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Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
5 days ago
What is wisdom?

What is wisdom? Always desiring the same things, and always refusing the same things.

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Line 5 Here, Seneca uses the same observation that Sallust made regarding friendship (in his historical account of the Catilinarian conspiracy, Bellum Catilinae[XX.4]) to define wisdom.
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
2 months 1 week ago
The specialist serves as a striking...

The specialist serves as a striking concrete example of the species, making clear to us the radical nature of the novelty. For, previously, men could be divided simply into the learned and the ignorant, those more or less the one, and those more or less the other. But your specialist cannot be brought in under either of these two categories. He is not learned , for he is formally ignorant of all that does not enter into his speciality; but neither is he ignorant, because he is "a scientist," and "knows" very well his own tiny portion of the universe. We shall have to say that he is a learned ignoramus, which is a very serious matter, as it implies that he is a person who is ignorant, not in the fashion of the ignorant man, but with an the petulance of one who is learned in his own special line.

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Chapter XII: The Barbarism Of "Specialisation"
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 months 3 weeks ago
The infant runs toward it with...

The infant runs toward it with its eyes closed, the adult is stationary, the old man approaches it with his back turned.

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"Death"
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
1 day ago
May the men who hold the...

May the men who hold the destiny of peoples in their hands, studiously avoid anything that might cause the present situation to deteriorate and become even more dangerous. May they take to heart the words of the Apostle Paul: "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men." These words are valid not only for individuals, but for nations as well. May these nations, in their efforts to maintain peace, do their utmost to give the spirit time to grow and to act.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 2 weeks ago
Life has no meaning a priori...

Life has no meaning a priori ... It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.

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p. 58
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
2 months 2 weeks ago
Marriage is a union between two...

Marriage is a union between two persons - one man and one woman. A woman who has given herself up to one, can not give herself up to a second, for her whole dignity requires that she should belong only to this one.

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p. 406
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 2 weeks ago
Nature is the best posture-master. p....

Nature is the best posture-master.

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p. 167
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 2 weeks ago
A nihilist is not one who...

A nihilist is not one who believes in nothing, but one who does not believe in what exists.

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Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
3 months 1 week ago
Verily we know nothing. Truth is...

Verily we know nothing. Truth is buried deep.

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(Another translation: "Of truth we know nothing, for truth is in a well." Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers R.D. Hicks, Ed.)
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 3 weeks ago
In a logically perfect language, there...

In a logically perfect language, there will be one word and no more for every simple object, and everything that is not simple will be expressed by a combination of words, by a combination derived, of course, from the words for the simple things that enter in, one word for each simple component.

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
3 months 3 weeks ago
Men will always be mad….

Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all.

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Letter to Louise Dorothea of Meiningen, duchess of Saxe-Gotha Madame, 30 January 1762
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
1 month 2 weeks ago
A man, Mr. Scrymgeour, may fall...

A man, Mr. Scrymgeour, may fall into a thousand perplexities, but if his heart be upright and his intelligence unclouded, he will issue from them all without dishonour.

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The Rajah's Diamond, Story of the House with the Green Blinds.
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 months 2 days ago
It is better wither to be...

It is better wither to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word; and do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in a few.

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As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tyron Edwards, p. 525
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 3 weeks ago
The two guides call out to...

The two guides call out to a man early and late. And yet, no, for when remorse calls to a man it is always late. The call to find the way again by seeking out God in the confession of sins is always at the eleventh hour. Whether you are young or old, whether you have sinned much or little, whether you have offended much or neglected much, the guilt makes this call come at the eleventh hour. The inner agitation of the heart understands what remorse insists upon, that the eleventh hour has come. For in the sense of time, the old man's age is the eleventh hour; and the instant of death, the final moment in the eleventh hour. The indolent youth speaks of a long life that lies before him. The indolent old man hopes that his death is still a long way off. But repentance and remorse belong to the eternal in a man.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 4 weeks ago
The most profound joy has more...

The most profound joy has more of gravity than of gaiety in it.

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Book II, Ch. 20
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 2 weeks ago
It is the poets and painters...

It is the poets and painters who react instantly to a new medium like radio or TV.

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(p. 53)
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 2 weeks ago
...the impossible must be supposed in...

...the impossible must be supposed in order to explain the superdetermination of the event

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p. 301
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
4 months 1 week ago
Follow the seasons of Ha,Ride in...

Follow the seasons of Ha,Ride in the state carriage of Yau,Wear the ceremonial cap of Chan,Let the music be the Shiu with its pantomimes.

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 months 6 days ago
Attention is the rarest and purest...

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

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From an April 13, 1942 letter to poet Joë Bousquet, published in their collected correspondence
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
3 months 1 week ago
Cato the elder wondered how that...

Cato the elder wondered how that city was preserved wherein a fish was sold for more than an ox.

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Cato the Elder
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
There is no false sensation.

There is no false sensation.

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Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
4 months 5 days ago
For freedom is not acquired by...

For freedom is not acquired by satisfying yourself with what you desire, but by destroying your desire.

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Book IV, ch. 1, 175.
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 months 5 days ago
Men can be provincial in time,...

Men can be provincial in time, as well as in place.

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Preface, p. ix
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months ago
One cannot demand of a scholar...

One cannot demand of a scholar that he show himself a scholar everywhere in society, but the whole tenor of his behavior must none the less betray the thinker, he must always be instructive, his way of judging a thing must even in the smallest matters be such that people can see what it will amount to when, quietly and self-collected, he puts this power to scholarly use.

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J 85
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
2 months 1 week ago
Dialectical thought understands the critical tension...

Dialectical thought understands the critical tension between "is" and "ought" first as an ontological condition, pertaining to the structure of Being itself. However, the recognition of this state of Being - its theory - intends from the beginning a concrete practice. Seen in the light of a truth which appears in them falsified or denied, the given facts themselves appear false and negative.

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p. 133
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 1 week ago
Verily I say unto you, That...

Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

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19:23-24 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
1 day ago
Just as the wave cannot exist...

Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me. It is an uncomfortable doctrine which the true ethics whisper into my ear. You are happy, they say; therefore you are called upon to give much.

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Chapter 26
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 week 4 days ago
Certainly the Art of Writing is...

Certainly the Art of Writing is the most miraculous of all things man has devised.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson
2 months 1 week ago
The prestige of the Nobel Prize...

The prestige of the Nobel Prize is due to many causes, but in particular to its twofold idealistic and international character: idealistic in that it has been designed for works of lofty inspiration; international in that it is awarded after the production of different countries has been minutely studied and the intellectual balance sheet of the whole world has been drawn up. Free from all other considerations and ignoring any but intellectual values, the judges have deliberately taken their place in what the philosophers have called a community of the mind.

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In a letter accepting the 1927 Nobel Prize in literature, read by the French minister, Armand Bernard.
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 2 weeks ago
When a whole nation is roaring...

When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart.

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December 10, 1824
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
3 months 3 weeks ago
Each of the parts of philosophy...

Each of the parts of philosophy is a philosophical whole, a circle rounded and complete in itself. In each of these parts, however, the philosophical Idea is found in a particular specificality or medium. The single circle, because it is a real totality, bursts through the limits imposed by its special medium, and gives rise to a wider circle. The whole of philosophy in this way resembles a circle of circles. The Idea appears in each single circle, but, at the same time, the whole Idea is constituted by the system of these peculiar phases, and each is a necessary member of the organisation.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
3 months 4 weeks ago
Through faith we are restored to...

Through faith we are restored to paradise and created anew.

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p. 74
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
2 months 2 weeks ago
This world is empty to him...

This world is empty to him alone who does not understand how to direct his libido towards objects, and to render them alive and beautiful for himself, for Beauty does not indeed lie in things, but in the feeling that we give to them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Cisero
Cisero
4 months 1 week ago
I will speak in a low voice..

I will speak in a low voice, just so as to let the judges hear me. For men are not wanting who would be glad to excite that people against me and against every eminent man; and I will not assist them and enable them to do so more easily.

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Cicero, The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero; Translation by C.D. Yonge., 1856.
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
2 months 2 days ago
The martyr sacrifices herself (himself in...

The martyr sacrifices herself (himself in a few instances) entirely in vain. Or rather not in vain; for she (or he) makes the selfish more selfish, the lazy more lazy, the narrow narrower.

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As quoted in Forever Yours (1990) by Martha Vicinus and Bea Nergaard , p. 275. Letter, c. 1867, to the scholar Benjamin Jowett.
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
2 months 1 week ago
All his life he [the American]...

All his life he [the American] jumps into the train after it has started and jumps out before it has stopped; and he never once gets left behind, or breaks a leg.

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"Materialism and Idealism" p. 175 (Hathi Trust)
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
3 months 1 week ago
Not from fear but from a...

Not from fear but from a sense of duty refrain from your sins.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
Utopia is a mixture of childish...

Utopia is a mixture of childish rationalism and secularized angelism.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 week 5 days ago
The mass of men....
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Main Content / General
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 3 weeks ago
What is asked of a man...

What is asked of a man that he may be able to pray for his enemies? To pray for one's enemies is the hardest thing of all. That is why it exasperates us so much in our present day situation.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months ago
It is certainly not a matter...

It is certainly not a matter of indifference whether I learn something without effort or finally arrive at it myself through my system of thought. In the latter case everything has roots, in the former it is merely superficial.

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F154
Philosophical Maxims
Al-Ghazali
Al-Ghazali
2 months 3 weeks ago
The lowest degree of education is...

The lowest degree of education is to distinguish oneself from the ignorant ordinary man. The educated man does not loathe honey even if he finds it in the surgeon's cupping-glass; he realizes that the cupping glass does not essentially alter the honey. The natural aversion from it in such a case rests on popular ignorance, arising from the fact that the cupping-glass is made only for impure blood. Men imagine that the blood is impure because it is in the cupping-glass, and are not aware that the impurity is due to a property.

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III. The Classes of Seekers, p. 31.
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
4 months 6 days ago
When I, who conduct this inquiry,...

When I, who conduct this inquiry, love something, then three things are found: I, what I love, and the love itself. There are, therefore three things: the lover, the beloved and the love.

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(Cambridge: 2002), Book 9, Chapter 2, Section 2, p. 26
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
5 days ago
"I should prefer that Fortune keep...

"I should prefer that Fortune keep me in her camp rather than in the lap of luxury. If I am tortured, but bear it bravely, all is well; if I die, but die bravely, it is also well."

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
4 months 2 weeks ago
Religion is more conservative than any...

Religion is more conservative than any other aspect of human life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
3 months 2 weeks ago
Absurdity destroys the and of the...

Absurdity destroys the and of the enumeration by making impossible the in where the things enumerated would be divided up.

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Preface
Philosophical Maxims
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
4 weeks 1 day ago
Experience is what you get while...

Experience is what you get while looking for something else.

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"Experience"
Philosophical Maxims
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze
2 months ago
Schizophrenia is like love: there is...

Schizophrenia is like love: there is no specifically schizophrenic phenomenon or entity; schizophrenia is the universe of productive and reproductive desiring machines, universal primary production as "the essential reality of man and nature".

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The Desiring Machine
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 month 2 weeks ago
The attitude that living things are...

The attitude that living things are placed here for our benefit still dominates our culture, even where its underpinnings have disappeared. We now need, for purposes of scientific understanding, to find a less human-centered view of the natural world.

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Chapter 8, "Pollen Grains and Magic Bullets" (p. 258)
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 4 weeks ago
Who does not in some sort...

Who does not in some sort live to others, does not live much to himself.

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Book III, Ch. 10
Philosophical Maxims
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