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Voltaire
Voltaire
4 months 3 weeks ago
Go into the London Stock Exchange...

Go into the London Stock Exchange - a more respectable place than many a court - and you will see representatives from all nations gathered together for the utility of men. Here Jew, Mohammedan and Christian deal with each other as though they were all of the same faith, and only apply the word infidel to people who go bankrupt. Here the Presbyterian trusts the Anabaptist and the Anglican accepts a promise from the Quaker.

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Letters on England, letter 6, "On the Presbyterians" as quoted in Trust and Tolerance, Richard H. Dees, Routledge, London and New York, (2004) p. 92, published first in English in 1733.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
3 months 1 week ago
In old days the plastic arts,...

In old days the plastic arts, music, and poesy were so germane to man in his totality that his Transcendence plainly manifest in them. ... What is to-day obvious to all is a decay in the essence of art. ... the opposition to man's true nature as man.

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Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
5 months 6 days ago
Who is not tempted by attractive...

Who is not tempted by attractive and wide-awake children to join their sports, and crawl on all fours with them, and talk baby talk with them?

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Book II, ch. 24, 18
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 2 weeks ago
The imagination...
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John Rawls
John Rawls
4 months 3 weeks ago
Greater intelligence, wealth and opportunity, for...

Greater intelligence, wealth and opportunity, for example, allow a person to achieve ends he could not rationally contemplate otherwise.

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Chapter II, Section 15, pg. 93
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 2 weeks ago
Verily I say unto thee, That...

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.
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
5 months 3 weeks ago
According to one mode... nature is...

According to one mode... nature is thus denominated, viz. the first subject matter to every thing which contains in itself the principle of motion and mutation. But after another mode it is denominated form, which subsists according to definition: for as art is called that which subsists according to art, and that which is artificial; so likewise nature is both called that which is according to nature, and that which is natural. ...that which is composed from these is not nature, but consists from nature; as, for instance, man. And this is nature in a greater degree than matter: for every thing is then said to be, when it is form in energy... entelecheia, rather than when it is incapacity.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 months 3 weeks ago
The main business of religions is...

The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality.

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Book One, Chapter V.
Philosophical Maxims
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee
2 months 5 days ago
The difference between a Humanist and...

The difference between a Humanist and a lunatic is in fact one of degree.

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Vol. 9
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
3 months 1 week ago
No human acquisition is stable. Even...

No human acquisition is stable. Even what appears to us most completely won and consolidated can disappear in a few generations. This thing we call "civilization" - all these physical and moral comforts, all these conveniences, all these shelters, all these virtues and disciplines which have become habit now, on which we count, and which in effect constitute a repertory or system of securities which man made for himself like a raft in the initial shipwreck which living always is - all these securities are insecure securities which in the twinkling of an eye, at the least carelessness, escape from man's hands and vanish like phantoms.

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p. 25
Philosophical Maxims
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
1 month 3 days ago
One should never….

One should never direct people towards happiness, because happiness too is an idol of the market-place. One should direct them towards mutual affection. A beast gnawing at its prey can be happy too, but only human beings can feel affection for each other, and this is the highest achievement they can aspire to.

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Shulubin, in Cancer Ward (1968) Pt. 2, Ch. 10
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
To act is to anchor in...

To act is to anchor in the imminent future.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
We need a science to save...

We need a science to save us from science.

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NY Times Magazine, as reported in High Points in the Work of the High Schools of New York City, Vol. 34 (1952), p. 46
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
Belief in God and a future...

Belief in God and a future life makes it possible to go through life with less of stoic courage than is needed by skeptics. A great many young people lose faith in these dogmas at an age at which despair is easy, and thus have to face a much more intense unhappiness than that which falls to the lot of those who have never had a religious upbringing. Christianity offers reasons for not fearing death or the universe, and in so doing it fails to teach adequately the virtue of courage. The craving for religious faith being largely an outcome of fear, the advocates of faith tend to think that certain kinds of fear are not to be deprecated. In this, to my mind, they are gravely mistaken. To allow oneself to entertain pleasant beliefs as a means of avoiding fear is not to live in the best way. In so far as religion makes its appeal to fear, it is lowering to human dignity.

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p. 107
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
4 months 3 weeks ago
There as here, passions are the...

There as here, passions are the motive of all action, but they are livelier, more ardent, or merely simpler and purer, thereby assuming a totally different character. All the first movements of nature are good and right.

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First Dialogue; translated by Judith R. Bush, Christopher Kelly, Roger D. Masters
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 2 weeks ago
The user of the electric light...

