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C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 3 weeks ago
Can a mortal ask questions which...

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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Philosophical Maxims
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee
1 month 1 week ago
Every oasis is an island that...

Every oasis is an island that has water inside it but not round it.

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Between Niger and Nile (London: Oxford UP, 1965) 20. Cyrenaïca's Green Mountain
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 4 weeks ago
Organic life, we are told, has...

Organic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the philosopher, and this development, we are assured, is indubitably an advance. Unfortunately it is the philosopher, not the protozoon, who gives us this assurance.

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Ch. 6: On the Scientific Method in Philosophy
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 4 weeks ago
Bad laws are the worst sort...

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

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Speech at Bristol Previous to the Election (6 September 1780), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II (1855), p. 148
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
2 months 2 weeks ago
Eternal vigilance is the price of...

Eternal vigilance is the price of knowledge.

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p. 58
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
4 months 5 days ago
Women . . . have ....

Women . . . have . . . small and narrow chests, and broad hips, to the end they should remain at home, sit still, keep house, and bear and bring up children. . . . A woman is, or at least should be, a friendly, courteous, and a merry companion in life . . . the honor and ornament of the house, and inclined to tenderness, for thereunto are they chiefly created, to bear children, and to be the pleasure, joy and solace of their husbands.

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-- Table Talk, quoted in Luther On "Woman"
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
4 months 1 week ago
Certainly He says this for me,...

Certainly He says this for me, for thee, for this other man, since He bears His body, the Church. Unless you imagine, brethren, that when He said: My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from (Matt. 26:39), it was the Lord that feared to die. . . . But Paul longed to die, that he might be with Christ. What? The Apostle desires to die, and Christ Himself should fear death? What can this mean, except that He bore our infirmity in Himself, and uttered these words for those who are in His body and still fear death? It is from these that the voice came; it was the voice of His members, not of the Head. When He said, My soul is sorrowful unto death (Matt. 26:38), He manifested Himself in thee, and thee in Himself. And when He said, My God, my God, why has Thou forsaken Me? (Matt. 27:46), the words He uttered on the cross were not His own, but ours.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
2 months 1 week ago
We all observe that the reality...

We all observe that the reality of sexual intercourse is far from perfect; yet this does not convince us that sex is a greatly overrated occupation. Every time a man glimpses a pretty girl pulling up her stocking, he catches a glimpse of what might be called the "primal sexual vision." It is unfortunate that there seems to be a certain disparity between this primal vision and most ordinary sexual experience. But it dances in front of us like a will-o'-the-wisp, luring us into tormented effort. It can lead novelists to write novels, poets to write poems, and musicians to write symphonies.

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p. 39
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
4 months 1 week ago
The mind itself, its love [of...

The mind itself, its love [of itself] and its knowledge [of itself] are a kind of trinity.

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(Cambridge: 2002), Book 9, Chapter 4, Section 4, p. 27
Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
2 months 1 week ago
I remember well a junior seminar...

I remember well a junior seminar I gave with Paul Tillich shortly before the outbreak of the Third Reich. A participant spoke out against the idea of the meaning of existence. She said life did not seem very meaningful to her and she didn't know whether it had a meaning. The very voluble Nazi contingent became very excited by this and scraped the floor noisily with their feet. Now, I do not wish to maintain that this Nazi foot-shuffling proves or refutes anything in particular, but I do find it highly significant. I would say it is a touchstone for the relation of thinking to freedom. It raises the question whether thought can bear the idea that a given reality is meaningless and that mind is unable to orientate itself; or whether the intellect has become so enfeebled that it finds itself paralysed by the idea that all is not well with the world.

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pp. 19-20
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 2 weeks ago
Not everyone who says to Me,...

Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'

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Matthew 7:21-23 (NKJV) (Also Luke 6:24; 13:26, 27)
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 months 3 weeks ago
There are, indeed, things that cannot...

There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.

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(6.522) Original German: Es gibt allerdings Unaussprechliches. Dies zeigt sich, es ist das Mystische.
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
2 months 3 weeks ago
Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, James,...

Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, James, Bergson all are united in one earnest attempt, the attempt to reinstate man with his high spiritual claims in a place of importance in the cosmic scheme.

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Edwin Arthur Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science (1925).
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 3 weeks ago
The business of art is no...

The business of art is no longer the communication of thoughts or feelings which are to be conceptually ordered, but a direct participation in an experience. The whole tendency of modern communication...is towards participation in a process, rather than apprehension of concepts.

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Letter to Harold Adam Innis (14 March 1951), published in Essential McLuhan (1995), edited by Eric McLuhan and Frank Zingrone, p. 73
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 3 weeks ago
In that daily effort in which...

