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Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 2 weeks ago
To get up in the morning,...

To get up in the morning, wash and then wait for some unforeseen variety of dread or depression. I would give the whole universe and all of Shakespeare for a grain of ataraxy.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 2 weeks ago
As for the square at Meknes,...

As for the square at Meknes, where I used to go every day, it's even simpler: I do not see it at all anymore. All that remains is the vague feeling that it was charming, and these five words that are indivisibly bound together: a charming square at Meknes. ... I don't see anything any more: I can search the past in vain, I can only find these scraps of images and I am not sure what they represent, whether they are memories or just fiction.

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Diary entry of Friday 3:00pm (9 February?)
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
2 months 4 weeks ago
Do not wonder…

Do not wonder, if the common people speak more truly than those of high rank; for they speak with more safety.

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Exempla Antithetorum, IX. Laus, Existimatio (Pro.)
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 2 weeks ago
Manhattan. Sometimes from beyond the skyscrapers,...

Manhattan. Sometimes from beyond the skyscrapers, across of thousands of high walls, the cry of a tugboat finds you in your insomnia in the middle of the night, and you remember that this desert of iron and cement is an island.

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Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
1 month 3 days ago
The crisis facing men is not...

The crisis facing men is not the crisis of masculinity, it is the crisis of patriarchal masculinity. Until we make this distinction clear, men will continue to fear that any critique of patriarchy represents a threat.

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The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
1 month 5 days ago
We cannot think any true thought...

We cannot think any true thought unless we want the true. Thinking is itself an aspect of practice.

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p. 45
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
1 month 3 weeks ago
Power acquired by violence…

Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey.

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Article on Political Authority, Vol. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 2 weeks ago
The finest workers in stone are...

The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 weeks 3 days ago
In this book we turn to...

In this book we turn to the study of new patterns of energy arising from man's physical and psychic artifacts and social organizations. The only method for perceiving process and pattern is by inventory of effects obtained by the comparison and contrast of developing situations.

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(p. 8)
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
2 months 1 day ago
A good Soul hath neither too...

A good Soul hath neither too great joy, nor too great sorrow: for it rejoiceth in goodness; and it sorroweth in wickedness. By the means whereof, when it beholdeth all things, and seeth the good and bad so mingled together, it can neither rejoice greatly; nor be grieved with over much sorrow.

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Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
1 month 2 weeks ago
The first character of a general...

The first character of a general idea so resulting is that it is living feeling. A continuum of this feeling, infinitesimal in duration, but still embracing innumerable parts, and also, though infinitesimal, entirely unlimited, is immediately present. And in its absence of boundedness a vague possibility of more than is present is directly felt.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 2 weeks ago
In relation to any act of...

In relation to any act of life, the mind acts as a killjoy.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 2 weeks ago
Ever from one who comes to-morrow...

Ever from one who comes to-morrow Men wait their good and truth to borrow.

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Merlin's Song, II
Philosophical Maxims
Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
1 week 5 days ago
Conservatism is itself a modernism, and...

Conservatism is itself a modernism, and in this lies the secret of its success.

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"Eliot and Conservatism" (p. 194)
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
2 months 3 weeks ago
The commodities of Europe were almost...

The commodities of Europe were almost all new to America, and many of those of America were new to Europe. A new set of exchanges, therefore, began..and which should naturally have proved as advantageous to the new, as it certainly did to the old continent. The savage injustice of the Europeans rendered an event, which ought to have been beneficial to all, ruinous and destructive to several of those unfortunate countries.

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Chapter I, p. 481.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
1 month 1 week ago
The doctrine of Right and Wrong,...

The doctrine of Right and Wrong, is perpetually disputed, both by Pen and the Sword: Whereas the doctrine of Lines, and Figures, is not so; because men care not, in that subject what be truth, as a thing that crosses no mans ambition, profit, or lust. For I doubt not, but if it had been a thing contrary to any mans right of dominion, or to the interest of men that have dominion, That the three Angles of a Triangle, should be equall to two Angles of a Square; that doctrine should have been, if not disputed, yet by the burning of all books of Geometry, suppressed, as far as he whom it concerned was able.

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The First Part, Chapter 11, p. 80-81
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 2 weeks ago
Whatever we may think or affect...

Whatever we may think or affect to think of the present age, we cannot get out of it; we must suffer with its sufferings, and enjoy with its enjoyments; we must share in its lot, and, to be either useful or at ease, we must even partake its character.

