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Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
5 months 5 days ago
The word of man is the...

The word of man is the most durable of all material.

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Vol. 2, Ch. 25, sect. 298
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 4 weeks ago
Don't get involved in partial problems,...

Don't get involved in partial problems, but always take flight to where there is a free view over the whole single great problem.

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
4 months 3 days ago
There is nothing enduring, permanent, either...

There is nothing enduring, permanent, either in me or out of me, nothing but everlasting change. I know of no existence, not even of my own. I know nothing and am nothing. Images - pictures - only are, pictures which wander by without anything existing past which they wander, without any corresponding reality which they might represent, without significance and without aim. I myself am one of these images, or rather a confused image of these images. All reality is transformed into a strange dream, without a world of which the dream might be, or a mind that might dream it. Contemplation is a dream; thought, the source of all existence and of all that I fancied reality, of my own existence, my own capacities, is a dream of that dream.

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Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 60
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
4 months 3 weeks ago
'Tis not in strength of body...

'Tis not in strength of body nor in gold that men find happiness, but in uprightness and in fulness of understanding.

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Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
1 month 4 days ago
As I watched the seagulls, I...

As I watched the seagulls, I thought: "That's the road to take; find the absolute rhythm and follow it with absolute trust."

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Ch. 21
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
5 months 4 days ago
I wish to suggest that a...

I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. All great enterprises are self-supporting. The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by his poetry, as a steam planing-mill feeds its boilers with the shavings it makes. You must get your living by loving.

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pp. 486-7
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
3 weeks 2 days ago
I am enough of an...

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
5 months 6 days ago
...they cudgel their brains with absurd...

...they cudgel their brains with absurd questions, such as, for instance, why God did not make the world many centuries earlier. They persuade themselves that it is easy to conceive, to be sure, how God may discern what is present, that is, what is actual in the time in which he is, but how He may foresee what is future, that is, what is actual in the time in which He is not yet, they deem an intellectual difficulty; as if the existence of the Necessary Being descended through all the moments of an imaginary time, and, having already exhausted a part of His duration, saw before Him the eternity He was yet to live simultaneously with the present events of the world. All these difficulties upon proper insight into the notion of time vanish like smoke.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 4 weeks ago
Doutbless, revenge is not always sweet,...

Doutbless, revenge is not always sweet, once it is consummated we feel inferior to our victim, or else we are tangled in the subtleties of remorse; so vengeance too has its venom, though it comes closer to what we are, to what we feel, to the very law of the self; it is also healthier than magnanimity. The Furies were held to antedate the gods, Zeus included. Vengeance before Divinity! This is the Major intuition of ancient mythology. p. 70.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
6 months ago
So many men are deprived of...

So many men are deprived of grace. How can one live without grace? One has to try it and do what Christianity never did: be concerned with the damned.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 month ago
It is not right to vex...

It is not right to vex ourselves at things, For they care not about it.

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VII, 38
Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
4 months 3 weeks ago
He who upholds Truth with all...

He who upholds Truth with all the might of his power, He who upholds Truth the utmost in his word and deed,He, indeed, is Thy most valued helper, O Mazda Ahura!

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Ahunuvaiti Gatha; Yasna 31, 22.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
2 months 3 weeks ago
It will hardly be disputed, I...

It will hardly be disputed, I suppose, that the department of literature in which the Eastern writers stand highest is poetry. And I certainly never met with any orientalist who ventured to maintain that the Arabic and Sanscrit poetry could be compared to that of the great European nations. But when we pass from works of imagination to works in which facts are recorded and general principles investigated, the superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely immeasurable. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanscrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory schools in England. In every branch of physical or moral philosophy, the relative position of the two nations is nearly the same.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 3 days ago
Bad times have a scientific value....

Bad times have a scientific value. [...] We learn geology the morning after the earthquake, on ghastly diagrams of cloven mountains, upheaved plains, and the dry bed of the sea.

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Considerations by the Way
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 months 1 day ago
I am not a "culture critic"...

I am not a "culture critic" because I am not in any way interested in classifying cultural forms. I am a metaphysician, interested in the life of the forms and their surprising modalities. That is why I have no interest in the academic world.

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Letters of Marshall McLuhan (1987), p. 413
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 4 days 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
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 3 weeks ago
Have no fear, little flock, for...

Have no fear, little flock, for your Father has approved of giving you the Kingdom.

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12:32
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
3 months 4 weeks ago
Ireland still remains the Holy Isle...