In that daily effort in which intelligence and passion mingle and delight each other, the absurd man discovers a discipline that will make up the greatest of his strengths. The required diligence and doggedness and lucidity thus resemble the conqueror's attitude. To create is likewise to give a shape to one's fate. For all these characters, their work defines them at least as much as it is defined by them. The actor taught us this: There is no frontier between being and appearing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
Lucidity is not necessarily compatible with...

Lucidity is not necessarily compatible with life, actually not at all.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 3 weeks ago
The notion of nothingness...
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Main Content / General
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 4 weeks ago
It is said...

It is said (I do not know with what truth) that a certain Hindu thinker believed the earth to rest upon an elephant. When asked what the elephant rested upon, he replied that it rested upon a tortoise. When asked what the tortoise rested upon, he said, "I am tired of this. Suppose we change the subject." This illustrates the unsatisfactory character of the First-Cause argument.

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"Is There a God?", 1952
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
3 months 4 weeks ago
I opened with that which good...

I opened with that which good Catholics have more than once made to Huguenots. "My dear sir," said I, "were you ever baptized?" "No, friend," replied the Quaker, "nor any of my brethren." "Zounds!" said I to him, "you are not Christians then!" "Friend," replied the old man, in a soft tone of voice, "do not swear; we are Christians, but we do not think that sprinkling a few drops of water on a child's head makes him a Christian." "My God!" exclaimed I, shocked at his impiety, "have you then forgotten that Christ was baptized by St. John?" "Friend," replied the mild Quaker, "once again, do not swear. Christ was baptized by John, but He Himself never baptized any one; now we profess ourselves disciples of Christ, and not of John." "Mercy on us," cried I, "what a fine subject you would be for the holy inquisitor! In the name of God, my good old man, let me baptize you."

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Voltaire's account of his conversations with Andrew Pit
Philosophical Maxims
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam
2 months 5 days ago
I might try to save the...

I might try to save the view that 'future contingents' have no truth value by saying that even present-tense statements have no truth value if they refer to the outcome of events that are so far away that a causal signal informing me of the outcome could not have reached me-now without traveling faster than light. In other words, I might attempt saying that statements about events that are in neither the upper half nor the lower half of my light-cone have no truth value. In addition, statements about events in the upper half of my light-cone have no truth value, since they are in my future according to every coordinate system. So only statements about events in the lower half of my light-cone have a truth value; only events that are in 'my past* according to all observers are determined.

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Time and physical geometry
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 4 weeks ago
It is likely that America will...

It is likely that America will be more important during the next century or two, but after that it may well be the turn of China.

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Letter to Rachel Gleason Brooks, May 5, 1930
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 week 5 days ago
But how foolish it is to...

But how foolish it is to set out one's life, when one is not even owner of the morrow!

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 3 weeks ago
The important thing isn't the soundness...

The important thing isn't the soundness or otherwise of the argument, but for it to make you think.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 3 weeks ago
Literate man, civilized man, tends to...

Literate man, civilized man, tends to restrict and to separate functions, whereas tribal man has freely extended the form of his body to include the universe.

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(p. 117)
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
4 months 3 weeks ago
There is less trouble and trauma...

There is less trouble and trauma involved in writing a new piece than in trying to salvage an unsatisfactory old one.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
3 months 3 weeks ago
From Plato's Republic... the primary danger...

From Plato's Republic... the primary danger of liberty and free speech in a democracy is what results when everyone has his own... style of life... For then there can be no common logos, no possible unity, for the city.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
2 months 6 days ago
Modem mainstream economic theory bravely assumes...

Modem mainstream economic theory bravely assumes that people make their decisions in such a way as to maximize their utility. Accepting this assumption enables economics to predict a great deal of behavior (correctly or incorrectly) without ever making empirical studies of human actors.

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Simon (1990) "Invariants of Human Behavior" in: Annu. Rev. Psychol. 41: p. 6.
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
2 months 2 weeks ago
Even the most inspired verse, which...

Even the most inspired verse, which boasts not without a relative justification to be immortal, becomes in the course of ages a scarcely legible hieroglyphic; the language it was written in dies, a learned education and an imaginative effort are requisite to catch even a vestige of its original force. Nothing is so irrevocable as mind.

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
2 months 3 weeks ago
Education to true religion is the...

Education to true religion is the final task of the new education.

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General Nature of New Eduction p. 38
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 3 weeks ago
Who lives longer? the man who...

Who lives longer? the man who takes heroin for two years and dies, or a man who lives on roast beef, water and potatoes 'till 95? One passes his 24 months in eternity. All the years of the beefeater are lived only in time.

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The Shortcut: 20 Stories To Get You From Here To There (2006) by Kevin A Fabiano, p. 179
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
3 months 2 weeks ago
At times the world….

At times the world sees straight, but many times the world goes astray.

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Book II, epistle i, line 63
Philosophical Maxims
Étienne de La Boétie
Étienne de La Boétie
3 weeks 1 day ago
The good seed that nature plants...

The good seed that nature plants in us is so slight and so slippery that it cannot withstand the least harm from wrong nourishment.

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Part 2
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 month 3 weeks ago
Just because science can't in practice...

Just because science can't in practice explain things like the love that motivates a poet to write a sonnet, that doesn't mean that religion can. It's a simple and logical fallacy to say, 'If science can't do something, therefore religion can'.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 4 weeks ago
There never, gentlemen, was a period...

There never, gentlemen, was a period in which the steadfastness of some men has been nut to so sore a trial. It is not very difficult for well-formed minds to abandon their interest; but the separation of fame and virtue is an harsh divorce. Liberty is in danger of being made unpopular to Englishmen. Contending for an imaginary power, we begin to acquire the spirit of domination, and to lose the relish of honest equality.

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Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
3 months 2 days ago
Distance is a great promoter of...

Distance is a great promoter of admiration!

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As quoted in Thesaurus of Epigrams: A New Classified Collection of Witty Remarks, Bon Mots and Toasts (1942) by Edmund Fuller
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
3 weeks 1 day ago
The more progress that has been...

The more progress that has been made toward eradicating social injustices, the more intolerable the remaining injustices seem, and thus the moral imperative to mobilizing to correct them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 3 weeks ago
For me any of the little...

For me any of the little gestures I make are all tentative probes. That's why I feel free to make them sound as outrageous or extreme as possible. Until you make it extreme, the probe is not very efficient.

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Marshall McLuhan: the man and his message, edited by George Sanderson and Frank MacDonald, Fulcrum, 1989, p. 32
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 month 3 weeks ago
When Fortune is on our side,...

When Fortune is on our side, popular favor bears her company.

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Maxim 275
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 month 3 weeks ago
It is a consolation to the...

It is a consolation to the wretched to have companions in misery.

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Maxim 995
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
4 months 5 days ago
... a penny saved is better...

... a penny saved is better than a penny earned.

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The Duty of a Husband and Wife (17 March 1539), No. 4408. LW 54:337
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Fourier
Charles Fourier
3 weeks 2 days ago
Woman is degraded and made to...

Woman is degraded and made to believe that nature destined her exclusively to menial domestic labors, which in the combined order will be so abridged as to be performed without oppression to either sex.

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The Theory of Social Organization
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick
1 month 1 day ago
There is no social entity with...

There is no social entity with a good that undergoes some sacrifice for its own good. There are only individual people, different individual people, with their own individual lives. Using one of these people for the benefit of others, uses him and benefits the others. Nothing more.

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Ch. 3 : Moral Constraints and the State; Why Side Constraints?, p. 32
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 month 3 weeks ago
Anyone can hold…

Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.

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Maxim 358
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
For a writer, to change languages...

For a writer, to change languages is to write a love letter with a dictionary.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 5 days ago
My trade and my art…

My trade and my art is living.

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Ch. 6 (tr. Donald M. Frame)
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
3 weeks ago
In physical reality one cause does...

In physical reality one cause does not produce a given effect, but a multitude of distinct causes contribute to produce it, without our having any means of discriminating the part of each of them. ...Causes which have produced a certain effect will never be reproduced except approximately.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
2 months 2 weeks ago
Reason is like an open secret...

Reason is like an open secret that can become known to anyone at any time; it is the quiet space into which everyone can enter through his own thought.

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As quoted in Philosophy for a Time of Crisis : An Interpretation, with Key Writings by Fifteen Great Modern Thinkers (1959) by Adrienne Koch, Ch. 18, "Karl Jaspers : A New Humanism"
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 weeks 4 days ago
Men, I say, never did believe...

Men, I say, never did believe idle songs, never risked their soul's life on allegories: men in all times, especially in early earnest times, have had an instinct for detecting quacks, for detesting quacks.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 4 weeks ago
...they who would make peace without...

...they who would make peace without a previous knowledge of the terms, make a surrender. They are conquered. They do not treat; they receive the law. Is this the disposition of the people of England? Then the people of England are contented to seek in the kindness of a foreign systematick enemy combined with a dangerous faction at home, a security which they cannot find in their own patriotism and their own courage. They are willing to trust to the sympathy of Regicides the guarantee of the British Monarchy. They are content to rest their religion on the piety of atheists by establishment. They are satisfied to seek in the clemency of practised murderers the security of their lives. They are pleased to confide their property to the safeguard of those who are robbers by inclination, interest, habit, and system. If this be our deliberate mind, truly we deserve to lose, what it is impossible we should long retain, the name of a nation.

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p. 48
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
4 months 3 weeks ago
Of all the books I have...

Of all the books I have ever worked on, I think Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare gave me the most pleasure, day in, day out. For months and months I lived and thought Shakespeare, and I don't see how there can be any greater pleasure in the world, any pleasure, that is, that one can indulge in for as much as ten hours without pause, day after day indefinitely.

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Philosophical Maxims
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