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"The Spirit of the Age, I", Examiner (9 January 1831), p. 20 Full text online
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
2 months 2 weeks ago
In the old system, the body...

In the old system, the body of the condemned man became the king's property, on which the sovereign left his mark and brought down the effects of his power. Now he will be rather the property of society, the object of a collective and useful appropriation.

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Chapter Three, The Gentle Way in Punishment
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Schelling
Friedrich Schelling
1 month 2 weeks ago
If the State, modeled after the...

If the State, modeled after the universe, is split into two spheres or classes of beings - wherein the free represent the ideas and the unfree the concrete and sensate things - then the ultimate and uppermost order remains unrealized by both. By using sensate things as tools or organs, the ideas obtain a direct relationship to the apparitions and enter into them as souls. God, however, as identity of the highest order, remains above all reality and eternally has merely an indirect relationship. If then in the higher moral order the State represents a second nature, then the divine can never have anything other than an indirect relationship to it, never can it bear any real relationship to it, and religion, if it seeks to preserve itself in unscathed pure ideality, can therefore never exist - even in the most perfect State - other than esoterically in the form of mystery cults.

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P. 51
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
2 months 3 weeks ago
The first who was king…

The first who was king was a fortunate soldier: Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors.

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Mérope, act I, scene III (1743). Borrowed from Lefranc de Pompignan's "Didon"
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 2 weeks ago
...he always firmly believed that they...

...he always firmly believed that they were purely on the defensive in that rebellion. He considered the Americans as standing at that time, and in that controversy, in the same relation to England, as England did to king James the Second, in 1688.

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p. 396
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 2 weeks ago
The wise through excess of wisdom...

The wise through excess of wisdom is made a fool.

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Experience
Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
2 months 1 week ago
Commit no lustfulness, so that harm...

Commit no lustfulness, so that harm and regret may not reach thee from thine own actions.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 weeks 5 days ago
Honest work is much better than...

Honest work is much better than a mansion.

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p. 82
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
4 weeks 1 day ago
What makes our poetry so contemptible...

What makes our poetry so contemptible nowadays is its paucity of ideas. If you want to be read, invent. Who the Devil wouldn't like to read something new?

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D 62
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 2 weeks ago
France had for some time been...

France had for some time been guilty of a continued series of hostile acts against this country, both external and internal: first, she directed her pursuits to universal empire, under the name of fraternity, in order to overturn the fabric of our laws and government.

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Speech in the House of Commons (12 February 1793)
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 2 weeks ago
There is more of good nature...

There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.

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Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 170
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 2 weeks ago
We all have a weakness for...

We all have a weakness for beauty.

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Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
1 month 5 days ago
Philosophy ... must not bargain away...

Philosophy ... must not bargain away anything of the emphatic concept of truth.

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p. 7
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 2 weeks ago
There are two equal and opposite...

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.

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Preface
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 month 6 days ago
To all this, someone is sure...

To all this, someone is sure to object that life ought to subject itself to reason, to which we will reply that nobody ought to do what he is unable to do, and life cannot subject itself to reason. "Ought, therefore can," some Kantian will retort. To which we shall demur: "Cannot, therefore ought not." And life cannot submit itself to reason, because the end of life is living and not understanding.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
2 months 3 weeks ago
It is natural for us to...

It is natural for us to seek a Standard of Taste; a rule, by which the various sentiments of men may be reconciled; at least, a decision, afforded, confirming one sentiment, and condemning another.

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Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
3 months 1 week ago
Temperance is that discreet regulation of...

Temperance is that discreet regulation of the desires and passions, by which we are enabled to enjoy pleasures without suffering any consequent inconvenience. They who maintain such a constant self-command, as never to be enticed by the prospect of present indulgence, to do that which will be productive of evil, obtain the truest pleasure by declining pleasure.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
2 months 3 weeks ago
Since sounds have no natural connection...

Since sounds have no natural connection with our ideas ... the doubtfulness and uncertainty of their signification ... has its cause more in the ideas they stand for than in any incapacity there is in one sound more than another to signify any idea.

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Book III, Ch. 9, sec. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
1 month 1 week ago
The intellectual is called on the...

The intellectual is called on the carpet. ... Don't you conceal something? You talk a language which is suspect. You don't talk like the rest of us, like the man in the street, but rather like a foreigner who does not belong here. We have to cut you down to size, expose your tricks, purge you.

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p. 192
Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
2 months 3 weeks ago
The perfection of a thing does...

