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Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
That fear which gives birth to...

That fear which gives birth to thoughts, and the fear of thoughts...

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 weeks ago
The battling Reformer too is, from...

The battling Reformer too is, from time to time, a needful and inevitable phenomenon. Obstructions are never wanting: the very things that were once indispensable furtherances become obstructions; and need to be shaken off, and left behind us,-a business often of enormous difficulty.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 3 weeks ago
If we command our wealth, we...

If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.

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No. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months 2 days ago
We do not think good metaphors...

We do not think good metaphors are anything very important, but I think that a good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on...

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E 91 Variant translation: A good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on.
Philosophical Maxims
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
2 weeks 5 days ago
Art enlarges experience by admitting us...

Art enlarges experience by admitting us to the inner life of others.

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Ch. IV: "The Golden Rule and After", p. 110.
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
4 months 5 days ago
All who say the same things...

All who say the same things do not possess them in the same manner; and hence the incomparable author of the Art of Conversation pauses with so much care to make it understood that we must not judge of the capacity of a man by the excellence of a happy remark that we heard him make. ...let us penetrate, says he, the mind from which it proceeds... it will oftenest be seen that he will be made to disavow it on the spot, and will be drawn very far from this better thought in which he does not believe, to plunge himself into another, quite base and ridiculous.

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Montaigne, Essais, liv. III, chap. viii.-Faugère
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months ago
Courtesy is a science of the...

Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is, like grace and beauty in the body, which charm at first sight, and lead on to further intimacy and friendship, opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 3 weeks ago
The first and the simplest emotion...

The first and the simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind is Curiosity.

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Part I Section I
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
4 months 3 weeks ago
It says nothing against the ripeness...
It says nothing against the ripeness of a spirit that it has a few worms.
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Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
3 months 1 week ago
Think to yourself….

Think to yourself that every day is your last; the hour to which you do not look forward will come as a welcome surprise.

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Book I, epistle iv, line 13-14
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
The initial revelation of any monastery:...

The initial revelation of any monastery: everything is nothing. Thus begin all mysticisms. It is less than one step from nothing to God, for God is the positive expression of nothingness.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 3 weeks ago
We must have kings, and we...

We must have kings, and we must have nobles. Nature provides such in every society, - only let us have the real instead of the titular. Let us have our leading and our inspiration from the best. In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise. Let the powers be well directed, directed by love, and they would everywhere be greeted with joy and honor.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
1 month 3 weeks ago
One day, we shall stand up...

One day, we shall stand up and our backsides will remain attached to our seats.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
3 months 3 weeks ago
Every parting gives a foretaste of...

Every parting gives a foretaste of death; every coming together again a foretaste of the resurrection.

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"Psychological Observations"
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 weeks ago
Instruction, that mysterious communing of Wisdom...

Instruction, that mysterious communing of Wisdom with Ignorance, is no longer an indefinable tentative process, requiring a study of individual aptitudes, and a perpetual variation of means and methods, to attain the same end; but a secure, universal, straightforward business, to be conducted in the gross, by proper mechanism.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
Is it conceivable to adhere to...

Is it conceivable to adhere to a religion founded by someone else?

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 3 weeks ago
To see ourselves as others see...

To see ourselves as others see us is a most salutary gift. Hardly less important is the capacity to see others as they see themselves.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 3 weeks ago
I construct my memories with my...

I construct my memories with my present. I am lost, abandoned in the present. I try in vain to rejoin the past: I cannot escape.

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Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
2 months 2 weeks ago
Tools arm the man. One can...

Tools arm the man. One can well say that man is capable of bringing forth a world; he lacks only the necessary apparatus, the corresponding armature of his sensory tools. The beginning is there. Thus the principle of a warship lies in the idea of the shipbuilder, who is able to incorporate this thought by making himself into a gigantic machine, as it were, through a mass of men and appropriate tools and materials. Thus the idea of a moment often required monstrous organs, monstrous masses of materials, and man is therefore a potential, if not an actual creator.

