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Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 month 2 weeks ago
Knowledge is employed in the service...

Knowledge is employed in the service of the necessity of life and primarily in the service of the instinct of personal preservation. The necessity and this instinct have created in man the organs of knowledge and given them such capacity as they possess. Man sees, hears, touches, tastes and smells that which it is necessary for him to see, hear, touch, taste and smell in order to preserve his life. The decay or loss of any of these senses increases the risks with which his life is environed, and if it increases them less in the state of society in which we are actually living, the reason is that some see, hear, touch, taste and smell for others. A blind man, by himself and without a guide, could not live long. Society is an additional sense; it is the true common sense.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 4 weeks ago
The days .... come and go...

The days .... come and go like muffled and veiled figures, sent from a distant friendly party; but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away.

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Works and Days
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
However intimate we may be with...

However intimate we may be with the operations of the mind, we cannot think more than two or three minutes a day; - unless, by taste or by profession, we practice, for hours on end, brutalizing words in order to extract ideas from them. The intellectual represents the major disgrace, the culminating failure of Homo sapiens.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 4 weeks ago
I have always thought respectable people...

I have always thought respectable people scoundrels, and I look anxiously at my face every morning for signs of my becoming a scoundrel.

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Quoted in Alan Wood Bertrand Russell: The Passionate Skeptic: A Biography, Vol. 2 (1958), p. 233
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 5 days ago
How many we know who have...

How many we know who have fled the sweetness of a tranquil life in their homes, among their friends, to seek the horror of uninhabitable deserts; who have flung themselves into humiliation, degradation, and the contempt of the world, and have enjoyed these and even sought them out.

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Ch. 14 (tr. Donald M. Frame)
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
1 month 6 days ago
Administration is not unlike play-acting. The...

Administration is not unlike play-acting. The task of the good actor is to know and play his role, although different roles may differ greatly in content. The effectiveness of the performance will depend on the effectiveness of the play and the effectiveness with which it is played. The effectiveness of the administrative process will vary with the effectiveness of the organization and the effectiveness with which its members play their parts.

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p. 252; As cited in: Herbert Simon (1996) The Sciences of the Artificial. page xii.
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 weeks 2 days ago
The job of science...
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Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 weeks 6 days ago
Unfortunately not only were the rulers,...

Unfortunately not only were the rulers, who were considered supernatural beings, benefited by having the peoples in subjection, but as a result of the belief in, and during the rule of, these pseudodivine beings, ever larger and larger circles of people grouped and established themselves around them, and under an appearance of governing took advantage of the people. And when the old deception of a supernatural and God-appointed authority had dwindled away these men were only concerned to devise a new one which like its predecessor should make it possible to hold the people in bondage to a limited number of rulers.

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III
Philosophical Maxims
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam
1 month 5 days ago
On another possible world or another...

On another possible world or another planet a word might be associated with much the same stereotype and much the same criteria as our term 'water', but it might designate XYZ and not H₂O. At least this could happen in a prescientific era. And it would not follow that XYZ was water; it would only follow that XYZ could look like water, taste like water, etc. What 'water' refers to depends on the actual nature of the paradigms, not just on what is in our heads.

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Language and Reality
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 4 weeks ago
We are faced with the paradoxical...

We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.

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Ch. 12: Free Thought and Official Propaganda
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
1 month 3 weeks ago
Unconscious assumptions or opinions are the...

Unconscious assumptions or opinions are the worst enemy of woman; they can even grow into a positively demonic passion that exasperates and disgusts men, and does the woman herself the greatest injury by gradually smothering the charm and meaning of her femininity and driving it into the background. Such a development naturally ends in profound psychological disunion, in short, in a neurosis.

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P.245
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
1 month 3 weeks ago
There is rarely a creative man...

There is rarely a creative man who does not have to pay a high price for the divine spark of his greatest gifts...the human element is frequently bled for the benefit of the creative element and to such an extent that it even brings out the bad qualities, as for instance, ruthless, naive egoism (so-called "auto-eroticism"), vanity, all kinds of vices-and all this in order to bring to the human I at least some life-strength, since otherwise it would perish of sheer inanition.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 4 weeks ago
We are born believing. A man...

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.

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Worship
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 months 4 weeks ago
The teaching of my philosophy... that...

The teaching of my philosophy... that our whole existence is something which had better not have been, and that to disown and disclaim it is the highest wisdom.

