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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 2 weeks ago
Leave this hypocritical prating about the...

Leave this hypocritical prating about the masses. Masses are rude, lame, unmade, pernicious in their demands and influence, and need not to be flattered, but to be schooled. I wish not to concede anything to them, but to tame, drill, divide, and break them up, and draw individuals out of them.

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Considerations by the Way
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
6 months 1 week ago
The administration of government lies in...

The administration of government lies in getting proper men. Such men are to be got by means of the ruler's own character. That character is to be cultivated by his treading in the ways of duty. And the treading those ways of duty is to be cultivated by the cherishing of benevolence.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
5 months 3 weeks ago
Many have been deceived by outward...

Many have been deceived by outward appearances and have proceeded to write and teach about good works and how they justify without even mentioning faith. ... Wearying themselves with many works, they never come to righteousness.

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p. 75
Philosophical Maxims
Joseph de Maistre
Joseph de Maistre
1 month 2 weeks ago
Men never respect what they have...

Men never respect what they have made themselves. This is why an elective king never possesses the moral power of a hereditary sovereign, because he is not noble enough, that is to say he does not possess that kind of greatness independent of men and that is the work of time.

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p. 72
Philosophical Maxims
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei
2 months 1 week ago
Indeed, I think we may concede...

Indeed, I think we may concede to our Academician, without flattery, his claim that in the principle [principio, i. e., accelerated motion] laid down in this treatise he has established a new science dealing with a very old subject. Observing with what ease and clearness he deduces from a single principle the proofs of so many theorems, I wonder not a little how such a question escaped the attention of Archimedes, Apollonius, Euclid and so many other mathematicians and illustrious philosophers, especially since so many ponderous tomes have been devoted to the subject of motion.

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(Galileo referred to himself as the/our Academician in his dialogue) Sagredo, Third Day P. 242
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
5 months 2 weeks ago
Political Economy regards the proletarian ......

Political Economy regards the proletarian ... like a horse, he must receive enough to enable him to work. It does not consider him, during the time when he is not working, as a human being. It leaves this to criminal law, doctors, religion, statistical tables, politics, and the beadle. ... (1) What is the meaning, in the development of mankind, of this reduction of the greater part of mankind to abstract labor? (2) What mistakes are made by the piecemeal reformers, who either want to raise wages and thereby improve the situation of the working class, or - like Proudhon - see equality of wages as the goal of social revolution?.

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First Manuscript - Wages of Labour, p. 6.
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
5 months 2 weeks ago
Everyone is the other, and no...

Everyone is the other, and no one is himself. The they, which supplies the answer to the who of everyday Da-sein, is the nobody to whom every Da-sein has always already surrendered itself, in its being-among-one-another.

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Stambaugh translation
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
6 months 4 days ago
We ought neither to fasten our...

We ought neither to fasten our ship to one small anchor nor our life to a single hope.

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Fragment 30 (Oldfather translation)
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
2 months 2 weeks ago
The polarization has a number of...

The polarization has a number of different roots. The economic... fact that many working class voters have been left behind by the prosperity of globalization. ...The more important division is a cultural one ...the feeling on the part of many populist voters, that they are not being respected by the elites that are running the country... [H]ere, all of the identity issues... play themselves out.

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22:57
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
4 months 2 weeks ago
When animus and anima meet, the...

When animus and anima meet, the animus draws his sword of power and the anima ejects her poison of illusion and seduction. The outcome need not always be negative, since the two are equally likely to fall in love (a special instance of love at first sight).

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Aion (1951). CW 9, Part II: P.338.30
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
4 months 6 days ago
May not the absolute and perfect...

May not the absolute and perfect eternal happiness be an eternal hope, which would die if it were realized? Is it possible to be happy without hope? And there is no place for hope once possession has been realized, for hope, desire, is killed by possession. May it not be, I say, that all souls grow without ceasing, some in a greater measure than others, but all having to pass some time through the same degree of growth, whatever that degree may be, and yet without ever arriving at the infinite, at God, to whom they continually approach? Is not eternal happiness an eternal hope, with its eternal nucleus of sorrow in order that happiness shall not be swallowed up in nothingness?

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 3 weeks ago
There are some defeats more triumphant...

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.

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Ch. 30. Of Cannibals, tr. Cotton, rev. W. Hazlitt, 1842
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
4 months 1 week ago
To call war the soil of...

To call war the soil of courage and virtue is like calling debauchery the soil of love.

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Ch. III: Industry, Government, the peasants
Philosophical Maxims
Montesquieu
Montesquieu
4 months 6 days ago
If I knew of…

If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman, because I am necessarily a man, and only accidentally am I French.

