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1 month 2 days ago

That there is a common cause, an that it is either what we call material progress or something closely connected with material progress, becomes more than an inference when it is noted that the phenomena we class together and speak of as industrial depression are but intensifications of phenomena which always accompany material progress, and which show themselves more clearly and strongly as material progress goes on. Where the conditions to which material progress everywhere tends are the most fully realized-that is to say, where population is densest, wealth greatest, and the machinery of production and exchange most highly developed - we find the deepest poverty, the sharpest struggle for existence, and the most of enforced idleness.

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Introductory : The Problem
3 months 2 weeks ago

Moreover, nothing is so rare as to see misfortune fairly portrayed; the tendency is either to treat the unfortunate person as though catastrophe were his natural vocation, or to ignore the effects of misfortune on the soul, to assume, that is, that the soul can suffer and remain unmarked by it, can fail, in fact, to be recast in misfortune's image.

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p. 193
4 months 3 weeks ago

For a thinking man is where Wisdom is at home.

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Ahunuvaiti Gatha; Yasna 30, 9.
5 months 1 week ago

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

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Section II, Chap. III.
3 months 3 weeks ago

When we rise out of [the night] into the new life and there begin to receive the signs, what can we know of that which - of him who gives them to us? Only what we experience from time to time from the signs themselves. If we name the speaker of this speech God, then it is always the God of a moment, a moment God.

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Between Man and Man (1965), p. 15
5 months 2 weeks ago

Rules necessary for demonstrations. To prove all propositions, and to employ nothing for their proof but axioms fully evident of themselves, or propositions already demonstrated or admitted; Never to take advantage of the ambiguity of terms by failing mentally to substitute definitions that restrict or explain them.

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5 months 3 days ago

Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, Nor time unmake what poets know.

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"The Test", as quoted in Emerson As A Poet (1883) by Joel Benton, p. 40
5 months 2 days ago

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

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Book III, Chapter 10, "Hope"
4 months 3 days ago

The life of the wealthy is one long Sunday.

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1 month 3 days ago

Ask the world to reveal its quietude - not the silence of machines when they are still, but the true quiet by which birdsongs, trees, bellworts, snails, clouds, storms become what they are, and are nothing else.

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2 months 2 weeks ago

The absolute justice of the system of things is as clear to me as any scientific fact. The gravitation of sin to sorrow is as certain as that of the earth to the sun, and more so-for experimental proof of the fact is within reach of us all-nay, is before us all in our own lives, if we had but the eyes to see it.

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1 month 1 week ago

I am doing my best to glorify the scamp or vagabond. I hope I shall succeed. For things are not so simple as they sometimes seem. In this present age of threats to democracy and individual liberty, probably only the scamp and the spirit of the scamp alone will save us from being lost in serially numbered units in the masses of disciplined, obedient, regimented and uniformed coolies. The scamp will be the last and most formidable enemy of dictatorships. He will be the champion of human dignity and individual freedom, and will be the last to be conquered. All modern civilization depends entirely upon him.

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Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 12
1 month 1 day ago

No human institution can endure unless supported by the Hand which supports all; that is to say, if it is not especially consecrated to Him at its origin. The more it is penetrated with the Divine principle, the more durable it will be. How strange is the blindness of men in our age! They boast of their knowledge, and are ignorant of everything, since they are ignorant of themselves. They know not what they are, nor what they can do. An invincible pride bears them on continually to overthrow every thing which they have not made; and in order to work out new creations, they separate themselves from the source of all existence. Jean-Jacques Rousseau has, however, very well said, Little, vain man, show me thy power, and I will show thee thy weakness. It might be said, with as much truth and more profit, Little, vain man, confess to me thy weakness, and I will show thee thy strength.

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XLVI, p. 130
4 months 3 weeks ago

After the battle in Pharsalia, when Pompey was fled, one Nonius said they had seven eagles left still, and advised to try what they would do. "Your advice," said Cicero, "were good if we were to fight jackdaws."

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Cicero
4 months 3 weeks ago

Being asked where in Greece he saw good men, he replied, "Good men nowhere, but good boys at Sparta."

