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Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
3 days ago
Human beings can lose their lives...

Human beings can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned.

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Him with His Foot in His Mouth, from Him with His Foot in His Mouth and Other Stories (1984) [Penguin Classics, 1998, ISBN 0-141-18023-4], p. 11
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
1 month 6 days ago
What can a man say about...

What can a man say about woman, his own opposite? I mean of course something sensible, that is outside the sexual program, free of resentment, illusion, and theory. Where is the man to be found capable of such superiority? Woman always stands just where the man's shadow falls, so that he is only too liable to confuse the two. Then, when he tries to repair this misunderstanding, he overvalues her and believes her the most desirable thing in the world.

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P. 236
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
1 month 2 weeks ago
To prove the Gospels by a...

To prove the Gospels by a miracle is to prove an absurdity by something contrary to nature.

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As quoted in The Anchor Book of French Quotations with English Translations (1963) by Norbert Gutermam
Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
1 month 1 week ago
The illustrious archbishop of Cambray was...

The illustrious archbishop of Cambray was of more worth than his chambermaid, and there are few of us that would hesitate to pronounce, if his palace were in flames, and the life of only one of them could be preserved, which of the two ought to be preferred ... Supposing the chambermaid had been my wife, my mother or my benefactor. This would not alter the truth of the proposition. The life of Fenelon would still be more valuable than that of the chambermaid; and justice, pure, unadulterated justice, would still have preferred that which was most valuable. Justice would have taught me to save the life of Fenelon at the expence of the other. What magic is there in the pronoun "my", to overturn the decisions of everlasting truth?

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Vol.1, bk. 2, ch. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 weeks 6 days ago
There may be a rationalist who...

There may be a rationalist who has never wavered in his conviction of the mortality of the soul, and there may be a vitalist who has never wavered in his faith in immortality; but at the most this would prove that just as there are natural monstrosities, so there are those who are stupid as regards heart and feeling, however great their intelligence, and those who are stupid intellectually, however great their virtue. But, in normal cases, I cannot believe those who assure me that never, not in a fleeting moment, not in the hours of direst loneliness and grief, has this murmur of uncertainty breathed upon their consciousness.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks ago
Every state....
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Main Content / General
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 1 week ago
Titles are an important part of...

Titles are an important part of a story and I take considerable care in choosing one. In fact, I cannot start a story until I have chosen a title.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
2 months 2 weeks ago
Fear is in almost all cases...

Fear is in almost all cases a wretched instrument of government, and ought in particular never to be employed against any order of men who have the smallest pretensions to independency.

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Chapter I, Part III, p. 862.
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
1 month 2 days ago
For thought and speech are of...

For thought and speech are of a thinking and speaking subject, and if the life of the latter depends on the performance of a superimposed function, it depends on fulfilling the requirements of this function - thus it depends on those who control these requirements.

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p. 128
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 1 week ago
The safest road to Hell is...

The safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

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Letter XII
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 6 days ago
Religion comforts us for the defeat...

Religion comforts us for the defeat of our will to power. It adds new worlds to ours, and thus brings us hope of new conquests and new victories. We are converted to religion out of fear of suffocating within the narrow confines of this world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 week 1 day ago
One of the things that happens...

One of the things that happens at the speed of light is that people lose their goals in life. So what takes the place of goals and objectives? Well, role-playing is coming in very fast.

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Interview between Californian Governor Jerry Brown and Marshall McLuhan, 1977
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
1 month 6 days ago
My interests drew me in different...

My interests drew me in different directions. On the one hand I was powerfully attracted by science, with its truths based on facts; on the other hand I was fascinated by everything to do with comparative religion. [...] In science I missed the factor of meaning; and in religion, that of empiricism.

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p. 72
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 month 2 days ago
Our dignity is not in what...

Our dignity is not in what we do, but in what we understand.

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p. 50
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 1 week ago
The criticism of religion ends with...

The criticism of religion ends with the doctrine that man is the supreme being for man, hence the categorical imperative to overthrow all those conditions in which man is degraded, enslaved, neglected, contemptible being-conditions which can hardly be better described than in the exclamation of a Frenchman on the occasion of a proposed tax upon dogs: 'Wretched dogs! They want to treat you like men!'

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Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
3 months 1 week ago
This is the end of the...

This is the end of the web of the statesman activity: the direct interweaving of the characters of restrained and courageous men, when the kingly science has drawn them together by friendship and community of sentiment into a common life, and having perfected the most glorious and the best of all textures, clothes with it all the inhabitants of the state, both slaves and freemen, holds them together by this fabric, and omitting nothing which ought to belong to a happy state, rules and watches over them.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
2 months 1 week ago
Pray go back and recollect one...

Pray go back and recollect one of the conclusions to which I sought to lead you in my very first lecture. You may remember how I there argued against the notion that the worth of a thing can be decided by its origin. Our spiritual judgment, I said, our opinion of the significance and value of a human event or condition, must be decided on empirical grounds exclusively. If the fruits for life of the state of conversion are good, we ought to idealize and venerate it, even though it be a piece of natural psychology; if not, we ought to make short work of it, no matter what supernatural being may have infused it.

