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Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
6 days ago
Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence...

Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. That is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
1 month 2 weeks ago
Just now, when every one is...

Just now, when every one is bound, under pain of a decree in absence convicting them of lèse-respectability, to enter on some lucrative profession, and labour therein with something not far short of enthusiasm, a cry from the opposite party, who are content when they have enough.

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An Apology for Idlers.
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 3 weeks ago
Being in love is a good...

Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling... Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go... But, of course, ceasing to be "in love" need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense-love as distinct from "being in love"-is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God... "Being in love" first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.

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Book III, Chapter 6, "Christian Marriage"
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
4 months 3 weeks ago
Now any dogma, based primarily on...

Now any dogma, based primarily on faith and emotionalism, is a dangerous weapon to use on others, since it is almost impossible to guarantee that the weapon will never be turned on the user.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
1 month 2 days ago
In ancient Europe, Stoics asserted that...

In ancient Europe, Stoics asserted that a slave could be freer than a master who suffers from self-division. In China, Daoists imagined a type of sage who responded to the flow of events without weighing alternatives. Disciples of monotheistic faiths have believed something similar: freedom, they say, is obeying God's will. What those who follow these traditions want most is not any kind of freedom of choice. Instead, what they long for is freedom from choice.

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The Faith of Puppets: The Freedom of the Marionette (p. 6-7)
Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
4 months 2 days ago
It may be observed, that provinces...

It may be observed, that provinces amid the vicissitudes to which they are subject, pass from order into confusion, and afterward recur to a state of order again; for the nature of mundane affairs not allowing them to continue in an even course, when they have arrived at their greatest perfection, they soon begin to decline. In the same manner, having been reduced by disorder, and sunk to their utmost state of depression, unable to descend lower, they, of necessity, reascend; and thus from good they gradually decline to evil, and from evil again return to good. The reason is, that valor produces peace; peace, repose; repose, disorder; disorder, ruin; so from disorder order springs; from order virtue, and from this, glory and good fortune.

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Book V, Chapter 1
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 3 weeks ago
There are two equal and opposite...

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.

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Preface
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
4 months 1 week ago
What has the Church done to...

What has the Church done to thee, that thou shouldst wish to decapitate her? Thou wouldst take away her Head, and believe in the Head alone, despising the body. Vain is thy service, and false thy devotion to the Head. For to sever it from the body is an injury to both Head and body.

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p.420
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
3 months 4 weeks ago
It is, therefore, a just political...

It is, therefore, a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave: Though at the same time, it appears somewhat strange, that a maxim should be true in politics, which is false in fact. But to satisfy us on this head, we may consider, that men are generally more honest in their private than in their public capacity, and will go greater lengths to serve a party, than when their own private interest is alone concerned. Honour is a great check upon mankind: But where a considerable body of men act together, this check is, in a great measure, removed; since a man is sure to be approved of by his own party, for what promotes the common interest; and he soon learns to despise the clamours of adversaries.

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Part I, Essay 6: Of The Independency of Parliament; first line often paraphrased as "It is a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave."
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 4 weeks ago
No society can surely be flourishing...

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged.

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Chapter VIII, p. 94.
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
2 months 3 weeks ago
All nature abounds in proofs of...

All nature abounds in proofs of other influences than merely mechanical action, even in the physical world. They crowd in upon us at the rate of several every minute. And my observation of men has led me to this little generalization. Speaking only of men who really think for themselves and not of mere reporters, I have not found that it is the men whose lives are mostly passed within the four walls of a physical laboratory who are most inclined to be satisfied with a purely mechanical metaphysics. On the contrary, the more clearly they understand how physical forces work the more incredible it seems to them that such action should explain what happens out of doors. A larger proportion of materialists and agnostics is to be found among the thinking physiologists and other naturalists, and the largest proportion of all among those who derive their ideas of physical science from reading popular books.

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Lecture II : The Universal Categories, §3. Laws: Nominalism, CP 5.65
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 3 weeks ago
As geological time goes, it is...

As geological time goes, it is but a moment since the human race began and only the twinkling of an eye since the arts of civilization were first invented. In spite of some alarmists, it is hardly likely that our species will completely exterminate itself. And so long as man continues to exist, we may be pretty sure that, whatever he may suffer for a time, and whatever brightness may be eclipsed, he will emerge sooner or later, perhaps strengthened and reinvigorated by a period of mental sleep. The universe is vast and men are but tiny specks on an insignificant planet. But the more we realize our minuteness and our impotence in the face of cosmic forces, the more astonishing becomes what human beings have achieved.

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"If We are to Survive this Dark Time", The New York Times Magazine, 9/3/1950
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 weeks 2 days ago
For this also we will honour...

