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Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin
1 week 4 days ago
Historians of ideas, however scrupulous and...

Historians of ideas, however scrupulous and minute they may feel it necessary to be, cannot avoid perceiving their material in terms of some kind of pattern.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
2 months 3 weeks ago
Without art we would be nothing...
Without art we would be nothing but foreground and live entirely in the spell of that perspective which makes what is closest at hand and most vulgar appear as if it were vast, and reality itself.
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Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
3 weeks 5 days ago
The infinity of All ever bringing...

The infinity of All ever bringing forth anew, and even as infinite space is around us, so is infinite potentiality, capacity, reception, malleability, matter.

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I 1 as translated in Giordano Bruno : His Life and Thought with annotated translation of his work On the Infinite Universe and Worlds (1950) by Dorothea Waley Singer
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
1 month 3 weeks ago
Our preaching does not stop with...

Our preaching does not stop with the law. That would lead to wounding without binding up, striking down and not healing, killing and not making alive, driving down to hell and not bringing back up, humbling and not exalting. Therefore, we must also preach grace and the promise of forgiveness - this is the means by which faith is awakened and properly taught. Without this word of grace, the law, contrition, penitence, and everything else are done and taught in vain.

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pp. 78-79
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
2 weeks 3 days ago
All religions are cruel, all founded...

All religions are cruel, all founded on blood; for all rest principally on the idea of sacrifice - that is, on the perpetual immolation of humanity to the insatiable vengeance of divinity.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Schlegel
Friedrich Schlegel
2 weeks 6 days ago
There are people with whom everything...

There are people with whom everything they consider a means turns mysteriously into an end.

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Philosophical Fragments, P. Firchow, trans. (1991) § 428
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
1 month 3 weeks ago
To free a man from error...

To free a man from error is to give, not to take away. Knowledge that a thing is false is a truth. Error always does harm; sooner or later it will bring mischief to the man who harbors it. Then give up deceiving people; confess ignorance of what you don't know, and leave everyone to form his own articles of faith for himself. Perhaps they won't turn out so bad, especially as they'll rub one another's corners down, and mutually rectify mistakes. The existence of many views will at any rate lay a foundation of tolerance. Those who possess knowledge and capacity may betake themselves to the study of philosophy, or even in their own persons carry the history of philosophy a step further.

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"Religion: A Dialogue." Variant translation: To free a man from error does not mean to take something from him, but to give him something.
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
1 month 4 weeks ago
Nothing is terrible except….

Nothing is terrible except fear itself.

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De Augmentis Scientiarum, Book II, "Fortitudo"
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Hölderlin
Friedrich Hölderlin
2 weeks 6 days ago
It was not delight, not wonder...

It was not delight, not wonder that arose among us, it was the peace of heaven. A thousand times have I said it to her and to myself: the most beautiful is also the most sacred. And such was everything in her. Like her singing, even so was her life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
5 days ago
Fear and destructiveness are the major...

Fear and destructiveness are the major emotional sources of fascism, eros belongs mainly to democracy.

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The Authoritarian Personality (1950), p. 976, co-written with Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt Sanford
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
1 week 3 days ago
Pragmatism, in trying to turn experimental...

Pragmatism, in trying to turn experimental physics into a prototype of all science and to model all spheres of intellectual life after the techniques of the laboratory, is the counterpart of modern industrialism, for which the factory is the prototype of human existence, and which models all branches of culture after production on the conveyor belt.

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p. 50.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 weeks 2 days ago
Never to have occasion to take...

Never to have occasion to take a position, to make up one's mind, or to define oneself - there is no wish I make more often.

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
2 months 5 days ago
Et illa erant fercula, in quibus...

And these were the dishes wherein to me, hunger-starven for thee, they served up the sun and the moon.

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III, 6
Philosophical Maxims
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham
1 month 3 weeks ago
Of corruption, the principal and direct...

Of corruption, the principal and direct use is, to engage the representatives of the people to betray their trust, and sell themselves and the people to the universal corrupter-the monarch, in his capacity of corrupter-general.

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Constitutional Code (written between 1820 and 1832), quoted in The Works of Jeremy Bentham, Vol. XVII (1841), p. 76
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
2 months 2 weeks ago
Those who purge the soul believe...

Those who purge the soul believe that the soul can receive no benefit from any teachings offered to it until someone by cross-questioning reduces him who is cross-questioned to an attitude of modesty, by removing the opinions that obstruct the teachings, and thus purges him and makes him think that he knows only what he knows, and no more.

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Philosophical Maxims
Antisthenes
Antisthenes
1 month 1 week ago
Virtue is the same…

Virtue is the same for a man and for a woman.

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§ 5
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 month 1 day ago
Use examples; that such as thou...

Use examples; that such as thou teachest may understand thee the better!

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 weeks 6 days ago
The Revolution and Hanover succession had...

