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Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
1 week 5 days ago
Law is the continuous manifestation of...

Law is the continuous manifestation of God's presence - not reason for believing him absent. Great confusion arises from our using the same word law in two totally distinct senses ... as the cause and the effect. It is said that to "explain away" everything by law is to enable us to do without God. But law is no explanation of anything; law is simply a generalization, a category of facts. Law is neither a cause, nor a reason, nor a power, nor a coercive force. It is nothing but a general formula, a statistical table. Law brings us continually back to God instead of carrying us away from him.

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Suggestions for Thought : Selections and Commentaries (1994), edited by Michael D. Calabria and Janet A. MacRae, p. 41
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 1 day ago
Truth, Goodness, Beauty - those celestial...

Truth, Goodness, Beauty - those celestial thrins,Continually are born; e'en now the Universe,With thousand throats, and eke with greener smiles,Its joy confesses at their recent birth.

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June 14, 1838
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
2 months 3 days ago
Morality is not properly the doctrine...

Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1 month ago
A gentleman, even if he loses...

A gentleman, even if he loses everything he owns, must show no emotion. Money must be so far beneath a gentleman that it is hardly worth troubling about.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
2 months 4 days ago
The man who barely abstains from...

The man who barely abstains from violating either the person, or the estate, or the reputation of his neighbours, has surely very little positive merit. He fulfils, however, all the rules of what is peculiarly called justice, and does every thing which his equals can with propriety force him to do, or which they can punish him for not doing. We may often fulfil all the rules of justice by sitting still and doing nothing.

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Section II, Chap. I.
Philosophical Maxims
Averroes
Averroes
2 months 2 weeks ago
Knowledge is the conformity of the...

Knowledge is the conformity of the object and the intellect.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
2 months 4 days ago
The heroes in paganism correspond exactly...

The heroes in paganism correspond exactly to the saints in popery, and holy dervises in MAHOMETANISM. The place of, HERCULES, THESEUS, HECTOR, ROMULUS, is now supplied by DOMINIC, FRANCIS, ANTHONY, and BENEDICT. Instead of the destruction of monsters, the subduing of tyrants, the defence of our native country; whippings and fastings, cowardice and humility, abject submission and slavish obedience, are become the means of obtaining celestial honours among mankind.

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Part X - With regard to courage or abasement
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 5 days ago
The premonition of madness is complicated...

The premonition of madness is complicated by the fear of lucidity in madness, the fear of the moments of return and reunion, when the intuition of disaster is so painful that it almost provokes a greater madness. One would welcome chaos if one were not afraid of lights in it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
1 month 1 week ago
Everything that makes diversity of kinds,...

Everything that makes diversity of kinds, of species, differences, properties... everything that consists in generation, decay, alteration and change is not an entity, but a condition and circumstance of entity and being, which is one, infinite, immobile, subject, matter, life, death, truth, lies, good and evil.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 4 weeks ago
Dostoevsky once wrote: "If God did...

Dostoevsky once wrote: "If God did not exist, everything would be permitted"; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself. He discovers forthwith, that he is without excuse.

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pp. 33-34
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
2 months 2 weeks ago
The Superior Man has nothing...

The Superior Man has nothing to compete for. But if he must compete, he does it in an archery match, wherein he ascends to his position, bowing in deference. Descending, he drinks (or has [the winner] drink) the ritual cup. Note: Bowing is a courtesy for the host who invites him as well drinking a cup.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 5 days ago
Everything exists; nothing exists. Either formula...

Everything exists; nothing exists. Either formula affords a like serenity. The man of anxiety, to his misfortune, remains between them, trembling and perplexed, forever at the mercy of a nuance, incapable of gaining a foothold in the security of being or in the absence of being.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
1 month 4 weeks ago
Savage - There is only one...

Savage - There is only one way fit for a man - Heroism, or Master-Morality, or Violence. All the other people in between are ploughing the sand.

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Pilgrim's Regress 100
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 1 day ago
I take it for granted, when...

I take it for granted, when I am invited to lecture anywhere, - for I have had a little experience in that business, - that there is a desire to hear what I think on some subject, though I may be the greatest fool in the country, - and not that I should say pleasant things merely, or such as the audience will assent to; and I resolve, accordingly, that I will give them a strong dose of myself. They have sent for me, and engaged to pay for me, and I am determined that they shall have me, though I bore them beyond all precedent.

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p. 484
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Schlegel
Friedrich Schlegel
1 month ago
Poetry can be criticized only through...

Poetry can be criticized only through poetry. A critique which itself is not a work of art, either in content as representation of the necessary impression in the process of creation, or through its beautiful form and in its liberal tone in the spirit of the old Roman satire, has no right of citizenship in the realm of art.

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"Selected Aphorisms from the Lyceum (1797)", Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms, Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, trans. (Pennsylvania University Press:1968) #117
Philosophical Maxims
Emmanuel Levinas
Emmanuel Levinas
3 weeks 5 days ago
To ignore the true God is...

To ignore the true God is in fact only half an evil; atheism is worth more than the piety bestowed on mythical gods.

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A Religion for Adults
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 weeks 2 days ago
I find that...
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Epictetus
Epictetus
2 months 2 weeks ago
When you close your doors, and...

When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?

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Book I, ch. 14, 13, 14.
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 week 6 days ago
My theory was that we are...

My theory was that we are all fundamentally 'multiple personalities', beginning with the baby and the child, and slowly developing into more complex selves. If, for some reason, we abruptly cease to develop -- through some trauma that undermines self-confidence -- all those potential personalities are stunted and repressed. And some accident or violent shock may give one of them the opportunity to 'take over'. This suggests, of course, that in some mysterious sense, our 'future' personalities are already there, in embryo, so to speak, and that they also develop as we mature. We move from personality to personality, as we might climb a ladder. The Beethovens and Leonardos got further up the ladder than most of us; yet even they failed to reach the top, as we can see if we study their lives.

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pp. 228- 229
Philosophical Maxims
Judith Butler
Judith Butler
2 days ago
The ethical and political practice of...

The ethical and political practice of nonviolence can rely neither exclusively on the dyadic encounter, nor on the bolstering of a prohibition; it requires a political opposition to the biopolitical forms of racism and war logics that rely on phantasmagoric inversions that occlude the binding and interdependent character of the social bond. It requires, as well, an account of why, and under what conditions, the frameworks for understanding violence and nonviolence, or violence and self-defense, seem to invert into one another, causing confusion about how best to pin down those terms.

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p. 62
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
3 weeks ago
Every living creature is happy when...

Every living creature is happy when he fulfills his destiny, that is, when he realizes himself, when he is being that which in truth he is. For this reason, Schlegel, inverting the relationship between pleasure and destiny, said, "We have a genius for what we like." Genius, man's superlative gift for doing something, always carries a look of supreme pleasure.

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pp. 16-17
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
2 months 2 weeks ago
Charity is no substitute for justice...

Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.

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As quoted in Majority of One (1957) by Sydney J. Harris, p. 283
Philosophical Maxims
Ptahhotep
Ptahhotep
1 month 2 weeks ago
Be cheerful while you are alive....

Be cheerful while you are alive.

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Maxim no. 34.
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
1 month 4 weeks ago
If you read history you will...

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next... It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth "thrown in": aim at earth and you will get neither.

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Book III, Chapter 10, "Hope"
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
3 weeks 1 day ago
The spontaneous reproduction of superimposed needs...

The spontaneous reproduction of superimposed needs by the individual does not establish autonomy; it only testifies to the efficacy of the control.

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p. 8
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
1 month 4 weeks ago
It is often asserted that discussion...

It is often asserted that discussion is only possible between people who have a common language and accept common basic assumptions. I think that this is a mistake. All that is needed is a readiness to learn from one's partner in the discussion, which includes a genuine wish to understand what he intends to say. If this readiness is there, the discussion will be the more fruitful the more the partner's backgrounds differ.

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p. 352
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
1 month 3 weeks ago
It is ugly to be punishable,...

It is ugly to be punishable, but there is no glory in punishing. Hence the double system of protection that justice has set up between itself and the punishment it imposes.

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pp. 10
Philosophical Maxims
Zeno of Citium
Zeno of Citium
1 month 1 week ago
That which exercises reason is more...

That which exercises reason is more excellent than that which does not exercise reason; there is nothing more excellent than the universe, therefore the universe exercises reason.

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As quoted in De Natura Deorum by Cicero, ii. 8.; iii. 9.
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
2 weeks 3 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
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months ago
Every man is a divinity in...

Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool. It seems as if heaven had sent its insane angels into our world as to an asylum. And here they will break out into their native music, and utter at intervals the words they have heard in heaven; then the mad fit returns, and they mope and wallow like dogs!

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p. 165
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 weeks 2 days ago
One could count on one's fingers...

One could count on one's fingers the number of scientists in the entire world who have a general idea of the history and development of their own particular science; there is not one who is really competent as regards sciences other than his own. As science forms an indivisible whole, one may say that there are no longer, strictly speaking, any scientists, but only drudges doing scientific work. . . .

