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Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 weeks 1 day ago
If you are penitent, you love....

If you are penitent, you love. And if you love you are of God. All things are atoned for, all things are saved by love. If I, a sinner even as you are, am tender with you and have pity on you, how much more will God have pity upon you. Love is such a priceless treasure that you can redeem the whole world by it, and cleanse not only your own sins but the sins of others.

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Book II, Chapter 3 (trans. Constance Garnett) The Elder Zossima, speaking to a devout widow afraid of death
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 weeks 5 days ago
A blow from your friend is...

A blow from your friend is better than a kiss from your enemy.

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As quoted in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists‎ (2007) by James Geary, p. 118
Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
1 month 1 week ago
The difference principle, for example, requires...

The difference principle, for example, requires that the higher expectations of the more advantaged contribute to the prospects of the least advantaged.

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Chapter II, Section 16, pg. 95
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 2 weeks ago
What is serious about excitement is...

What is serious about excitement is that so many of its forms are destructive. It is destructive in those who cannot resist excess in alcohol or gambling. It is destructive when it takes the form of mob violence. And above all it is destructive when it leads to war. It is so deep a need that it will find harmful outlets of this kind unless innocent outlets are at hand. There are such innocent outlets at present in sport, and in politics so long as it is kept within constitutional bounds. But these are not sufficient, especially as the kind of politics that is most exciting is also the kind that does most harm. Civilized life has grown altogether too tame, and, if it is to be stable, it must provide harmless outlets for the impulses which our remote ancestors satisfied in hunting.

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Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
5 days ago
The primary meaning of the words...

The primary meaning of the words "modern," "modernity," with which recent times have baptised themselves, brings out very sharply that feeling of "the height of time" which I am at present analysing. "Modern" is what is "in the fashion, "that is to say, the new fashion or modification which has arisen over against the old traditional fashions used in the past. The word "modern" then expresses a consciousness of a new life, superior to the old one, and at the same time an imperative call to be at the height of one's time. For the "modern" man, not to be "modern" means to fall below the historic level.

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Chap. III: The Height Of The Times
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 2 weeks ago
I think people who are unhappy...

I think people who are unhappy are always proud of being so, and therefore do not like to be told that there is nothing grand about their unhappiness. A man who is melancholy because lack of exercise has upset his liver always believes that it is the loss of God, or the menace of Bolshevism, or some such dignified cause that makes him sad. When you tell people that happiness is a simple matter, they get annoyed with you.

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Letter to W. W. Norton, 17 February, 1931
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 2 weeks ago
At the present stage in the...

At the present stage in the development of the art of war, there is only way of coping with them, and that is to keep out of war. In all the densely populated countries of Western Europe, it seems almost certain that, within a few days of the outbreak of war, panic will seize the surviving inhabitants of the capitals and the industrial areas, leading to anarchy, starvation, and paralysis of all warlike effort. The only sensible course, therefore, is to prevent war if possible, and to remain neutral if war occurs.

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Letter to The New Statesman and Nation (10 August 1935)
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
1 month 1 week ago
It seems to me that I...

It seems to me that I may be living too long. Indeed: my nearest relations have all died, and so have some of my best friends, and even some of my best pupils. However, I do not have a reason to complain. I am grateful and happy to be alive, and still be able to continue with my work, if only just. My work seems to me more important than ever.

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As quoted in "At 90, and Still Dynamic : Revisiting Sir Karl Popper and Attending His Birthday Party" by Eugene Yue-Ching Ho, in Intellectus 23
Philosophical Maxims
Cato the Younger
Cato the Younger
1 month 4 days ago
Nay, men, if any of you...

Nay, men, if any of you had heeded what I was ever foretelling and advising, ye would now neither be fearing a single man nor putting your hopes in a single man.

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Quoted by Plutarch, Life of Cato the Younger, 52 Bernadotte Perrin, ed. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. 8, LCL 100 (1919), pp. 247, 361
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
1 month 5 days ago
The goal of maximizing the welfare...