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Ch 1
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick
1 day ago
Individuals have rights and there are...

Individuals have rights and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do. How much room do individual rights leave for the state?

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Preface, p. ix
Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
1 month 1 week ago
Since we live in a society...

Since we live in a society that promotes faddism and temporary superficial adaptation of different values, we are easily convinced that changes have occurred in arenas where there has been little or no change.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
4 days ago
Much in the study of the...

Much in the study of the paranormal was what we would now call pseudo-science. But the line between science and pseudo-science is smudged and shifting; where it lies seems clear only in retrospect. There is no pristine science untouched by the vagaries of faith.

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Foreword: Two Attempts to Cheat Death (p. 5)
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 4 weeks ago
There is a boundary to men's...

There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feeling; none when they are under the influence of imagination.

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p. 460
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
3 weeks 4 days ago
For him who loves labor, there...

For him who loves labor, there is always something to do.

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Maxim 219
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
2 months 2 weeks ago
Men have fashioned an image of...

Men have fashioned an image of Chance as an excuse for their own stupidity. For Chance rarely conflicts with intelligence, and most things in life can be set in order by an intelligent sharpsightedness.

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Freeman (1948), p. 155
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 months 4 weeks ago
Obstinacy is the result of the...

Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect.

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Vol. 2, Ch. 26, § 321
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
How many disappointments are conducive to...

How many disappointments are conducive to bitterness? One or a thousand, depending on the subject.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
1 month 2 weeks ago
The Value or WORTH of a...

The Value or WORTH of a man, is as of all other things, his Price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his Power...

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The First Part, Chapter 10, p. 42
Philosophical Maxims
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze
1 month 1 week ago
Nietzsche's break with Schopenhauer rests on...

Nietzsche's break with Schopenhauer rests on precisely this point; it is a matter of knowing whether the will is unitary or multiple.

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p. 7
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
3 months ago
The sensuous may be exceedingly distinct,...

The sensuous may be exceedingly distinct, while intellectual concepts are extremely confused. The former we observe in the prototype of sensuous knowledge geometry; the latter, in the organon of all intellectual concepts, metaphysics. It is evident how much toil the latter is expending to dispel the fogs of confusion darkening the common intellect, though not always with the happy success of the former science.

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Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
2 months 3 weeks ago
Political questions are far too serious...

Political questions are far too serious to be left to the politicians.

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Men in Dark Times
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
3 months ago
I shall need only myself to...

I shall need only myself to be happy.

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As quoted in The prophetic voice, 1758-1778 by Lester G. Crocke, p. 148.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 4 weeks ago
Each piece of money is a...

Each piece of money is a mere coin, or means of circulation, only so long as it actually circulates.

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Vol. I, Ch. 3, Section 2(c), pg. 145.
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 weeks 4 days ago
Interface, of the resonant interval as...

Interface, of the resonant interval as 'where the action is', whether chemical, psychic or social, involves touch.

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p. 102
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
3 months 1 day ago
There is needed, no doubt, a...

There is needed, no doubt, a body of servants (ministerium) of the invisible church, but not officials (officiales), in other words, teachers but not dignitaries, because in the rational religion of every individual there does not yet exist a church as a universal union (omnitudo collectiva).

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Book IV, Part 1, Section 1, "The Christian religion as a natural religion"
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
3 months 1 week ago
The Word takes to Himself one...

The Word takes to Himself one man, for He takes unity. He does not take schisms to Himself, nor does He take heresies. So it is one man who is taken, and his Head is Christ. This is that "blessed man who hath not walked in the council of the ungodly" (Ps. 1:1); this is he that is assumed. He is not outside of us. Let us be in Him, and we shall be assumed; let us be in Him, and we shall be chosen. Therefore this one man that is taken to become the temple of God, is at once many and one.

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p.430
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 4 weeks ago
The worker becomes all the poorer...

The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and range. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates. With the increasing value of the world of things proceeds in direct proportion the devaluation of the world of men. Labour produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity - and does so in the proportion in which it produces commodities generally.

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p. 71, The Marx-Engels Reader
Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
2 months 3 weeks ago
No one deserves his greater natural...

No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society.

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Chapter II, Section 17, pg. 102
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
The reaction against your own thought...

