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1 month 3 weeks ago

Fact be vertuous, or vicious, as Fortune pleaseth.

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The Second Part, Chapter 27, p. 153

United States! the ages plead, - Present and Past in under-song, - Go put your creed into your deed, Nor speak with double tongue.

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Ode, st. 5

Aims, principles, &c., have a place in our thoughts, in our subjective design only; but not yet in the sphere of reality. That which exists for itself only, is a possibility, a potentiality; but has not yet emerged into Existence. A second element must be introduced in order to produce actuality - viz. actuation, realization; and whose motive power is the Will - the activity of man in the widest sense.

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1 month 1 week ago

The spirit of militarism has already permeated all walks of life. Indeed, I am convinced that militarism is a greater danger here than anywhere else, because of the many bribes capitalism holds out to those whom it wishes to destroy.

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2 months 3 weeks ago

The thought is the significant proposition.

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(4) Original German: Der Gedanke ist der sinnvolle Satz.
2 weeks 2 days ago

I adopt Mr. Darwin's hypothesis, therefore, subject to the production of proof that physiological species may be produced by selective breeding; just as a physical philosopher may accept the undulatory theory of light, subject to the proof of the existence of the hypothetical ether; or as the chemist adopts the atomic theory, subject to the proof of the existence of atoms; and for exactly the same reasons, namely, that it has an immense amount of primâ facie probability: that it is the only means at present within reach of reducing the chaos of observed facts to order; and lastly, that it is the most powerful instrument of investigation which has been presented to naturalists since the invention of the natural system of classification and the commencement of the systematic study of embryology.

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Ch.2, p. 128

We are swiftly moving at present from an era where business was our culture into an era when culture will be our business. Between these poles stand the huge and ambiguous entertainment industries.

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(p. 384)
2 months 4 weeks ago

The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together, for it implied - as had been said at Nuremberg over and over again by the defendants and their counsels - that this new type of criminal, who is in actual fact hostis generis humani, commits his crimes under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel that he is doing wrong.

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Epilogue
3 months 2 days ago

That which parents should take care of... is to distinguish between the wants of fancy, and those of nature.

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Sec. 107
2 months 2 weeks ago

When Darius offered him ten thousand talents, and to divide Asia equally with him, "I would accept it," said Parmenio, "were I Alexander." "And so truly would I," said Alexander, "if I were Parmenio." But he answered Darius that the earth could not bear two suns, nor Asia two kings.

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42 Alexander
3 weeks 2 days ago

As for types like my own, obscurely motivated by the conviction that our existence was worthless if we didn't make a turning point of it, we were assigned to the humanities, to poetry, philosophy, painting - the nursery games of humankind, which had to be left behind when the age of science began. The humanities would be called upon to choose a wallpaper for the crypt, as the end drew near.

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Ch. 6

The city no longer exists except as a cultural ghost for tourists. Any highway eatery with its TV set, newspaper and magazine is as cosmopolitan as New York or Paris.

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(p.12)
2 months 1 day ago

In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood, binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties, adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections, keeping inseparable and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars.

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3 months ago

After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

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"The Rest is Silence"

I: My consciousness of the object is only a yet unrecognised consciousness of my production of the representation of an object. Of this production I know no more than that it is I who produce, and thus is all consciousness no more than a consciousness of myself, and so far perfectly comprehensible. Am I in the right? Spirit. Perfectly so ; but whence then is derived the necessity and universality thou hast ascribed to these propositions, to that of causality for instance?

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Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 47
3 months 2 weeks ago

Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses.

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q. 2, art. 3, arg. 19 This is known as the Peripatetic axiom.
1 month ago

It will be said, "Patriotism has welded mankind into states, and maintains the unity of states." But men are now united in states; that work is done; why now maintain exclusive devotion to one's own state, when this produces terrible evils for all states and nations? For this same patriotism which welded mankind into states is now destroying those same states. If there were but one patriotism say of the English only then it were possible to regard that as conciliatory, or beneficent. But when, as now, there is American patriotism, English, German, French, Russian, all opposed to one another, in this event, patriotism no longer unites, but disunites.

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Patriotism and Government
3 months 1 week ago

Mahomet established a religion by putting his enemies to death; Jesus Christ, by commanding his followers to lay down their own lives.

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Thoughts on Religion and Philosophy (W. Collins, 1838), Ch. XVI, p. 202
2 months 4 weeks ago

In all sectors of society there should be roughly equal prospects of culture and achievement for everyone similarly motivated and endowed. The expectations of those with the same abilities and aspirations should not be affected by their social class.

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Chapter II, Section 12, pg. 73
3 months 2 weeks ago

Guide the people by law, subdue them by punishment; they may shun crime, but will be void of shame. Guide them by example, subdue them by courtesy; they will learn shame, and come to be good.

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2 months 3 weeks ago

If I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do."

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§ 217
2 months 2 weeks ago

When one asked him what boys should learn, "That," said he, "which they shall use when men."

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Of Agesilaus the Great
1 month 1 week ago

I prefer to reach the few who really want to learn, rather than the many who come to be amused.

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1 month 2 days ago

What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.

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Commencement Address to Hobart and William Smith Colleges, May 26, 1974
3 months ago

There are many kinds of gods. Therefore there are many kinds of men.

