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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 6 days ago
Self-command is the main elegance. p....

Self-command is the main elegance.

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p. 205
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
3 months 1 week 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
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 1 week ago
Learning will be cast into the...

Learning will be cast into the mire and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude.

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Volume iii, p. 335
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
3 months 2 weeks ago
For a man to love again...

For a man to love again where he is loved, it is the charity of publicans contracted by mutual profit and good offices; but to love a man's enemies is one of the cunningest points of the law of Christ, and an imitation of the divine nature.

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Of The Exaltation of Charity
Philosophical Maxims
Susan Neiman
Susan Neiman
3 weeks 6 days ago
The picture of modern philosophy as...

The picture of modern philosophy as centered in epistemology and driven by the desire to ground our representations is so tenacious that some philosophers are prepared to bite the bullet and declare the effort simply wasted. Rorty, for example, finds it easier to reject modern philosophy altogether than to reject the standard accounts of its history. His narrative is more polemical than most, but it's a polemical version of the story told in most philosophy departments in the second half of the twentieth century. The story is one of tortuously decreasing interest. Philosophy, like some people, was prepared to accept boredom in exchange for certainty as it grew to middle age.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
3 months 1 day ago
This book is intended as a...

This book is intended as a correlative history of the modern soul and of a new power to judge; a genealogy of the present scientifico-legal complex from which the power to punish derives its bases, justifications and rules, from which it extends its effects and by which it extends its effects and by which it masks its exorbitant singularity.

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Chapter One, The Spectacle of the Scaffold, pp.42
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 month 2 weeks ago
The "second sight" possessed by the...

The "second sight" possessed by the Highlanders in Scotland is actually a foreknowledge of future events. I believe they possess this gift because they don't wear trousers... That is also why in all countries women are more prone to utter prophecies.

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L 26
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
2 months 1 week ago
Were the happiness of the next...

Were the happiness of the next world as closely apprehended as the felicities of this, it were a martyrdom to live.

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Chapter IV
Philosophical Maxims
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
3 months 1 day ago
Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot...

Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'here are our monsters', without immediately turning the monsters into pets.

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Some Statements and Truisms about Neologisms, Newisms, Postisms, Parasitisms, and other small Seismisms, The States of Theory, ed. David Carroll, New York: Columbia University Press, 1989.
Philosophical Maxims
John Searle
John Searle
1 month 1 week ago
There are clear cases in which...

There are clear cases in which "understanding" literally applies and clear cases in which it does not apply; and these two sorts of cases are all I need for this argument.

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Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
2 months 1 week ago
Since I have spread my wings...

Since I have spread my wings to purpose high, The more beneath my feet the clouds I see, The more I give the winds my pinions free, Spurning the earth and soaring to the sky.

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As quoted in "Giordano Bruno" by Thomas Davidson, in The Index Vol. VI. No. 36 (4 March 1886), p. 429
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
3 months 3 weeks ago
Let each look to his own...

Let each look to his own heart: let him not keep hatred against his brother for any hard word; on account of earthly contention let him not become earth.

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First Homily, Paragraph 11, as translated by H. Browne, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 7 (1888)
Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
2 weeks 1 day ago
There is no fundamental biological reason...

There is no fundamental biological reason why the human genome can't be rewritten to allow everyone to be "in" love with everyone else - if we should so choose. But simply loving each other will be miraculous enough; and will probably suffice. An empty religious piety can be transformed into a biological reality. 

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"Brave New World? A Defence of Paradise-Engineering", BLTC Research, 1998
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 1 week ago
When the intensity of emotional conviction...

When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief which he finds in himself.

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Ch. 1: Mysticism and Logic
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
1 month 2 days ago
Though the coming of the day...

Though the coming of the day is still the most inspiriting, yet day's departure, also, and the return of night refresh, renew, and quiet us; and in the pastures of the dusk we stand, like cattle, exulting in the absence of the load.

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Toils And Pleasures.
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 month 3 weeks ago
If you have had your attention...

If you have had your attention directed to the novelties in thought in your own lifetime, you will have observed that almost all really new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced.

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Ch. 3: "The Century of Genius", pp. 67-68
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 3 days ago
You know what charm is: a...

You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer 'yes' without having asked any clear question.

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
1 month 3 weeks ago
We must wish either for that...

We must wish either for that which actually exists or for that which cannot in any way exist - or, still better, for both. That which is and that which cannot be are both outside the realm of becoming.

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p. 154
Philosophical Maxims
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei
Just now
In the long run my observations...

In the long run my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion in their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received it from some person who has their entire confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible ever to get it out of their heads. Such arguments in support of their fixed idea as they hit upon themselves or hear set forth by others, no matter how simple and stupid these may be, gain their instant acceptance and applause. On the other hand whatever is brought forward against it, however ingenious and conclusive, they receive with disdain or with hot rage - if indeed it does not make them ill. Beside themselves with passion, some of them would not be backward even about scheming to suppress and silence their adversaries.

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p. 322
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
3 months 1 week ago
I shall, without further discussion of...

I shall, without further discussion of the other theories, attempt to contribute something towards the understanding and appreciation of the Utilitarian or Happiness theory, and towards such proof as it is susceptible of. It is evident that this cannot be proof in the ordinary and popular meaning of the term. Questions of ultimate ends are not amenable to direct proof. Whatever can be proved to be good, must be so by being shown to be a means to something admitted to be good without proof.

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Ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks ago
How many worthy...
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Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 days ago
By capitulating to life, this world...

By capitulating to life, this world has betrayed nothingness. . . . I resign from movement, and from my dreams. Absence! You shall be my sole glory. . . . Let "desire" be forever stricken from the dictionary, and from the soul! I retreat before the dizzying farce of tomorrows. And if I still cling to a few hopes, I have lost forever the faculty of hoping.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 1 week ago
A person can perhaps succeed in...

A person can perhaps succeed in hiding his sins from the world, he can perhaps be foolishly happy that he succeeds, or yet, a little more honest, admit that it is a deplorable weakness and cowardliness that he does not have the courage to become open-but a person cannot hide his sins from himself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
2 months 6 days ago
It cannot but happen that those...

It cannot but happen that those individuals whose functions are most out of equilibrium with the modified aggregate of external forces, will be those to die; and that those will survive whose functions happen to be most nearly in equilibrium with the modified aggregate of external forces. But this survival of the fittest, implies multiplication of the fittest. Out of the fittest thus multiplied, there will, as before, be an overthrowing of the moving equilibrium wherever it presents the least opposing force to the new incident force.

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The Principles of Biology, Vol. I (1864), Part III: The Evolution of Life, Ch. 7: Indirect Equilibration
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 3 days ago
For those of us who have...

For those of us who have been thrown into hell, mysterious melodies and the torturing images of a vanished beauty will always bring us, in the midst of crime and folly, the echo of that harmonious insurrection which bears witness, throughout the centuries, to the greatness of humanity.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
3 weeks 1 day ago
If some great Power would agree...

If some great Power would agree to make me always think what is true and do what is right, on condition of being turned into a sort of clock and wound up every morning before I got out of bed, I should instantly close with the offer. The only freedom I care about is the freedom to do right; the freedom to do wrong I am ready to part with on the cheapest terms to any one who will take it of me.

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"On Descartes' Discourse touching the method of using one's reason rightly and of seeking scientific truth"
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
2 months 2 days ago
The recognition by one person of...

The recognition by one person of another's personality takes place by means to some extent identical to the means by which he is conscious of his own personality. The idea of the second personality, which is as much as to say that second personality itself, enters within the direct consciousness of the first person, and is immediately perceived as his ego, though less strongly. At the same time, the opposition between the two persons is perceived, so that the externality of the second is perceived.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 days ago
Love's great (and sole) originality is...

Love's great (and sole) originality is to make happiness indistinct from misery.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
2 months 6 days ago
Should the believers in special creations...

Should the believers in special creations consider it unfair thus to call upon them to describe how special creations take place, I reply that this is far less than they demand from the supporters of the Development Hypothesis. They are merely asked to point out a conceivable mode. On the other hand, they ask, not simply for a conceivable mode, but for the actual mode.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 4 weeks ago
The Son of man shall be...

The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men: And they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again.

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17:22-23 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
1 month 1 week ago
I have not been able to...

I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called a hypothesis, and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy.

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Letter to Robert Hooke (15 February 1676) [5 February 1676 (O.S.)]
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
2 months 1 week ago
What chiefly diverts the men of...

What chiefly diverts the men of democracies from lofty ambition is not the scantiness of their fortunes, but the vehemence of the exertions they daily make to improve them.

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Book Three, Chapter XIX.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 1 week ago
Accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and...

Accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets!

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Vol. I, Ch. 24, Section 3, pg. 652.
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
3 months 2 weeks ago
It is an article of faith...

It is an article of faith that Mary is Mother of the Lord and still a Virgin.

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Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works, English translation edited by J. Pelikan [Concordia: St. Louis], Vol. 11, 319-320
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
2 months 3 weeks ago
False men and shams talk big...

False men and shams talk big and do nothing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 month 4 days ago
For a good cause…

For a good cause, wrongdoing is virtuous.

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Maxim 207
Philosophical Maxims
Judith Butler
Judith Butler
1 month 1 week ago
There is no practice of nonviolence...

There is no practice of nonviolence that does not negotiate fundamental ethical and political ambiguities, which means that "nonviolence" is not an absolute principle, but the name of an ongoing struggle.

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p. 23
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
2 months 6 days ago
It was these Romans who reunited...

It was these Romans who reunited in one State the Culture which had now been produced by the intermixture of different races, and thereby completed the period of Ancient Time, and closed the simple course of Ancient Civilization. With respect to its influence on Universal History, this nation, more than any other, was the blind and unconscious instrument for the furtherance of a higher World-Plan; after having formed itself, by its internal des tiny indicated above, into a most fit and proper instrument for that purpose.

