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Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
3 weeks 3 days ago
Choose not to be harmed-and you...

Choose not to be harmed-and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed-and you haven't been.

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(Hays translation) IV, 7
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
4 months 3 weeks ago
Homosexuality appears as one of the...

Homosexuality appears as one of the forms of sexuality when it was transposed from the practice of sodomy onto a kind of interior androgyny, a hermaphroditism of the soul. The sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now a species.

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Vol I: La volonté de savoir
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 3 weeks ago
The aim of philosophy is to...

The aim of philosophy is to erect a wall at the point where language stops anyway.

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Ch. 9 : Philosophy, p. 187
Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
5 months 5 days ago
One must never…

One must never forget to look at the aim of a matter.

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Act III, scene xi
Philosophical Maxims
William Whewell
William Whewell
3 weeks 6 days ago
In order to acquire any exact...

In order to acquire any exact and solid knowledge, the student must possess with perfect precision the ideas appropriate to that part of knowledge: and this precision is tested by the student's 'perceiving' the axiomatic evidence of the 'axioms' belonging to each 'Fundamental Idea'.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 3 weeks ago
All forms of violence are quests...

All forms of violence are quests for identity. When you live on the frontier, you have no identity. You're a nobody.

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Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
4 months 4 days ago
Divinity reveals herself in all things......

Divinity reveals herself in all things... everything has Divinity latent within itself. For she enfolds and imparts herself even unto the smallest beings, and from the smallest beings, according to their capacity. Without her presence nothing would have being, because she is the essence of the existence of the first unto the last being.

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As translated by Arthur Imerti
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
4 months 4 weeks ago
If God did not exist…

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

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Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
3 months 2 weeks ago
They [the wise spirits of antiquity...

They [the wise spirits of antiquity in the first circle of Dante's Inferno] are condemned, Dante tells us, to no other penalty than to live in desire without hope, a fate appropriate to noble souls with a clear vision of life.

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Obiter Scripta
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
5 months 3 weeks ago
The gods had condemned Sisyphus to...

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
All the concessions we make to...

All the concessions we make to Eros are holes in our desire for the absolute.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 months 2 weeks ago
We have not...
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Main Content / General
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 4 weeks ago
A circuit performed by a capital...

A circuit performed by a capital and meant to be a periodical process, not an individual act, is called its turnover. The duration of this turnover is determined by the sum of its time of production and its time of circulation.

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Volume II, Ch. VII, p. 158.
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
5 months 1 day ago
What is prudence in the conduct...

What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.

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Chapter II, p. 490.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 2 weeks ago
Love is ever the beginning of...

Love is ever the beginning of Knowledge as fire is of light.

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Essays, Death of Goethe.
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
1 month 1 week ago
May the men who hold the...

May the men who hold the destiny of peoples in their hands, studiously avoid anything that might cause the present situation to deteriorate and become even more dangerous. May they take to heart the words of the Apostle Paul: "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men." These words are valid not only for individuals, but for nations as well. May these nations, in their efforts to maintain peace, do their utmost to give the spirit time to grow and to act.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
2 months 2 weeks ago
We hardly know any instance of...

We hardly know any instance of the strength and weakness of human nature so striking, and so grotesque, as the character of this haughty, vigilant, resolute, sagacious blue-stocking, half Mithridates and half Trissotin, bearing up against a world in arms, with an ounce of poison in one pocket and a quire of bad verses in the other.

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'Frederic the Great', The Edinburgh Review (April 1842), quoted in T. B. Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to The Edinburgh Review: A New Edition (1852), p. 802
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
5 months 1 week ago
In this one man, the whole...

In this one man, the whole Church has been assumed by the Word.

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p.434
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
I have all the defects of...

I have all the defects of other people yet everything they do seems to me inconceivable.

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Philosophical Maxims
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
2 months 4 weeks ago
People hate it when they're tickled...

People hate it when they're tickled because laughter is not pleasant, if it goes on too long. I think it's a desperate sort of convulsion in desperate circumstances, which helps a little.

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Interview Public Radio International
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 3 weeks ago
The Present Age, according to my...

The Present Age, according to my view of it, stands in that Epoch which in my former lecture I named the THIRD, and which I characterized as the Epoch of Liberation-directly from the external ruling Authority, indirectly from the power of Reason as Instinct, and generally from Reason in any form; the Age of absolute indifference towards all truth, and of entire and unrestrained licentiousness:-the state of completed sinfulness.

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p. 16
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
4 months 2 days 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
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
1 month 3 weeks ago
Between ourselves and our real natures...

Between ourselves and our real natures we interpose that wax figure of idealizations and selections which we call our character.

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Ch. VI: "Some Necessary Iconoclasm", p. 168.
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
5 months 1 day ago
In every country it always is...

In every country it always is and must be the interest of the great body of the people to buy whatever they want of those who sell it cheapest. The proposition is so very manifest that it seems ridiculous to take any pains to prove it; nor could it ever have been called in question had not the interested sophistry of merchants and manufacturers confounded the common sense of mankind. Their interest is, in this respect, directly opposite to that of the great body of the people.

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Chapter III, Part II, p. 531.
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
5 months 3 weeks ago
Every rebellion implies some kind of...

Every rebellion implies some kind of unity.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Searle
John Searle
3 months ago
There is probably no more abused...

There is probably no more abused a term in the history of philosophy than "representation," and my use of this term differs both from its use in traditional philosophy and from its use in contemporary cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence.... The sense of "representation" in question is meant to be entirely exhausted by the analogy with speech acts: the sense of "represent" in which a belief represents its conditions of satisfaction is the same sense in which a statement represents its conditions of satisfaction. To say that a belief is a representation is simply to say that it has a propositional content and a psychological mode.

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P. 12.
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
3 months 1 week ago
We do not think good metaphors...

We do not think good metaphors are anything very important, but I think that a good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on...

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E 91 Variant translation: A good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
2 months 2 weeks ago
There is surely no contradiction in...

There is surely no contradiction in saying that a certain section of the community may be quite competent to protect the persons and property of the rest, yet quite unfit to direct our opinions, or to superintend our private habits.

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p. 246
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
2 months 1 week ago
History warns us, however, that it...

History warns us, however, that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions; and, as matters now stand, it is hardly rash to anticipate that, in another twenty years, the new generation, educated under the influences of the present day, will be in danger of accepting the main doctrines of the 'Origin of Species' with as little reflection, and it may be with as little justification, as so many of our contemporaries, twenty years ago, rejected them. Against any such a consummation let us all devoutly pray; for the scientific spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.

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The Coming of Age of The Origin of Species (1880); Collected Essays, vol. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
4 months 4 weeks ago
Superstition sets the whole world….

Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them.

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Dictionnaire philosophique (1822), "Superstition"
Philosophical Maxims
Joseph de Maistre
Joseph de Maistre
3 weeks 4 days ago
The most beautiful monuments of Athens...

The most beautiful monuments of Athens belong to the century of Pericles. In Rome, what writers were produced under the Republic? Only Plautus and Terence. Lucretius, Sallust, and Cicero saw the Republic die. Then came the century of Augustus when the nation was all that it could be by way of talents. The arts, in general, need a king; they only flourish under the influence of sceptres. Even in Greece, the only country where they flourished in the milieu of a republic, Lysippos and Apelles worked for Alexander. Aristotle owed to Alexander's generosity the means to compose his history of animals; and, after the death of this monarch, the poets, scholars, and artists went to look for protection and rewards in the courts of his successors.

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p. 179
Philosophical Maxims
Hermann Weyl
Hermann Weyl
1 month 1 week ago
Time is the primitive form of...

Time is the primitive form of the stream of consciousness. ...If we project ourselves outside the stream of consciousness and represent its content as an object, it becomes an event happening in time, the separate stages of which stand to one another in the relations of earlier and later.

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Introduction
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 3 weeks ago
Spirit: Do not be deceived by...

Spirit: Do not be deceived by sophists and half philosophers; things do not appear to thee by means of any representatives. Of the thing that exists, and that can exist, thou art conscious immediately ; thou, thyself, art that of which thou art conscious. By a fundamental law of thy being thou art thus presented to thyself, and thrown out of thyself.

