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Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
6 months 5 days ago
Exercise is the technique by which...

Exercise is the technique by which one imposes on the body tasks that are both repetitive and different, but always graduated. By bending behavior towards a terminal state, exercise makes possible a perpetual characterization of the individual...It thus assures, in the form of continuity and constraint, a growth, an observation, a qualification.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
4 months 4 weeks ago
And this God, the living God,...

And this God, the living God, your God, our God, is in me, is in you, lives in us, and we live and move and have our being in Him. And he is in us by virtue of the hunger, the longing, which we have for Him, He is Himself creating the longing for Himself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
3 months 2 days ago
But in the days that are...

But in the days that are now passing over us, even fools are arrested to ask the meaning of them; few of the generations of men have seen more impressive days. Days of endless calamity, disruption, dislocation, confusion worse confounded: if they are not days of endless hope too, then they are days of utter despair. For it is not a small hope that will suffice, the ruin being clearly, either in action or in prospect, universal. There must be a new world, if there is to be any world at all!

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
6 months 1 week ago
The happiness which forms the utilitarian...

The happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct, is not the agent's own happiness, but that of all concerned. As between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator. In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. To do as one would be done by, and to love one's neighbour as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality.

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Ch. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
5 months 6 days ago
The first act by virtue of...

The first act by virtue of which the State really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society-the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society-this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a State. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The State is not "abolished." It dies out.

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Socialism, Utopian and Scientific
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
2 months 1 day ago
Without disarmament there can be...

Without disarmament there can be no lasting peace. On the contrary, the continuation of military armaments in their present extent will with certainty lead to new catastrophies...For the creation of this public opinion in favor of disarmament every person living shares the responsibility, through ever deed and every word.

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writing for the 1932 Disarmament Conference, included in The Nation 1865-1990: Selections From the Independent Magazine of Politics and Culture (1990)
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
4 months 1 week ago
I am often accused of expressing...

I am often accused of expressing contempt and despising religious people. I don't despise religious people, I despise what they stand for. I like to quote the British journalist Johann Hari who said, "I have so much respect for you, that I cannot respect your ridiculous ideas."

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Reason Rally, National Mall, Washington, DC, 2012-03-24 Richard Dawkins and his Foundation at the Reason Rally, YouTube, 7 April 2012
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
6 months 2 weeks ago
All the opinions of the world...

All the opinions of the world agree in this, that pleasure is our end.

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Ch. 20. Of the Force of Imagination, tr. Cotton, rev. W. Carew Hazlitt, 1877
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
5 months 1 day ago
The prophet is appointed to oppose...

The prophet is appointed to oppose the king, and even more: history.

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BBC radio broadcast (1962), as quoted in The Great Thoughts (1984) by George Seldes
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
5 months 3 days ago
The apparatus defeats its own purpose...

The apparatus defeats its own purpose if its purpose is to create a humane existence on the basis of a humanized nature.

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pp. 145-146
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
6 months 1 week ago
We must frankly confess, then, using...

We must frankly confess, then, using our empirical common sense and ordinary practical prejudices, that in the world that actually is, the virtues of sympathy, charity, and non-resistance may be, and often have been, manifested in excess. ... You will agree to this in general, for in spite of the Gospel, in spite of Quakerism, in spite of Tolstoi, you believe in fighting fire with fire, in shooting down usurpers, locking up thieves, and freezing out vagabonds and swindlers.

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Lectures XIV and XV, "The Value of Saintliness"
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
4 months 2 weeks ago
It is not my aim to...

It is not my aim to surprise or shock you - but the simplest way I can summarize is to say that there are now in the world machines that think, that learn and that create. Moreover, their ability to do these things is going to increase rapidly until - in a visible future - the range of problems they can handle will be coextensive with the range to which the human mind has been applied.

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Newell & Simon (1958), quoted in AI, by Daniel Crevier
Philosophical Maxims
Cisero
Cisero
6 months 4 weeks ago
And what can be more divine...

And what can be more divine than the exhalations of the earth, which affect the human soul so as to enable her to predict the future ? And could the hand of time evaporate such a virtue? Do you suppose you are talking of some kind of wine or salted meat ?

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Book I, Chapter III
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
6 months 1 week ago
You could send your soul after...

You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
3 months 4 weeks ago
In all ages a chief cause...

In all ages a chief cause of the intestine disorders of states has been that the natural distribution of power and the legal distribution of power have not corresponded with each other.

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Speech in the House of Commons (28 February 1832), quoted in Speeches of the Right Honourable T. B. Macaulay, M.P. (1854), p. 91
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
3 months 3 days ago
And now the sagacious reader, who...

And now the sagacious reader, who is capable of reading into these lines what does not stand written in them, but is nevertheless implied, will be able to form some conception of the serious feelings with which I then set foot in Emmendingen.

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Autobiography: Truth and Poetry Book xviii. London 1884 p. 115 books.google.de
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
5 months 1 week ago
Hope is the normal form of...

Hope is the normal form of delirium.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
7 months 1 week ago
It is absurd to hold that...

It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs but not of being unable to defend himself with reason when the use of reason is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs.

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Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
7 months ago
Against the diseases of the mind,...

Against the diseases of the mind, philosophy provides sufficient antidotes. The instruments which it employs for this purpose are the virtues; the root of which, whence all the rest proceed, is prudence. This virtue comprehends the whole art of living discreetly, justly, and honorably, and is, in fact, the same thing with wisdom. It instructs men to free their understandings from the clouds of prejudice; to exercise temperance and fortitude in the government of themselves: and to practice justice towards others. Although pleasure, or happiness, which is the end of living, be superior to virtue, which is only the means, it is every one's interest to practice all the virtues; for in a happy life, pleasure can never be separated from virtue.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
6 months 1 week ago
If one advances confidently in the...

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours ... In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.

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p. 364
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
5 months 2 weeks ago
The universe comprises all being in...

The universe comprises all being in a totality; for nothing that exists is outside or beyond infinite being, as the latter has no outside or beyond.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
6 months 6 days ago
The word "art" does not designate...

The word "art" does not designate the concept of a mere eventuality; it is a concept of rank.

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p. 125
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
6 months ago
Look round and round….

Look round and round the man you recommend, for yours will be the shame should he offend.

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Book I, epistle xviii, line 76 (translated by John Conington).
Philosophical Maxims
Antonio Negri
Antonio Negri
3 months 1 week ago
It is not easy for any...

It is not easy for any of us to stop measuring the world against the standard of Europe, but the concept of the multitude requires it of us. It is a challenge. Embrace it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
3 months 1 week ago
Unless our ideas are questioned, they...

Unless our ideas are questioned, they become part of the furniture of eternity.

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Ch. IV: "The Line of Least Resistance", p. 51
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
4 months 4 weeks ago
Faith makes us live by showing...

Faith makes us live by showing us that life, although it is dependent upon reason, has its well spring and source of power elsewhere, in something supernatural and miraculous. Cournot the mathematician, a man of singularly well-balanced and scientifically equipped mind has said that it is this tendency towards the supernatural and miraculous that gives life, and that when it is lacking, all the speculations of reason lead to nothing but affliction of the spirit. ...And in truth we wish to live.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
7 months 1 week ago
I may not have been sure...

I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn't.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
7 months 1 week ago
There's nothing like deduction. We've determined...

There's nothing like deduction. We've determined everything about our problem but the solution.

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Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
6 months 1 day ago
He who intends to enjoy life...

He who intends to enjoy life should not be busy about many things, and in what he does should not undertake what exceeds his natural capacity. On the contrary, he should have himself so in hand that even when fortune comes his way, and is apparently ready to lead him on to higher things, he should put her aside and not o'erreach his powers. For a being of moderate size is safer than one that bulks too big.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
3 months 2 weeks ago
The evil of totalitarianism is not...

The evil of totalitarianism is not only that it fails to protect specific liberties but that it extinguishes the very possibility of freedom.

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'Isaiah Berlin: The Value of Decency' (p.104)
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
6 months 1 week ago
Our inventions are wont to be...

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at.

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pp. 60-61
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
2 months 1 week ago
It is between fifty and sixty...

It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it, and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams. ... what has no meaning admits no explanation.

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Letter to General Alexander Smyth, on the book of Revelation (or The Apocalypse of St. John the Divine)
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
6 months ago
Life's short span….

Life's short span forbids us to enter on far reaching hopes.

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Book I, ode iv, line 15
Philosophical Maxims
Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes
4 months 3 weeks ago
Bourgeois norms are experienced as the...

Bourgeois norms are experienced as the evident laws of a natural order-the further the bourgeois class propagates its representations, the more naturalized they become.

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p. 140
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
6 months 1 week ago
Do not shorten the morning by...

Do not shorten the morning by getting up late, or waste it in unworthy occupations or in talk; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred. Evening is like old age: we are languid, talkative, silly. Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.

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Vol. 2, Ch. 2: Our Relation To Ourselves
Philosophical Maxims
Joseph de Maistre
Joseph de Maistre
2 months 1 week ago
The question is frequently asked: why...

The question is frequently asked: why there is a school of theology attached to every University? The answer is easy: It is, that the Universities may subsist, and that the instruction may not become corrupt. Originally, the Universities were only schools of theology, to which other faculties were joined, as subjects around their Queen. The edifice of public instruction, placed on such a foundation, has continued even to our day. Those who have subverted it among themselves, will repent it, in vain, for a long time to come. To burn a city, there is needed only a child or a madman; but to rebuild it, architects, materials, workmen, money, and especially time, will be required.

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XXXVIII, p. 111
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 months 1 week ago
The state of nature....
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Main Content / General
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
6 months 1 week ago
He regarded it with the feelings...

He regarded it with the feelings due not to a mere mental delusion, but to a great moral evil. He looked upon it as the greatest enemy of morality: first, by setting up factitious excellencies,-belief in creeds, devotional feelings, and ceremonies, not connected with the good of human kind,-and causing these to be accepted as substitutes for genuine virtues: but above all, by radically vitiating the standard of morals; making it consist in doing the will of a being, on whom it lavishes indeed all the phrases of adulation, but whom in sober truth it depicts as eminently hateful.

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(p. 40)
Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
3 months 2 weeks ago
The reason for sketching what's technically...

The reason for sketching what's technically feasible with the tools of synthetic biology is that only after human complicity in the persistence of suffering in the biosphere is acknowledged can we hope to have an informed socio-political debate on the morality of its perpetuation. No serious ethical discussion of free-living animal suffering can begin in the absence of recognition of human responsibility for nonhuman well-being.

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Compassionate Biology: How CRISPR-based gene drives" could cheaply, rapidly and sustainably reduce suffering throughout the living world", BLTC Research, 2016
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
4 months 2 weeks ago
If countries were named after the...

If countries were named after the words you first hear when you go there, England would have to be called Damn It.

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F 33
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
6 months 1 week ago
...the prisoner's dreams is the guard's...

...the prisoner's dreams is the guard's spirituality.

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p. 400
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
2 months 1 week ago
I have no fear that the...

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master. Could the contrary of this be proved, I should conclude either that there is no god, or that he is a malevolent being.

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Letter to David Hartley
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
2 months 3 weeks ago
Tell me what to avoid, what...

Tell me what to avoid, what to seek, by what studies to strengthen my tottering mind, how I may rebuff the waves that strike me abeam and drive me from my course, by what means I may be able to cope with all my evils, and by what means I can be rid of the calamities that have plunged in upon me and those into which I myself have plunged. Teach me how to bear the burden of sorrow without a groan on my part, and how to bear prosperity without making others groan; also, how to avoid waiting for the ultimate and inevitable end, and to beat a retreat of my own free will, when it seems proper to me to do so.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
3 months 2 days ago
Democracy is, by the nature of...

Democracy is, by the nature of it, a self-canceling business; and it gives in the long run a net result of zero.

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Ch. 6, Laissez-Faire.
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
2 months 1 day ago
We are inclined to overemphasize...

We are inclined to overemphasize the material influences in history. The Russians especially make this mistake. Intellectual values and ethnic influences, tradition and emotional factors are equally important. If this were not the case, Europe would today be a federated state, not a madhouse of nationalism.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 months 1 week ago
Everything is in a state of...

Everything is in a state of metamorphosis. Thou thyself art in everlasting change and in corruption to correspond; so is the whole universe.

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Meditations. ix. 19.
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 months 1 week ago
Put an end once for all...

Put an end once for all to this discussion of what a good man should be, and be one.

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X. 16,
Philosophical Maxims
Julius Evola
Julius Evola
2 months 2 weeks ago
The highest instrument of inner awakening...

The highest instrument of inner awakening of race is combat, and war is its highest expression. That pacifism and humanitarianism are phenomena closely linked to internationalism, democracy, cosmopolitanism and liberalism is perfectly logical - the same anti-racial instinct present in some, is reflected and confirmed in the others. The will towards sub-racial levelling inborn in internationalism finds its ally in pacifist humanitarianism, which has the function of preventing the heroic test from disrupting the game by galvanising the surviving forces of any still not completely deracinated peoples.

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p. 67
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
5 months 1 day ago
I have always thought that clarity...

I have always thought that clarity is a form of courtesy that the philosopher owes; moreover, this discipline of ours considers it more truly a matter of honor today than ever before to be open to all minds ... This is different from the individual sciences which increasingly [interpose] between the treasure of their discoveries and the curiosity of the profane the tremendous dragon of their closed terminology.

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p. 19
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
6 months 1 week ago
A truer image of the world,...

A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.

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Ch. 1: Mysticism and Logic
Philosophical Maxims
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