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Lecture IX, "Conversion, concluded"
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 1 week ago
Man is essentially a dreamer, wakened...

Man is essentially a dreamer, wakened sometimes for a moment by some peculiarly obtrusive element in the outer world, but lapsing again quickly into the happy somnolence of imagination. Freud has shown how largely our dreams at night are the pictured fulfilment of our wishes; he has, with an equal measure of truth, said the same of day-dreams; and he might have included the day-dreams which we call beliefs.

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Ch. 2: Dreams and Facts
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
1 month 6 days ago
The law of habit exhibits a...

The law of habit exhibits a striking contrast to all physical laws in the character of its commands. A physical law is absolute. What it requires is an exact relation. Thus, a physical force introduces into a motion a component motion to be combined with the rest by the parallelogram of forces; but the component motion must actually take place exactly as required by the law of force. On the other hand, no exact conformity is required by the mental law. Nay, exact conformity would be in downright conflict with the law ; since it would instantly crystallise thought and prevent all further formation of habit. The law of mind only makes a given feeling more likely to arise. It thus resembles the "non-conservative" forces of physics, such as viscosity and the like, which are due to statistical uniformities in the chance encounters of trillions of molecules.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 weeks 2 days ago
Crowley wanted to be a magician...

Crowley wanted to be a magician because he wanted power -- power over other people.

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p. 157
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
2 months 1 week ago
The guardians who have kindly undertaken...

The guardians who have kindly undertaken the supervision will see to it that by far the largest part of mankind, including the entire "beautiful sex," should consider the step into maturity, not only as difficult but as very dangerous. After having made their domestic animals dumb and having carefully prevented these quiet creatures from daring to take any step beyond the lead-strings to which they have fastened them, these guardians then show them the danger which threatens them, should they attempt to walk alone.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
2 months 1 week ago
The only fence against the world...

The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it, into which a young gentleman should be enter'd by degrees, as he can bear it; and the earlier the better, so he be in safe and skillful hands to guide him.

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Sec. 94
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
6 days ago
We humans are an extremely important...

We humans are an extremely important manifestation of the replication bomb, because it is through us - through our brains, our symbolic culture and our technology - that the explosion may proceed to the next stage and reverberate through deep space.

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Ch. 5: The Replication Bomb
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
1 month ago
Pragmatism, in trying to turn experimental...

Pragmatism, in trying to turn experimental physics into a prototype of all science and to model all spheres of intellectual life after the techniques of the laboratory, is the counterpart of modern industrialism, for which the factory is the prototype of human existence, and which models all branches of culture after production on the conveyor belt.

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p. 50.
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
2 months 2 weeks ago
There is no need for you...

There is no need for you to develop an armed insurrection. Christ himself has already begun an insurrection with his mouth.

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pp. 67-68
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 5 days ago
A hero looks death in the...

A hero looks death in the face, real death, not just the image of death. Behaving honourably in a crisis doesn't mean being able to act the part of a hero well, as in the theatre, it means being able to look death itself in the eye. For an actor may play lots of different roles, but at the end of it all he himself, the human being, is the one who has to die.

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p. 50e
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 1 week ago
Too busy with the crowded hour...

Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.

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Quatrains, Nature
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
1 month ago
If it were not for the...

If it were not for the founder of the school, Charles S. Pierce, who has told us that he 'learned philosophy out of Kant,' one might be tempted to deny any philosophical pedigree to a doctrine that holds not that our expectations are fulfilled and our actions successful because our ideas are true, but rather that our ideas are true because our expectations are fulfilled and our actions successful. describing the pragmatist view,

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p. 42.
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 month 3 weeks ago
A fool is known by his...

A fool is known by his Speech; and a wise man by Silence.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 1 week ago
I trust that some may be...

I trust that some may be as near and dear to Buddha, or Christ, or Swedenborg, who are without the pale of their churches. It is necessary not to be Christian to appreciate the beauty and significance of the life of Christ. I know that some will have hard thoughts of me, when they hear their Christ named beside my Buddha, yet I am sure that I am willing they should love their Christ more than my Buddha, for the love is the main thing, and I like him too.

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
2 months 1 week ago
To pray to God….

To pray to God is to flatter oneself that with words one can alter nature.

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Notebooks, c.1735-c.1750
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 week 1 day ago
Great ages of innovation are the...

Great ages of innovation are the ages in which entire cultures are junked or scrapped.

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(p. 309)
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 2 weeks ago
It is more of a job...

It is more of a job to interpret the interpretations than to interpret the things, and there are more books about books than about any other subject: we do nothing but write glosses about each other.

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Ch. 13
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
2 months ago
An evil and foolish and intemperate...

An evil and foolish and intemperate and irreligious life should not be called a bad life, but rather, dying long drawn out.

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Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
3 months 1 week ago
If anyone, with his mind...