The user of the electric light -- or a hammer, or a language, or a book -- is the content. As such, there is a total metamorphosis of the user by the interface. It is the metamorphosis that I consider the message.

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Letter to Edward T. Hall, 1971, Letters of Marshall McLuhan, p. 397
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 3 weeks ago
I do not think the resemblance...

I do not think the resemblance between the Christian and the merely imaginative experience is accidental. I think that all things, in their own way, reflect heavenly truth, the imagination not least. "Reflect" is the important word. This lower life of the imagination is not a beginning of, nor a step toward, the higher life of the spirit, merely an image.

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Philosophical Maxims
Mencius
Mencius
1 month 2 weeks ago
Never has there been one possessed...

Never has there been one possessed of complete sincerity who did not move others. Never has there been one who had not sincerity who was able to move others.

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Discipline and Character, no. 55
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
3 weeks 1 day ago
I have no fear that the...

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master. Could the contrary of this be proved, I should conclude either that there is no god, or that he is a malevolent being.

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Letter to David Hartley
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
3 weeks 1 day ago
Ridicule is the only weapon which...

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.

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Letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp (30 July 1816), denouncing the doctrine of the Trinity.
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 3 weeks ago
The Communist Party has one objective:...

The Communist Party has one objective: the creation of a socialist economy; and one means: the utilization of the class struggle.

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Hugo, Act 5, sc. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
3 months 1 week ago
In the presence of God himself...

In the presence of God himself man stands always like a solitary tree in the wilderness.

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p. 95
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 2 weeks ago
One touch of nature makes the...

One touch of nature makes the whole world tin.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
5 months 2 weeks ago
In every rebellion is to be...

In every rebellion is to be found the metaphysical demand for unity, the impossibility of capturing it, and the construction of a substitute universe.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle
2 weeks 4 days ago
Being Gentlemen and very far from...

Being Gentlemen and very far from the litigious humour of loving to wrangle about words or terms or notions as empty; they had before his coming in, readily agreed promiscuously to use when they pleased Elements and Principles as terms equivalent: and to understand both by the one and the other, those primitive and simple bodies of which the mixt ones are said to be composed, and into which they are ultimately resolved.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
Instinctively we divide mankind into friends...

Instinctively we divide mankind into friends and foes - friends, towards whom we have the morality of co-operation; foes, towards whom we have that of competition. But this division is constantly changing; at one moment a man hates his business competitor, at another, when both are threatened by Socialism or by an external enemy, he suddenly begins to view him as a brother. Always when we pass beyond the limits of the family it is the external enemy which supplies the cohesive force. In times of safety we can afford to hate our neighbour, but in times of danger we must love him.

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Authority and the Individual, 1949
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
4 months 3 weeks ago
Eloquence, when at its highest pitch,...

Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection; but addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding. Happily, this pitch it seldom attains. But what a Tully or a Demosthenes could scarcely effect over a Roman or Athenian audience, every Capuchin, every itinerant or stationary teacher can perform over the generality of mankind, and in a higher degree, by touching such gross and vulgar passions.

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Section 10 : Of Miracles Pt. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
4 months 1 week ago
To look for a single general...

To look for a single general theory of how to decide the right thing to do is like looking for a single theory of how to decide what to believe.

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"The Fragmentation of Value" (1977), p. 135.
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
5 months 2 weeks ago
"I conclude that all is well,"...

"I conclude that all is well," says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 3 weeks ago
As long as this deliberate refusal...

As long as this deliberate refusal to understand things from above, even where such understanding is possible, continues, it is idle to talk of any final victory over materialism.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
5 months 2 weeks ago
To be happy, we must not...

To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 3 weeks ago
I had better never see a...

I had better never see a book than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul.

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par. 15
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
His power to adore is responsible...

His power to adore is responsible for all his crimes: a man who loves a god unduly forces other men to love his god, eager to exterminate them if they refuse.

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Philosophical Maxims
Empedocles
Empedocles
4 months 1 week ago
But what is lawful…

But what is lawful for all extends across wide-ruling aether and, without cease, through endless sunshine.

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fr. 135, as quoted in Aristotle's Rhetoric, 1373 b16
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
Having always lived in fear of...

Having always lived in fear of being surprised by the worst, I have tried in every circumstance to get a head start, flinging myself into misfortune long before it occurred.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 weeks 5 days ago
Pain is the opposite of strength,...

Pain is the opposite of strength, and so is anger.

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(Hays translation) XI, 18
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
Take the question whether other people...