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Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 27
5 months 4 days ago

The second matter in which Mill's principles condemn existing legislation is homosexuality. If two adults voluntarily enter into such a relation, this is a matter which concerns them only, and in which, therefore, the community ought not to intervene. If it were still believed, as it once was, that the toleration of such behavior would expose the community to the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, the community would have every right to intervene. But it does not acquire a right to intervene merely on the ground that such conduct is thought wicked. The criminal law may rightly be invoked to prevent violence or fraud inflicted upon unwilling victims, but it ought not to be invoked when whatever damage there may be is suffered only by the agents-always assuming that the agents are adults.

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p. 139
1 month 3 weeks ago

Life is that which can hold a purpose for three thousand years and never yield. The individual fails, but life succeeds. The individual is foolish, but life holds in its blood and seed the wisdom of generations. The individual dies, but life, tireless and undiscourageble, goes on, wondering, longing, planning, trying, mounting, longing.

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Ch. 5 : On Death

Enough of this miserable, whining life. Stop monkeying around! Why are you troubled? What's new here? What's so confounding? The one responsible? Take a good look. Or just the matter itself? Then look at that. There's nothing else to look at. And as far as the gods go, by now you could try being more straightforward and kind. It's the same, whether you've examined these things for a hundred years, or only three.

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IX. 37:205
3 months 2 weeks ago

I must also call your attention to the fact that it is crucial for my viewpoint that human behavior is to a large extent charged with a considerable amount of energy, but that in contrast to Freud I do not consider this energy to be sexual, but the vital energy within any organism which, according to biological laws, gives man the desire to live, and that means to adapt himself to the social necessities of his society. To go back to what I consider to be the misunderstanding, it has never been my position that society only deforms or manifests that which is already there. If we make the distinction between human necessities in general and human desires in particular then indeed, society creates particular desires which, however, follow the general laws of the necessities rooted in human nature.

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Food probably has a very great influence on the condition of men. Wine exercises a more visible influence, food does it more slowly but perhaps just as surely. Who knows if a well-prepared soup was not responsible for the pneumatic pump or a poor one for a war?

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A 14
5 months 4 days ago

It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living.

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Ch. 12: Free Thought and Official Propaganda
5 months 1 week ago

It is the natural effect of improvement, however, to diminish gradually the real price of almost all manufactures.

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Chapter XI, Part III, (Conclusion..) p. 282.
3 months 4 weeks ago

The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live - moreover, the only one.

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5 months 3 weeks ago

Continence is a branch of temperance, which prevents the diseases, infamy, remorse, and punishment, to which those are exposed, who indulge themselves in unlawful amours.

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5 months 5 days ago

There cannot any one moral Rule be propos'd, whereof a Man may not justly demand a Reason.

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Book I, Ch. 3, sec. 4
6 months 1 day ago

Democracy does not contain any force which will check the constant tendency to put more and more on the public payroll. The state is like a hive of bees in which the drones display, multiply and starve the workers so the idlers will consume the food and the workers will perish.

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1 month 1 day ago

It is always necessary to call men back to history, which is the first master in politics, or more exactly the only master.

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p. 120
3 months 2 weeks ago

In classroom settings I have often listened to groups of students tell me that racism really no longer shapes the contours of our lives, that there is no such thing as racial difference, that "we are all just people." Then a few minutes later I give them an exercise. I ask if they were about to die and could choose to come back as a white male, a white female, a black female, or a black male, which identity would they choose. Each time I do this exercise, most individuals, irrespective of gender or race invariably choose whiteness, and most often male whiteness. Black females are the least chosen. When I ask students to explain their choice they proceed to do a sophisticated analysis of privilege based on race (with perspectives that take gender and class into consideration).

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Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope
1 month 4 days ago

This is the Supreme Duty of the man who struggles - to set out for the lofty peak which Christ, the first-born sone of salvation, attained. How can we begin? If we are to follow him we must have a profound knowledge of his conflict, we must relive his anguish: his victory over the blossoming snares of the earth, his sacrifice of the great and small joys of men and his ascent from sacrifice to sacrifice, exploit to exploit, to martyrdom's summit, the Cross.

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5 months 1 week ago

In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

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Adagia (first published 1500, with numerous expanded editions through 1536), III, IV, 96
1 month 4 days ago

I am not alone in my fear, nor alone in my hope, nor alone in my shouting. A tremendous host, an onrush of the Universe fears, hopes, and shouts with me. I am an improvised bridge, and when Someone passes over me, I crumble away behind Him.