Parmenides: If anyone, with his mind fixed on all these objections and others like them, denies the existence of ideas of things, and does not assume an idea under which each individual thing is classed, he will be quite at a loss, since he denies that the idea of each thing is always the same, and in this way he will utterly destroy the power of carrying on discussion... Then what will become of philosophy? To what can you turn, if these things are unknown?

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Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
3 months 1 week ago
Liars ... when they speak the...

Liars ... when they speak the truth they are not believed.

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Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 month 2 days ago
I was still "at the church...

I was still "at the church door". Yet in belief, in the clarification of my philosophy, I had taken an important step. I no longer wavered between alternative views of the world, to be put on or taken off like alternative plays at the theatre. I now saw that there was only one possible play, the actual history of nature and of mankind, although there might well be ghosts among the characters and soliloquies among the speeches. Religions, all religions, and idealistic philosophies, all idealistic philosophies, were the soliloquies and the ghosts. They might be eloquent and profound. Like Hamlet's soliloquy they might be excellent reflective criticisms of the play as a whole. Nevertheless they were only parts of it, and their value as criticisms lay entirely in their fidelity to the facts, and to the sentiments which those facts aroused in the critic.

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p. 169
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 1 week ago
Those who have been inspired to...

Those who have been inspired to action by the doctrine of the class war will have acquired the habit of hatred, and will instinctively seek new enemies when the old ones have been vanquished. But in actual fact the psychology of the working man in any of the Western democracies is totally unlike that which is assumed in the Communist Manifesto. He does not by any means feel that he has nothing to lose but his chains, nor indeed is this true. The chains which bind Asia and Africa in subjection to Europe are partly riveted by him. He is himself part of a great system of tyranny and exploitation. Universal freedom would remove, not only his own chains, which are comparatively light, but the far heavier chains which he has helped to fasten upon the subject races of the world.

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Ch. VI: International Relations
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 6 days ago
This morning I thought, hence lost...

This morning I thought, hence lost my bearings, for a good quarter of an hour.

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Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
1 month 2 weeks ago
No man has received…

No man has received from nature the right to give orders to others. Freedom is a gift from heaven, and every individual of the same species has the right to enjoy it as soon as he is in enjoyment of his reason.

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Article on Political Authority, Vol. 1, (1751) as quoted in Selected Writings (1966) edited by Lester G. Crocker
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
1 month 1 week ago
Reason does not exist for the...

Reason does not exist for the sake of life, but life for the sake of reason. An existence which does not of itself satisfy reason and solve all her doubts, cannot be the true one.

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Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p.94
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 1 week ago
His business is here, it is...

His business is here, it is here that he is despised and vilified, it is here that he must carry out his undertaking.

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p. 67
Philosophical Maxims
John Searle
John Searle
1 week 5 days ago
My car and my adding machine...

My car and my adding machine understand nothing: they are not in that line of business.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 weeks 1 day ago
The God idea is growing more...

The God idea is growing more impersonal and nebulous in proportion as the human mind is learning to understand natural phenomena and in the degree that science progressively correlates human and social events.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 1 week ago
Politics is, as it were, the...

Politics is, as it were, the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its two opposite halves, - sometimes split into quarters, it may be, which grind on each other. Not only individuals, but States, have thus a confirmed dyspepsia, which expresses itself, you can imagine by what sort of eloquence. Thus our life is not altogether a forgetting, but also, alas! to a great extent, a remembering of that which we should never have been conscious of, certainly not in our waking hours. Why should we not meet, not always as dyspeptics, to tell our bad dreams, but sometimes as eupeptics, to congratulate each other on the ever glorious morning? I do not make an exorbitant demand, surely.

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p. 495
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
2 months 1 week ago
History, is a conscious, self-mediating process...

History, is a conscious, self-mediating process - Spirit emptied out into Time; but this externalization, this kenosis, is equally an externalization of itself; the negative is the negative of itself. ... Thus absorbed in itself, it is sunk in the night of its self-consciousness; but in that night its vanished outer existence is perserved, and this transformed existence - the former one, but now reborn of the Spirit's knowledge - is the new existence, a new world and a new shape of Spirit.

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Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
1 month 2 weeks ago
I pray you, magnificent Sir, do...

I pray you, magnificent Sir, do not trouble yourself to return to us, but await our coming to you.

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Third Dialogue
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
1 week 2 days ago
Reason has discovered the struggle for...

Reason has discovered the struggle for existence and the law that I must throttle all those who hinder the satisfaction of my desires. That is the deduction reason makes. But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.

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Pt. VIII, ch. 13
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 1 week ago
Freedom is what you do….

Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
5 days ago
A happy man or woman is...

A happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a five-pound note. He or she is a radiating focus of goodwill; and their entrance into a room is as though another candle had been lighted. We need not care whether they could prove the forty-seventh proposition; they do a better thing than that, they practically demonstrate the great Theorem of the Liveableness of Life.

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An Apology for Idlers.
Philosophical Maxims
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