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Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
1 month 3 days ago
And when all the world is...

And when all the world is overcharged with Inhabitants, then the last remedy of all is Warre, which provideth for every man, by Victory or Death.

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The Second Part, Chapter 30, p. 181
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 3 days ago
Judge not, that ye be not...

Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

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(Matthew 7:1-2) (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 1 week ago
Probably, the most-often-repeated lesson in history...

Probably, the most-often-repeated lesson in history is that foreigners who are called in to help one side in a civil war take over for themselves. It is a lesson that seems never to be learned despite endless repetition.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 months 1 week ago
The nature of power is such...

The nature of power is such that even those who have not sought it, but have had it forced upon them, tend to acquire a taste for more.

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Chapter 1 (p. 12)
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1 month 1 week ago
'No one but you and one...

'No one but you and one 'jade' I have fallen in love with, to my ruin. But being in love doesn't mean loving. You may be in love with a woman and yet hate her.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 1 week ago
And happiness is...
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Main Content / General
Auguste Comte
Auguste Comte
1 month 2 weeks ago
The mathematical thermology created by Fourier...

The mathematical thermology created by Fourier may tempt us to hope that, as he has estimated the temperature of the space in which we move, me may in time ascertain the mean temperature of the heavenly bodies: but I regard this order of facts as for ever excluded from our recognition. We can never learn their internal constitution, nor, in regard to some of them, how heat is absorbed by their atmosphere. We may therefore define Astronomy as the science by which we discover the laws of the geometrical and mechanical phenomena presented by the heavenly bodies.

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Book II: Astronomy, Ch. I: General View
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 1 week ago
How we hate this solemn Ego...

How we hate this solemn Ego that accompanies the learned, like a double, wherever he goes.

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1839
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Owen
Robert Owen
5 days ago
Happily for poor traduced and degraded...

Happily for poor traduced and degraded human nature, the principle for which we now content will speedily divest it of all the ridiculous and absurd mystery with which it has been hitherto enveloped by the ignorance of preceding times: and all the ''complicated'' and ''counteracting'' motives for good conduct, which have been multiplied almost to infinity, will be reduced to ''one single principle of action'', which, by its evident operation and sufficiency, shall render this intricate system ''unnecessary'', and ultimately supersede it in all parts of the earth. That principle is THE HAPPINESS OF SELF CLEARLY UNDERSTOOD AND UNIFORMLY PRACTICED; WHICH CAN ONLY BE ATTAINED BY CONDUCT THAT MUST PROMOTE THE HAPPINESS OF THE COMMUNITY.

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Essay First, The Formation of Human Character.
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
2 weeks 6 days ago
Organizations and institutions permit stable expectations...

Organizations and institutions permit stable expectations to be formed by each member of the group as to the behavior of the other members under specified conditions.

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p. 100.
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
1 month 2 days ago
The world is not divine sport,...

The world is not divine sport, it is divine destiny. There is divine meaning in the life of the world, of man, of human persons, of you and of me. Creation happens to us, burns itself into us, recasts us in burning - we tremble and are faint, we submit. We take part in creation, meet the Creator, reach out to Him, helpers and companions.

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
1 month 1 week ago
The "I" who speaks in this...

The "I" who speaks in this book is by no means the author. Rather, the author wishes that the reader may come to see himself in this "I": that the reader may not simply relate to what is said here as he would to history, but rather that while reading he will actually converse with himself, deliberate back and forth, deduce conclusions, make decisions like his representative in the book, and through his own work and reflection, purely out of his own resources, develop and build within himself the philosophical disposition that is presented to him in this book merely as a picture.

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P. Preuss, trans. (1987), p. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
1 month 1 week ago
Only the most perfect human being...

Only the most perfect human being can design the most perfect philosophy.

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Fichte Studies § 651
Philosophical Maxims
Montesquieu
Montesquieu
4 weeks ago
There is only one thing that...

There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude...we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have ourselves.

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No. 104. (Usbek writing to Ibben)
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 1 week ago
I wanted for the moments in...

I wanted for the moments in my life to follow each other and order themselves like those of a life remembered. It would be just as well to try to catch time by the tail.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
1 month 2 weeks ago
The New Englander is attached to...

The New Englander is attached to his township because it is strong and independent; he has an interest in it because he shares in its management; he loves it because he has no reason to complain of his lot; he invests his ambition and his future in it; in the restricted sphere within his scope, he learns to rule society; he gets to know those formalities without which freedom can advance only through revolutions, and becoming imbued with their spirit, develops a taste for order, understands the harmony of powers, and in the end accumulates clear, practical ideas about the nature of his duties and the extent of his rights.