The Revolution and Hanover succession had been objects of the highest veneration to the old Whigs. They thought them not only proofs of the sober and steady spirit of liberty which guided their ancestors; but of their wisdom and provident care of posterity.-The modern Whigs have quite other notions of these events and actions. They do not deny that Mr. Burke has given truly the words of the acts of parliament which secured the succession, and the just sense of them. They attack not him but the law.

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p. 436
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 3 weeks ago
Children must be under authority, and...

Children must be under authority, and are themselves aware that they must be, although they like to play a game of rebellion at times. The case of children is unique in the fact that those who have authority over them are sometimes fond of them. Where this is the case, the children do not resent the authority in general, even when they resist it on particular occasions. Education authorities, as opposed to teachers, have not this merit, and do in fact sacrifice the children to what they consider the good of the State by teaching them "patriotism," i.e., a willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

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Ch. 13: Freedom in Society
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 3 weeks ago
It is likely that America will...

It is likely that America will be more important during the next century or two, but after that it may well be the turn of China.

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Letter to Rachel Gleason Brooks, May 5, 1930
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 weeks 3 days ago
A Covenant not to defend...
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Plato
Plato
2 months 2 weeks ago
The whole business of the kingly...

The whole business of the kingly weaving is comprised in this and this alone: in never allowing the self-restrained characters to be separated from the courageous, but in weaving them together by common beliefs and honors and dishonors and opinions and interchanges of pledges, thus making of them a smooth and, as we say, well-woven fabric, and then entrusting to them in common forever the offices of the state.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 days ago
Man is as much a slave...

Man is as much a slave to his immediate surroundings now as he was when he lived in tree-huts. Give him the highest, the most exciting thoughts about man's place in the universe, the meaning of history; they can all be snuffed out in a moment if he wants his dinner, or feels irritated by a child squalling on a bus. He is bound by pettiness.

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Chapter Two, World Without Values
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 2 weeks ago
The logical picture of the facts...

The logical picture of the facts is the thought.

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(3) Original German: Das logische Bild der Tatsachen ist der Gedanke.
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 weeks 6 days ago
We must not always judge of...

We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.

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No. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
1 week 5 days ago
Being is continuous becoming. P. 136

Being is continuous becoming.

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P. 136
Philosophical Maxims
Ernst Mach
Ernst Mach
2 weeks 1 day ago
I know of nothing more terrible...

I know of nothing more terrible than the poor creatures who have learned too much. Instead of the sound powerful judgement which would probably have grown up if they had learned nothing, their thoughts creep timidly and hypnotically after words, principles and formulae, constantly by the same paths. What they have acquired is a spider's web of thoughts too weak to furnish sure supports, but complicated enough to provide confusion.

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On the Relative Educational Value of the Classics and the Mathematico-Physical Sciences in Colleges and High Schools, an address in (16 April 1886)
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 2 weeks ago
Don't get involved in partial problems,...

Don't get involved in partial problems, but always take flight to where there is a free view over the whole single great problem, even if this view is still not a clear one.

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Journal entry
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
1 month 2 weeks ago
'But why,' (some ask), 'why, if...

But why,' (some ask), 'why, if you have a serious comment to make on the real life of men, must you do it by talking about a phantasmagoric never-never land of your own?' Because, I take it, one of the main things the author wants to say is that the real life of men is of that mythical and heroic quality. One can see the principle at work in his characterization. Much that in a realistic work would be done by 'character delineation' is here done simply by making the character an elf, a dwarf, or a hobbit. The imagined beings have their insides on the outside; they are visible souls. And Man as a whole, Man pitted against the universe, have we seen him at all till we see that he is like a hero in a fairy tale?

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p. 89
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
2 weeks 1 day ago
How did this division of the...

How did this division of the nations come about, what was its basis? The division is in accordance with all the previous history of the nationalities in question. It is the beginning of the decision on the life or death of all these nations, large and small. All the earlier history of Austria up to the present day is proof of this and 1848 confirmed it. Among all the large and small nations of Austria, only three standard-bearers of progress took an active part in history, and still retain their vitality - the Germans, the Poles and the Magyars. Hence they are now revolutionary. All the other large and small nationalities and peoples are destined to perish before long in the revolutionary world storm. (Weltsturm). For that reason they are now counter-revolutionary.

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The Magyar Struggle in Neue Rheinische Zeitung (13 January 1849).
Philosophical Maxims
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Leibniz
1 month 3 weeks ago
Only geometry can hand us….

Only geometry can hand us the thread [which will lead us through] the labyrinth of the continuum's composition, the maximum and the minimum, the infinitesimal and the infinite; and no one will arrive at a truly solid metaphysic except he who has passed through this [labyrinth].

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Spring 1676
Philosophical Maxims
Montesquieu
Montesquieu
6 days ago
I have read descriptions of Paradise...

I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.

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No. 125. (Usbek writing to Rhedi)
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
1 month 1 week ago
The pleasures that give most joy...

The pleasures that give most joy are the ones that most rarely come.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 weeks 6 days ago
The Crown of Great Britain cannot,...