For this also we will honour the poor Manchester Insurrection, and augur well of it. A deep unspoken sense lies in these strong men,- inconsiderable, almost stupid, as all they can articulate of it is. Amid all violent stupidity of speech, a right noble instinct of what is doable and what is not doable never forsakes them: the strong inarticulate men and workers, whom Fact patronises; of whom, in all difficulty and work whatsoever, there is good augury!

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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 week 3 days ago
A large part….

A large part of mankind is angry not with the sins, but with the sinners.

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De Ira (On Anger): Book 2, cap. 28, line 8
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
3 months ago
Persecution is a bad and indirect...

Persecution is a bad and indirect way to plant Religion.

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Section 25
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
Love of the absolute engenders a...

Love of the absolute engenders a predilection for self-destruction. Hence the passion for monasteries and brothels. Cells and women, in both cases. Weariness with life fares well in the shadow of whores and saintly women.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
3 months 2 weeks ago
The Geschick of being: a child...

The Geschick of being: a child that plays... Why does it play, the great child of the world-play Heraclitus brought into view in the aiôn? It plays, because it plays. The "because" withers away in the play. The play is without "why." It plays since it plays. It simply remains a play: the most elevated and the most profound. But this "simply" is everything, the one, the only... The question remains whether and how we, hearing the movements of this play, play along and accommodate ourselves to the play.

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The Principle of Reason (1955-1956) as translated by Reginald Lilly
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
3 months 3 weeks ago
The tendency has always been strong...

The tendency has always been strong to believe that whatever received a name must be an entity or thing, having an independent existence of its own; and if no real entity answering to the name could be found, men did not for that reason suppose that none existed, but imagined that it was something peculiarly abstruse and mysterious, too high to be an object of sense. The meaning of all general, and especially of all abstract terms, became in this way enveloped in a mystical base...

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Note to Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (1829) by James Mill, edited with additional notes by John Stuart Mill, 1869
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 2 weeks ago
And be sure of this: I...

And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

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Jesus in Matthew 28:20
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
3 months 3 weeks ago
Forgiveness is the key to action...

Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.

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As quoted in The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (1989) edited by Robert Andrews, p. 114
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 month 3 weeks ago
Be your money's master, not its...

Be your money's master, not its slave.

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Maxim 657
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
2 months 3 weeks ago
All religions, with their gods, their...

All religions, with their gods, their demigods, and their prophets, their messiahs and their saints, were created by the credulous fancy of men who had not attained the full development and full possession of their faculties. Consequently, the religious heaven is nothing but a mirage in which man, exalted by ignorance and faith, discovers his own image, but enlarged and reversed - that is, divinized. The history of religion, of the birth, grandeur, and decline of the gods who have succeeded one another in human belief, is nothing, therefore, but the development of the collective intelligence and conscience of mankind.

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Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 month 3 weeks ago
The selfish gene theory is Darwin's...

The selfish gene theory is Darwin's theory, expressed in a way that Darwin did not choose but whose aptness, I should like to think, he would instantly have recognized and delighted in. It is in fact a logical outgrowth of orthodox neo-Darwinism, but expressed as a novel image. Rather than focus on the individual organism, it takes a gene's eye view of nature. It is a different way of seeing, not a different theory.

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Preface to Second Edition
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Rorty
Richard Rorty
3 months 2 weeks ago
Almost as soon as I began...

Almost as soon as I began to study philosophy, I was impressed by the way in which philosophical problems appeared, disappeared, or changed shape, as a result of new assumptions or vocabularies.

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Preface
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
2 months 3 weeks ago
Of escape there are but three...

Of escape there are but three methods - two chimerical and a third real. The first two are the dram-shop and the church, debauchery of the body or debauchery of the mind; the third is social revolution.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick
4 weeks ago
One persistent strand in utopian thinking,...

One persistent strand in utopian thinking, as we have often mentioned, is the feeling that there is some set of principles obvious enough to be accepted by all men of good will, precise enough to give unambiguous guidance in particular situations, clear enough so that all will realize its dictates, and complete enough to cover all problems which actually arise. Since I do not assume that there are such principles, I do not presume that the political realm will whither away. The messiness of the details of a political apparatus and the details of how it is to be controlled and limited do not fit easily into one's hopes for a sleek, simple utopian scheme.

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Ch. 10 : A Framework for Utopia; Utopian Means and Ends, p. 330
Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
4 months 2 weeks ago
There are two kinds of pleasure:...

There are two kinds of pleasure: one consisting in a state of rest, in which both body and mind are undisturbed by any kind of pain; the other arising from an agreeable agitation of the senses, producing a correspondent emotion in the soul. It is upon the former of these that the enjoyment of life chiefly depends. Happiness may therefore be said to consist in bodily ease, and mental tranquility.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
1 month 3 weeks ago
A real mother, who knows the...

