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3 months 2 weeks ago

The rush to California, for instance, and the attitude, not merely of merchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so called, in relation to it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind. That so many are ready to live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others less lucky, without contributing any value to society!

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p. 487
2 months 3 weeks ago

Neither will the horse be adjudged to be generous, that is sumptuously adorned, but the horse whose nature is illustrious; nor is the man worthy who possesses great wealth, but he whose soul is generous.

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Pythagorean Ethical Sentences From Stobæus
3 months 3 weeks ago

Cease therefore to be dismayed by the mere novelty and so to reject reason from your mind with loathing: weigh the questions rather with keen judgment and if they seem to you to be true, surrender, or if the thing is false, gird yourself to the encounter.

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Book II, lines 1040-1043 (tr. Munro)
3 months 2 weeks ago

Nature may certainly produce whatever can arise from habit: Nay, habit is nothing but one of the principles of nature, and derives all its force from that origin.

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Part 3, Section 16
4 months 2 weeks ago

I may live for thirty years, or perhaps forty, or maybe just one day: therefore I have resolved to use this day, or whatever I have to say in these thirty years or whatever I have to say this one day I may have to live - I have resolved to use it in such a way that if not one day in my whole past life has been used well, this one by the help of God will be.

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2 months 5 days ago

Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.

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26:34 (KJV) Said to Peter.
2 months 1 week ago

If death is as horrible as is claimed, how is it that after the passage of a certain period of time we consider happy any being, friend or enemy, who has ceased to live?

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3 months 1 week ago

The position of the revolutionary party in Germany is certainly difficult at the moment, but, with some critical analysis of the circumstances, clear nevertheless. As to the "governments," it is obvious from every point of view, if only for the sake of Germany's existence, that the demand must be put to them not to remain neutral, but, as you rightly say, to be patriotic. But the revolutionary point is to be given to the affair simply by emphasising the antagonism to Russia more strongly than the antagonism against Boustrapa.

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Letter to Friedrich Engels (18 May 1859), quoted in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Selected Correspondence, 1846-1895 (1943), p. 122
2 months 5 days 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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3 months 1 week ago

I am sorry that my convictions do not allow me to repeat my friend's offer, said one of the others. But I have had to abandon the humanitarian and egalitarian fancies. His name was Mr. Neo-Classical.

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Pilgrim's Regress 89
2 months 3 weeks ago

When it comes to consideration of how to do well in running the city, which must proceed entirely through justice and soundness of mind.

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As quoted in Protagoras by Plato

Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do.

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Essays. Goethe's Helena.

What is called an acute knowledge of human nature is mostly nothing but the observer's own weaknesses reflected back from others.

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G 7
3 months 3 days ago

Wise people are in want of nothing, and yet need many things. On the other hand, nothing is needed by fools, for they do not understand how to use anything, but are in want of everything.

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As quoted in Moral Epistles by Seneca, iii. 10.
2 months 1 week ago

Imaginary pains are by far the most real we suffer, since we feel a constant need for them and invent them because there is no way of doing without them.

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1 month 3 weeks ago

Could it be that sexual perversion and romanticism sprang from the same longing for distant horizons?

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p. 17
1 month 4 weeks ago

The conflicts that tear society apart resemble the distinction between the concept and the particular facts subordinated to it. ... Whatever refuses to abide by the unity imposed by the principle of dominion manifests itself not as something indifferent to that principle, but as an infringement of logic: as a contradiction.

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p. 169
3 months 2 weeks ago

Contemplating the universe, the whole system of creation, in this point of light, we shall discover, that all that which is called natural philosophy is properly a divine study- It is the study of God through his works - It is the best study, by which we can arrive at a knowledge of the existence, and the only one by which we can gain a glimpse of his perfection. Do we want to contemplate his power? We see it in the immensity of the Creation. Do we want to contemplate his wisdom? We see it in the unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible Whole is governed. Do we want to contemplate his munificence? We see it in the abundance with which he fills the earth. Do we want to contemplate his mercy? We see it in his not withholding that abundance even from the unthankful. In fine, do we want to know what God is?

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Search not written or printed books, but the Scripture called the Creation. A Discourse, &c. &c.
2 months 1 week ago

The most important subject, and the first problem of philosophy, is the restoration in man of the lost image of God; so far as this relates to science.Should this restoration in the internal consciousness be fully understood, and really brought about, the object of pure philosophy is attained.

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Philosophy and religion are enemies, and because they are enemies they have need of one another. There is no religion without some philosophical basis, no philosophy without roots in religion. ... the attacks which are directed against religion from a presumed scientific or philosophical point of view are merely attacks from another but opposing religious point of view.

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1 month 3 weeks ago

Deniers do not get their views just from simple mistakes about language and truth. Rather, they believe that there is something to worry about in important areas of our thought and in traditional interpretations of those areas; they sense that it has something to do with truth; and (no doubt driven by the familiar desire to say something at once hugely general, deeply important, and reassuringly simple) they extend their worry to the notion of truth itself.

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p. 6
3 months 2 weeks ago

What does not exist must be something, or it would be meaningless to deny its existence; and hence we need the concept of being, as that which belongs even to the non-existent.

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Principles of Mathematics (1903), p. 450
1 month 3 weeks ago

God is nothingness: He is 'beyond all speech.'

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1 month 1 week ago

When the woman showed her love for the children that were not her own, and wept over them, I saw in her the living God, and understood What men live by.

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Ch. XI
1 month 3 weeks ago

Jung believed that alchemy is about the transmutation of the mind and the discovery of the self. Inevitably, he saw the male and female elements of the prima materia -- the king and queen of alchemy -- as the animus and anima; this seemed to indicate the (sic) alchemy is about psychological processes.