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Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 53
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 4 weeks ago
You will have seen that my...

You will have seen that my brother died suddenly in Marseilles. I inherit from him a title, but not a penny of money, as he was bankrupt. A title is a great nuisance to me, and I am at a loss what to do, but at any rate I do not wish it employed in connection with any of my literary work. There is, so far as I know, only one method of getting rid of it, which is to be attainted of high treason, and this would involve my head being cut off on Tower Hill. This method seems to me perhaps somewhat extreme...

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Letter to W. W. Norton, 11 March, 1931
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
5 months 2 weeks ago
When your father is alive,...

When your father is alive, observe his will. When your father is dead observe his former actions. If, for three years after the death of your father you do not change from the ways of your father, you can be called a 'real son'.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
3 weeks 3 days ago
Not to live as if you...

Not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you. Death overshadows you. While you're alive and able-be good.

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(Hays translation) IV, 17
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
4 weeks ago
You have your brush, you have...

You have your brush, you have your colours, you paint paradise, then, in you go.

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As quoted in Journal of Modern Literature Vol. 2, No. 2, Nikos Kazantzakis
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
4 months 4 weeks ago
I cannot imagine how the clockwork...

I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker.

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As attributed in More Random Walks in Science : An Anthology (1982) by Robert L. Weber, p. 65
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
4 months 2 weeks ago
About Pontus there are some creatures...

About Pontus there are some creatures of such an extempore being that the whole term of their life is confined within the space of a day; for they are brought forth in the morning, are in the prime of their existence at noon, grow old at night, and then die.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 3 weeks ago
If you are tired of the...

If you are tired of the real landscape, look at it in a mirror. By putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it. As long as the story lingers in our mind, the real things are more themselves. This book applies the treatment not only to bread or apple but to good and evil, to our endless perils, our anguish, and our joys. By dipping them in myth we see them more clearly.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
5 months 5 days ago
God the Almighty has made our...

God the Almighty has made our rulers mad; they actually think they can do-and order their subjects to do-whatever they please. And the subjects make the mistake of believing that they, in turn, are bound to obey their rulers in everything.

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p. 83
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
5 months 1 day ago
People of the same trade seldom...

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty or justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.

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Chapter X, Part II, p. 152.
Philosophical Maxims
Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard
3 months 2 weeks ago
Poetry is one of the destinies...

Poetry is one of the destinies of speech.... One would say that the poetic image, in its newness, opens a future to language.

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Introduction, sect. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 months 1 week ago
Motherhood in the true sense should...

Motherhood in the true sense should embrace all children. Because so few realize this truth, child life is so empty of warmth, of love, of color, and beauty. A home-what is it to-day but a cage from which most of its inhabitants wish to escape? No, I should never have found happiness in such a place. My ideals, the struggle for them, and whatever hardships and suffering they have brought, far from wasting my life, have enriched it a thousandfold. To me it has been a grand adventure which I should not have missed for all the wealth in the world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
5 months 1 week ago
No thing great is created suddenly,...

No thing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

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Book I, ch. 15, 7.
Philosophical Maxims
René Descartes
René Descartes
5 months 5 days ago
I think, therefore I am.

I think, therefore I am.

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Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
3 months 3 weeks ago
Ministers and favorites are a sort...

Ministers and favorites are a sort of people who have a state prisoner in their custody, the whole management of whose understanding and actions they can easily engross.

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Book V, Ch. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
3 months 3 weeks ago
Reason alone does not suffice....

Reason alone does not suffice.

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p 98
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 2 weeks ago
They understood in their heart that...

They understood in their heart that it was indispensable to be brave; that Odin would have no favor for them, but despise and thrust them out, if they were not brave. Consider too whether there is not something in this! It is an everlasting duty, valid in our day as in that, the duty of being brave. Valor is still value. The first duty for a man is still that of subduing Fear. We must get rid of Fear; we cannot act at all till then.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ian Hacking
Ian Hacking
3 months 5 days ago
Statistics began as the systematic study...

Statistics began as the systematic study of quantitative facts about the state.

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Chapter 12, Political Arithmetic, p. 102.
Philosophical Maxims
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