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p. 192
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
3 months 1 week ago
The heart is everywhere, and each...

The heart is everywhere, and each part of the organism is only the specialized force of the heart itself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 2 weeks ago
This in turn suggests an answer...

This in turn suggests an answer to our question: what happened between the birth of De Sade and the birth of Krafft-Ebbing? The rise of the novel taught Europe to use its imagination. And when imagination was applied to sex, the result was the rise of pornography -- and of "sexual perversion."

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p. 86
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
3 months 1 week ago
The application of algebra to geometry......

The application of algebra to geometry... far more than any of his metaphysical speculations, has immortalized the name of Descartes, and constitutes the greatest single step ever made in the progress of the exact sciences.

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An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy (1865) as quoted in 5th ed. (1878) p. 617.
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 month 4 weeks ago
O World, Thou Choosest Not

O world, thou choosest not the better part! It is not wisdom to be only wise, And on the inward vision close the eyes, But it is wisdom to believe the heart. Columbus found a world, and had no chart, Save one that faith deciphered in the skies; To trust the soul's invincible surmise Was all his science and his only art.

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O World, Thou Choosest Not
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 months 1 week ago
Nor is there any embarrassment in...

Nor is there any embarrassment in the fact that we're ridiculous, isn't it true? For it's actually so, we are ridiculous, light-minded, with bad habits, we're bored, we don't know how to look, how to understand, we're all like that, all, you, and I, and they! Now, you're not offended when I tell you to your face that you're ridiculous? And if so, aren't you material? You know, in my opinion it's sometimes even good to be ridiculous, if not better: we can the sooner forgive each other, the sooner humble ourselves; we can't understand everything at once, we can't start right out with perfection! To achieve perfection, one must first begin by not understanding many things! And if we understand too quickly, we may not understand well. This I tell you, you, who have already been able to understand. .. and not understand ... so much. I'm not afraid for you now.

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Part 4, Chapter ?
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
3 months 1 week ago
All natural capacities of a creature...

All natural capacities of a creature are destined to evolve completely to their natural end. First Thesis Variant translations: All natural capacities of a creature are destined sooner or later to be developed completely and in conformity with their end. All natural capacities of a creature are destined to develop themselves completely and to their purpose.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
1 month 2 weeks ago
Some will ask, what about weak...

Some will ask, what about weak natures, must they not be protected? Yes, but to be able to do that, it will be necessary to realize that education of children is not synonymous with herdlike drilling and training. If education should really mean anything at all, it must insist upon the free growth and development of the innate forces and tendencies of the child. In this way alone can we hope for the free individual and eventually also for a free community, which shall make interference and coercion of human growth impossible.

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Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
3 months 3 weeks ago
The flesh receives as unlimited the...

The flesh receives as unlimited the limits of pleasure; and to provide it requires unlimited time. But the mind, intellectually grasping what the end and limit of the flesh is, and banishing the terrors of the future, procures a complete and perfect life, and we have no longer any need of unlimited time. Nevertheless the mind does not shun pleasure, and even when circumstances make death imminent, the mind does not lack enjoyment of the best life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
1 month 4 weeks ago
For Prudence, is but Experience; which...

For Prudence, is but Experience; which equal time, equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto.

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The First Part, Chapter 13, p. 60
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
1 month 3 weeks ago
The basic word I-Thou can be...

The basic word I-Thou can be spoken only with one's whole being. The concentration and fusion into a whole being can never be accomplished by me, can never be accomplished without me. I require a Thou to become; becoming I, I say Thou.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
1 month 4 weeks ago
And though this may seem to...

And though this may seem to subtile a deduction of the Lawes of Nature, to be taken notice of by all men;whereof the most part are too busie in getting food, and the rest too negligent to understand; yet to leave all men unexcusable, they have been contracted into one easie sum, intelligble, even to the meanest capacity; and that is, Do not that to another, which thou wouldest not have done to thyselfe; which sheweth him, that he has no more to do in learning the Lawes of Nature, but, when weighing the actions of other men with his own, they seem too heavy, to put them into the other part of the balance, and his own into their place, that his own passions, and selfe love, may adde nothing to the weight; and then there is none of these Laws of Nature that will not appear unto him very reasonable.

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The First Part, Chapter 15, p. 79
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 6 days ago
Explore, and explore, and explore. Be...

Explore, and explore, and explore. Be neither chided nor flattered out of your position of perpetual inquiry. Neither dogmatise yourself, nor accept another's dogmatism. Why should you renounce your right to traverse the star-lit deserts of truth, for the premature comforts of an acre, house, and barn? Truth also has its roof, and bed, and board. Make yourself necessary to the world, and mankind will give you bread, and if not store of it, yet such as shall not take away your property in all men's possessions, in all men's affections, in art, in nature, and in hope.

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Philosophical Maxims
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