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David Pearce
David Pearce
3 months 3 weeks ago
What right have humans to impose...

What right have humans to impose our values on members of another race or species? The charge is seductive but misplaced. There is no anthropomorphism here, no imposition of human values on alien minds. Human and nonhuman animals are alike in an ethically critical respect. The pleasure-pain axis is universal to sentient life. No sentient being wants to be harmed - to be asphyxiated, dismembered, or eaten alive. The wishes of a terrified toddler or a fleeing zebra to flourish unmolested are not open to doubt even in the absence of the verbal capacity to say so.

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"The Radical Plan to Phase out Earth's Predatory Species", io9, 30 Jul. 2014
Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
3 months 3 weeks ago
A few centuries from now, if...

A few centuries from now, if involuntary suffering still exists in the world, the explanation for its persistence won't be that we've run out of computational resources to phase out its biological signature, but rather that rational agents - for reasons unknown - will have chosen to preserve it.

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The Radical Plan to Phase out Earth's Predatory Species, io9, 30 Jul. 2014
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
6 months 2 weeks ago
All our knowledge falls with the...

All our knowledge falls with the bounds of experience.

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A 146, B 185
Philosophical Maxims
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
4 months 1 week ago
Psychoanalysis pretends to investigate the Unconscious....

Psychoanalysis pretends to investigate the Unconscious. The Unconscious by definition is what you are not conscious of. But the Analysts already know what's in it. They should, because they put it all in beforehand. It's like an Easter Egg hunt.

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The Dean's December (1982), ch. 18, p. 298
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
4 months 1 day ago
Life is too short to occupy...

Life is too short to occupy oneself with the slaying of the slain more than once. One of a series of exchanges when Richard Owen repeated generally repudiated claims about the Gorilla brain in a Royal Institution lecture.

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Athenaeum (13 April 1861) p. 498; Browne Vol 2, p. 159
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
6 months 2 weeks ago
Heroism feels and never reasons and...

Heroism feels and never reasons and therefore is always right.

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Heroism
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
6 months 2 weeks ago
Perfect humility dispenses with modesty.

Perfect humility dispenses with modesty.

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Philosophical Maxims
Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri
6 months 4 weeks ago
She is the sum….

She is the sum of nature's universe.To her perfection all of beauty tends.

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Chapter XIV, lines 49-50 (tr. Barbara Reynolds)
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
6 months 5 days ago
Let hopes and sorrows….

Let hopes and sorrows, fears and angers be, and think each day that dawns the last you'll see; For so the hour that greets you unforeseen, will bring with it enjoyment twice as keen.

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Book I, epistle iv, line 12 (translated by John Conington)
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Schmitt
Carl Schmitt
2 months 2 weeks ago
The concept of the state presupposes...

The concept of the state presupposes the concept of the political.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edward Said
Edward Said
4 months 4 weeks ago
The history of other cultures is...

The history of other cultures is non-existent until it erupts in confrontation with the United States.

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Chap 4, Sect 2
Philosophical Maxims
Georges Sorel
Georges Sorel
2 months 3 weeks ago
Engels feared that the Socialists, in...

Engels feared that the Socialists, in order to gain adherents in the electoral struggles rapidly, would make promises which were contrary to Marxist doctrine. The antisemites told the peasants and the small shopkeepers that they would protect them from the development of capitalism. Engels thought that an imitation of this procedure would be dangerous, since, in his opinion, the social revolution could only be realised when capitalism had almost completely destroyed the small proprietors and small industries; if the Socialists, then, endeavoured to hinder this evolution, they would ultimately compromise their own cause.

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Reflections on Violence, London: UK, George Allen & Unwin, (reprinted in Saxony 1925) p. 180
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
5 months 2 weeks ago
So far as it has gone,...

So far as it has gone, it probably is the most pure and defecated publick good which ever has been conferred on mankind.

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p. 463 On the Polish Constitution of May 3, 1791
Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
4 months 4 weeks ago
When contemporary feminist movement first began,...

