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John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 3 weeks ago
Landlords... grow richer, as it were...

Landlords... grow richer, as it were in their sleep, without working, risking, or economizing.

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Book V, Chapter 1, Section 5
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 3 weeks ago
Why do I think that we,...

Why do I think that we, the intellectuals, are able to help? Simply because we, the intellectuals, have done the most terrible harm for thousands of years. Mass murder in the name of an idea, a doctrine, a theory, a religion - that is all our doing, our invention: the invention of the intellectuals. If only we would stop setting man against man - often with the best intentions - much would be gained. Nobody can say that it is impossible for us to stop doing this.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
3 months 2 days ago
And I must speak plainly. If...

And I must speak plainly. If I were a judge, I would have such a poisonous, syphilitic whore tortured by being broken on the wheel and having her veins lacerated, for it is not to be denied what damage such a filthy whore does to young blood, so that it is unspeakably damaged before it is even fully grown and destroyed in the blood.

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pp. 552-554 (1566); cited in Susan C. Karant-Nunn & Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks [editors and translators], Luther on Women: a Sourcebook, Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 157-158)
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
3 months 3 weeks ago
My lectures are published and not...

My lectures are published and not published; they will be intelligible to those who heard them, and to none beside.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 weeks 1 day ago
Logos is the formal cause of...

Logos is the formal cause of the kosmos and all things, responsible for their nature and configuration.

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p. 37
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 3 weeks ago
People are scarcely aware that it...

People are scarcely aware that it is a slavery they are creating; they forget this in their zeal to make people free by overthrowing dominions. They are scarcely aware that it is slavery; how could it be possible to be a slave in relation to equals?

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Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
2 months 2 weeks ago
With a greedy man thou shouldst...

With a greedy man thou shouldst not be a partner, and do not trust him with the leadership.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
1 day ago
Human beings act, certainly. But none...

Human beings act, certainly. But none of them knows why they act as they do. There is a scattering of facts, which can be known and reported. Beyond these facts are the stories that are told. Human beings may behave like puppets, but no one is pulling the strings.

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In The Puppet Theatre: Puppetry, Conspiracy and Ouija Boards (p. 136)
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
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 3 weeks ago
Science must begin with myths, and...

Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.

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Ch. 1 "Science : Conjectures and Refutations", Section VII
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 2 weeks ago
Heaven and earth shall pass away,...

Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

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Mark 13:31, KJV
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 3 weeks ago
"And I say also this. I...

"And I say also this. I do not think the forest would be so bright, nor the water so warm, nor love so sweet, if there were no danger in the lakes."

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Hyoi, p. 76
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
2 months 4 weeks ago
The interest of the dealers, however,...

The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers.

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Chapter XI, Part III, Conclusion of the Chapter, p. 292.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 3 weeks ago
I do not believe in what...

I do not believe in what is often called... 'exact terminology'... [or] in definitions... [they] do not... add to exactness... I especially dislike pretentious terminology and... pseudo-exactness concerned with it.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
6 days ago
No man's error....
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Main Content / General
Novalis
Novalis
1 month 3 weeks ago
We are near awakening when we...

We are near awakening when we dream that we dream.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
3 months 3 weeks ago
Thus every action must be due...

Thus every action must be due to one or other of seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger, or appetite.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 2 weeks ago
When we have no further desire...

When we have no further desire to show ourselves, we take refuge in music, the Providence of the abulic.

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Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
2 weeks 6 days ago
We no longer have to resort...

We no longer have to resort to superstition when faced with the deep problems: Is there a meaning to life? What are we for? What is man?

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Ch. 1. Why Are People?
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 3 weeks ago
In my fiction I am careful...

In my fiction I am careful to make everything probable and to tie up all loose ends. Real life is not hampered by such considerations.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 2 weeks ago
To think that so many have...

To think that so many have succeeded in dying!

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 3 weeks ago
I have in general no very...

I have in general no very exalted opinion of the virtue of paper government.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
It seems to me now that...

It seems to me now that mathematics is capable of an artistic excellence as great as that of any music, perhaps greater; not because the pleasure it gives (although very pure) is comparable, either in intensity or in the number of people who feel it, to that of music, but because it gives in absolute perfection that combination, characteristic of great art, of godlike freedom, with the sense of inevitable destiny; because, in fact, it constructs an ideal world where everything is perfect and yet true.

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Letter to Gilbert Murray, April 3, 1902
Philosophical Maxims
Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch
1 month 2 weeks ago
The sin of pride may be...

The sin of pride may be a small or a great thing in someone's life, and hurt vanity a passing pinprick or a self-destroying or even murderous obsession. Possibly, more people kill themselves and others out of hurt vanity than out of envy, jealousy, malice or desire for revenge.

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The Philosopher's Pupil (1983) p. 76.
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
1 month 1 week ago
The student of the history of...

The student of the history of progressive thought is well aware that every idea in its early stages has been misrepresented, and the adherents of such ideas have been maligned and persecuted...The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul. If, then, from time immemorial, the New has met with opposition and condemnation, why should my beliefs be exempt from a crown of thorns?

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 3 weeks ago
The worst of misfortunes is still...

The worst of misfortunes is still a stroke of luck, since one feels oneself living when one experiences it.

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p. 275
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 3 weeks ago
Instead of deciding once in three...

Instead of deciding once in three or six years which member of the ruling class was to misrepresent the people in Parliament, universal suffrage was to serve the people, constituted in Communes, as individual suffrage serves every other employer in the search for the workmen and managers in his business.

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The Civil War in France : "The Third Address", May 1871
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
3 weeks 1 day ago
He who is bent on doing...

He who is bent on doing evil can never want occasion.

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Maxim 459
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
1 month 3 weeks ago
If the world is a precipitation...

If the world is a precipitation of human nature, so to speak, then the divine world is a sublimation of the same. Both occur in one act. No precipitation without sublimation. What goes lost there in agility, is won here.

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Fragment No. 96
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
2 months 6 days ago
Number is the ruler of forms...

Number is the ruler of forms and ideas, and the cause of gods and daemons.

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As quoted in Life of Pythagoras (c. 300) by Iamblichus of Chalcis, as translated by Thomas Taylor (1818)
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
1 month 6 days ago
That man and woman have an...

That man and woman have an equality of duties and rights is accepted by woman even less than by man. Behind his destiny woman must annihilate herself, must be only his complement. A woman dedicates herself to the vocation of her husband; she fills up and performs the subordinate parts in it. But if she has any destiny, any vocation of her own, she must renounce it, in nine cases out of ten.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 3 weeks ago
I don't deserve a share in...

I don't deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. Nor do most people - all the people who believe advertisements, and think in catchwords and spread rumors. The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.

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Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
1 month 6 days ago
People do not go into the...

People do not go into the company of their fellow-creatures for what would seem a very sufficient reason, namely, that they have something to say to them, or something that they want to hear from them; but in the vague hope that they may find something to say.

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Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
1 month 3 weeks ago
Nothing can be of more importance...

Nothing can be of more importance than to separate prejudice and mistake on the one hand from reason and demonstration on the other.

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Book III, Ch.1
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 2 days ago
An untempted woman cannot boast of...

An untempted woman cannot boast of her chastity.

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
3 months 1 week ago
In this one man, the whole...

In this one man, the whole Church has been assumed by the Word.

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p.434
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
3 months 3 weeks ago
Doing what is for the good...

Doing what is for the good of the people, this must be the truest criterion of right government, in accordance with which the wise and good man will govern the affairs of his subjects. Just as the captain of a ship keeps watch for what is at any moment for the good of the vessel and the sailors, not by writing rules, but by making his science his law, and thus preserves his fellow voyagers, so may not a right government be established in the same way by men who could rule by this principle, making science more powerful than the laws? And whatever the wise rulers do, they can commit no error, so long as they maintain one great principle and by always dispensing absolute justice to them with wisdom and science are able to preserve the citizens and make them better than they were, so far as that is possible.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
I must confess that I am...

I must confess that I am deeply troubled. I fear that human beings are intent upon acting out a vast deathwish and that it lies with us now to make every effort to promote resistance to the insanity and brutality of policies which encompass the extermination of hundreds of millions of human beings.

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Letter to Rudolf Carnap, June 21, 1962
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 3 weeks ago
And how does the God's existence...

And how does the God's existence emerge from the proof? Does it follow straightway, without any breach of continuity? Or have we not here an analogy to the behavior of the little Cartesian dolls? As soon as I let go of the doll it stands on its head. As soon as I let it go, I must therefore let it go. So also with the proof. As long as I keep my hold on the proof, i.e., continue to demonstrate, the existence does not come out, if for no other reason than that I am engaged in proving it; but when I let the proof go, the existence is there. But this act of letting go is surely also something; it is indeed a contribution of mine. Must not this also be taken into the account, this little moment, brief as it may be – it need not be long, for it is a leap. However brief this moment, if only an instantaneous now, this "now" must be included in the reckoning.

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Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
2 months 2 weeks ago
In situations of sparse resources along...

In situations of sparse resources along with degraded self-images and depoliticized sensibilities, one avenue for poor people is in existential rebellion and anarchic expression. The capacity to produce social chaos is the last resort of desperate people.

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The Role of Law in Progressive Politics in Keeping Faith: Philosophy and Race in America
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
3 weeks 1 day ago
Everything is worth what its purchaser...

Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it.

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Maxim 847
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
2 months 3 weeks ago
It is the duty of every...

It is the duty of every man, so far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error.

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The Theophilanthropist: Containing Critical, Moral, Theological and Literary Essays, in Monthly Numbers, p. 387
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 2 days ago
There is no pleasure to me...

There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 weeks 1 day ago
Even pacifist agitation or the nation-wide...

Even pacifist agitation or the nation-wide fever of big sports competitions acts as a spur to war fever in circumstances like ours. Any kind of excitement or emotion contributes to the possibility of dangerous explosions when the feelings of huge populations are kept inflamed even in peacetime for the sake of the advancement of commerce. Headlines mean street sales. It takes emotion to move merchandise. And wars and rumors of wars are the merchandise and also the emotion of the popular press.

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p. 7
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
Whoso walketh in solitude, And inhabiteth...

Whoso walketh in solitude, And inhabiteth the wood, Choosing light, wave, rock, and bird, Before the money-loving herd, Into that forester shall pass From these companions power and grace.

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Wood-notes, no. II, st. 4
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 3 weeks ago
You must picture me alone in...

You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
I have no doubt that the...

I have no doubt that the present Prime Minister, for instance, is a most sincere Christian, but I should not advise any of you to go and smite him on one cheek. I think you might find that he thought this text was intended in a figurative sense.

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"The Character of Christ"
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
2 months 6 days ago
Those alone are dear to Divinity...

Those alone are dear to Divinity who are hostile to injustice.

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Pythagorean Ethical Sentences From Stobæus
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
3 months 3 days ago
The greatest error of all the...

The greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men: as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a tarrasse, for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state, for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and contention; or a shop, for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse, for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate.

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Book I, v, 11
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 weeks 1 day ago
Literacy, the visual technology, dissolved the...

Literacy, the visual technology, dissolved the tribal magic by means of its stress on fragmentation and specialization and created the individual.

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Philosophical Maxims
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