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I.
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
6 months 1 week ago
If you would govern a...

If you would govern a state of a thousand chariots (a small-to-middle-size state), you must pay strict attention to business, be true to your word, be economical in expenditure and love the people. You should use them according to the seasons.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
4 months 3 weeks ago
I have often admired the mystical...

I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret Magic of numbers.

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Section 12
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 month 2 weeks ago
A person who doesn't know what...

A person who doesn't know what the universe is doesn't know who they are. A person who doesn't know their purpose in life doesn't know who they are or what the universe is. A person who doesn't know any of these things doesn't know why they are here. So what to make of people who seek or avoid the praise of those who have no knowledge of where or who they are?

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VIII. 52:14
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
1 month 2 weeks ago
God confronts me with terror and...

God confronts me with terror and love - for I am His only hope - and says: "This Ecstatic, who gives birth to all things, who rejoices in them all and yet destroys them, this Ecstatic is my Son!"

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
5 months 3 weeks ago
Life is bristling…

Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one's garden.

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Letter to Pierre-Joseph Luneau de Boisjermain (21 October 1769), from Oeuvres Complètes de Voltaire: Correspondance [Garnier frères, Paris, 1882], vol. XIV, letter # 7692 (p. 478)
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 2 weeks ago
Refinement is a sign of a...

Refinement is a sign of a deficient vitality, in art, in love, and in everything.

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Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
4 months 2 weeks ago
I shall in no time forget...

I shall in no time forget that moment. We felt as if we had had in our souls a clear passing glimpse into this wondrous World.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 months 2 weeks ago
Computers can do better than ever...

Computers can do better than ever what needn't be done at all. Making sense is still a human monopoly.

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(p. 109)
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
2 months 4 days ago
Of war men ask….

Of war men ask the outcome, not the cause.

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line 407; (Lycus).
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 2 weeks ago
Under the pressure of the cares...

Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations - wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.

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Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
6 months 1 week ago
The superior man is satisfied...

The superior man is satisfied and composed; the mean man is always full of distress. The virtuous is frank and open; the non-virtuous is secretive and worrying.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 month 2 weeks ago
All that is harmony for you,...

All that is harmony for you, my Universe, is in harmony with me as well. Nothing that comes at the right time for you is too early or too late for me. Everything is fruit to me that your seasons bring, Nature. All things come of you, have their being in you, and return to you.

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IV, 23
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
3 months 2 weeks ago
We should provide in peace what...

We should provide in peace what we need in war.

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Maxim 709
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
4 months 2 weeks 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
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
1 month 2 weeks ago
"Fire is the first and final...

"Fire is the first and final mask of my God. We dance and weep between two enormous pyres." Our thoughts and our bodies flash and glitter with reflected light. Between the two pyres I stand serenely, my brain unshaken amid the vertigo, and I say: "Time is most short and space most narrow between these two pyres, the rhythm of this life is most sluggish, and I have no time, nor a place to dance in. I cannot wait." Then all at once the rhythm of the earth becomes a vertigo, time disappears, the moment whirls, becomes eternity, and every point in space - insect or star or idea - turns into dance.

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Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
4 months 3 weeks ago
Scepticism is the first step towards...

Scepticism is the first step towards truth. Variant: A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it. What has never been gone into impartially has never been properly gone into. Hence skepticism is the first step toward truth. It must be applied generally, because it is the touchstone.

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As quoted in The Anchor Book of French Quotations with English Translations (1963) by Norbert Gutermam
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
6 months 1 week ago
The order of authority derives from...

The order of authority derives from God, as the Apostle says [in Romans 13:1-7]. For this reason, the duty of obedience is, for the Christian, a consequence of this derivation of authority from God, and ceases when that ceases. But, as we have already said, authority may fail to derive from God for two reasons: either because of the way in which authority has been obtained, or in consequence of the use which is made of it. There are two ways in which the first may occur. Either because of a defect in the person, if he is unworthy; or because of some defect in the way itself by which power was acquired, if, for example, through violence, or simony or some other illegal method.

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in Aquinas: Selected Political Writings (Basil Blackwell: 1974), p. 183
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
3 months 5 days ago
Science has taught... me to be...

Science has taught... me to be careful how I adopt a view which jumps with my preconceptions, and to require stronger evidence for such belief than for one to which I was previously hostile. My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonise with my aspirations.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
5 months 3 weeks ago
The Managers of that Trade themselves,...