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p. 13 (as quoted in On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God (1968), p.1)
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months ago
But simultaneously with the development of...

But simultaneously with the development of capitalist production the credit system also develops. The money-capital which the capitalist cannot as yet employ in his own business is employed by others, who pay him interest for its use.

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Vol. II, Ch. XVII, p. 325.
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
1 week 6 days ago
"What I believe" is a process...

"What I believe" is a process rather than a finality. Finalities are for gods and governments, not for the human intellect. While it may be true that Herbert Spencer's formulation of liberty is the most important on the subject, as a political basis of society, yet life is something more than formulas. In the battle for freedom, as Ibsen has so well pointed out, it is the struggle for, not so much the attainment of, liberty, that develops all that is strongest, sturdiest and finest in human character.

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Philosophical Maxims
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
1 month 2 weeks ago
Asked where he came from, he...

Asked where he came from, he said, "I am a citizen of the world."

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Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 63
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 1 day ago
The finest manners in the world...

The finest manners in the world are awkwardness and fatuity, when contrasted with a finer intelligence.

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p. 493
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 1 day ago
Above all do not forget your...

Above all do not forget your duty to love yourself; do not permit the fact that you have been set apart from life in a way, been prevented from participating actively in it, and that you are superflous in the obtruse eyes of a busy world, above all, do not permit this to deprive you of your idea of yourself, as if your life, if lived in inwardness, did not have just as much meaning and worth as that of any human being in the eyes of all-wise Governance, and considerably more than the busy, busiest haste of busy-ness - busy with wasting life and losing itself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
2 months 3 weeks ago
We get into the habit of...

We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
2 months 2 days ago
Though the managing ourselves well in...

Though the managing ourselves well in this part of our behavior has the name good-breeding, as if a peculiar effect of education; yet... young children should not be much perplexed about it... Teach them humility, and to be good-natur'd, if you can, and this sort of manners will not be wanting; civility being in truth nothing but a care not to shew any slighting or contempt of any one in conversation.

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Sec. 145
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 1 day ago
Since Adam and Eve ate the...

Since Adam and Eve ate the apple, man has never refrained from any folly of which he was capable. The End.

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Full text of Russell's book History of the World in Epitome , written in 1959
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months ago
A spider conducts operations that resemble...

A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst of architects from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality.

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Vol. I, Ch. 7, pg. 198.
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 3 weeks ago
Resting on your laurels is as...

Resting on your laurels is as dangerous as resting when you are walking in the snow. You doze off and die in your sleep.

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p. 35e
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
2 weeks 3 days ago
Religion is better described than defined...

Religion is better described than defined and better felt than described. But if there is any one definition that latterly has obtained acceptance, it is that of Schleiermacher, to the effect that religion consists in the simple feeling of a relationship of dependence upon something above us and a desire to establish relations with this mysterious power.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 1 day ago
Now just as the historical gives...

Now just as the historical gives occasion for the contemporary to become a disciple, but only it must be noted through receiving the condition from the God himself, since otherwise we speak Socratically, so the testimony of contemporaries gives occasion for each successor to become a disciple, but only it must be noted through receiving the condition from the God himself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 weeks 1 day ago
All men cannot receive this saying,...

All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.

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19:11-12 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 1 day 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
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 months 1 day ago
The charlatan takes very different shapes...

The charlatan takes very different shapes according to circumstances; but at bottom he is a man who cares nothing about knowledge for its own sake, and only strives to gain the semblance of it that he may use it for his own personal ends, which are always selfish and material.

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"Similes, Parables and Fables" Parerga and Paralipomena, vol. 2, § 394
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
2 months 3 weeks ago
A punishment that penalizes without forestalling...

A punishment that penalizes without forestalling is indeed called revenge.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
2 months 2 days ago
Children (nay, and men too) do...

Children (nay, and men too) do most by example.

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Sec. 67
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
2 months 1 week ago
It is not the pleasure of...

It is not the pleasure of curiosity, nor the quiet of resolution, nor the raising of the spirit, nor victory of wit, nor faculty of speech that are the true ends of knowledge, but it is a restitution and reinvesting, in great part, of man to the sovereignty and power, for whensoever he shall be able to call the creatures by their true names, he shall again command them.

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Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature (ca. 1603), in Works, Vol. I, p. 83; The Works of Francis Bacon (1819), Vol. 2, p. 133
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
2 months 2 weeks ago
Some things are in our control...

Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.

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Philosophical Maxims
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