Ireland still remains the Holy Isle whose aspirations must on no account be mixed with the profane class-struggles of the rest of the sinful world ... the Irish peasant must not on any account know that the Socialist workers are his sole allies in Europe.

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Letter to Karl Marx
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 1 week ago
As to fidelity, there is no...

As to fidelity, there is no animal in the world so treacherous as man. Our histories have recorded the violent pursuits that dogs have made after the murderers of their masters.

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Ch. 12, tr. Cotton, rev. W. Carew Hazlitt, 1877
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
5 months 2 weeks ago
O pitiable minds of men...

O pitiable minds of men, O blind intelligences! In what gloom of life, in how great perils is passed all your poor span of time! not to see that all nature barks for is this, that pain be removed away out of the body, and that the mind, kept away from care and fear, enjoy a feeling of delight!

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Book II, lines 14-19 (tr. Rouse)
Philosophical Maxims
Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
2 months 3 weeks 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
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 3 days ago
Commerce with all nations, alliance with...

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

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Letter to Thomas Lomax
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
2 months 4 weeks ago
The popularity of the paranormal, oddly...

The popularity of the paranormal, oddly enough, might even be grounds for encouragement. I think that the appetite for mystery, the enthusiasm for that which we do not understand, is healthy and to be fostered. It is the same appetite which drives the best of true science, and it is an appetite which true science is best qualified to satisfy.

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"Science Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder", John Brockman, Edge.org, December 29, 1996
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
4 months 3 weeks ago
The animals themselves are incapable of...

The animals themselves are incapable of demanding their own liberation, or of protesting against their condition with votes, demonstrations, or boycotts. Human beings have the power to continue to oppress other species forever, or until we make this planet unsuitable for living beings. Will our tyranny continue, proving that morality counts for nothing when it clashes with selfinterest, as the most cynical of poets and philosophers have always said? Or will we rise to the challenge and prove our capacity for genuine altruism by ending our ruthless exploitation of the species in our power, not because we are forced to do so by rebels or terrorists, but because we recognize that our position is morally indefensible? The way in which we answer this question depends on the way in which each one of us, individually, answers it.

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Ch. 6: Speciesism Today
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
5 months 2 days ago
You must be afraid, my son....

You must be afraid, my son. That is how one becomes an honest citizen.

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Mother to her young son, Act 1
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
6 months 1 day ago
The military mind remains unparalleled as...

The military mind remains unparalleled as a vehicle of creative stupidity.

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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 2 weeks ago
What profit is there in crossing...

What profit is there in crossing the sea and in going from one city to another? If you would escape your troubles, you need not another place but another personality. Perhaps you have reached Athens, or perhaps Rhodes; choose any state you fancy, how does it matter what its character may be? You will be bringing to it your own.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 3 days ago
Whether the succeeding generation is to...

Whether the succeeding generation is to be more virtuous than their predecessors, I cannot say; but I am sure they will have more worldly wisdom, and enough, I hope, to know that honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

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Letter to Nathaniel Macon
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 2 weeks ago
Uncertainty, doubt, perpetual wrestling with the...

Uncertainty, doubt, perpetual wrestling with the mystery of our final destiny, mental despair, and the lack of any solid and stable foundation, may be the basis of an ethic.

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
4 months 4 days ago
Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind...

Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute.

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Book II, ch. 4 (trans. Constance Garnett) The Elder Zossima, speaking to Mrs. Khoklakov
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
Just now
This enterprise....
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Karl Marx
Karl Marx
5 months 4 days ago
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its...

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.

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Section 1, paragraph 14.
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 4 days ago
The power of perpetuating our property...

The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends most to the perpetuation of society itself. It makes our weakness subservient to our virtue; it grafts benevolence even upon avarice. The possession of family wealth and of the distinction which attends hereditary possessions (as most concerned in it,) are the natural securities for this transmission.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
2 months 3 weeks ago
We believe it to be a...

We believe it to be a rule without an exception, that the violence of a revolution corresponds to the degree of misgovemment which has produced that revolution.

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Mirabeau', The Edinburgh Review (July 1832), quoted in The Miscellaneous Writings of Lord Macaulay, Vol. II (1860), pp. 81-82
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
4 months 1 week ago
All abstract sciences are nothing but...

All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs.

