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John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 3 days ago
It is not because men's desires...

It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.

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On Liberty, 1859
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 1 day ago
I disbelieve in specialization and... experts....

I disbelieve in specialization and... experts. ...[P]aying too much respect to the specialist ...[is] destroying the commonwealth of learning, the rationalist tradition, and science ...

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Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
1 month 3 weeks ago
He wins every hand….

He wins every hand who mingles profit with pleasure, by delighting and instructing the reader at the same time.

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Line 343
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
1 month 3 weeks ago
The idealist tradition, including contemporary phenomenology,...

The idealist tradition, including contemporary phenomenology, has of course admitted subjective points of view as basic and has gone to the opposite length of denying an irreducible objective reality. ... I find the idealist solution unacceptable ...: objective reality cannot be analyzed or shut out of existence any more than subjective reality can. Even if not everything is something from no point of view, some things are.The deep source of both idealism and its objectifying opposite is the same: a conviction that a single world cannot contain both irreducible points of view and irreducible objective reality - that one of them must be what there really is and the other somehow reducible or dependent on it. This is a very powerful idea. To deny it is in a sense to deny that there is a single world.

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"Subjective and Objective" (1979), p. 212.
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 weeks 5 days ago
That is why St. John of...

That is why St. John of the Cross calls faith a night. With those who have received a Christian education, the lower parts of the soul become attached to these mysteries when they have no right at all to do so. That is why such people need a purification of which St. John of the Cross describes the stages. Atheism and incredulity constitute an equivalent of such a purification.

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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. 418
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 weeks 1 day ago
If there was a God of...

If there was a God of sorrow, he would grow black heavy wings, to soar not for the skies, but for inferno.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
2 months 1 week ago
The greatest improvement in the productive...

The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greatest part of skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is any where directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.

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Chapter I, p. 7
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks ago
For truth itself...
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Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 4 days ago
In science men have discovered an...

In science men have discovered an activity of the very highest value in which they are no longer, as in art, dependent for progress upon the appearance of continually greater genius, for in science the successors stand upon the shoulders of their predecessors; where one man of supreme genius has invented a method, a thousand lesser men can apply it.

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Ch. 2: The Place of Science in a Liberal Education
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
3 weeks 4 days ago
A whole dimension of human activity...

A whole dimension of human activity and passivity has been de-eroticized. The environment from which the individual could obtain pleasure-which he could cathect as gratifying almost as an extended zone of the body-has been rigidly reduced. Consequently, the "universe" of libidinous cathexis is likewise reduced. The effect is a localization and contraction of libido, the reduction of erotic to sexual experience and satisfaction.

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p. 73
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
2 weeks 1 day ago
I have lived and slept in...

I have lived and slept in the same bed with English countesses and Prussian farm women... no woman has excited passions among women more than I have.

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As quoted in Parted Lips : Lesbian Love Quotes Through the Ages (2002) by Simone Rich
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
2 months 4 days ago
The possession of self-conscious reason, which...

The possession of self-conscious reason, which belongs to us of the present world, did not arise suddenly, nor did it grow only from the soil of the present. This possession must be regarded as previously present, as an inheritance, and as the result of labour - the labour of all past generations of men.

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Introduction p. 2 Ibid
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 4 weeks ago
My difficulty is only an -...

My difficulty is only an - enormous - difficulty of expression.

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Journal entry (8 March 1915) p. 40
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
1 month 3 days ago
The poverty of the incapable, the...

The poverty of the incapable, the distresses that come upon the imprudent, the starvation of the idle, and those shoulderings aside of the weak by the strong, which leave so many "in shallows and in miseries," are the decrees of a large, far-seeing benevolence.

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Pt. III, Ch. 25 : Poor-Laws
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
Just now
It is only the ignorant who...

It is only the ignorant who despise education.

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Maxim 571
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
3 weeks 4 days ago
Sudden Glory, is the passion which...

Sudden Glory, is the passion which maketh those Grimaces called LAUGHTER.

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The First Part, Chapter 6, p. 27 (italics and spelling as per text)
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
2 months 5 days ago
Indeed, history is nothing more…

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

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L'Ingénu, ch.10 (1767) Quoted in The End, part 13 of A Series of Unfortunate Events
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 1 day ago
Then he tried to recall the...

Then he tried to recall the lessons of Mr. Wisdom. "it is I myself, eternal Spirit, who drives this Me, the slave, along that ledge. I ought not to care whether he falls and breaks his neck or not. It is not he that is real, it is I - I - I.