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1 month 2 weeks ago

At any rate, if you wish to sift doubtful meanings of this kind, teach us that the happy man is not he whom the crowd deems happy, namely, he into whose coffers mighty sums have flowed, but he whose possessions are all in his soul, who is upright and exalted, who spurns inconstancy, who sees no man with whom he wishes to change places, who rates men only at their value as men, who takes Nature for his teacher, conforming to her laws and living as she commands, whom no violence can deprive of his possessions, who turns evil into good, is unerring in judgment, unshaken, unafraid, who may be moved by force but never moved to distraction, whom Fortune when she hurls at him with all her might the deadliest missile in her armoury, may graze, though rarely, but never wound.

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1 month 3 days ago

We know enough of our own history by now to be aware that people exploit what they have merely concluded to be of value, but they defend what they love. To defend what we love we need a particularizing language, for we love what we particularly know.

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3 months 4 weeks ago

Out of the shadow of the abstract man, who thinks for the pleasure of thinking, emerges the organic man, who thinks because of a vital imbalance, and who is beyond science and art.

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5 months 3 weeks ago

Thus, where'er the drift of hazardSeems most unrestrained to flow,Chance herself is reined and bitted,And the curb of law doth know.

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4 months 3 weeks ago

'Tis a grievous thing to be subject to an inferior.

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3 months 3 weeks ago

Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered.

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5 months 1 week ago

What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call thought, that we must thus make it the model of the whole universe? Our partiality in our own favour does indeed present it on all occasions; but sound philosophy ought carefully to guard against so natural an illusion.

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Philo to Cleanthes, Part II
1 month 3 weeks ago

The social conditions that nourished and made use of this ideology can still revive; perhaps - who knows? - the virus is dormant, waiting for the next opportunity. Dreams about the perfect society belong to the enduring stock of civilization.

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New Preface, p. vi

The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of all those applauding hands. The people who praise us-how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region in which it all takes place.

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(Hays translation) IV, 4
5 months 2 weeks ago

Show that you know this only, how you may never either fail to get what you desire or fall into what you avoid.

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Book II, ch. 1, 37
1 month 3 days ago

The Logic of Induction is the 'Criterion of Truth' inferred from Facts, as the Logic of Deduction is the 'Criterion of Truth' deduced from necessary Principle. In Art, Truth is a means to an end; in Science, it is the only end.

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5 months 5 days ago

Thus, because Christian morals leave animals out of consideration ... therefore in philosophical morals they are of course at once outlawed; they are merely "things," simply means to ends of any sort; and so they are good for vivisection, for deer-stalking, bull-fights, horse-races, etc., and they may be whipped to death as they struggle along with heavy quarry carts. Shame on such a morality ... which fails to recognize the Eternal Reality immanent in everything that has life, and shining forth with inscrutable significance from all eyes that see the sun!

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Part II, Ch. VI, pp. 94-95
5 months 2 days ago

He wanted to assume his entire condition, to carry the world on his shoulders and to become, in defiance of all, what all have made of him.

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p. 384
1 month 1 week ago

In these days the angel of topology and the devil of abstract algebra fight for the soul of each individual mathematical domain.

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Weyl, Hermann. Invariants. Duke Math. J. 5 (1939), no. 3, 489--502. doi:10.1215/S0012-7094-39-00540-5. http://projecteuclid.org/euclid.dmj/1077491405.
5 months 5 days ago

A reproach can only hurt if it hits the mark. Whoever knows that he does not deserve a reproach can treat it with contempt.

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3 months 2 weeks ago

Faculty X is simply that latent power in human beings possess to reach beyond the present. After all, we know perfectly well that the past is as real as the present, and that New York and Singapore and Lhasa and Stepney Green are all as real as the place I happen to be in at the moment. Yet my senses do not agree. They assure me that this place, here and now, is far more real than any other place or any other time. Only in certain moments of great inner intensity do I know this to be a lie. Faculty X is a sense of reality, the reality of other places and other times, and it is the possession of it - fragmentary and uncertain though it is - that distinguishes man from all other animals.

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p. 59

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