational, Real and Complex Numbers
Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
2 weeks 6 days ago
The rights and duties of man...

The rights and duties of man thus simplified, it seems almost impertinent to attempt to illustrate truths that appear so incontrovertible: yet such deeply rooted prejudices have clouded reason, and such spurious qualities have assumed the name of virtues, that it is necessary to pursue the course of reason as it has been perplexed and involved in error, by various adventitious circumstances, comparing the simple axiom with casual deviations.Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices, which they have imbibed, they cannot trace how, rather than to root them out. The mind must be strong that resolutely forms its own principles; for a kind of intellectual cowardice prevails which makes many men shrink from the task, or only do it by halves. Yet the imperfect conclusions thus drawn, are frequently very plausible, because they are built on partial experience, on just, though narrow, views.

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Ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 weeks 6 days ago
I am far from denying that...

I am far from denying that newspapers in democratic countries lead citizens to do very ill-considered things in common; but without newspapers there would be hardly any common action at all. So they mend many more ills than they cause.

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Book Two, Chapter VI.
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Schlegel
Friedrich Schlegel
3 weeks 2 days ago
The mind understands something only insofar...

The mind understands something only insofar as it absorbs it like a seed into itself, nurtures it, and lets it grow into blossom and fruit. Therefore scatter holy seeds into the soil of the spirit.

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"Ideas," Lucinde and the Fragments, P. Firchow, trans. (1991), § 5
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
2 months 5 days ago
Rules necessary for definitions. Not to...

Rules necessary for definitions. Not to leave any terms at all obscure or ambiguous without definition; Not to employ in definitions any but terms perfectly known or already explained.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 weeks 1 day ago
I came to set fire to...

I came to set fire to the earth, and I wish it were already on fire!

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12:49 (CEV)
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
4 weeks ago
He who created...
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Main Content / General
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
1 week 1 day ago
I remember well a junior seminar...

I remember well a junior seminar I gave with Paul Tillich shortly before the outbreak of the Third Reich. A participant spoke out against the idea of the meaning of existence. She said life did not seem very meaningful to her and she didn't know whether it had a meaning. The very voluble Nazi contingent became very excited by this and scraped the floor noisily with their feet. Now, I do not wish to maintain that this Nazi foot-shuffling proves or refutes anything in particular, but I do find it highly significant. I would say it is a touchstone for the relation of thinking to freedom. It raises the question whether thought can bear the idea that a given reality is meaningless and that mind is unable to orientate itself; or whether the intellect has become so enfeebled that it finds itself paralysed by the idea that all is not well with the world.

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pp. 19-20
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
1 week 6 days ago
Every living creature is happy when...

Every living creature is happy when he fulfills his destiny, that is, when he realizes himself, when he is being that which in truth he is. For this reason, Schlegel, inverting the relationship between pleasure and destiny, said, "We have a genius for what we like." Genius, man's superlative gift for doing something, always carries a look of supreme pleasure.

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pp. 16-17
Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
1 week 1 day ago
Bourgeois sport [wants] to differentiate itself...

Bourgeois sport [wants] to differentiate itself strictly from play. Its bestial seriousness consists in the fact that instead of remaining faithful to the dream of freedom by getting away from purposiveness, the treatment of play as a duty puts it among useful purposes and thereby wipes out the trace of freedom in it. This is particularly valid for contemporary mass music. It is only play as a repetition of prescribed models, and the playful release from responsibility which is thereby achieved does not reduce at all the time devoted to duty except by transferring the responsibility to the models, the following of which one makes into a duty for himself.

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p. 296
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 3 weeks ago
I have no need for good...

I have no need for good souls: an accomplice is what I wanted.

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Electra to her brother Orestes, Act 2
Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
1 week 1 day ago
The important thing is not the...

The important thing is not the planning of an Index Verborum Prohibitorum of current noble nouns, but rather the examination of their linguistic function.

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p. 6
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
2 months 3 weeks ago
She has forgotten speech and language...

She has forgotten speech and language and the restlessness of thoughts, has forgotten what is even greater restlessness, this self, has forgotten herself-she, the lost woman, who is now lost in her Savior, who, lost in him, rests at his feet-like a picture. He speaks about her; he says: Her many sins are forgiven her, because she loved much. Although she is present, it is almost as if she were absent; it is almost as if he changed her into a picture, a parable.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 weeks 2 days 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
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
1 month 3 weeks ago
The commodities of Europe were almost...

The commodities of Europe were almost all new to America, and many of those of America were new to Europe. A new set of exchanges, therefore, began..and which should naturally have proved as advantageous to the new, as it certainly did to the old continent. The savage injustice of the Europeans rendered an event, which ought to have been beneficial to all, ruinous and destructive to several of those unfortunate countries.

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Chapter I, p. 481.
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
1 month 2 weeks ago
The disappearance of public executions marks...

The disappearance of public executions marks therefore the decline of the spectacle; but it also marks a slackening of the hold on the body.

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Chapter One, The Spectacle of the Scaffold
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
2 weeks ago
Every thinker puts some portion of...

Every thinker puts some portion of an apparently stable world in peril and no one can wholly predict what will emerge in its place.

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Ch. VI: Nature, Mind and the Subject
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
1 month 3 weeks ago
In ease of body and peace...

In ease of body and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.

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Chap. I.
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
1 month 3 weeks ago
My thinking is first and last...

My thinking is first and last and always for the sake of my doing.

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Sometimes paraphrased as "Thinking is for doing", perhaps originally by S.T. Fiske (1992) Ch. 22
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
2 months 1 week ago
Earnest in practicing the ordinary virtues,...

Earnest in practicing the ordinary virtues, and careful in speaking about them, if, in his practice, he has anything defective, the superior man dares not but exert himself; and if, in his words, he has any excess, he dares not allow himself such license. Thus his words have respect to his actions, and his actions have respect to his words; is it not just an entire sincerity which marks the superior man?

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
5 days ago
It was not until the ant...

It was not until the ant and Veig had passed each other that Niall realized that he had been reading the ant's mind. It was a sensation like actually being the ant, as if he had momentarily taken possession of its body. And while he had been inside the ant's body, he had also become aware of all the other ants in the nest. It was a bewildering feeling, as if his mind had shattered into thousands of fragments, yet each fragment remained a coherent part of the whole.

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p. 57
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
2 months 3 weeks ago
All that exists that can be...
All that exists that can be denied deserves to be denied; and being truthful means: to believe in an existence that can in no way be denied and which is itself true and without falsehood.
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Philosophical Maxims
Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch
2 weeks ago
We know that the real lesson...

We know that the real lesson to be taught is that the human person is precious and unique; but we seem unable to set it forth except in terms of ideology and abstraction.

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Ch. 10, p. 148
Philosophical Maxims
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