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Chapter V.
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
3 weeks 3 days ago
Thinking is an expedition into quietness.

Thinking is an expedition into quietness.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 week 2 days ago
The TV camera has no shutter....

The TV camera has no shutter. It does not deal with aspects or facets of objects in high resolution. It is a means of direct pick-up by the electrical groping over surfaces.

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Arts in society, Volume 3, 1964, p. 242
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
2 months 1 week ago
It is error only, and not...

It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 1 week ago
A rationalist, as I use the...

A rationalist, as I use the word, is a man who attempts to reach decisions by argument and perhaps, in certain cases, by compromise, rather than by violence. He is a man who would rather be unsuccessful in convincing another man by argument than successful in crushing him by force, by intimidation and threats, or even by persuasive propaganda.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
1 month 2 days ago
We cannot avoid conflict, conflict with...

We cannot avoid conflict, conflict with society, other individuals and with oneself. Conflicts may be the sources of defeat, lost life and a limitation of our potentiality but they may also lead to greater depth of living and the birth of more far-reaching unities, which flourish in the tensions that engender them.

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As quoted in Turning Conflict Into Profit : A Roadmap for Resolving Personal and Organizational Disputes (2005) by Larry Axelrod and Rowland Johnson
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 6 days ago
You get tragedy where the tree,...

You get tragedy where the tree, instead of bending, breaks.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 1 week ago
By the disposition of a stupendous...

By the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young; but, in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 weeks 3 days ago
Jung believed that he was proceeding...

Jung believed that he was proceeding scientifically, but most Freudians remain convinced that he was inventing his own underground realm, rather as Tolkien invented Middle Earth. There is at least an element of truth in this view.

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p. 126
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
4 weeks ago
A terrible thing is intelligence. It...

A terrible thing is intelligence. It tends to death as memory tends to stability. The living, the absolutely unstable, the absolutely individual, is strictly unintelligible. Logic tends to reduce everything to identities and genera, to each representation having no more than one self-same content in whatever place, time or relation it may occur to us. And there is nothing that remains for two successive moments of its existence. My idea of God is different each time that I conceive it. Identity, which is death, is the goal of the intellect. The mind seeks what is dead, for what is living escapes it; it seeks to congeal the flowing stream in blocks of ice; it seeks to arrest it. In order to analyze a body it is necessary to extenuate or destroy it. In order to understand anything it is necessary to kill it, to lay it out rigid in the mind.

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Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 week 1 day ago
Familiarity breeds contempt.

Familiarity breeds contempt.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
1 month 2 weeks ago
I cannot help fearing that men...

I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.

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Book Three, Chapter XXI.
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 1 week ago
Politics is a science. You can...

Politics is a science. You can demonstrate that you are right and that others are wrong.

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Act 5, sc. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
3 weeks 5 days ago
Philosophy ... should not imagine that...

Philosophy ... should not imagine that specialized work in epistemological theory, or whatever else prides itself on being research, is actually philosophy. Yet a philosophy forswearing all of that must in the end be irreconcilably at odds with the dominant consciousness. Nothing else raises it above the suspicion of apologetics. Philosophy that satisfies its own intention, and does not childishly skip behind its own history and the real one, has its lifeblood in the resistance against the common practices of today and what they serve, against the justification of what happens to be the case.

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p. 6
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 1 week ago
I don't deserve a share in...

I don't deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. Nor do most people - all the people who believe advertisements, and think in catchwords and spread rumors. The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.

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Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
2 months 1 day ago
By Thy perfect Intelligence, O MazdaThou...

By Thy perfect Intelligence, O MazdaThou didst first create us having bodies and spiritual consciences,And by Thy Thought gave our selves the power of thought, word, and deed.Thus leaving us free to choose our faith at our own will.

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Ahunuvaiti Gatha; Yasna 31, 11.
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
1 week 4 days ago
The strongest of all warriors are...

The strongest of all warriors are these two - Time and Patience.

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Bk. X, ch. 16
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 1 week ago
There never, gentlemen, was a period...

There never, gentlemen, was a period in which the steadfastness of some men has been nut to so sore a trial. It is not very difficult for well-formed minds to abandon their interest; but the separation of fame and virtue is an harsh divorce. Liberty is in danger of being made unpopular to Englishmen. Contending for an imaginary power, we begin to acquire the spirit of domination, and to lose the relish of honest equality.

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
2 months 1 week ago
If there were only one religion...

If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two they would cut each other's throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness.

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Letters on England, letter 6, "On the Presbyterians" Trans. Leonard Tancock (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1980): p. 41, published first in English in 1733.
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 weeks 3 days ago
Taken as a whole, the Cross...

Taken as a whole, the Cross Correspondences and the Willet scripts are among the most convincing evidence that at present exists for life after death. For anyone who is prepared to devote weeks to studying them, they prove beyond all reasonable doubt that Myers, Gurney, and Sidgwick went on communicating after death.

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p. 136
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
2 months 1 day ago
It is difficult….

It is difficult to speak of the universal specifically.

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Line 128
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 1 week ago
The law of gravity thus asserts...

The law of gravity thus asserts itself when a house falls about our ears.

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Vol. I, Ch. 1, Section 4, pg. 86.
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 3 days ago
Suffer little children, and forbid them...

Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.

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18:16-17 (KJV) Variant translation: Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
1 month 3 days ago
The guiding question of Marx's analysis...

The guiding question of Marx's analysis was, How does capitalist society supply its members with the necessary use-values? And the answer disclosed a process of blind necessity, chance, anarchy and frustration. The introduction of the category of use-value was the introduction of a forgotten factor, forgotten, that is, by the classical political economy which was occupied only with the phenomenon of exchange value. In the Marxian theory, this factor becomes an instrument that cuts through the mystifying reification of the commodity world.

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P. 304
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1 month 1 week ago
It seemed clear to me that...

It seemed clear to me that life and the world somehow depended upon me now. I may almost say that the world now seemed created for me alone: if I shot myself the world would cease to be at least for me. I say nothing of its being likely that nothing will exist for anyone when I am gone, and that as soon as my consciousness is extinguished the whole world will vanish too and become void like a phantom, as a mere appurtenance of my consciousness, for possibly all this world and all these people are only me myself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 1 week ago
We die in proportion to the...

We die in proportion to the words we fling around us.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 1 week ago
When people come to me saying...

When people come to me saying they want to kill themselves, I tell them, "What's your rush? You can kill yourself any time you like. So calm down. Suicide is a positive act." And they do calm down.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
1 week 4 days ago
By words one transmits thoughts to...

By words one transmits thoughts to another, by means of art, one transmits feelings.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 1 week ago
I have nothing but contempt for...

I have nothing but contempt for you idiotic chosen ones who have the heart to rejoice when there are the damned in Hell and the poor on earth; as for me, I am on the side of men and I will not leave it.

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Act 6, sc. 6
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 6 days ago
Kierkegaard writes: If Christianity were so...

Kierkegaard writes: If Christianity were so easy and cozy, why should God in his Scriptures have set Heaven and Earth in motion and threatened eternal punishments? - Question: But then in that case why is this Scriptures so unclear?

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p. 31e
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 1 week ago
Absurd, irreducible; nothing - not even...

Absurd, irreducible; nothing - not even a profound and secret delirium of nature - could explain it. Obviously I did not know everything, I had not seen the seeds sprout, or the tree grow. But faced with this great wrinkled paw, neither ignorance nor knowledge was important: the world of explanations and reasons is not the world of existence. A circle is not absurd, it is clearly explained by the rotation of a straight segment around one of its extremities. But neither does a circle exist. This root, on the other hand, existed in such a way that I could not explain it. Reflections on a chestnut tree root.

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
3 weeks 6 days ago
Religion in so far as it...

Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be an atheist with that part of myself which is not made for God. Among those in whom the supernatural part of themselves has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong.

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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. 417
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 months 1 week ago
Here the institution that compels is...

Here the institution that compels is the state, the only purpose of which is to protect individuals from one another and the whole from external enemies. Some German philosophasters of this mercenary age would like to twist it into an institution for education and edification in morality; in the background of this lurks the Jesuitical purpose of eliminating personal freedom and the individual's personal development in order to make him into a mere cog in a Chinese machine of state and religion. But this is the path by which in the past one has arrived at the inquisitions, burning of heretics, and religious wars; Frederick the Great's pledge, 'In my country, each shall be able to tend to his salvation in his own fashion', indicated that he never wanted to tread that path.

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Part III, Ch. VI, p. 184
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 week 2 days ago
The sociologist permits himself to see...

The sociologist permits himself to see only what is acceptable to his colleagues.

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(p. 370)
Philosophical Maxims
kalokagathia
kalokagathia
2 months 3 weeks ago
Never accept compliments...

Never accept compliments or criticism from someone you wouldn't take advice from.

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Propositions / General
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