Skip to main content

Main navigation

☰ ˟
  • Home
  • Articulation
  • Contact
  • Shop
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
2 weeks 1 day ago
I feel that I have within...

I feel that I have within me a medieval soul, and I believe that the soul of my country is medieval, that it has perforce passed through the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Revolution - learning from them, yes, but without allowing them to touch the soul, preserving the spiritual inheritance which has come down from what are called the Dark Ages. And Quixotism is simply the most desperate phase of the struggle between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, which was the offering of the Middle Ages.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
1 day ago
Photography and cinema contributed in large...

Photography and cinema contributed in large part to the secularization of history, to fixing it in its visible, "objective" form at the expense of the myths that once traversed it. Today cinema can place all its talent, all its technology in the service of reanimating what it itself contributed to liquidating. It only resurrects ghosts, and it itself is lost therein.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"History: A Retro Scenario," p. 48
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
4 weeks ago
There is but One Principle that...

There is but One Principle that proceeds from God; and thus, in consequence of the unity of the Power, it is possible for each Individual to schematise his World of Sense in accordance with the law of that original harmony; - and every Individual, under the condition of being found on the way towards the recognition of the Imperative, must so schematise it. I might say: - Every Individual can and must, under the given condition, construct the True World of Sense, - for this indeed has beyond the universal and formal laws above deduced, no other Truth and Reality than this universal harmony.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
1 week 4 days ago
A young delicate tree, that is...

A young delicate tree, that is being clipped and cut by the gardener in order to give it an artificial form, will never reach the majestic height and the beauty as when allowed to grow in nature and freedom.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 3 days ago
However intimate we may be with...

However intimate we may be with the operations of the mind, we cannot think more than two or three minutes a day; - unless, by taste or by profession, we practice, for hours on end, brutalizing words in order to extract ideas from them. The intellectual represents the major disgrace, the culminating failure of Homo sapiens.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch
2 weeks 6 days ago
All art is the struggle to...

All art is the struggle to be, in a particular sort of way, virtuous.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The Black Prince (1973); 2003, p. 181.
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 4 weeks ago
Write it on your heart that...

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Works and Days
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 week 6 days ago
The human body is an instrument...

The human body is an instrument for the production of art in the life of the human soul.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 349.
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 week 1 day ago
He was always smoothing and polishing...

He was always smoothing and polishing himself, and in the end he became blunt before he was sharp.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
L 70
Philosophical Maxims
Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin
2 weeks 6 days ago
Philosophers are adults who persist in...

Philosophers are adults who persist in asking childish questions. 

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in The Listener
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
3 weeks ago
The ontological concept of truth is...

The ontological concept of truth is in the centre of a logic which may serve as a model of pre- technological rationality. It is the rationality of a two-dimensional universe of discourse which, contrasts with the of thought and behavior that develop in the execution of the technological project.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 130
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
3 weeks ago
In the form of the oeuvre,...

In the form of the oeuvre, the actual circumstances are placed in another dimension where the given reality shows itself as that which it is. Thus it tells the truth about itself; its language ceases to be that of deception, ignorance, and submission. Fiction calls the facts by their name and their reign collapses; fiction subverts everyday experience and shows it to be mutilated and false.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 62
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 4 weeks ago
In fact the opposition of instinct...

In fact the opposition of instinct and reason is mainly illusory. Instinct, intuition, or insight is what first leads to the beliefs which subsequent reason confirms or confutes; but the confirmation, where it is possible, consists, in the last analysis, of agreement with other beliefs no less instinctive. Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one. Even in the most purely logical realms, it is insight that first arrives at what is new.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 21
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
1 month 3 weeks ago
There is only one way to...

There is only one way to science-or to philosophy... to meet a problem, to see its beauty and fall in love with it; to get married to it, and to live with it happily, till death do ye part-unless you should meet another... more fascinating problem, or... obtain a solution. But even if you do... you may... discover, to your delight, the... a whole family of enchanting... perhaps difficult problem children for whose welfare you may work, with a purpose, to the end of your days.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
2 weeks 1 day ago
Proceeding from ourselves, from our own...

Proceeding from ourselves, from our own human consciousness, the only consciousness which we feel from within and in which feeling is identical with being, we attribute some sort of consciousness, more or less dim, to all living things, and even to the stones themselves, for they also live. And the evolution of organic beings is simply the struggle to realize fullness of consciousness through suffering, a continual aspiration to be others without ceasing to be themselves, to break and yet to preserve their proper limits.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 4 weeks ago
Nature paints the best part of...