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Dr. Théophile de Bordeu, in "Conversation Between D'Alembert and Diderot"
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
6 months 6 days ago
In Germany there is much complaining...
In Germany there is much complaining about my "eccentricities." But since it is not known where my center is, it won't be easy to find out where or when I have thus far been "eccentric." That I was a philologist, for example, meant that I was outside my center (which fortunately does not mean that I was a poor philologist). Likewise, I now regard my having been a Wagnerian as eccentric. It was a highly dangerous experiment; now that I know it did not ruin me, I also know what significance it had for me — it was the most severe test of my character.
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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
4 months 3 days ago
He who carries self-regard far enough...

He who carries self-regard far enough to keep himself in good health and high spirits, in the first place thereby becomes an immediate source of happiness to those around, and in the second place maintains the ability to increase their happiness by altruistic actions. But one whose bodily vigour and mental health are undermined by self-sacrifice carried too far, in the first place becomes to those around a cause of depression, and in the second place renders himself incapable, or less capable, of actively furthering their welfare. In estimating conduct we must remember that there are those who by their joyousness beget joy in others, and that there are those who by their melancholy cast a gloom on every circle they enter.

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Ethics (New York:1915), § 72, pp. 193-194
Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
4 months 4 weeks ago
If the only alternative to fascism...

If the only alternative to fascism we produce is a corporate-driven, milquetoast, neoliberal Democratic Party, fascism will come to America. Let us be very clear. It's like a Weimar America.

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Speaking to Chris Hedges on The Real News Network, Cornel West's presidential candidacy is 'for the least of these'. June 16, 2023.
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 month ago
A person who doesn't know what...

A person who doesn't know what the universe is doesn't know who they are. A person who doesn't know their purpose in life doesn't know who they are or what the universe is. A person who doesn't know any of these things doesn't know why they are here. So what to make of people who seek or avoid the praise of those who have no knowledge of where or who they are?

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VIII. 52:14
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
3 months ago
Confession of our faults…

Confession of our faults is the next thing to innocence.

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Maxim 1060
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
6 months 4 days ago
I have gained this by philosophy...

I have gained this by philosophy ... I do without being ordered what some are constrained to do by their fear of the law.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
3 months 3 weeks ago
In most cases the esthetic objection...

In most cases the esthetic objection to doses of morals and of economic or political propaganda in works of art will be found upon analysis to reside in the over-weighing of certain values at the expense of others until, except for those in a similar stare of one-sides enthusiasm, weariness rather than refreshment sets in.

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p. 188
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
5 months 6 days ago
Days of absence, sad and dreary, Clothed...

Days of absence,

sad and dreary, 

Clothed in sorrow's dark array,

Days of absence, I am weary: She I love is far away.

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Day of Absence, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
5 months 5 days ago
You have not that power you...

You have not that power you ought to have over him, till he comes to be more afraid of offending so good a friend than of losing some part of his future expectation.

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Sec. 97
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
1 month 2 weeks ago
War prosperity is like the prosperity...

War prosperity is like the prosperity that an earthquake or a plague brings.

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p 186
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
2 months 4 weeks ago
However many ways there may be...

However many ways there may be of being alive, it is certain that there are vastly more ways of being dead.

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Chapter 1 "Explaining the Very Improbable"
Philosophical Maxims
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
4 months 3 weeks ago
He was going into a theatre,...

He was going into a theatre, meeting face to face those who were coming out, and being asked why, "This," he said, "is what I practise doing all my life."

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Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 64
Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
4 months 3 weeks ago
Bear no improper envy, so that...

Bear no improper envy, so that thy life may not become tasteless.

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Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
5 months 2 weeks ago
When you do anything from a...

When you do anything from a clear judgment that it ought to be done, never shun the being seen to do it, even though the world should make a wrong supposition about it; for, if you don't act right, shun the action itself; but, if you do, why are you afraid of those who censure you wrongly?

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(35).
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
1 month 4 days ago
We have seen the highest circle...

We have seen the highest circle of spiraling powers. We have named this circle God. We might have given it any other name we wished: Abyss, Mystery, Absolute Darkness, Absolute Light, Matter, Spirit, Ultimate Hope, Ultimate Despair, Silence. But we have named it God because only this name, for primordial reasons, can stir our hearts profoundly. And this deeply felt emotion is indispensable if we are to touch, body with body, the dread essence beyond logic. Within this gigantic circle of divinity we are in duty bound to separate and perceive clearly the small, burning arc of our epoch. Unsourced variant or paraphrase: ... We might have given it any name we wished: Abyss, Absolute Darkness, Absolute Light, Matter, Spirit, Ultimate Hope, Ultimate Despair, Silence. But never forget, it is we who give it a name.

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Philosophical Maxims
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