The goal of maximizing the welfare of all may be better achieved by an ethic that accepts our inclinations and harnesses them so that, taken as a whole, the system works to everyone's advantage.

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Chapter 6, A New Understanding Of Ethics, p. 157
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 1 week ago
I believe it might interest...

I believe it might interest a philosopher, one who can think himself, to read my notes. For even if I have hit the mark only rarely, he would recognize what targets I had been ceaselessly aiming at.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
2 months 2 weeks ago
If you have hitherto believed that...
If you have hitherto believed that life was one of the highest value and now see yourselves disappointed, do you at once have to reduce it to the lowest possible price?
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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
1 month 2 weeks ago
It is asserted that beasts have...

It is asserted that beasts have no rights; the illusion is harboured that our conduct, so far as they are concerned, has no moral significance, or, as it is put in the language of these codes, that "there are no duties to be fulfilled towards animals." Such a view is one of revolting coarseness, a barbarism of the West, whose source is Judaism. In philosophy, however, it rests on the assumption, despite all evidence to the contrary, of the radical difference between man and beast,-a doctrine which, as is well known, was proclaimed with more trenchant emphasis by Descartes than by any one else: it was indeed the necessary consequence of his mistakes.

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Part III, Ch. VIII, 7, p. 218
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
3 weeks ago
Even to have come forth is...

Even to have come forth is something, since I see that being able to conquer is placed in the hands of fate. However, there was in me, whatever I was able to do, that which no future century will deny to be mine, that which a victor could have for his own: Not to have feared to die, not to have yielded to any equal in firmness of nature, and to have preferred a courageous death to a noncombatant life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 week 3 days ago
The mind that puts everything in...

The mind that puts everything in question, reaches, after a thousand interrogations, an almost total inertia, a situation which the inert, in fact, knows from the start, by instinct. For what is inertia but a congenital perplexity?

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
2 months 1 week ago
The military mind remains unparalleled as...

The military mind remains unparalleled as a vehicle of creative stupidity.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 2 weeks ago
Talents differ; all is well and...

Talents differ; all is well and wisely put; If I cannot carry forests on my back, Neither can you crack a nut.

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Fable
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
1 month 2 weeks ago
The establishment of any new manufacture,...

The establishment of any new manufacture, of any new branch of commerce, or any new practice in agriculture, is always a speculation, from which the projector promises himself extraordinary profits. These profits sometimes are very great, and sometimes, more frequently, perhaps, they are quite otherwise; but in general they bear no regular proportion to those of other older trades in the neighbourhood. If the project succeeds, they are commonly at first very high. When the trade or practice becomes thoroughly established and well known, the competition reduces them to the level of other trades.

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Chapter X, Part I, p. 136 (tendency of the rate of profit to fall).
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 months 1 week ago
Well, some get lucky sometimes...
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Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
1 month 1 week ago
Nietzsche understands the aesthetic state of...

Nietzsche understands the aesthetic state of the observer and recipient on the basis of the state of the creator. Thus the effect of the artwork is nothing else than a reawakening of the creator's state in the one who enjoys the artwork. Observation of art follows in the wake of creation. Nietzsche says (SM, 821), "-the effect of artworks is arousal of the art-creating state, rapture."

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p. 117
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
5 days ago
Our questions and answers are in...

Our questions and answers are in part determined by the historical tradition in which we find ourselves. We apprehend truth from our own source within the historical tradition. The content of our truth depends upon our appropriating the historical foundation. Our own power of generation lies in the rebirth of what has been handed down to us. If we do not wish to slip back, nothing must be forgotten; but if philosophising is to be genuine our thoughts must arise from our own source. Hence all appropriation of tradition proceeds from the intentness of our own life. The more determinedly I exist, as myself, within the conditions of the time, the more clearly I shall hear the language of the past, the nearer I shall feel the glow of its life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
5 days ago
My path was not the normal...

My path was not the normal one of professors of philosophy. I did not intend to become a doctor of philosophy by studying philosophy (I am in fact a doctor of medicine) nor did I by any means, intend originally to qualify for a professorship by a dissertation on philosophy. To decide to become a philosopher seemed as foolish to me as to decide to become a poet. Since my schooldays, however, I was guided by philosophical questions. Philosophy seemed to me the supreme, even the sole, concern of man. Yet a certain awe kept me from making it my profession.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
1 month 1 week ago
Do the essences of proposition and...

Do the essences of proposition and of the truth determine themselves from out of the essence of the thing, or does the essence of the thing determine itself from out of the essence of the proposition? The question is posed as an either/or. However does this either/or itself suffice? Are the essence of the thing and the essence of the proposition only built as mirror images because both of them together determine themselves from out of the same but deeper lying root? However, what and where can be this common ground for the essence of the thing and of the proposition and of their origin? The unconditioned (Unbedingt)? We stated at the beginning that what conditions the essense of the thing in its thingness can no longer itself be thing and conditioned, it must be an unconditioned (Un-bedingtes).

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p. 47
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
1 week 5 days ago
No explanation is required for Holy...

No explanation is required for Holy Writing. Whoso speaks truly is full of eternal life, and wonderfully related to genuine mysteries does his Writing appear to us, for it is a Concord from the Symphony of the Universe.

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Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
1 month 3 weeks ago
The worst evil is hardness of...

The worst evil is hardness of heart. Those who do not repent, who deliberately remain in their habits of sin, have the most to fear.

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p. 146
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 weeks 1 day ago
Paper, they say, does not blush,...

Paper, they say, does not blush, but I assure you it's not true and that it's blushing just as I am now, all over.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
1 month 2 weeks ago
Correct and accurate conclusions may be...

Correct and accurate conclusions may be arrived at if we carefully observe the relation of the spheres of concepts, and only conclude that one sphere is contained in a third sphere, when we have clearly seen that this first sphere is contained in a second, which in its turn is contained in the third. On the other hand, the art of sophistry lies in casting only a superficial glance at the relations of the spheres of the concepts, and then manipulating these relations to suit our purposes, generally in the following way: - When the sphere of an observed concept lies partly within that of another concept, and partly within a third altogether different sphere, we treat it as if it lay entirely within the one or the other, as may suit our purpose.

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Vol. I, Ch. 10, as translated by R. B. Haldane
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
2 weeks ago
Each individual imagines that he can...

Each individual imagines that he can exist, live, think, and act for himself, and believes that he himself is the thinking principle of his thoughts; whereas in truth he is but a single ray of the ONE universal and necessary Thought.

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p. 21
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
1 month 3 weeks ago
I say that man without the...

I say that man without the grace of God nonetheless remains the general omnipotence of God who effects, and moves and impels all things in a necessary, infallible course; but the effect of man's being carried along is nothing--that is, avails nothing in God's sight, nor is reckoned to be anything but sin.

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p. 265
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
2 months 2 weeks ago
Nature does not do anything in...

Nature does not do anything in vain.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
1 month 3 weeks ago
In particular, at this point also...

In particular, at this point also urge governing authorities and parents to rule well and to send their children to school. Point out how they are obliged to do so and what a damnable sin they commit if they do not, for thereby, as the worst enemies of God and humanity, they overthrow and lay waste both the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. Explain very clearly what kind of horrible damage they do when they do not help to train children as pastors, preachers, civil servants, etc., and tell them that God will punish them dreadfully for this. For in our day and age it is necessary to preach about these things. The extent to which parents and governing authorities are now sinning in these matters defies description. The devil, too, intends to do something horrible in all this.

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Foreword to the small catechismus, as quoted in the Preface, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (2000) by Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, p. 19
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
2 weeks 6 days ago
To keep our eyes open longer...

To keep our eyes open longer were but to set our Antipodes. The Huntsmen are up in America, and they are already past their first sleep in Persia. But who can be drowsy at that hour which freed us from everlasting sleep? or have slumbering thoughts at that time, when sleep itself must end, and as some conjecture all shall awake again?

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Ch. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
1 month 1 week ago
The human body is essentially something...

The human body is essentially something other than an animal organism.

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Letter on Humanism
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 weeks 5 days ago
On doit exiger de moi que...

On doit exiger de moi que je cherche la vérité, mais non que je la trouve. One may demand of me that I should seek truth, but not that I should find it.

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No. 29
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 2 weeks ago
Give me health and a day,...

Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.

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Beauty
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 2 weeks ago
The circulation of capital realizes value,...

The circulation of capital realizes value, while living labour creates value.

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Notebook V, The Chapter on Capital, p. 463.
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
1 month 2 weeks ago
The first step to get this...

The first step to get this noble and manly steadiness, is... carefully keep children from frights of all kinds, when they are young. ...Instances of such who in a weak timorous mind, have borne, all their whole lives through, the effects of a fright when they were young, are every where to be seen, and therefore as much as may be to be prevented.

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Sec. 115
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
1 month 3 weeks ago
Only charity admitteth no excess. For...

Only charity admitteth no excess. For so we see, aspiring to be like God in power, the angels transgressed and fell.

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Book II, xxii
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
1 month 4 days ago
You may drive out….

You may drive out Nature with a pitchfork, yet she still will hurry back.

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Book I, epistle x, line 24
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
1 month 1 week 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
Jesus
Jesus
1 week ago
Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?...

Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Shew me the tribute money.

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22:18-19 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
1 month 4 days ago
Repentance for one's evil deeds is...

Repentance for one's evil deeds is the safeguard of life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
5 days ago
Egos appear by setting themselves apart...

Egos appear by setting themselves apart from other egos.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
1 week 3 days ago
Democratic socialists are either proletarians who...

Democratic socialists are either proletarians who are not yet sufficiently clear about the conditions of the liberation of their class, or they are representatives of the petty bourgeoisie, a class which, prior to the achievement of democracy and the socialist measures to which it gives rise, has many interests in common with the proletariat. It follows that, in moments of action, the communists will have to come to an understanding with these democratic socialists, and in general to follow as far as possible a common policy with them - provided that these socialists do not enter into the service of the ruling bourgeoisie and attack the communists. It is clear that this form of co-operation in action does not exclude the discussion of differences.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
1 month 2 weeks ago
What the rest of us see...

What the rest of us see only under the influence of mescalin, the artist is congenitally equipped to see all the time. His perception is not limited to what is biologically or socially useful.

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Page 168
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
1 week ago
The precarious ontological link between Logos...

The precarious ontological link between Logos and Eros is broken, and scientific rationality emerges as essentially neutral.

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p. 147
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 week ago
Suppose ye that I am come...

Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And he said also to the people, When ye see a cloud rise out of the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower; and so it is. And when ye see the south wind blow, ye say, There will be heat; and it cometh to pass. Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time? Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?

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12:51-57 (KJV) Variant translation of 12:57: Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
2 months 2 weeks ago
Now, in the solemn silence before...

Now, in the solemn silence before God with the lilies and the birds, where accordingly there is nobody at all present, where accordingly there is no other intercourse for thee but with God-there indeed the rule holds good: either hold to Him/or despise Him. There is no excuse, for no one else is present, in any case no one is present in such a wise that thou canst hold to him without despising God; for precisely there in the silence it is clear how close God is to thee.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 week 3 days ago
The fear of your own solitude,...

The fear of your own solitude, of its vast surface and its infinity... Remorse is the voice of solitude. And what does this whispering voice say? Everything in us that is not human anymore.

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Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
1 month 1 week ago
In politics, love is a stranger,...

In politics, love is a stranger, and when it intrudes upon it nothing is being achieved except hypocrisy. All the characteristics you stress in the Negro people: their beauty, their capacity for joy, their warmth, and their humanity, are well-known characteristics of all oppressed people. They grow out of suffering and they are the proudest possession of all pariahs. Unfortunately, they have never survived the hour of liberation by even five minutes. Hatred and love belong together, and they are both destructive; you can afford them only in private and, as a people, only so long as you are not free.

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Letter to James Baldwin
Philosophical Maxims
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