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Pilgrim's Regress 137
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
2 months 1 week ago
Nothing but the most exemplary morals...

Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune.

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Chapter I, Part III, Article III, p. 874.
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
1 month 3 days ago
We have a priori reasons for...

We have a priori reasons for believing that in every sentence there is some one order of words more effective than any other; and that this order is the one which presents the elements of the proposition in the succession in which they may be most readily put together.

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Pt. I, sec. 3, "The Principle of Economy Applied to Sentences"
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 1 week ago
Let us give Nature a chance;...

Let us give Nature a chance; she knows her business better than we do.

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Ch. 13
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 3 days ago
Take a book, the poorest one...

Take a book, the poorest one written, but read it with the passion that it is the only book you will read-ultimately you will read everything out of it, that is, as much as there was in yourself, and you could never get more out of reading, even if you read the best of books.

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Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
2 weeks 1 day ago
Neurosis can be understood best as...

Neurosis can be understood best as the battle between tendencies within an individual; deep character analysis leads, if successful, to the progressive solution.

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p. 264
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 1 week ago
Kings and philosophers…

Kings and philosophers shit, and so do ladies.

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Ch. 42, English translation from Hartle, Ann (2003), Michel de Montaigne: Accidental Philosopher, Cambridge University Press.
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
4 weeks 1 day ago
My soul, my soul, where are...

My soul, my soul, where are you? Do you hear me? I speak, I call you-are you there? I have returned, here I am again. I have shaken the dust of all the lands from my feet, and I have come to you again, I am with you. After long years of long wandering, I have come to you anew. Shall I tell you everything I have seen, experienced, and drunk in? Or do you not want to hear about all the noise of life and the world? But one thing you must know, the one thing I have learned is that one must live this life. This life is the way, the long sought-after way to the unfathomable, which we call "divine". There is no other way. All other ways are false paths.

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Book 2, 12. Nov. 1913
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 weeks 1 day ago
Anxiety - or the fanaticism of...

Anxiety - or the fanaticism of the worst.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 months 4 days ago
Intellect is invisible to the man...

Intellect is invisible to the man who has none.

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Our Relation to Others, § 23
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
1 month 2 days ago
The true Christian knows no Covenant...

The true Christian knows no Covenant or Mediation with God, but only the Old, Eternal, and Unchangeable Relation, that in Him we live, and move, and have our being; and he asks not who has said this, but only what has been said;-even the book wherein this may be written is nothing to him as a proof, but only as a means of culture; he bears the proof in his own breast. This is my view of the matter...

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p. 105
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
2 months 5 days ago
"How then shall they have the...

"How then shall they have the play-games you allow them, if none must be bought for them?" I answer, they should make them themselves, or at least endeavour it, and set themselves about it. ...And if you help them where they are at a stand, it will more endear you to them than any chargeable toys that you shall buy for them.

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Sec. 130
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
2 months 1 week ago
The qualities most useful to ourselves...

The qualities most useful to ourselves are, first of all, superior reason and understanding, by which we are capable of discerning the remote consequences of all our actions, and of foreseeing the advantage or detriment which is likely to result from them: and secondly, self-command, by which we are enabled to abstain from present pleasure or to endure present pain, in order to obtain a greater pleasure or to avoid a greater pain in some future time. In the union of those two qualities consists the virtue of prudence, of all the virtues that which is most useful to the individual.

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Chap. II.
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 4 weeks ago
If God had looked into our...

If God had looked into our minds he would not have been able to see there whom we were speaking of.

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Pt II, p. 217
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 4 days ago
A logical theory may be tested...

A logical theory may be tested by its capacity for dealing with puzzles, and it is a wholesome plan, in thinking about logic, to stock the mind with as many puzzles as possible, since these serve much the same purpose as is served by experiments in physical science.

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"On Denoting", Mind, Vol. 14, No. 56 (October 1905), pp. 479-493; as reprinted in Logic and Knowledge: Essays, 1901-1950, 1956
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 4 days ago
Pure Mathematics is the class of...

Pure Mathematics is the class of all propositions of the form "p implies q," where p and q are propositions containing one or more variables, the same in the two propositions, and neither p nor q contains any constants except logical constants. And logical constants are all notions definable in terms of the following: Implication, the relation of a term to a class of which it is a member, the notion of such that, the notion of relation, and such further notions as may be involved in the general notion of propositions of the above form. In addition to these, mathematics uses a notion which is not a constituent of the propositions which it considers, namely the notion of truth.