Nature paints the best part of a picture, carves the best parts of the statue, builds the best part of the house, and speaks the best part of the oration.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Art
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
1 month 4 weeks ago
The practical consequence of such a[n...

The practical consequence of such a[n individualistic] philosophy is the well-known democratic respect for the sacredness of individuality,-is, at any rate, the outward tolerance of whatever is not itself intolerant. These phrases are so familiar that they sound now rather dead in our ears. Once they had a passionate inner meaning. Such a passionate inner meaning they may easily acquire again if the pretension of our nation to inflict its own inner ideals and institutions vi et armis upon Orientals should meet with a resistance as obdurate as so far it has been gallant and spirited. Religiously and philosophically, our ancient national doctrine of live and let live may prove to have a far deeper meaning than our people now seem to imagine it to possess.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"Preface"
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 weeks ago
It is only by entering the...

It is only by entering the transcendental, the supernatural, the authentically spiritual order that man rises above the social. Until then, whatever he may do, the social is transcendent in relation to him.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 123
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 4 weeks ago
Beauty is the mark God sets...

Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Beauty
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 weeks 1 day ago
Kings will be tyrants from policy,...

Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Volume iii, p. 334
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 6 days ago
I do not speak…

I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 26. On the Education of Children
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
1 month 3 weeks ago
"And yet, it was not, not...

"And yet, it was not, not now, she that really counted. Or if she counted (and, oh, gloriously she did) it was for another's sake. The earth and stars and sun, all that was or will be, existed for his sake. And he was coming. The most dreadful, the most beautiful, the only dread and beauty there is, was coming. The pillars on the far side of the pool flushed with his approach. I cast down my eyes."

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Orual
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
2 months 1 week ago
The first-beginnings…

The first-beginnings of things cannot be seen by the eyes.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book I, line 268 (tr. Munro)
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
1 month 4 weeks ago
We are spinning our own fates,...

We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar. ...Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
1 month 2 weeks ago
Purity is for man, next to...

Purity is for man, next to life, the greatest good that parity is procured by the Law of Mazda to him who cleanses his own self with Good Thoughts, Words, and Deeds.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
(Extracts, p. 57)
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
2 weeks 5 days ago
The realer religion is, so much...

The realer religion is, so much the more it means its own overcoming. It wills to cease to be the special domain "Religion" and wills to become life. It is concerned in the end not with specific religious acts, but with redemption from all that is specific.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 34
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 3 weeks ago
I am showing my pupils details...

I am showing my pupils details of an immense landscape which they cannot possibly know their way around.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 56e
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 weeks 1 day ago
Vice itself lost half its evil...

Vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Volume iii, p. 332
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 3 days ago
Opinions, yes; convictions, no. That is...

Opinions, yes; convictions, no. That is the point of departure for an intellectual pride.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 3 weeks ago
I squander untold effort making an...

I squander untold effort making an arrangement of my thoughts that may have no value whatever.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 33e
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
3 weeks ago
Our dignity is not in what...

Our dignity is not in what we do, but in what we understand.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 50
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
2 months 1 week ago
Let me mention another requirement for...

Let me mention another requirement for a better understanding of Holy Scripture. I would suggest that you read those commentators who do not stick so closely to the literal sense. The ones I would recommend most highly after St. Paul himself are Origen, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine. Too many of our modern theologians are prone to a literal interpretation, which they subtly misconstrue.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p.37
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
1 month 3 weeks ago
It is a sign of wisdom...

It is a sign of wisdom to be able to use parrhesia without falling into the garrulousness of athuroglossos... One of the problems... how to distinguish that which must be said from that which should be kept silent.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
2 months 6 days ago
...so it is with human reason,...

...so it is with human reason, which strives not against faith, when enlightened, but rather furthers and advances it.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
On Justification CCXCIV
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
2 months ago
Life is bristling…

Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one's garden.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Letter to Pierre-Joseph Luneau de Boisjermain (21 October 1769), from Oeuvres Complètes de Voltaire: Correspondance [Garnier frères, Paris, 1882], vol. XIV, letter # 7692 (p. 478)
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 3 days ago
To fear is to die every...

To fear is to die every minute.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
1 month 4 weeks ago
I had obtained some distinction, and...