The perfection of a thing does not annul its existence, but, on the contrary, asserts it. Imperfection, on the other hand, does annul it ; therefore we cannot be more certain of the existence of anything, than of the existence of a being absolutely infinite or perfect-that is, of God. For inasmuch as his essence excludes all imperfection, and involves absolute perfection, all cause for doubt concerning his existence is done away, and the utmost certainty on the question is given. This, I think, will be evident to every moderately attentive reader.

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Part I, Prop. XI
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
2 months 3 weeks ago
All... good and useful properties of...

All... good and useful properties of character have a price in exchange for others which have just as much use. Talent has a market price, since the sovereign or estate-owner can use a talented person in all sorts of ways. Temperament has a fancy price,22 since one can converse well with such a person; he is a pleasant companion. But, character has an inner value[,] and it is above all price.

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Kant, Immanuel (1996), page 203
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 2 weeks ago
The secret of happiness is this:...

The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 3 weeks ago
It's a thorny undertaking...

It is a thorny undertaking, and more so than it seems, to follow a movement so wandering as that of our mind, to penetrate the opaque depths of its innermost folds, to pick out and immobilize the innumerable flutterings that agitate it.

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Ch. 6. Of Preparation, tr. E. J. Trechmann, 1927
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
1 month 3 weeks ago
There are things I can't force....

There are things I can't force. I must adjust. There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint.

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As quoted in Cracking the Code of Our Physical Universe : The Key to a Whole New World of Enlightenment and Enrichment (2006) by Matthew M Radmanesh, p. 91
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 2 weeks ago
If I were to give a...

If I were to give a simple formula or recipe for distinguishing between what I consider to be admissible plans for social reform and inadmissible Utopian blueprints, I might say: Work for the elimination of concrete evils rather than for the realization of abstract goods. Do not aim at establishing happiness by political means. Rather aim at the elimination of concrete miseries.

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p. 385
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Owen
Robert Owen
1 week 6 days ago
It is therefore, the interest of...

It is therefore, the interest of all, that every one, from birth, should be well educated, physically and mentally, that society may be improved in its character, - that everyone should be beneficially employed, physically and mentally, that the greatest amount of wealth may be created, and knowledge attained, - that everyone should be placed in the midst of those external circumstances that will produce the greatest number of pleasurable sensations, through the longest life, that man may be made truly intelligent, moral and happy, and be thus prepared to enter upon the coming Millennium.

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A Development of the Principles & Plans on which to establish self-supporting Home Colonies
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 2 weeks ago
It is impossible to pursue this...

It is impossible to pursue this nonsense any further.

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(Bastiat and Carey), p. 813 (last text page, second last line).
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
1 month 1 week ago
The hypostasis of the particular methods...

The hypostasis of the particular methods of procedure employed by natural science ... results in the view that all theoretical differences which rest on historically conditioned antagonisms of interest are to be settles by a "crucial experiment" rather than by struggle and counter-struggle. The harmonious relation of individuals to one another becomes a fact, therefore, that has even more general character than a law of nature.

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p. 148.
Philosophical Maxims
Parmenides
Parmenides
2 months 1 week ago
The only roads of enquiry there...

The only roads of enquiry there are to think of: one, that it is and that it is not possible for it not to be, this is the path of persuasion (for truth is its companion); the other, that it is not and that it must not be - this I say to you is a path wholly unknowable.

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Frag. B 2.2-6, quoted by Proclus, Commentary on the Timaeus I, 345
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
3 months 2 weeks ago
While both are dear, Piety requires...

While both are dear, Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 2 weeks ago
The tyrant dies and his rule...

The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies and his rule begins.

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Philosophical Maxims
Willard van Orman Quine
Willard van Orman Quine
1 month 5 days ago
Modern empiricism has been conditioned in...

Modern empiricism has been conditioned in large part by two dogmas. One is a belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded in meanings independently of matters of fact, and truths which are synthetic, or grounded in fact. The other dogma is reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience. Both dogmas, I shall argue, are ill-founded. One effect of abandoning them is, as we shall see, a blurring of the supposed boundary between speculative metaphysics and natural science. Another effect is a shift toward pragmatism.

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"Two dogmas of Empiricism"
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
4 days ago
The philosophical anthropologist...
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Main Content / General
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
3 months 5 days ago
Incomprehensible and immutable is the love...

Incomprehensible and immutable is the love wherewith God loves. He did not begin to love us only on the day we were reconciled to Him by the blood of His Son; He loved us before the world was made, that we too might become His sons together with His Only-begotten Son, long before we had any existence.

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p.435
Philosophical Maxims
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