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Principles of Mathematics (1903), Ch. I: Definition of Pure Mathematics, p. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
1 month 1 week ago
I am in no way facetious,...

I am in no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize of company, yet in one dream I can compose a whole Comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof.

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Section 11
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 3 days ago
The soldier is applauded who refuses...

The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war; is applauded by those whose own act and authority he disregards and sets at naught; as if the state were penitent to that degree that it hired one to scourge it while it sinned, but not to that degree that it left off sinning for a moment.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 2 days ago
The real nature of the present...

The real nature of the present revealed itself: it was what exists, all that was not present did not exist.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 3 days ago
But, in my state of mind,...

But, in my state of mind, this appearance of superiority to illusion added to the effect which Bentham's doctrines produced on me, by heightening the impression of mental power, and the vista of improvement which he did open was sufficiently large and brilliant to light up my life, as well as to give a definite shape to my aspirations.

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(p. 67)
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
2 weeks 6 days ago
Our life is a hope which...

Our life is a hope which is continually converting itself into memory and memory in its turn begets hope. Give us leave to live! The eternity that is like an eternal present, without memory and without hope, is death. Thus do ideas exist in the God-Idea, but not thus do men live in the living God, in the God-Man.

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 weeks 5 days ago
Respectable scientists like de Broglie himself...

Respectable scientists like de Broglie himself accept wave mechanics because it confers coherence and unity upon the experimental findings of contemporary science, and in spite of the astonishing changes it implies in connection with ideas of causality, time, and space, but it is because of these changes that it wins favor with the public. The great popular success of Einstein was the same thing. The public drinks in and swallows eagerly everything that tends to dispossess the intelligence in favor of some technique; it can hardly wait to abdicate from intelligence and reason and from everything that makes man responsible for his destiny.

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"Wave Mechanics," p. 75
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 4 days ago
My dear reader, read aloud, if...

My dear reader, read aloud, if possible! If you do so, allow me to thank you for it: if you not only do it yourself, if you also influence others to do it, allow me to thank each one of them, and you again and again!

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
2 months 1 week ago
As we divided natural philosophy in...

As we divided natural philosophy in general into the inquiry of causes, and productions of effects: so that part which concerneth the inquiry of causes we do subdivide according to the received and sound division of causes. The one part, which is physic, inquireth and handleth the material and efficient causes; and the other, which is metaphysic, handleth the formal and final causes.

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Book VII, 3
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
3 weeks 4 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
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 2 days ago
The Prodigal Son at least walked...

The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape?

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Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 weeks 3 days ago
What the learned world tends to...

What the learned world tends to offer is one second-hand scrap of information illustrating ideas derived from another second-hand scrap of information. The second-handedness of the learned world is the secret of its mediocrity.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 weeks 1 day ago
It has been a long time...

It has been a long time since philosophers have read men's souls. It is not their task, we are told. Perhaps. But we must not be surprised if they no longer matter much to us.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 days ago
Humanity unceasingly strives forward from a...

Humanity unceasingly strives forward from a lower, more partial and obscure understanding of life to one more general and more lucid. And in this, as in every movement, there are leaders - those who have understood the meaning of life more clearly than others - and of those advanced men there is always one who has in his words and life, manifested this meaning more clearly, accessibly, and strongly than others. This man's expression ... with those superstitions, traditions, and ceremonies which usually form around the memory of such a man, is what is called a religion. Religions are the exponents of the highest comprehension of life ... within a given age in a given society ... a basis for evaluating human sentiments. If feelings bring people nearer to the religion's ideal ... they are good, if these estrange them from it, and oppose it, they are bad.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 months 4 days ago
In our monogamous part of the...

In our monogamous part of the world, to marry means to halve one's rights and double one's duties.

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Vol. 2, Ch. 27, § 370 Variant translation: To marry is to halve your rights and double your duties.
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
3 months 5 days ago
Unpleasant, even dangerous, qualities can be...
Unpleasant, even dangerous, qualities can be found in every nation and every individual: it is cruel to demand that the Jew be an exception. In him, these qualities may even be dangerous and revolting to an unusual degree; and perhaps the young stock-exchange Jew is altogether the most disgusting invention of mankind.
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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 months 2 days ago
There's only one corner of the...

There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 weeks 1 day ago
What I know at sixty, I...

What I know at sixty, I knew as well at twenty. Forty years of a long, a superfluous, labor of verification.

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Philosophical Maxims
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