I had obtained some distinction, and felt myself of some importance, before the desire of distinction and of importance had grown into a passion: and little as it was which I had attained, yet having been attained too early, like all pleasures enjoyed too soon, it had made me blasé and indifferent to the pursuit. Thus neither selfish nor unselfish pleasures were pleasures to me. And there seemed no power in nature sufficient to begin the formation of my character anew, and create in a mind now irretrievably analytic, fresh associations of pleasure with any of the objects of human desire.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
(p. 139)
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 3 days ago
My faculty for disappointment surpasses understanding....

My faculty for disappointment surpasses understanding. It is what lets me comprehend Buddha, but also what keeps me from following him.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
Just now
You learn about life by the...

You learn about life by the accidents you have, over and over again, and your father is always in your head when that stuff happens. Writing, most of the time, for most people, is an accident and your father is there for that, too. You know, I taught writing for a while and whenever somebody would tell me they were going to write about their dad, I would tell them they might as well go write about killing puppies because neither story was going to work. It just doesn't work. Your father won't let it happen.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Interviewed by J. Rentilly, "The Best Jokes Are Dangerous", McSweeny's
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
1 month 3 weeks ago
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely...

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment" (1949), p. 292 Similar statements were included in "A Reply to Professor Haldane" (1946) (see above), published posthumously.
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 weeks ago
So watch yourselves. If your brother...

So watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
(Luke 17:3-4) (NIV)
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
2 months 3 weeks ago
The world evades us because it...

The world evades us because it becomes itself again. That stage scenery masked by habit becomes what it is. It withdraws at a distance from us.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Leibniz
2 months 2 days ago
Now, asther is an infinity….

Now, as there is an infinity of possible universes in the Ideas of God, and as only one of them can exist, there must be a sufficient reason for God's choice, which determines him toward one rather than another. And this reason can be found only in the fitness, or the degrees of perfection, that these worlds contain, since each possible thing has the right to claim existence in proportion to the perfection it involves.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
La monadologie (53 & 54).
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
1 month 3 weeks ago
It is, I think, safe to...

It is, I think, safe to say that nothing was more alien to the minds of the scientists, who brought about the most radical and most rapid revolutionary process the world has ever seen, than any will to power. Nothing was more remote than any wish to 'conquer space' and to go to the moon. It was indeed their search for 'true reality' that led them to lose confidence in appearances, in the phenomena as they reveal themselves of their own accord to human sense and reason. They were inspired by an extraordinary love of harmony and lawfulness which taught them that they would have to step outside any merely given sequence or series of occurrences if they wanted to discover the overall beauty and order of the whole, that is, the universe.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
On scientific discovery, in Between Past and Future (1961) as quoted in Ideas in literature: Ten things Hannah Arendt said that are eerily relevant in today's political times
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 3 weeks ago
Philosophy may in no way interfere...

Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
§ 124
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 weeks 3 days ago
To this I answer...
0
⚖0
Main Content / General
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 6 days ago
Saying is one thing and doing...

Saying is one thing and doing is another.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 31
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
1 month 3 weeks ago
'It comes, it comes!' they sang....

It comes, it comes!' they sang. 'Sleepers awake! It comes, it comes, it comes.' One dreadful glance over my shoulder I essayed - not long enough to see (or did I see?) the rim of the sunrise that shoots Time dead with golden arrows and puts to flight all phantasmal shapes. Screaming, I buried my face in the fold of the Teacher's robe. 'The morning! The morning!' I cried. 'I am caught by the morning and I am a ghost.'

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 14
Philosophical Maxims
Plotinus
Plotinus
2 months 2 weeks ago
When the soul has descended into...

When the soul has descended into generation (from its first divine condition) she partakes of evil, and is carried a great way into a state the opposite of her first purity and integrity, to be entirely merged in which, is nothing more than to fall into a dark mire. ...The soul dies as much as it is possible for the soul to die: and the death to her is, while baptized or immersed in the present body, to descend into matter, and be wholly subjected by it; and after departing thence to lie there til it shall arise and turn its face away from the abhorrent filth. This is what is meant by falling asleep in Hades, of those who have come there.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 4 weeks ago
All the thoughts of a turtle...

All the thoughts of a turtle are turtle.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
1855
Philosophical Maxims
  • Load More

User login

  • Create new account
  • Reset your password

Social

☰ ˟
  • Main Feed
  • Philosophical Maxims

Civic

☰ ˟
  • Propositions
  • Issue / Solution

Who's new

  • Søren Kierkegaard
  • Jesus
  • Friedrich Nietzsche
  • VeXed
  • Slavoj Žižek

Who's online

There are currently 0 users online.

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia