Skip to main content

Main navigation

☰ ˟
  • Home
  • Articulation
  • Contact
  • Shop
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
2 months 1 week ago
Knowing that certain nights whose sweetness...

Knowing that certain nights whose sweetness lingers will keep returning to the earth and sea after we are gone, yes, this helps us to die.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 weeks 1 day ago
By adverting to the dignity of...

By adverting to the dignity of this high calling our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire: and have made the most extensive, and the only honorable conquests, not by destroying, but by promoting the wealth, the number, the happiness of the human race.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
2 months 2 weeks ago
What, exactly, have the errors of...

What, exactly, have the errors of exegesis and philosophy done in order to confuse Christianity, and how have they confused Christianity? Quite briefly and categorically, they have simply forced back the sphere of paradox-religion into the sphere of aesthetics, and in consequence have succeeded in brings Christian terminology to such a pass that terms which, so long as they remain within their sphere, are qualitative categories, can be put to almost any use as clever expressions.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 week 4 days ago
Sooner or later, each desire must...

Sooner or later, each desire must encounter its lassitude: its truth . . .

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 2 weeks ago
The silent organ loudest chants The...

The silent organ loudest chants The master's requiem.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Dirge, st. 13
Philosophical Maxims
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5
2 weeks 2 days ago
Workplace Discrimination Persists

Despite laws and diversity initiatives, discrimination pervades workplaces. It's just more subtle, harder to prove, embedded in systems. Unconscious bias, cultural fit, networking advantages - discrimination continues through mechanisms that evade accountability while producing same outcomes.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
1 month 2 weeks ago
I will not talk about people...

I will not talk about people a thousand miles off, but come as near home as I can. As the time is short, I will leave out all the flattery, and retain all the criticism. Let us consider the way in which we spend our lives.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 484
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
3 weeks ago
This whole which is visible in...

This whole which is visible in different ways in bodies, as far as formation, constitution, appearance, colors and other properties and common qualities, is none other than the diverse face of the same substance - a changeable, mobile face, subject to decay, of an immobile, permanent and eternal being.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As translated by Paul Harrison
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
1 week 4 days ago
The whole nature of man presupposes...

The whole nature of man presupposes woman, both physically and spiritually. His system is tuned into woman from the start, just as it is prepared for a quite definite world where there is water, light, air, salt, carbohydrates etc.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"Two Essays in Analytical Psychology" In CW 7: P. 188
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
1 month 2 weeks ago
Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both...

Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter III, Part II, p. 534.
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
2 months 4 days ago
A man living without conflicts, as...

A man living without conflicts, as if he never lives at all.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
1 month 4 weeks ago
If we are not stupid or...

If we are not stupid or insincere when we say that the good or ill of man lies within his own will, and that all beside is nothing to us, why are we still troubled?

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book I, ch. 25, § 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
1 month 2 weeks ago
What is tolerance…

What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"Tolerance", 1764
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 week 4 days ago
The fact that life has no...

The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live - moreover, the only one.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
1 month 3 weeks ago
Omnipotence and foreknowledge of God, I...

Omnipotence and foreknowledge of God, I repeat, utterly destroy the doctrine of 'free-will' ... doubtless it gives the greatest possible offense to common sense or natural reason, that God, Who is proclaimed as being full of mercy and goodness, and so on, should of His own mere will abandon, harden and damn men, as though He delighted in the sins and great eternal torments of such poor wretches. It seems an iniquitous, cruel, intolerable thought to think of God; and it is this that has been such a stumbling block to so many great men down through the ages. And who would not stumble at it? I have stumbled at it myself more than once, down to the deepest pit of despair, so that I wished I had never been made a man.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
(That was before I knew how health-giving that despair was, and how close to grace p. 217)
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 2 weeks ago
Man cannot will unless he has...

Man cannot will unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
1 month 3 weeks ago
If it were art to overcome...

If it were art to overcome heresy with fire, the executioners would be the most learned doctors on earth.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
To the Christian Nobility of the German States (1520), translated by Charles M. Jacobs, reported in rev. James Atkinson, The Christian in Society, I (Luther's Works, ed. James Atkinson, vol. 44), p. 207
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
1 week 4 days ago
There are as many nights as...

There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word "happy" would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"The Art of Living", interview with journalist Gordon Young first published in 1960
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
6 days ago
He used to reason...
0
⚖0
Main Content / General
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 weeks 1 day ago
Religious persecution may shield itself under...

Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Speech in opening the impeachment of Warren Hastings (18 February 1788), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Volume the Tenth (1899), pp. 7-8
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 weeks 5 days ago
Truth is so great a perfection,...

Truth is so great a perfection, that if God would render himself visible to men, he would choose light for his body and truth for his soul.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tyron Edwards, p. 592
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 2 weeks ago
Both in thought and in feeling,...

Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 167
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
1 week 5 days ago
Everywhere we seek the Absolute, and...

Everywhere we seek the Absolute, and always we find only things.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Fragment No. 1; Variant: We seek the absolute everywhere and only ever find things.
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
1 week 5 days ago
Most observers of the French Revolution,...

Most observers of the French Revolution, especially the clever and noble ones, have explained it as a life-threatening and contagious illness. They have remained standing with the symptoms and have interpreted these in manifold and contrary ways. Some have regarded it as a merely local ill. The most ingenious opponents have pressed for castration. They well noticed that this alleged illness is nothing other than the crisis of beginning puberty.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Fragment No. 105
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 week ago
Happiness is the only sanction of...

Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Willard van Orman Quine
Willard van Orman Quine
Just now
The word 'definition' has come to...

The word 'definition' has come to have a dangerously reassuring sound, owing no doubt to its frequent occurrence in logical and mathematical writings.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"Two dogmas of Empiricism", p. 26
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 1 week ago
It is better; heavier, crueler. The...

It is better; heavier, crueler. The mouth you wear for hell.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Inès to Estelle after she has applied lipstick, Act 1, sc. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
1 month 2 weeks ago
And, oddly enough, even at times...

And, oddly enough, even at times when the current style permitted a treatment of the less epileptic aspects of religion, no fully adequate rendering of the contemplative life was ever achieved in the plasdc arts of Christendom. The peace that passes all understanding was often sung and spoken; it was hardly ever painted or carved. Thus, in the writings of St. Bernard, of Albertus Magnus, of Eckhart and Tauler and Ruysbroeck one may find passages that express very clearly the nature and significance of mystical contemplation. But the saints who figure in medieval painting and sculpture tell us next to nothing about this anticipation of the beatific vision. There are no equivalents of those Far Eastern Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who incarnate, in stone and paint, the experience of ultimate reality.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 week 4 days ago
Truths begin by a conflict with...

Truths begin by a conflict with the police - and end by calling them in.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 weeks 1 day ago
The zealous never fail to draw...

The zealous never fail to draw political inferences from religious tenets, by which they interest the magistrate in the dispute; and then to the heat of a religious fervour is added the fury of a party zeal. All intercourse is cut off between the parties. They lose all knowledge of each other, tho' countrymen and neighbours, and are therefore easily imposed upon with the most absurd stories concerning each other's opinions and practices. They judge of the hatred of the adverse side by their own. Then fear is added to their hatred; and preventive injuries arise from their fear. The remembrance of the past, the dread of the future, the present ill, will join together to urge them forward to the most violent courses.Such is the manner of proceeding of religious parties towards each other.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Volume II, p. 147
Philosophical Maxims
Anaxagoras
Anaxagoras
1 month 5 days ago
Thought is something limitless and independent,...

Thought is something limitless and independent, and has been mixed with no thing but is alone by itself. ... What was mingled with it would have prevented it from having power over anything in the way in which it does. ... For it is the finest of all things and the purest.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Frag. B12, in Jonathan Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy (1984), p. 190.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
1 month 5 days ago
The idealist tradition, including contemporary phenomenology,...

The idealist tradition, including contemporary phenomenology, has of course admitted subjective points of view as basic and has gone to the opposite length of denying an irreducible objective reality. ... I find the idealist solution unacceptable ...: objective reality cannot be analyzed or shut out of existence any more than subjective reality can. Even if not everything is something from no point of view, some things are.The deep source of both idealism and its objectifying opposite is the same: a conviction that a single world cannot contain both irreducible points of view and irreducible objective reality - that one of them must be what there really is and the other somehow reducible or dependent on it. This is a very powerful idea. To deny it is in a sense to deny that there is a single world.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"Subjective and Objective" (1979), p. 212.
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 weeks 5 days ago
Many words befall men, mean and...

Many words befall men, mean and noble alike; do not be astonished by them, nor allow yourself to be constrained. If a lie is told, bear with it gently. But whatever I tell you, let it be done completely. Let no one persuade you by word or deed to do or say whatever is not best for you.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in Divine Harmony: The Life and Teachings of Pythagoras by John Strohmeier and Peter Westbrook.
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
1 month 1 week ago
Nietzsche was the first to release...

Nietzsche was the first to release the desire to know from the sovereignty of knowledge itself: to re-establish the distance and exteriority that Aristotle cancelled.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 2 weeks ago
The believing we do something when...

The believing we do something when we do nothing is the first illusion of tobacco.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
1859
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
1 month 2 weeks ago
Prejudice is an opinion…

Prejudice is an opinion without judgement.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"Prejudices", 1764
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 week ago
“What man among you with 100...

“What man among you with 100 sheep, on losing one of them, will not leave the 99 behind in the wilderness and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when he has found it, he puts it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he gets home, he calls his friends and his neighbors together, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous ones who have no need of repentance.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Luke 15: 4-7
Philosophical Maxims
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Leibniz
1 month 2 weeks ago
Now, asther is an infinity….

Now, as there is an infinity of possible universes in the Ideas of God, and as only one of them can exist, there must be a sufficient reason for God's choice, which determines him toward one rather than another. And this reason can be found only in the fitness, or the degrees of perfection, that these worlds contain, since each possible thing has the right to claim existence in proportion to the perfection it involves.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
La monadologie (53 & 54).
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 2 weeks ago
So nigh is grandeur to our...

So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Voluntaries, st. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 2 weeks ago
What do I care about Jupiter?...

What do I care about Jupiter? Justice is a human issue, and I do not need a god to teach it to me.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Orestes, Act 2
Philosophical Maxims
Montesquieu
Montesquieu
2 days ago
Of all kind of authors there...

Of all kind of authors there are none I despise more than compilers, who search every where for shreds of other men's works, which they join to their own, like so many pieces of green turf in a garden: they are not at all superior to compositors in a printing house, who range the types, which, collected together, make a book, towards which they contribute nothing but the labours of the hand. I would have original writers respected, and it seems to me a kind of profanation to take those pieces from the sanctuary in which they reside, and to expose them to a contempt they do not deserve. When a man hath nothing new to say, why does not he hold his tongue? What business have we with this double employment?"

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
No. 66.
Philosophical Maxims
Averroes
Averroes
2 months 3 days ago
If teleological study of the world...

If teleological study of the world is philosophy, and if the Law commands such a study, then the Law commands philosophy.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
5 days ago
Thought must be judged by something...

Thought must be judged by something that is not thought, by its effect on production or its impact on social conduct, as art today is being ultimately gauged in every detail by something that is not art, be it box-office or propaganda value.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
describing the pragmatist view, p. 51.
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
1 week 5 days ago
Denotation by means of sounds and...

Denotation by means of sounds and markings is a remarkable abstraction. Three letters designate God for me; several lines a million things. How easy becomes the manipulation of the universe here, how evident the concentration of the intellectual world! Language is the dynamics of the spiritual realm. One word of command moves armies; the word Liberty entire nations.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Fragment No. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 week 4 days ago
Every thought derives from a thwarted...

Every thought derives from a thwarted sensation.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
1 month 3 weeks ago
Do not fight against these harmful...

Do not fight against these harmful spells. For you do not know what God wants with them. You do not know the greater divine plan behind it all.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As attributed by Kai Lehmann, curator of the exhibition "Luther und die Hexen" ("Luther and the witches"). (2013) in "Interview with Dr. Kai Lehmann, curator of the exhibition "Luther und die Hexen" ("Luther and the witches")"
Philosophical Maxims
A. J. Ayer
A. J. Ayer
1 week 4 days ago
The criterion which we use to...

The criterion which we use to test the genuineness of apparent statements of fact is the criterion of verifiability. We say that a sentence is factually significant to any given person, if, and only if, he knows how to verify the proposition which it purports to express - that is, if he knows what observations would lead him, under certain conditions, to accept the proposition as being true, or reject it as being false.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 16.
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
2 months 2 weeks ago
The immediacy of falling in love...

The immediacy of falling in love recognizes but one immediacy that is ebenburtig (of equal standing), and this is a religious immediacy; falling in love is too virginal to recognize any confidant other than God. But the religious is a new immediacy, has reflection in between-otherwise, paganism would actually be religious and Christianity not. That the religious is a new immediacy every person easily understands who is satisfied with following the honest path of ordinary common sense. And although I imagine I have but few readers, I confess nevertheless that I do imagine my readers to be among these, since I am far from wanting to instruct the admired ones, who make systematic discoveries a la Niels Klim, who have left their good skin in order to put on the “real appearance.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 2 weeks ago
By the rude bridge that arched...

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world. The foe long since in silence slept; Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; And Time the ruined bridge has swept Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. On this green bank, by this soft stream, We set to-day a votive stone; That memory may their deed redeem, When, like our sires, our sons are gone. Spirit, that made those heroes dare, To die, and leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare The shaft we raise to them and thee.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Concord Hymn, 1837
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 weeks 5 days ago
Educate the children and it won't...

Educate the children and it won't be necessary to punish the men.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists‎ (2007) by James Geary
Philosophical Maxims
  • Load More

User login

  • Create new account
  • Reset your password

Social

☰ ˟
  • Main Content
  • Philosophical Maxims

Civic

☰ ˟
  • Propositions
  • Issue / Solution

Who's new

  • Søren Kierkegaard
  • Jesus
  • Friedrich Nietzsche
  • VeXed
  • Slavoj Žižek

Who's online

There are currently 0 users online.

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia