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Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 weeks ago
In order that men should embrace...

In order that men should embrace the truth - not in the vague way they did in childhood, nor in the one-sided and perverted way presented to them by their religious and scientific teachers, but embrace it as their highest law the complete liberation of this truth from all and every superstition (both pseudo-religious and pseudo-scientific) by which it is still obscured is essential: not a partial, timid attempt, reckoning with traditions sanctified by age and with the habits of the people - not such as was effected in the religious sphere by Guru Nanak, the founder of the sect of the Sikhs, and in the Christian world by Luther, and by similar reformers in other religions - but a fundamental cleansing of religious consciousness from all ancient religious and modern scientific superstitions.

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VI
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
All the great speakers were bad...

All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.

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Power
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 3 weeks ago
Thus, while the refugee serfs only...

Thus, while the refugee serfs only wished to be free to develop and assert those conditions of existence which were already there, and hence, in the end, only arrived at free labour, the proletarians, if they are to assert themselves as individuals, will have to abolish the very condition of their existence hitherto (which has, moreover, been that of all society up to the present), namely, labour. Thus they find themselves directly opposed to the form in which, hitherto, the individuals, of which society consists, have given themselves collective expression, that is, the State. In order, therefore, to assert themselves as individuals, they must overthrow the State.

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"Communism. The Production of the Form of Intercourse Itself", The Marx-Engels Reader
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
3 months 1 week ago
I am not bothered by...

I am not bothered by the fact that I am not understood. I am bothered when I do not know others.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 1 week ago
A thing, moderately good....
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Confucius
Confucius
3 months 1 week ago
If names be not correct,...

If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. Paraphrased as a chinese proverb stating "The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name."

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Philosophical Maxims
David Wood
David Wood
Just now
We are passengers, comprehended and displaced...

We are passengers, comprehended and displaced by metaphor.

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Chapter 8, Performative Reflexivity, p. 137
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
3 months 1 week ago
See a person's means (of...

See a person's means (of getting things). Observe his motives. Examine that in which he rests. How can a person conceal his character? See a person's "being", observe his motive, notice his result. How can a person conceal his character?

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 2 weeks ago
If anyone would like to acquire...

If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realise that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least, nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.

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Book III, Chapter 8, "The Great Sin"
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
2 months 4 weeks ago
Never any good came out of...

Never any good came out of female domination. God created Adam master and lord of living creatures, but Eve spoiled it all.

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-- Table Talk, quoted in Luther On "Woman"
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
1 week 3 days ago
A man who has never been...

A man who has never been within the tropics does not know what a thunderstorm means; a man who has never looked on Niagara has but a faint idea of a cataract; and he who has not read Barère's Memoirs may be said not to know what it is to lie.

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Barère', The Edinburgh Review (April 1844), quoted in The Miscellaneous Writings of Lord Macaulay, Vol. II (1860), p. 109
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 2 weeks ago
We replace God as best we...

We replace God as best we can; for every god is good, provided he perpetuates in eternity our desire for a crucial solitude. . . .

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 2 weeks ago
People nowadays think that scientists exist...

People nowadays think that scientists exist to instruct them, poets, musicians, etc. to give them pleasure. The idea that these have something to teach them - that does not occur to them.

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p. 36e
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
1 month 2 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
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
2 weeks 3 days ago
Even the constantly reiterated insistence that...

Even the constantly reiterated insistence that we are miserable offenders, born in sin, is a kind of inverted arrogance: such vanity, to presume that our moral conduct has some sort of cosmic significance, as though the Creator of the Universe wouldn't have better things to do than tot up our black marks and our brownie points. The universe is all concerned with me. Is that not the arrogance that passeth all understanding? The Intellectual and Moral Courage of Atheism

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Originally from 2007; quotes are from the slightly revised 2019 version on the website
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
I think if I had met...

I think if I had met him [Lenin] without knowing who he was, I should not have guessed that he was a great man; he struck me as too opinionated and narrowly orthodox. His strength comes, I imagine, from his honesty, courage, and unwavering faith-religious faith in the Marxian gospel, which takes the place of the Christian martyr's hopes of Paradise, except that it is less egotistical... I went to Russia a Communist; but contact with those who have no doubts has intensified a thousandfold my own doubts, not as to Communism in itself, but as to the wisdom of holding a creed so firmly that for its sake men are willing to inflict widespread misery.

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Part I, Ch. 3: Lenin, Trotsky and Gorky
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
3 months 4 days ago
Rules for Axioms. I. Not to...

Rules for Axioms. I. Not to omit any necessary principle without asking whether it is admittied, however clear and evident it may be. II. Not to demand, in axioms, any but things that are perfectly evident in themselves.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 2 weeks ago
"What on earth prompted you to...

"What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this?""I don't know. My... my code of morals, perhaps.""Your code of morals. What code, if I may ask?" "Comprehension."

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 2 weeks ago
If one thing goes without saying,...

If one thing goes without saying, almost anything can.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
3 months 3 weeks ago
The majority of mankind and people...

The majority of mankind and people who lack refinement conceive it to be pleasure, and hence they approve a life of sensual enjoyment.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 month 1 week ago
Religion is better described than defined...

Religion is better described than defined and better felt than described. But if there is any one definition that latterly has obtained acceptance, it is that of Schleiermacher, to the effect that religion consists in the simple feeling of a relationship of dependence upon something above us and a desire to establish relations with this mysterious power.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 month 1 day ago
It is hardly to be believed...

It is hardly to be believed how spiritual reflections when mixed with a little physics can hold people's attention and give them a livelier idea of God than do the often ill-applied examples of his wrath.

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A 11
Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
2 months 1 week ago
Thou shouldst not become presumptuous through...

Thou shouldst not become presumptuous through great connections and race; for in the end thy trust is on thine own deeds.

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(p. 60)
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 2 weeks ago
Either the USSR was not the...

Either the USSR was not the country of socialism, in which case socialism didn't exist anywhere and doubtless, wasn't possible: or else, socialism was that, this abominable monster, this police state, the power of beasts of prey.

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p. 184
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 2 weeks ago
Well, then, arrest him. You can...

Well, then, arrest him. You can accuse him of something or other afterward.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 month 1 day ago
There exists a species of transcendental...

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.

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F 84
Philosophical Maxims
Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes
1 month 1 week ago
Barthes's discovery and articulation of the...

Barthes's discovery and articulation of the "new" liberatory category of perception and deciphering, semiotic-mythology, belongs to the praxis of his heroic mythologist, alone. This unfortunate theoretical strategy makes the articulation of a coalitional consciousness in social struggle impossible to imagine or enact. ... His terminologies appropriate the technologies of the oppressed for use by academic classes.

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Chela Sandoval, Methodology of the Oppressed, p. 201
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 2 weeks ago
I fancy that most people who...

I fancy that most people who think at all have done a great deal of their thinking in the first fourteen years.

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
1 month 3 weeks ago
Blessed be the hour in which...

Blessed be the hour in which I was first led to inquire into my own spiritual nature and destination! All my doubts are removed; I know what I can know, and have no fears for what I cannot know. I am satisfied; perfect clearness and harmony reign in my soul, and a new and more glorious existence begins for me. My entire destiny I cannot comprehend; what I am to become, exceeds my present power of conception. A part, which is concealed from me, is visible to the father of spirits. I know only that it is secure, everlasting and glorious. That part of it which is confided to me I know, for it is the root of all my other knowledge.

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Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p.120
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
1 month 1 week ago
Whatever be the substance which takes...

Whatever be the substance which takes possession of such a soul, it will produce the same result, and will change into a pretext for not conforming to any concrete purpose. If it appears as reactionary or anti-liberal it will be in order to affirm that the salvation of the State gives a right to level down all other standards, and to manhandle one's neighbour, above all if one's neighbour is an outstanding personality. But the same happens if it decides to act the revolutionary; the apparent enthusiasm for the manual worker, for the afflicted and for social justice, serves as a mask to facilitate the refusal of all obligations, such as courtesy, truthfulness and, above all, respect or esteem for superior individuals. ... As regards other kinds of Dictatorship, we have seen only too well how they flatter the mass-man, by trampling on everything that appeared to be above the common level.

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Chapter XV: We Arrive At The Real Question
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 2 weeks ago
Freedom can be manifested only in...

Freedom can be manifested only in the void of beliefs, in the absence of axioms, and only where the laws have no more authority than a hypothesis.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 month 1 day ago
The most heated defenders of a...

The most heated defenders of a science, who cannot endure the slightest sneer at it, are commonly those who have not made very much progress in it and are secretly aware of this defect.

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F 8
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
1 month 1 week ago
There can be no movement toward...

There can be no movement toward a consummating close unless there is a progressive massing of values, a cumulative effect. This result cannot exist without conservation of the import of what has gone before. Moreover, to secure the needed continuity, the accumulated experience must be such as to create suspense and anticipation of resolution. Accumulation is at the same time preparation, as with each phase of the growth of a living embryo. Only that is carried on which is led to; otherwise there is arrest and a break. For this reason consummation is relative; instead of occurring once for all at a given point, it is recurrent. The final end is anticipated by rhythmic pauses, while that end is final only in an external way. For as we turn from reading a poem or novel or seeing a picture the effect presses forward in further experiences, even if only subconsciously.

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p. 143
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
1 month 3 weeks ago
They call, in fact, for the...

They call, in fact, for the forfeiture, to a greater or less degree, of human liberty, to the point where, were I to attempt to sum up what socialism is, I would say that it was simply a new system of serfdom.

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Notes for a Speech on Socialism (1848). http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/tocqueville-s-critique-of-socialism-1848
Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
2 months 2 weeks ago
Quality leadership is neither the product...

Quality leadership is neither the product of one great individual nor the result of odd historical accidents. Rather, it comes from deeply bred traditions and communities that shape and mold talented and gifted persons. Without a vibrant tradition of resistance passed on to new generations, there can be no nurturing of a collective and critical consciousness-only professional conscientiousness survives.

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(p37)
Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
1 month 2 weeks ago
It is false that kings are...

It is false that kings are entitled to the eminence they obtain. They possess no intrinsic superiority over their subjects. The line of distinction that is drawn is the offspring of pretense, an indirect means employed for effecting certain purposes, and not the language of truth. It tramples upon the genuine nature of things, and depends for its support upon this argument, 'that, were it not for impositions of a similar nature, mankind would be miserable.'

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Book V, Ch. 6, "Of Subjects"
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 month 1 week ago
When I contemplate the green serenity...

When I contemplate the green serenity of the fields or look into the depths of clear eyes through which shines a fellow-soul, my consciousness dilates, I feel the diastole of the soul and am bathed in the flood of the life that flows about me, and I believe in my future; but instantly the voice of mystery whispers to me, "Thou shalt cease to be!" the angel of Death touches me with his wing, and the systole of the soul floods the depth of my spirit with the blood of divinity.

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Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
1 month 3 days ago
One cannot be deeply responsive to...

One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often.

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ABC TV
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 2 weeks ago
To convince someone of the truth,...

To convince someone of the truth, it is not enough to state it, but rather one must find the path from error to truth.

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Ch. 7 : Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 119
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
We need a science to save...

We need a science to save us from science.

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NY Times Magazine, as reported in High Points in the Work of the High Schools of New York City, Vol. 34 (1952), p. 46
Philosophical Maxims
Heraclitus
Heraclitus
3 months 1 week ago
Much learning...

Much learning does not teach understanding.

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Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 month 2 weeks ago
The pint would call the quart...

The pint would call the quart a dualist, if you tried to pour the quart into him.

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p. 60
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
1 month 3 weeks ago
In the United States, the majority...

In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

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Book One, Chapter II.
Philosophical Maxims
Averroes
Averroes
3 months 1 week ago
If we admit the existence of...

If we admit the existence of the prophetic mission, by putting the idea of possibility, which is in fact ignorance, in place of certainty, and make miracles a proof of the truth of man who claims to be a prophet it becomes necessary that they should not be used by a person, who says that they can be performed by others than prophets, as the Mutakallimun do.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 3 weeks ago
A house may be large or...

A house may be large or small; as long as the neighboring houses are likewise small, it satisfies all social requirement for a residence. But let there arise next to the little house a palace, and the little house shrinks to a hut. The little house now makes it clear that its inmate has no social position at all to maintain, or but a very insignificant one; and however high it may shoot up in the course of civilization, if the neighboring palace rises in equal or even in greater measure, the occupant of the relatively little house will always find himself more uncomfortable, more dissatisfied, more cramped within his four walls.

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Wage Labour and Capital (December 1847), in Marx Engels Selected Works, Volume I, p. 163.
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
1 month ago
We are organization watchers in our...

We are organization watchers in our role as citizens. Increasing attention has been fixed in recent years upon the functioning of society's organizations: its large corporations and its governments. Hence this could also be described as a book for Everyman-for it proposes a way of thinking about organizational issues that concern us all.

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Simon (1975, p. ix); As cited in Stefano Franchi(2006) "Herbert simon, anti-philosopher." Computing and Philosophy. p. 34.
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
1 month 4 weeks ago
When the end comes, you will...

When the end comes, you will be esteemed by the world and rewarded by God, not because you have won the love and respect of the princes of the earth, however powerful, but rather for having loved, defended and cherished one such as I ... what you receive from others is a testimony to their virtue; but all that you do for others is the sign and clear indication of your own.

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Dedication
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 3 weeks ago
The country that is more developed...

The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future.

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Author's prefaces to the First Edition.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 3 weeks ago
Money is itself a product of...

Money is itself a product of circulation.

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Notebook VI, The Chapter on Capital, p. 579.
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
3 months 4 days ago
This art, which I call the...

This art, which I call the art of persuading, and which, properly speaking, is simply the process of perfect methodical proofs, consists of three essential parts: of defining the terms of which we should avail ourselves by clear definitions, of proposing principles of evident axioms to prove the thing in question; and of always mentally substituting in the demonstrations the definition in the place of the thing defined.

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Philosophical Maxims
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