The Managers of that Trade themselves, and others, testify, that many of these African nations inhabit fertile countries, are industrious farmers, enjoy plenty, and lived quietly, averse to war, before the Europeans debauched them with liquors, and bribing them against one another; and that these inoffensive people are brought into slavery, by stealing them, tempting Kings to sell subjects, which they can have no right to do, and hiring one tribe to war against another, in order to catch prisoners. By such wicked and inhuman ways the English are said to enslave towards one hundred thousand yearly; of which thirty thousand are supposed to die by barbarous treatment in the first year; besides all that are slain in the unnatural wars excited to take them. So much innocent blood have the Managers and Supporters of this inhuman Trade to answer for to the common Lord of all!

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 3 weeks ago
The souls of emperors and cobblers...

The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold...The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war betwixt princes.

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Ch. 12, tr. Cotton, rev. W. Carew Hazlitt, 1877
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Hölderlin
Friedrich Hölderlin
4 months 2 weeks ago
What has always made the state...

What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it heaven.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 2 weeks ago
In the hours without sleep, each...

In the hours without sleep, each moment is so full and so vacant that it suggests itself as a rival of Time.

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Philosophical Maxims
Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Berdyaev
4 months 5 days ago
In order to be able to...

In order to be able to go on living it is possible that the bankrupt peoples will have to enter on a new path of self-denial, by curbing their covetousness and putting a check on the indefinite expansion of their wants, and by having smaller families.

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p. 94
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
4 months 2 weeks ago
The power of thought is the...

The power of thought is the light of knowledge, the power of will is the energy of character, the power of heart is love. Reason, love and power of will are perfections of man.

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Introduction, Z. Hanfi, trans., in The Fiery Brook (1972), p. 99
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
4 months 1 week ago
The Register of Knowledge of Fact...

The Register of Knowledge of Fact is called History.

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The First Part, Chapter 9, p. 40
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
5 months 3 weeks ago
We do not, however, reckon that...

We do not, however, reckon that trade disadvantageous which consists in the exchange of the hard-ware of England for the wines of France;and yet hard-ware is a very durable commodity, and were it not for this continual exportation, might too be accumulated for ages together, to the incredible augmentation of the pots and pans of the country. But it readily occurs that the number of such utensils is in every country necessarily limited by the use which there is for them;that it would be absurd to have more pots and pans than were necessary for cooking the victuals usually consumed there;and that if the quantity of victuals were to increase, the number of pots and pans would readily increase along with it, apart of the increased quantity of victuals being employed in purchasing them, or in maintaining an additional number of workman whose business it was to make them.

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Chapter I, p. 471.
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
5 months 2 weeks ago
We are born helpless. As soon...

We are born helpless. As soon as we are fully conscious we discover loneliness. We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves. Introduction

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
6 months 5 days ago
The true servants of God are...

The true servants of God are not solicitous that He should order them to do what they desire to do, but that they may desire to do what He orders them to do.

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p. 616
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
3 months 5 days ago
The man of science who commits...

The man of science who commits himself to even one statement which turns out to be devoid of good foundation loses somewhat of his reputation among his fellows, and if he be guilty of the same error often he loses not only his intellectual, but his moral standing among them. For it is justly felt that errors of this kind have their root rather in the moral than in the intellectual nature.

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The Evidence of the Miracle of the Resurrection
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
5 months 2 weeks ago
For man holds his ground only...

For man holds his ground only by surpassing himself, in the same sense in which it is said that one ceases to love if one does not love increasingly everyday.

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p. 238
Philosophical Maxims
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
2 months 4 weeks ago
Cinema is an old whore, like...

Cinema is an old whore, like circus and variety, who knows how to give many kinds of pleasure. Besides, you can't teach old fleas new dogs.

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As quoted in in The Atlantic
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
5 months 2 weeks ago
Mr. Neo-Angular - I am doing...

Mr. Neo-Angular - I am doing my duty. My ethics are based on dogma, not on feeling. Vertue - I know that a rule is to be obeyed because it is a rule and not because it appeals to my feelings at the moment.

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Pilgrim's Regress 90
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
5 months 2 weeks ago
If we must absolutely mention this...

If we must absolutely mention this state of affairs, I suggest that we call ourselves "absent", that is more proper.

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Estelle, refusing to use the word "dead", Act 1, sc. 5
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 months 2 days ago
Children should from...
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Main Content / General
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
3 months 1 week ago
I am an American, Chicago born...

I am an American, Chicago born - Chicago, that somber city - and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent.

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Ch. 1 (opening line)
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
4 months 3 days ago
In the inescapable flux, there is...

In the inescapable flux, there is something that abides; in the overwhelming permanence, there is an element that escapes into flux. Permanence can be snatched only out of flux; and the passing moment can find its adequate intensity only by its submission to permanence.

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Philosophical Maxims
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