The Crown of Great Britain cannot, in my opinion, be too magnificent. Let us see some great public works set on foot; let it never be said, that the Commons of Great Britain failed in what they owe to the first Crown in the world. Looking up to royalty, I do say, it is the oldest and one of the best parts of our constitution. I wish it should look like royalty; that it should look like a King; like a King of Great Britain.

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Speech in the House of Commons (28 February 1769)
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
1 month 4 weeks ago
Since my logic aims to teach...

Since my logic aims to teach and instruct the understanding, not that it may with the slender tendrils of the mind snatch at and lay hold of abstract notions (as the common logic does), but that it may in very truth dissect nature, and discover the virtues and actions of bodies, with their laws as determined in matter; so that this science flows not merely from the nature of the mind, but also from the nature of things.

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Aphorism 52
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
1 month 2 weeks ago
The effectiveness of political and religious...

The effectiveness of political and religious propaganda depends upon the methods employed, not upon the doctrines taught. These doctrines may be true or false, wholesome or pernicious-it makes little or no difference.

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Chapter 7 (p. 63)
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 weeks 6 days ago
A people who are still, as...

A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
1 month 3 weeks ago
A wise man never loses anything,...

A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.

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Ch. 38. Of Solitude, tr. Cotton, rev. W. Hazlitt, 1842
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
1 month 1 week ago
'Tis a grievous thing to be...

'Tis a grievous thing to be subject to an inferior.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
1 month 2 weeks ago
Religion, therefore, as I now ask...

Religion, therefore, as I now ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine. Since the relation may be either moral, physical, or ritual, it is evident that out of religion in the sense in which we take it, theologies, philosophies, and ecclesiastical organizations may secondarily grow.

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Lecture II, "Circumscription of the Topic"
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
2 weeks 2 days ago
The woman is increasingly aware that...

The woman is increasingly aware that love alone can give her full stature, just as the man begins to discern that spirit alone can endow his life with its highest meaning. Fundamentally, therefore, both seek a psychic relation to the other, because love needs the spirit, and the spirit love, for their fulfillment.

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p. 185
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
1 month 2 weeks ago
We need not suppose that when...

We need not suppose that when po+B40wer resides in an exclusive class, that class will knowingly and deliberately sacrifice the other classes to themselves: it suffices that, in the absence of its natural defenders, the interest of the excluded is always in danger of being overlooked: and, when looked at, is seen with very different eyes from those of the persons whom it directly concerns.

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Ch. III: The Ideally Best Polity
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 2 weeks ago
The horseman serves the horse, The...

The horseman serves the horse, The neatherd serves the neat, The merchant serves the purse, The eater serves his meat; 'Tis the day of the chattel, Web to weave, and corn to grind; Things are in the saddle, And ride mankind.

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Ode: Inscribed to W. H. Channing, st. 7
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
1 month 3 weeks ago
I live from day to day,...

I live from day to day, and content myself with having enough to meet my present and ordinary needs; for the extraordinary, all the provision in the world could not suffice.

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Ch. 14
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 2 weeks ago
I construct my memories with my...

I construct my memories with my present. I am lost, abandoned in the present. I try in vain to rejoin the past: I cannot escape.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
1 month 3 weeks ago
Separate an individual from society, and...

Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all cases, that where the former do not exist the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man's own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.

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Means by Which the Fund Is to Be Created
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
2 weeks 3 days ago
A character is a completely fashioned...

A character is a completely fashioned will.

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(vollkommen gebildeter Wille).
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 2 weeks ago
I call upon you, young men,...

I call upon you, young men, to obey your heart, and be the nobility of this land. In every age of the world, there has been a leading nation, one of a more generous sentiment, whose eminent citizens were willing to stand for the interests of general justice and humanity, at the risk of being called, by the men of the moment, chimerical and fantastic. Which should be that nation but these States? Which should lead that movement, if not New England? Who should lead the leaders, but the Young American?

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Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
1 month 2 weeks ago
First of all, no one knows...

First of all, no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status; nor does he know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence and strength, and the like. Nor, again, does anyone know his conception of the good, the particulars of his rational plan of life, or even the special features of psychology such as his aversion to risk or liability to optimism or pessimism. More than this, I assume that the parties do not know the particular circumstances of their own society. That is, they do not know its particular economic or political situation, or the level of civilization and culture it has been able to achieve. The persons in the original position have no information as to which generation they belong.

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p. 117
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
1 week 3 days ago
When we see a great man...

When we see a great man desiring power instead of his real goal we soon recognize that he is sick, or more precisely that his attitude to his work is sick. He overreaches himself, the work denies itself to him, the incarnation of the spirit no longer takes place, and to avoid the threat of senselessness he snatches after empty power. This sickness casts the genius on to the same level as those hysterical figures who, being by nature without power, slave for power, in order that they may enjoy the illusion that they are inwardly powerful, and who in this striving for power cannot let a pause intervene, since a pause would bring with it the possibility of self-reflection and self-reflection would bring collapse.

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p. 180
Philosophical Maxims
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