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Fragment No. 88
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 3 weeks ago
It is of this sort of...

It is of this sort of divine service I used the expression that, in comparison with the Christianity of the New Testament, it is playing Christianity. The expression is essentially true and characterizes the thing perfectly. For what does it mean to play, when one reflects how the word must be understood in this connection? It means to imitate, to counterfeit, a danger when there is no danger, and to do it in such a way that the more art is applied to it, the more delusive the pretense is that the danger is present.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
1 month 2 weeks ago
A woman loves to be obeyed...

A woman loves to be obeyed at first, although afterwards she finds her pleasure in obeying.

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The Suicide Club, Story of the Physician and the Saratoga Trunk.
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 3 days ago
Who are those...
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Main Content / General
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 months 1 week ago
The needs of the soul can...

The needs of the soul can for the most part be listed in pairs of opposites which balance and complete one another. The human soul has need of equality and of hierarchy. Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings. Hierarchy is the scale of responsibilities. Since attention is inclined to direct itself upwards and remain fixed, special provisions are necessary to ensure the effective compatibility of equality and hierarchy.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ian Hacking
Ian Hacking
2 months ago
A single observation that is inconsistent...

A single observation that is inconsistent with some generalization points to the falsehood of the generalization, and thereby 'points to itself'.

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Chapter 4, Evidence, p. 34.
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
2 months 6 days ago
It is clearly absurd to say...

It is clearly absurd to say that if you go on adding atoms together until they have fused into a complex molecule, that molecule will become capable of self-reproduction. It is like saying that a skyscraper is more capable of reproduction than a bungalow. And suppose life did come into being through some accidental interaction of molecules, sun and cosmic rays; why should it not be content to rest passively? Why should it have been possessed of a desire to persist and evolve?

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p. 259
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
3 months 1 week ago
I do not believe that the...

I do not believe that the source of value is unitary - displaying apparent multiplicity only in its application to the world. I believe that value has fundamentally different kinds of sources, and that they are reflected in the classification of values into types. Not all values represent the pursuit of some single good in a variety of settings.

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"The Fragmentation of Value" (1977), pp. 131-132.
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
1 month 2 weeks ago
Books are good enough in their...

Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life.

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An Apology for Idlers.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
1 month 1 week ago
We hold that the most wonderful...

We hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized age.

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p. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months ago
A little folly is desirable in...

A little folly is desirable in him that will not be guilty of stupidity.

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Book III, Ch. 9. Of Vanity
Philosophical Maxims
Max Stirner
Max Stirner
1 week 1 day ago
Yes, so it is that knowledge...

Yes, so it is that knowledge itself must die in order to blossom forth again in death as will; the freedom of thought, belief, and conscience, these wonderful flowers of three centuries will sink back into the lap of mother earth so that a new freedom, the freedom will, will be nourished with its most noble juices.

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p. 19
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
3 months 3 weeks ago
Let sanguine healthy-mindedness do its best...

Let sanguine healthy-mindedness do its best with its strange power of living in the moment and ignoring and forgetting, still the evil background is really there to be thought of, and the skull will grin in at the banquet.

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Lectures IV and V, "The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness"
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 months 3 weeks ago
There is only one passion, the...

There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.

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"Will, Freedom"
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 3 weeks ago
To found a great empire for...

To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers; but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers.

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Chapter VII, Part Third, p. 667.
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 1 day ago
Basic justice

Basic justice is based on everything we as humans share that is the same. It extends to nature also, but, if we can't keep it straight amongst ourselves, of course we'll never have the traction to extend it to the larger context we are a part of.

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Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
2 months 2 weeks ago
A certain maxim of Logic which...

A certain maxim of Logic which I have called Pragmatism has recommended itself to me for diverse reasons and on sundry considerations. Having taken it as my guide for most of my thought, I find that as the years of my knowledge of it lengthen, my sense of the importance of it presses upon me more and more. If it is only true, it is certainly a wonderfully efficient instrument. It is not to philosophy only that it is applicable. I have found it of signal service in every branch of science that I have studied. My want of skill in practical affairs does not prevent me from perceiving the advantage of being well imbued with pragmatism in the conduct of life.