Take the question whether other people exist. ...It is plain that it makes for happiness to believe that they exist - for even the greatest misanthropist would not wish to be deprived of the objects of his hate. Hence the belief that other people exist is, pragmatically, a true belief. But if I am troubled by solipsism, the discovery that a belief in the existence of others is 'true' in the pragmatist's sense is not enough to allay my sense of loneliness: the perception that I should profit by rejecting solipsism is not alone sufficient to make me reject it. For what I desire is not that the belief in solipsism should be false in the pragmatic sense, but that other people should in fact exist. And with the pragmatist's meaning of truth, these two do not necessarily go together. The belief in solipsism might be false even if I were the only person or thing in the universe.

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"William James's Conception of Truth" , published in Philosophical Essays, London, 1910
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 1 week ago
But the wise man is fortified...

But the wise man is fortified against all inroads; he is alert; he will not retreat before the attack of poverty, or of sorrow, or of disgrace, or of pain. He will walk undaunted both against them and among them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
4 months 3 weeks ago
Societies are composed of individuals and...

Societies are composed of individuals and are good only insofar as they help individuals to realize their potentialities and to lead a happy and creative life.

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Chapter 3 (p. 20)
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
Many agnostics (including myself) are quite...

Many agnostics (including myself) are quite as doubtful of the body as they are of the soul, but this is a long story taking one into difficult metaphysics. Mind and matter alike, I should say, are only convenient symbol in discourse, not actually existing things.

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What is an Agnostic?, 1953
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
4 months 3 weeks ago
The universe is the bible of...

The universe is the bible of a true Theophilanthropist. It is there that he reads of God. It is there that the proofs of his existence are to be sought and to be found. As to written or printed books, by whatever name they are called, they are the works of man's hands, and carry no evidence in themselves that God is the author of any of them. It must be in something that man could not make, that we must seek evidence for our belief, and that something is the universe; the true bible; the inimitable word, of God.

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A Discourse, &c. &c.
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
4 months 3 weeks ago
If this life be not a...

If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight.

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"Is Life Worth Living?"
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
3 months 1 week ago
That is why St. John of...

That is why St. John of the Cross calls faith a night. With those who have received a Christian education, the lower parts of the soul become attached to these mysteries when they have no right at all to do so. That is why such people need a purification of which St. John of the Cross describes the stages. Atheism and incredulity constitute an equivalent of such a purification.

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Faiths of Meditation; Contemplation of the divine" as translated in The Simone Weil Reader (1957) edited by George A. Panichas, p. 418
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 2 weeks ago
Beware of false prophets, which come...

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

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Matthew 7:15 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
3 months 1 week ago
Every time that a man has,...

Every time that a man has, with a pure heart, called upon Osiris, Dionysus, Buddha, the Tao, etc., the Son of God has answered him by sending the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit has acted upon his soul, not by inciting him to abandon his religious tradition, but by bestowing upon him light - and in the best of cases the fullness of light - in the heart of that same religious tradition. ... It is, therefore, useless to send out missions to prevail upon the peoples of Asia, Africa or Oceania to enter the Church.

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Section 8
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
5 months 3 weeks ago
Philosophy is the science of truth.

Philosophy is the science of truth.

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 3 weeks ago
The Doctrine of Knowledge, apart from...

The Doctrine of Knowledge, apart from all special and definite knowing, proceeds immediately upon Knowledge itself, in the essential unity in which it recognises Knowledge as existing; and it raises this question in the first place - How this Knowledge can come into being, and what it is in its inward and essential Nature? The following must be apparent: - There is but One who is absolutely by and through himself, - namely, God; and God is not the mere dead conception to which we have thus given utterance, but he is in himself pure Life. He can neither change nor determine himself in aught within himself, nor become any other Being; for his Being contains within it all his Being and all possible Being, and neither within him nor out of him can any new Being arise.

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
5 months 1 week ago
Bad times, hard times, this is...

Bad times, hard times, this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times.

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80:8
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 3 weeks ago
Vice itself lost half its evil...

Vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.

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Volume iii, p. 332
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
3 months 1 week ago
If this truth has once and...

If this truth has once and for all been discarded and men have decided for integral adjustment, if reason has been purged of all morality regardless of cost, and has triumphed over all else, no one may remain outside and look on. The existence of one solitary "unreasonable" man elucidates the shame of the entire nation. His existence testifies to the relativity of the system of radical self-preservation that has been posited as absolute.

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p. 45.
Philosophical Maxims
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