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Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
Who does not believe in Fate...

Who does not believe in Fate proves that he has not lived.

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Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
3 months 2 weeks ago
The fear of being alone, or...

The fear of being alone, or of being unloved, had caused women of all races to passively accept sexism and sexist oppression.

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Philosophical Maxims
Antonio Negri
Antonio Negri
1 month 3 weeks ago
Material production - the production, for...

Material production - the production, for example, or cars, televisions, clothing, and food - creates the means of social life. ... Immaterial production, by contrast, including the production of ideas, knowledges, communication, cooperation, and affective relations, tends to create not the means of social life but social life itself. (146)

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146
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
2 months 4 weeks ago
No tears are shed, when an...

No tears are shed, when an enemy dies.

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Maxim 376
Philosophical Maxims
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
9 months 6 days ago
Human rights

It is also crucial to bear in mind the interconnection between the Decalogue... and its modern obverse, the celebrated 'human Rights'. As the experience of our post-political liberal-permissive society amply demonstrates, human Rights are ultimately, at their core, simply Rights to violate the Ten Commandments. 'The right to privacy' — the right to adultery, in secret, where no one sees me or has the right to probe my life. 'The right to pursue happiness and to possess private property' -- the right to steal (to exploit others). 'Freedom of the press and of the expression of opinion' -- the right to lie. 'The right of free citizens to possess weapons' -- the right to kill. And, ultimately, 'freedom of religious belief' — the right to worship false gods.

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Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
5 months 2 weeks ago
There are only the wise...

There are only the wise of the highest class, and the stupid of the lowest class, who cannot be changed.

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Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
4 months 3 weeks ago
We do not have to make...

We do not have to make self- sacrifice a necessary element of altruism. We can regard people as altruists because of the kind of interests they have rather than because they are sacrificing their interests.

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Chapter 9: Altruism and Happiness (p. 103)
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
4 months ago
The Teutons believed that the only...

The Teutons believed that the only possible way to get rid of barbarism was to become Romans. The immigrants to what was formerly Roman soil became as Roman as they possibly could. But in their imagination the term "barbarous" soon acquired the secondary meaning of " common, plebeian, and loutish," and in this way "Roman," on the contrary, became synonymous with " distinguished."

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Consequences of the Difference p. 81
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
2 months 2 weeks ago
The doctrine that all men are,...

The doctrine that all men are, in any sense, or have been, at any time, free and equal, is an utterly baseless fiction.

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On The Natural Inequality of Men
Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
3 months 2 weeks ago
Today's fashion magazines may carry an...

Today's fashion magazines may carry an article about the dangers of anorexia while bombarding its readers with images of emaciated young bodies representing the height of beauty and desirability.

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As quoted in Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics (2014), p.34
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
1 month 1 week ago
Very little of the great cruelty...

Very little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct. Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or inherited habit. The roots of cruelty, therefore, are not so much strong as widespread. But the time must come when inhumanity protected by custom and thoughtlessness will succumb before humanity championed by thought. Let us work that this time may come.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
6 months 1 day ago
Therefore only an utterly senseless person...

Therefore only an utterly senseless person can fail to know that our characters are the result of our conduct.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
2 months 2 weeks ago
Wherever literature consoles sorrow, or assuages...

Wherever literature consoles sorrow, or assuages pain,-wherever it brings gladness to eyes which fail with wakefulness and tears, and ache for the dark house and the long sleep,-there is exhibited, in its noblest form, the immortal influence of Athens.

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p. 179
Philosophical Maxims
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
2 months 1 week ago
I've always written at the top...

I've always written at the top of my lungs and from some secret motives within. I have followed the advice of my good friend Federico Fellini who, when asked about his work, said, "Don't tell me what I'm doing, I don't want to know."

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Ray Bradbury, "Author's Introduction" to 2003 Folio Society edition of Fahrenheit 452
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
5 months 3 weeks ago
He kept the middle way, that's...

He kept the middle way, that's all: he was the type of man for whom one has an affection of the mild but steady order - which is the kind that wears best.

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Philosophical Maxims
Mencius
Mencius
1 month 3 weeks ago
Most precious are the people;...

Most precious are the people; next come the spirits of land and grain; and last, the kings.

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7B:14.
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Owen
Robert Owen
2 months 3 weeks ago
To preserve permanent good health, the...

To preserve permanent good health, the state of mind must be taken into consideration.

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3rd Part
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
5 months 4 weeks ago
I am an atheist, out and...

I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.

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Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
4 months 4 weeks ago
The only man for whom Hitler...

The only man for whom Hitler had "unqualified respect" was "Stalin the genius," and while in the case of Stalin and the Russian regime we do not... have the rich documentary material that is available for Germany, we nevertheless know since Khrushchev's speech before the Twentieth Party Congress that Stalin trusted only one man and that was Hitler.

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Part 3, Ch. 10
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
4 months 5 days ago
Laws are always unstable unless they...

Laws are always unstable unless they are founded on the manners of a nation; and manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people.

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Chapter XVI.
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
1 month 3 weeks ago
Everyone is sure….

Everyone is sure of this [that errors are normally distributed], Mr. Lippman told me one day, since the experimentalists believe that it is a mathematical theorem, and the mathematicians that it is an experimentally determined fact.

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Calcul des probabilités (2nd ed., 1912), p. 171
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
4 months 3 weeks ago
I am a utilitarian. I am...

I am a utilitarian. I am also a vegetarian. I am a vegetarian because I am a utilitarian.

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Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 9(4): 325 (1980).
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
3 months 3 weeks ago
So that every Crime is a...

So that every Crime is a sinne; but not every sinne a Crime.

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The Second Part, Chapter 27, p. 151
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 2 weeks ago
No man has ever been so...

No man has ever been so far advanced by Fortune that she did not threaten him as greatly as she had previously indulged him.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 1 day ago
A world without delight and without...

A world without delight and without affection is a world destitute of value.

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The Scientific Outlook, 1931
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month ago
Your reason is now mature enough...

Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object religion. In the first place divest yourself of all bias in favour of novelty & singularity of opinion. Indulge them in any other subject rather than that of religion. It is too important, & the consequences of error may be too serious. On the other hand shake off all the fears & servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

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Scan of the original page at The Library of Congress.
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks ago
A fair exterior...
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Main Content / General
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
4 months 6 days ago
To ruminate upon evils, to make...

To ruminate upon evils, to make critical notes upon injuries, and be too acute in their apprehensions, is to add unto our own tortures, to feather the arrows of our enemies, to lash ourselves with the scorpions of our foes, and to resolve to sleep no more.

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Part III, Section XII
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 4 weeks ago
Now, to-day, this moment, is our...

Now, to-day, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last for ever. We must take it or leave it.

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Book II, Chapter 5, "The Practical Conclusion"
Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
1 month ago
The rule, acknowledged or not, seems...

The rule, acknowledged or not, seems to be that if we have great power we must use it. We would use a steam shovel to pick up a dime. We have experts who can prove there is no other way to do it.

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The Loss of the Future
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
3 months 3 weeks ago
Hegel's theological discussion repeatedly asks what...

Hegel's theological discussion repeatedly asks what the true relation is between the individual man and a state that no longer satisfies his capacities but exists rather as an 'estranged' institution from which the active political interest of the citizens has disappeared. Hegel defined this state with almost the same categories as those of eighteenth century liberalism: the state rests on the consent of the individuals, it circumscribes their rights and duties and protects its members from those internal and external dangers that might threaten the perpetuation of the whole.

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P. 32
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 3 weeks ago
To this man life is already...

To this man life is already as earnest and awful, and beautiful and terrible, as death.

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Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
5 months 2 weeks ago
So it is more…

So it is more useful to watch a man in times of peril, and in adversity to discern what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off, reality remains.

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Book III, lines 55-58 (reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations)
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
4 months 3 weeks ago
The disappearance of public executions marks...

The disappearance of public executions marks therefore the decline of the spectacle; but it also marks a slackening of the hold on the body.

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Chapter One, The Spectacle of the Scaffold
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
5 months 3 weeks ago
There is merely bad luck in...