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Lecture I : Pragmatism : The Normative Sciences, CP 5.14
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
1 month 3 weeks ago
"He who exalts himself shall be...

"He who exalts himself shall be humbled; and he who humbles himself shall be exalted." (Matthew 23:12) The person who exalts himself ... will be humbled, because a person who considers himself to be good, intelligent, and kind will not even try to become better, smarter, kinder. The humble person will be exalted, because he considers himself bad and will try to become better, kinder, and more reasonable.

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p. 110
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 3 weeks ago
Anyone wanting a new house picks...

Anyone wanting a new house picks one from among those built on speculation or still in process of construction. The builder no longer works for his customers but for the market.

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Vol. II, Ch. XII, p. 237.
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months 2 days ago
There are people who believe everything...

There are people who believe everything is sane and sensible that is done with a solemn face. ... It is no great art to say something briefly when, like Tacitus, one has something to say; when one has nothing to say, however, and none the less writes a whole book and makes truth ... into a liar - that I call an achievement.

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E 59 Variant translation: There are people who think that everything one does with a serious face is sensible…
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 3 weeks ago
Children are nowhere taught, in any...

Children are nowhere taught, in any systematic way, to distinguish true from false, or meaningful from meaningless, statements. Why is this so? Because their elders, even in the democratic countries, do not want them to be given this kind of education.

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Chapter 11 (p. 106)
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
4 months 1 week ago
The silent treasuring up of...

The silent treasuring up of knowledge; learning without satiety; and instructing others without being wearied: which one of these things belongs to me? To keep silently in mind what one has seen and heard, to study hard and never feel contented, to teach others tirelessly; have I done (all of) these things?

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 3 weeks ago
I have never yet seen any...

I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observation of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 3 weeks ago
"They would say," he answered, "that...

"They would say," he answered, "that you do not fail in obedience through lack of love, but have lost love because you never attempted obedience."

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Ch. 7 : The Pendragon, section 2
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
3 months 3 weeks ago
Opinion considers the opposition of what...

Opinion considers the opposition of what is true and false quite rigid, and, confronted with a philosophical system, it expects agreement or contradiction. And in an explanation of such a system, opinion still expects to find one or the other.

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Preface, § 2
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
2 months 2 weeks ago
The world must be romanticized. In...

The world must be romanticized. In this way the originary meaning may be found again.

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As quoted in The Experience of the Foreign : Culture and Translation in Romantic Germany (1992) by Antoine Berman Variant translation: Romanticize the world.
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 3 weeks ago
We are not necessarily doubting that...

We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.

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Letters of C. S. Lewis (29 April 1959), para. 1, p. 285 - as reported in The Quotable Lewis (1989), p. 469
Philosophical Maxims
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
2 weeks 5 days ago
The newspaper is in all its...

The newspaper is in all its literalness the bible of democracy, the book out of which a people determines its conduct.

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What Modern Liberty Means, p. 47. Essay first published in The Atlantic (November 1919).
Philosophical Maxims
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
1 day ago
No one realizes how beautiful it...

No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.

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"A Trip to Anhwei", in With Love And Irony (1940), p. 145
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
3 months 2 weeks ago
To sum up all these steps,...

To sum up all these steps, each of which is very lengthy and complex, we will have put the game of truth back in the network of constraints and dominations. Truth, I should say rather, the system of truth and falsity, will have revealed the face it turned away from us for so long and which is that of its violence.

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p. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 3 weeks ago
Every tax, however, is to the...

Every tax, however, is to the person who pays it a badge, not of slavery but of liberty. It denotes that he is a subject to government, indeed, but that, as he has some property, he cannot himself be the property of a master.

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Chapter II, Part II, p. 927.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
I long to be free -...

I long to be free - desperately free. Free as the stillborn are free.

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Philosophical Maxims
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