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p. 103
4 months 2 weeks ago

Where is the boundary for the single individual in his concrete existence between what is lack of will and what is lack of ability; what is indolence and earthly selfishness and what is the limitation of finitude? For an existing person, when is the period of preparation over, when this question will not arise again in all its initial, troubled severity; when is the time in existence that is indeed a preparation? Let all the dialecticians convene-they will not be able to decide this for a particular individual in concreto.

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3 months 3 days ago

It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours.

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Stobaeus, iii. 3. 51

O reader, to what shifts is poor Society reduced, struggling to give still some account of herself, in epochs when Cash Payment has become the sole nexus of man to men!

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Ch. 6, Laissez-Faire.
1 month 4 weeks ago

In organized groups such as the army or the Church there is either no mention of love whatsoever between the members, or it is expressed only in a sublimated and indirect way, through the mediation of some religious imagine in the love of whom the members unite and whose all-embracing love they are supposed to imitate in their attitude towards each other. ... It is one of the basic tenets of fascist leadership to keep primary libidinal energy on an unconscious level so as to divert its manifestations in a way suitable to political ends.

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"Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda," The Essential Frankfurt School Reader (1982), p. 123
3 months 1 week ago

The war against war is going to be no holiday excursion or camping party. The military feelings are too deeply grounded to abdicate their place among our ideals until better substitutes are offered than the glory and shame that come to nations as well as to individuals from the ups and downs of politics and the vicissitudes of trade.

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2 months 2 weeks ago

That unwise body, the United Irishmen, have had the folly to represent those Evils as owing to this Country, when in truth its chief guilt is in its total neglect, its utter oblivion, its shameful indifference and its entire ignorance, of Ireland and of every thing that relates to it, and not in any oppressive disposition towards that unknown region.

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Letter to Thomas Hussey (9 December 1796), quoted in R. B. McDowell (ed.)
4 months 1 week ago

"What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this?""I don't know. My... my code of morals, perhaps.""Your code of morals. What code, if I may ask?" "Comprehension."

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1 month 4 weeks ago

The petit-bourgeois is a man unable to imagine the Other. If he comes face to face with him, he blinds himself, ignores and denies him, or else transforms him into himself.

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p. 151
3 months 2 weeks ago

Such then is the human condition, that to wish greatness for one's country is to wish harm to one's neighbors.

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"Fatherland", 1764
3 weeks 1 day ago

It is hard to imagine an experience more horrific than being eaten alive. Most of us would prefer not to imagine what it must feel like. Note that the photographer here had to persuade the park ranger to violate the park rules and put the baby elephant out of his misery.By analogy, suppose it were lawful to visit Third World countries for photoshoots but illegal to "interfere" and help a stricken human baby. Is there a fundamental difference between "ethical" intervention to help humans and "sentimental" pleas to "interfere" and help non-humans? Should we encourage the preservation of life-forms such as the hyena in their current guise? Or do the value judgements underlying the "science" of conservation biology need to be re-examined?

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"Hyenas Eat Baby Elephant Alive: The Case for Intervention"
1 month 3 weeks ago

Fairness means not to use fraud and trickery in the exchange of commodities and services and the exchange of feelings.

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2 months ago

Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?

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No. 35. (Usbek writing to Gemchid)

Has any man, or any society of men, a truth to speak, a piece of spiritual work to do; they can nowise proceed at once and with the mere natural organs, but must first call a public meeting, appoint committees, issue prospectuses, eat a public dinner; in a word, construct or borrow machinery, wherewith to speak it and do it. Without machinery, they were hopeless, helpless.

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2 months 1 week ago

They who bow to the enemy abroad will not be of power to subdue the conspirator at home.

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p. 18
4 months 2 weeks ago

Death cannot explain itself. The earnestness consists precisely in this, that the observer must explain it to himself.

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3 months 3 weeks ago

To turn one's eyes away from Jesus means to turn them to the Law.

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Chapter 2
3 months 2 weeks ago

Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable.

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Fact and Fiction (1961), Part II, Ch. 10: "University Education", p. 153
3 weeks 1 day ago

Money is everywhere but so is poetry. What we lack are the poets.

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Poets
3 months 2 weeks ago

You come from attending the funeral of mankind to attend to a natural phenomenon. A little thought is sexton to all the world.

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p. 490
3 months 3 days ago

He lit a lamp in broad daylight and said, as he went about, "I am looking for a human."

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Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 41. This line is frequently translated as "I am looking for an honest man."
3 months 2 weeks ago

The tendency of our perceptions is to emphasise increasingly the objective elements in an impression, unless we have some special reason, as artists have, for doing the opposite.

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An Outline of Philosophy Ch.15 The Nature of our Knowledge of Physics, 1927
4 months 1 week ago

Metaphysical rebellion is a claim, motivated by the concept of a complete unity, against the suffering of life and death and a protest against the human condition both for its incompleteness, thanks to death, and its wastefulness, thanks to evil.

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Let us remember that the government and the society act and react on each other. Sometimes the government is in advance of the society, and hurries the society forward. So urged, the society gains on the government, comes up with the government, outstrips the government, and begins to insist that the government shall make more speed. If the government is wise, it will yield to that just and natural demand. The great cause of revolutions is this, that, while nations move onward, constitutions stand still. The peculiar happiness of England is that here, through many generations, the constitution has moved onward with the nation.

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Speech in the House of Commons on the Reform Bill (5 July 1831), quoted in Speeches of the Right Honourable T. B. Macaulay, M.P. (1854), p. 25

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