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"One and Many," p. 3
2 months 2 weeks ago

The sight of both eyes becomes one.

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fr. 88
1 month 2 weeks ago

To a lesser degree, a secret ressentiment underlies every way of thinking which attributes creative power to mere negation and criticism. Thus modern philosophy is deeply penetrated by a whole type of thinking which is nourished by ressentiment. I am referring to the view that the "true" and the "given" is not that which is self-evident, but rather that which is "indubitable" or "incontestable," which can be maintained against doubt and criticism.

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L. Coser, trans. (1973), p. 67
3 months 4 days ago

Secrets in manufactures are capable of being longer kept than secrets in trade.

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Chapter VII, p. 72.
3 months 2 days ago

I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.

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Book 1, Ch. 3, sec. 3 Variant: The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.
2 months 1 day ago

... people only count their misfortunes; their good luck they take no account of. But if they were to take everything into account, as they should, they'd find that they had their fair share of it.

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Part 2, Chapter 6 (tr. ?)
3 months 1 day ago

When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man?

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Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson, 8 June 1843
2 months 4 weeks ago

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask - half our great theological and metaphysical problems - are like that.

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1 month 1 week ago

The Outsider's case against society is very clear. All men and women have these dangerous, unnamable impulses, yet they keep up a pretense, to themselves, to others; their respectability, their philosophy, their religion, are all attempts to gloss over, to make civilized and rational something that is savage, unorganized, irrational. He is an Outsider because he stands for truth.

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Chapter one, The Country of the Blind
2 months 5 days ago

The people reign over the American political world as God rules over the universe. It is the cause and the end of all things; everything rises out of it and is absorbed back into it.

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Chapter IV, Part I.
1 month 1 week ago

Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.

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Ch. 4 "Problems of Humanistic Ethics"
3 months 1 day ago

What is commonly called friendship even is only a little more honor among rogues.

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Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 95
3 months 2 days ago

For wherever violence is used, and injury done, though by hands appointed to administer Justice, it is still violence and injury, however colour'd with the Name, Pretences, or Forms of Law, the end whereof being to protect and redress the innocent, by an unbiassed application of it, to all who are under it; wherever that is not bona fide done, War is made upon the Sufferers, who having no appeal on Earth to right them, they are left to the only remedy in such Cases, an appeal to Heaven.

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Two Treatises of Government. The Second Treatise. Chapter 3: The State of War, §20 p. 281 books.google
3 weeks 6 days ago

Bitter for a free man is the bondage of debt.

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Maxim 14 Variant: "Debt is the slavery of the free."
2 months 1 week ago

For nature is not merely present, but is implanted within things, distant from none; naught is distant from her except the false, and that which existed never and nowhere-nullity. And while the outer face of things changeth so greatly, there flourisheth the origin of being more intimately within all things than they themselves. The fount of all kinds, Mind, God, Being, One, Truth, Destiny, Reason, Order.

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VIII 10 as translated by Dorothea Waley Singer
1 month 2 weeks ago

The recognition of human wretchedness is difficult for whoever is rich and powerful because he is almost invincibly led to believe that he is something. It is equally difficult for the man in miserable circumstances because he is almost invincibly led to believe that the rich and powerful man is something.

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p. 216

It is easy to see that the existing generation are conspiring with a beneficence, which, in its working for coming generations, sacrifices the passing one, which infatuates the most selfish men to act against their private interest for the public welfare. We build railroads, we know not for what or for whom; but one thing is certain, that we who build will receive the very smallest share of benefit. Benefit will accrue; they are essential to the country, but that will be felt not until we are no longer countrymen. We do the like in all matters: - 'Man's heart the Almighty to the Future setBy secret and inviolable springs.'

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2 months 4 weeks ago

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
1 month 3 weeks ago

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. This famous statement has produced many paraphrases and variants: Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat their mistakes. Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it. Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them. Those who do not know history's mistakes are doomed to repeat them.

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There is a similar quote by Edmund Burke (in Revolution in France) that often leads to misattribution: "People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors."
2 months 2 weeks ago

It is worth observing, how we feel ourselves affected in reading the characters of Cæsar, and Cato, as they are so finely drawn and contrasted in Salust. In one, the ignoscendo, largiundo; in the other, nil largiundo. In one, the miseris perfugium; in the other, malis perniciem. In the latter we have much to admire, much to reverence, and perhaps something to fear; we respect him, but we respect him at a distance. The former makes us familiar with him; we love him, and he leads us whither he pleases.

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Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (2nd ed. 1759), pp. 206-207
1 month 3 weeks ago

To ignore the true God is in fact only half an evil; atheism is worth more than the piety bestowed on mythical gods.

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A Religion for Adults
1 month 3 weeks ago

Third, consider the insistency of an idea. The insistency of a past idea with reference to the present is a quantity which is less, the further back that past idea is, and rises to infinity as the past idea is brought up into coincidence with the present.

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3 months 1 day ago

I quite understand the principle of confining employment as far as possible to the British without regard for efficiency. I think, however, that the Ministry is not applying the principle sufficiently widely. I know many Englishmen who have married foreigners, and many English potential wives who are out of a job. Would not a year be long enough to train an English wife to replace the existing foreign one in such cases?

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Enclosed reply to the Ministry of Labour, in defense of A. S. Neill (who declined to send it), 27 January, 1931

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