There is merely bad luck in not being loved; there is misfortune in not loving. All of us, today, are dying of this misfortune. For violence and hatred dry up the heart itself; the long fight for justice exhausts the love that nevertheless gave birth to it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
As far as I am concerned,...

As far as I am concerned, I resign from humanity. I no longer want to be, nor can still be, a man. What should I do? Work for a social and political system, make a girl miserable? Hunt for weaknesses in philosophical systems, fight for moral and aesthetic ideals? It's all too little. I renounce my humanity even though I may find myself alone. But am I not already alone in this world from which I no longer expect anything?

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months ago
The measure of a master is...

The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men round to his opinion twenty years later.

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Culture
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
3 months 1 week ago
When a book and a head...

When a book and a head collide and a hollow sound is heard, must it always have come from the book?

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D 66
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 1 day ago
I could show, that the same...

I could show, that the same faction has, in one reign, promoted popular seditions, and, in the next, been a patron of tyranny; I could show, that they have all of them betrayed the public safety at all times, and have very frequently with equal perfidy made a market of their own cause, and their own associates. I could show how vehemently they have contended for names, and how silently they have passed over things of the last importance.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leszek Kołakowski
Leszek Kołakowski
1 month 3 weeks ago
Communism was not the crazy fantasy...

Communism was not the crazy fantasy of a few fanatics, nor the result of human stupidity and baseness; it was a real, very real part of the history of the twentieth century, and we cannot understand this history of ours without understanding communism. We cannot get rid of this specter by saying it was just "human stupidity," or "human corruptibility." The specter is stronger than the spells we cast on it. It might come back to life.

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Introduction to My Correct Views on Everything
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
4 months 5 days ago
I discuss with myself...

I discuss with myself questions of politics, love, taste, or philosophy. I let my mind rove wantonly, give it free rein to follow any idea, wise or mad that may present itself. ... My ideas are my harlots.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
At different degrees, everything is pathology,...

At different degrees, everything is pathology, except for indifference.

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Philosophical Maxims
Judith Butler
Judith Butler
3 months 2 days ago
The state monopolizes violence by calling...

The state monopolizes violence by calling its critics "violent". Hence, we should be wary about those who claim that violence is necessary to curb or check violence; those who praise the forces of law, including the police and the prisons, as the final arbiters. To oppose violence is to understand that violence does not always take the form of the blow.

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p. 63
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
3 months 3 weeks ago
History has proved us, and all...

History has proved us, and all who thought like us, wrong. It has made it clear that the state of economic development on the Continent at that time was not, by a long way, ripe for the removal of capitalist production.

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Introduction (1895) to Marx's The Class Struggles in France
Philosophical Maxims
Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard
3 months 3 weeks ago
To live life well is to...

To live life well is to express life poorly; if one expresses life too well, one is living it no longer.

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A Retrospective Glance at the Lifework of a Master of Books
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
What surrounds us we endure better...

What surrounds us we endure better for giving it a name - and moving on.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
3 months 3 weeks ago
The general fellowship of our human...

The general fellowship of our human situation has been rendered even more dubious than before, inasmuch as, though the old ties of caste have been loosened, a new restriction of the individual to some prescribed status in society is manifest. Less than ever, perhaps, is it possible for a man to transcend the limitations imposed by his social origins.

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
4 months 1 day ago
To be in love is not...

To be in love is not the same as loving. You can be in love with a woman and still hate her.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emperor Julian
Emperor Julian
1 month 1 week ago
I think he who knows himself...

I think he who knows himself will know accurately, not the opinion of others about him, but what he is in reality... he ought to discover within himself what is right for him to do and not learn it from without...

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Oration to the Cynic Heracleios
Philosophical Maxims
Niels Bohr
Niels Bohr
1 month 1 week ago
The great extension of our experience...

The great extension of our experience in recent years has brought light to the insufficiency of our simple mechanical conceptions and, as a consequence, has shaken the foundation on which the customary interpretation of observation was based.

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Niels Bohr, "Atomic Physics and the Description of Nature"
Philosophical Maxims
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