When contemporary feminist movement first began, feminist writings and scholarship by black women was groundbreaking. The writings of black women like Cellestine Ware, Toni Cade Bambara, Michele Wallace, Barbara Smith, and Angela Davis, to name a few, were all works that sought to articulate, define, speak to and against the glaring omissions in feminist work, the erasure of black female presence.

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Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom
Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
6 months 1 week ago
The most taboo issue on U.S....

The most taboo issue on U.S. campuses these days, in many instances, has to do with the vicious Israeli occupation of precious Palestinians. It's very difficult to have a respectful, robust conversation about that. And I am unequivocal in my solidarity with Palestinian brothers and sisters... I'm not in any way going to stop talking about the Palestinian plight and predicament.

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Speaking in Too Radical for Harvard? Cornel West on Failed Fight for Tenure, Biden's First 50 Days & More, Democracy Now!
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
3 months 1 week ago
In situations of de facto diversity,...

In situations of de facto diversity, attempts to impose a single way of life on an entire population is a formula for dictatorship.

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Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
5 months 1 week ago
A character is a completely fashioned...

A character is a completely fashioned will.

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(vollkommen gebildeter Wille).
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
6 months 2 weeks ago
The rich man... is always sold...

The rich man... is always sold to the institution which makes him rich.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
7 months 2 weeks ago
Oh, can I really believe the...

Oh, can I really believe the poet's tales, that when one first sees the object of one's love, one imagines one has seen her long ago, that all love like all knowledge is remembrance, that love too has its prophecies in the individual. ... it seems to me that I should have to possess the beauty of all girls in order to draw out a beauty equal to yours; that I should have to circumnavigate the world in order to find the place I lack and which the deepest mystery of my whole being points towards, and at the next moment you are so near to me, filling my spirit so powerfully that I am transfigured for myself, and feel that it's good to be here.

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Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
6 months 2 weeks ago
Even if a civil society were...

Even if a civil society were to be dissolved by the consent of all its members (e.g., if a people inhabiting an island decided to separate and disperse throughout the world), the last murderer remaining in prison would first have to be executed, so that each has done to him what his deeds deserve and blood guilt does not cling to the people for not having insisted upon this punishment; for otherwise the people can be regarded as collaborators in his public violation of justice.

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Kt6:333
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
6 months 2 weeks ago
The typical Westerner wishes to be...

The typical Westerner wishes to be the cause of as many changes as possible in his environment; the typical Chinaman wishes to enjoy as much and as delicately as possible.

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The Problem of China (1922), Ch. XII: The Chinese Character
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 1 week ago
As if our birth....
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Adam Smith
Adam Smith
6 months 2 weeks ago
That a joint stock company should...

That a joint stock company should be able to carry on successfully any branch of foreign trade, when private adventurers can come into any sort of open and fair competition with them, seems contrary to all experience.

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Chapter I, Part III, Article I, p. 810.
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
5 months 2 weeks ago
Thus poetry, regarded as a vehicle...

Thus poetry, regarded as a vehicle of thought, is especially impressive partly because it obeys all the laws of effective speech, and partly because in so doing it imitates the natural utterances of excitement.

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Pt. I, sec. 6, "The Effect of Poetry Explained"
Philosophical Maxims
Iamblichus
Iamblichus
2 months 1 week ago
They call it "friendship" and "peace,"...

They call it "friendship" and "peace," and further "harmony" and "unanimity": for these are all cohesive and unificatory of opposites and dissimilars. Hence they also call it "marriage." And there are also three ages in life.

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On the Triad
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
3 months 1 week ago
Oceans of horse-hair, continents of parchment,...

Oceans of horse-hair, continents of parchment, and learned-sergeant eloquence, were it continued till the learned tongue wore itself small in the indefatigable learned mouth, cannot make unjust just.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
5 months 1 week ago
Heroes abound at the dawn of...

Heroes abound at the dawn of civilizations, during pre-Homeric and Gothic epochs, when people, not having yet experienced spiritual torture, satisfy their thirst for renunciation through a derivative: heroism.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
5 months 1 week ago
Even when nothing happens, everything seems...