The reaction against your own thought in itself lends life to thought. How this reaction is born is hard to describe, because it identifies with the very rare intellectual tragedies. - The tension, the degree and level of intensity of a thought proceeds from its internal antinomies, which in turn are derived from the unsolvable contradictions of a soul. Thought cannot solve the contradictions of the soul. As far as linear thinking is concerned, thoughts mirror themselves in other thoughts, instead of mirroring a destiny.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 4 weeks ago
Association, applied to land, shares the...

Association, applied to land, shares the economic advantage of large-scale landed property, and first brings to realization the original tendency inherent in land-division, namely, equality. In the same way association also re-establishes, now on a rational basis, no longer mediated by serfdom, overlordship and the silly mysticism of property, the intimate ties of man with the earth, since the earth ceases to be an object of huckstering, and through free labour and free enjoyment becomes once more a true personal property of man.

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Rent of Land, p. 65.
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
2 months 2 weeks ago
I never believed in a God....

I never believed in a God. [...] There may have been times when I wondered if there might be a God, but it always seemed to me wildly implausible that a God worth worshipping could allow the Holocaust to occur.

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From an interview, as cited by Dan Goldberg "Peter Singer: is he really the most dangerous man in the world?", The Jewish Chronicle
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
3 months 1 week ago
To the divine providence it has...

To the divine providence it has seemed good to prepare in the world to come for the righteous good things, which the unrighteous shall not enjoy; and for the wicked evil things, by which the good shall not be tormented. But as for the good things of this life, and its ills, God has willed that these should be common to both; that we might not too eagerly covet the things which wicked men are seen equally to enjoy, nor shrink with an unseemly fear from the ills which even good men often suffer. There is, too, a very great difference in the purpose served both by those events which we call adverse and those called prosperous. For the good man is neither uplifted with the good things of time, nor broken by its ills; but the wicked man, because he is corrupted by this world's happiness, feels himself punished by its unhappiness.

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I, 8
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 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
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
3 weeks 4 days ago
Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them....

Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them.

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Maxim 872
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
1 month 2 weeks ago
Bourgeois political economy ... never gets...

Bourgeois political economy ... never gets to see man who is its real subject. It disregards the essence of man and his history and is thus in the profoundest sense not a 'science of people' but of non-people and of an inhuman world of objects and commodities.

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"The Foundations of Historical Materialism," Studies in Critical Philosophy (1972), p. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
1 week 6 days ago
Life cannot exist without a certain...

Life cannot exist without a certain conformity to the surrounding universe - that conformity involves a certain amount of happiness in excess of pain. In short, as we live we are paid for living.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
How I wish I didn't know...

How I wish I didn't know anything about myself and this world!

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
3 months 5 days ago
Women . . . have ....

Women . . . have . . . small and narrow chests, and broad hips, to the end they should remain at home, sit still, keep house, and bear and bring up children. . . . A woman is, or at least should be, a friendly, courteous, and a merry companion in life . . . the honor and ornament of the house, and inclined to tenderness, for thereunto are they chiefly created, to bear children, and to be the pleasure, joy and solace of their husbands.

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-- Table Talk, quoted in Luther On "Woman"
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
1 month 2 weeks ago
Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance...

Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the Right, and toleration of movements from the Left.

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An Essay on Liberation Beacon Press, 1969, p. 109
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
2 months 3 days ago
There is surely a Physiognomy, which...

There is surely a Physiognomy, which those experienced and Master Mendicants observe... For there are mystically in our faces certain Characters that carry in them the motto of our Souls, wherein he that cannot read A.B.C. may read our natures.

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Section 2
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 month 1 week ago
I have remarked very clearly that...

I have remarked very clearly that I am often of one opinion when I am lying down and of another when I am standing up.

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F 73
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
1 month 1 week ago
Violence and freedom are the two...

Violence and freedom are the two endpoints on the scale of power.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 1 week ago
And in a flash I understood...

And in a flash I understood the meaning of sex. It is a craving for the mingling of consciousness, whose symbol is the mingling of bodies. Every time a man and a woman slake their thirst in the strange waters of the other's identity, they glimpse the immensity of their freedom.

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p. 252
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
As the years pass, the number...

As the years pass, the number of those we can communicate with diminishes. When there is no longer anyone to talk to, at last we will be as we were before stooping to a name.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 3 weeks ago
We all want progress. But progress...

We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.

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Book I, Chapter 5, "We Have Cause to Be Uneasy"
Philosophical Maxims
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