A real mother, who knows the will of God by experience, will prepare her children also to fulfil it. Such a mother will suffer if she sees her child overfed, effeminate, and dressed-up, for she knows that these things will make it difficult for it to fulfil the will of God which she recognizes.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 4 weeks ago
All things living...
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Main Content / General
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 3 weeks ago
What does not exist must be...

What does not exist must be something, or it would be meaningless to deny its existence; and hence we need the concept of being, as that which belongs even to the non-existent.

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Principles of Mathematics (1903), p. 450
Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
3 months 2 weeks ago
With a malicious man carry on...

With a malicious man carry on no conflict, and do not molest him in any way whatever.

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Philosophical Maxims
Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch
2 months 2 weeks ago
Writing is like getting married. One...

Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.

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The Black Prince (1973); 2003, p. 10.
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
1 month 2 weeks ago
People trifle with love. Now, I...

People trifle with love. Now, I deny that love is a strong passion. Fear is the strong passion; it is with fear that you must trifle, if you wish to taste the intensest joys of living.

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The Suicide Club, Story of the Young Man with the Cream Tarts.
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
3 months 3 weeks ago
It appears... that a work similar...

It appears... that a work similar in its object and general conception to that of Adam Smith, but adapted to the more extended knowledge and improved ideas of the present age, is the kind of contribution which Political Economy at present requires. The Wealth of Nations is in many parts obsolete, and in all, imperfect. Political Economy... has grown up almost from infancy since the time of Adam Smith; and the philosophy of society... has advanced many steps beyond the point at which he left it.

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Preface, 1848
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 months 4 weeks ago
The best doctor is the one...

The best doctor is the one you run for and can't find.

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As quoted in Selected Thoughts from the French: XV Century - XX Century, with English Translations (1913) by James Raymond Solly, p. 67
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 months 4 weeks ago
Genius is present in every age,...

Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
3 months 3 weeks ago
The superfluous…

The superfluous, a very necessary thing. 

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Variant translation: The superfluous is very necessary, Le Mondain, 1736
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 3 weeks ago
We will not go to Heaven,Goetz,...

We will not go to Heaven,Goetz, and even if we both entered it, we would not have eyes to see each other, nor hands to touch each other. Up there, God gets all the attention.... We can only love on this earth and against God.

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Acts 8 & 9
Philosophical Maxims
Ptahhotep
Ptahhotep
3 months 2 weeks ago
Beware an act of avarice...

Beware an act of avarice; it is bad and incurable disease.

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Maxim no. 19.
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
4 months 2 weeks ago
The more man meditates upon good...

The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 2 weeks ago
Ye fools, did not he that...

Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also?

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11:40 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
4 months 3 days ago
Unless I am convinced by the...

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen.

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Statement in defense of his writings at the Diet of Worms (19 April 1521), as translated in The Nature of Protestantism (1963) by Karl Heim, p. 78
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 months 3 weeks ago
People talk sometimes of a bestial...

People talk sometimes of a bestial cruelty, but that's a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws, that's all he can do. He would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to do it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
2 months 4 weeks ago
Pour recueillir les biens inestimables qu'assure...

Pour recueillir les biens inestimables qu'assure la liberté de la presse, il faut savoir se soumettre aux maux inévitables qu'elle fait naître. Translation: In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils it creates.

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Chapter XI.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 3 weeks ago
I've got a one-dimensional mind. Said...

I've got a one-dimensional mind.

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Said to Rupert Crawshay-Williams; Russell Remembered (1970), p. 31
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 3 weeks ago
Art, at least, teaches us that...

Art, at least, teaches us that man cannot be explained by history alone and that he also finds a reason for his existence in the order of nature.

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Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
2 months 2 weeks ago
Thought must be judged by something...

Thought must be judged by something that is not thought, by its effect on production or its impact on social conduct, as art today is being ultimately gauged in every detail by something that is not art, be it box-office or propaganda value.

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describing the pragmatist view, p. 51.
Philosophical Maxims
Leszek Kołakowski
Leszek Kołakowski
2 weeks 3 days ago
The concept of original sin gives...

The concept of original sin gives us a penetrating insight into human destiny.

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On the Dilemmas of the Christian Legacy
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
2 months 3 weeks ago
It is in applied psychology, if...

It is in applied psychology, if anywhere, that today we should be modest and grant validity to a number of apparently contradictory opinions; for we are still far from having anything like a thorough knowledge of the human psyche, that most challenging field of scientific enquiry. For the present we have merely more or less plausible opinions that defy reconciliation.

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p. 57
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
3 months 2 weeks ago
We think of beauty as being...

We think of beauty as being most worthy of reverence. But what is most worthy of reverence lights up only where the magnificent strength to revere is alive. To revere is not a thing for the petty and lowly, the incapacitated and underdeveloped. It is a matter of tremendous passion; only what flows from such passion is in the grand style.

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p. 125
Philosophical Maxims
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