Even when nothing happens, everything seems too much for me. What can be said, then, in the presence of an event, any event?

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Philosophical Maxims
Leszek Kołakowski
Leszek Kołakowski
3 months 1 week ago
From the point of view of...

From the point of view of the development of Marx's theories, his early journalistic writings are important for two main reasons. In his sharp attacks on the censorship law he spoke out unequivocally for the freedom of the Press, against the levelling effect of government restriction ('You don't expect a rose to smell like a violet; why then should the human spirit, the richest thing we have, exist only in a single form?'), and also expressed views concerning the whole nature of the state and the essence of freedom. Pointing out that the vagueness and ambiguity of the Press law placed arbitrary power in the hands of officials, Marx went on to argue that censorship was contrary not only to the purposes of the Press, but to the nature of the state as such.

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(pp. 120-1)
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
6 months 3 weeks ago
Not being able to govern events,...

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.

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Book II, Ch. 17
Philosophical Maxims
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
4 months 2 weeks ago
During the Vietnam War, which lasted...

During the Vietnam War, which lasted longer than any war we've ever been in -- and which we lost -- every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high.

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Vonnegut at 80 Interview with David Hoppe Alternet
Philosophical Maxims
Porphyry
Porphyry
5 months 4 weeks ago
Every good thing is gentle and...

Every good thing is gentle and consistent, progressing in good order and not going beyond what is right.

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2, 39, 4
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 months 1 week ago
As for others whose lives...

As for others whose lives are not so ordered, he reminds himself constantly of the characters they exhibit daily and nightly at home and abroad, and of the sort of society they frequent; and the approval of such men, who do not even stand well in their own eyes has no value for him.

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III. 4, trans. Maxwell Staniforth
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
5 months 2 weeks ago
The universal basis of co-operation is...

The universal basis of co-operation is the proportioning of benefits received to services rendered.

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Ch. 8, The Sociological View
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
5 months 2 weeks ago
Is there in the whole world...

Is there in the whole world a being who would have the right to forgive and could forgive? I don't want harmony. From love for humanity I don't want it. I would rather be left with the unavenged suffering. I would rather remain with my unavenged suffering and unsatisfied indignation, even if I were wrong. Besides, too high a price is asked for harmony; it's beyond our means to pay so much to enter on it. And so I hasten to give back my entrance ticket, and if I am an honest man I am bound to give it back as soon as possible. And that I am doing. It's not God that I don't accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket.

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Book II, Chapter 4: Rebellion (trans. Constance Garnett)
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
6 months 3 weeks ago
The unassisted hand and the understanding...

The unassisted hand and the understanding left to itself possess but little power. Effects are produced by the means of instruments and helps, which the understanding requires no less than the hand; and as instruments either promote or regulate the motion of the hand, so those that are applied to the mind prompt or protect the understanding.

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Aphorism 2
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
4 months 1 week ago
4 ways...

4 ways: Agnosticism, Relativism, Amorality, Morality. 

1) I don't know. 2) Everybody is different. 3) Do whatever you can. 4) Do what you should.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin
5 months 1 week ago
This they do in the service...

This they do in the service of an imaginary science; and, like the astrologers and soothsayers whom they have succeeded, cast up their eyes to the clouds, and speak in immense, unsubstantiated images and similes, in deeply misleading metaphors and allegories, and make use of hypnotic formulae with little regard for experience, or rational argument, or tests of proven reliability. Thereby they throw dust in their own eyes as well as in ours, obstruct our vision of the real world, and further confuse an already sufficiently bewildered public about the relations of morality to politics, and about the nature and methods of the natural sciences and historical studies alike.

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
5 months 2 weeks ago
Am I a free agent, or...

Am I a free agent, or am I merely the manifestation of a foreign power? Neither appear sufficiently well founded.By the most courageous resolve of my life am I reduced to this! what Power can save me from it, from myself?

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Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 24
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
5 months 1 week ago
In fact, this infinitesimally spread-out consciousness...

In fact, this infinitesimally spread-out consciousness is a direct feeling of its contents as spread out. In an infinitesimal interval we directly perceive the temporal sequence of its beginning, middle, and end... Now upon this interval follows another, whose beginning is the middle of the former, and whose middle is the end of the former. Here we have an immediate perception of the temporal sequence of its beginning, middle and end, or say, of the second, third, and fourth instants.

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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
3 months ago
Live among men…

Live among men as if God beheld you; speak with God as if men were listening.

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Line 5.
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
3 months ago
Our feeling about…

Our feeling about every obligation depends in each case upon the spirit in which the benefit is conferred; we weigh not the bulk of the gift, but the quality of the good-will which prompted it.

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Line 6
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
4 months 4 weeks ago
Those who devote themselves to rituals...

Those who devote themselves to rituals must ignore themselves. Rituals produce a distance from the self, a self-transcendence.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
5 months 2 weeks ago
...no Monarchy limited or unlimited, nor...

...no Monarchy limited or unlimited, nor any of the old Republics, can possibly be safe as long as this strange, nameless, wild, enthusiastic thing is established in the Center of Europe.

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Letter to John Trevor (January 1791), quoted in Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VI: July 1789-December 1791 (1967), p. 218
Philosophical Maxims
Joseph de Maistre
Joseph de Maistre
2 months 1 week ago
It is written, By me kings...

It is written, By me kings reign. This is not a phrase of the church, a metaphor of the preacher; it is a literal truth, simple and palpable. It is a law of the political world. God makes kings in the literal sense. He prepares royal races; maturing them under a cloud which conceals their origin. They appear at length crowned with glory and honour; they take their places; and this is the most certain sign of their legitimacy.

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Preface
Philosophical Maxims
Sir Thomas Browne
Sir Thomas Browne
5 months 3 weeks ago
But the Quincunx of Heaven runs...

But the Quincunx of Heaven runs low, and 'tis time to close the five ports of knowledge. We are unwilling to spin out our awaking thoughts into the phantasmes of sleep, which often continueth præcogitations; making Cables of Cobwebbes and Wildernesses of handsome Groves. Beside Hippocrates hath spoke so little and the Oneirocriticall Masters, have left such frigid Interpretations from plants, that there is little encouragement to dream of Paradise it self. Nor will the sweetest delight of Gardens afford much comfort in sleep; wherein the dulnesse of that sense shakes hands with delectable odours; and though in the Bed of Cleopatra, can hardly with any delight raise up the ghost of a Rose.

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Ch. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
4 months 4 weeks ago
What would become of the rich,...

What would become of the rich, if not for the poor? What would become of these idle, parasitic ladies, who squander more in a week than their victims earn in a year, if not for the eighty million wage-workers? Equality, who ever heard of such a thing?

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
6 months 2 weeks ago
A totally unmystical world would be...

A totally unmystical world would be a world totally blind and insane.

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Grey Eminence, 1940
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
6 months 2 weeks ago
Those truly natural wants, which reason...

Those truly natural wants, which reason alone, without some other help, is not able to fence against, nor keep from disturbing us. The pains of sickness and hurts, hunger, thirst, and cold, want of sleep and rest or relaxation of the part weary'd with labour, are what all men feel and the best dispos'd minds cannot but be sensible of their uneasiness; and therefore ought, by fit applications, to seek their removal, though not with impatience, or over great haste, upon the first approaches of them, where delay does not threaten some irreparable harm. The pains that come from the necessities of nature, are monitors to us to beware of greater mischiefs, which they are the forerunner of; and therefore they must not be wholly neglected, and strain'd too far. But yet the more children can be inur'd to hardships of this kind, by a wise care to make them stronger in body and mind, the better it will be for them.

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Sec. 107
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
7 months 2 weeks ago
Just as it sometimes happens that...

Just as it sometimes happens that deformed offspring are produced by deformed parents, and sometimes not, so the offspring produced by a female are sometimes female, sometimes not, but male, because the female is as it were a deformed male.

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Philosophical Maxims
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