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Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
6 days ago
But no mental action seems necessary...

But no mental action seems necessary or invariable in its character. In whatever manner the mind has reacted under a given sensation, in that manner it is the more likely to react again; were this, however, an absolute necessity, habits would become wooden and ineradicable, and no room being left for the formulation of new habits, intellectual life would come to a speedy close. Thus, the uncertainty of the mental law is no mere defect of it, but is on the contrary of its essence. The truth is, the mind is not subject to "law," in the same rigid sense that matter is. It only experiences gentle forces which merely render it more likely to act a given way than it otherwise would be. There always remains a certain amount of arbitrary spontaneity in its action, without which it would be dead.

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Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
1 month 3 weeks ago
If a person gave your body...

If a person gave your body to any stranger he met on his way, you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in handing over your own mind to be confused and mystified by anyone who happens to verbally attack you?

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(28) [tr. Elizabeth Carter]
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 days ago
If anyone comes to Me and...

If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.

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14:26
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 months 1 week ago
Kalokagathia...
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Confucius
Confucius
1 month 4 weeks ago
The Master said, "Hard is...

The Master said, "Hard is it to deal with him, who will stuff himself with food the whole day, without applying his mind to anything good! Are there not gamesters and chess players? To be one of these would still be better than doing nothing at all.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
2 months 1 week ago
She has forgotten speech and language...

She has forgotten speech and language and the restlessness of thoughts, has forgotten what is even greater restlessness, this self, has forgotten herself-she, the lost woman, who is now lost in her Savior, who, lost in him, rests at his feet-like a picture. He speaks about her; he says: Her many sins are forgiven her, because she loved much. Although she is present, it is almost as if she were absent; it is almost as if he changed her into a picture, a parable.

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Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 weeks ago
You will know that wretched men...

You will know that wretched men are the cause of their own suffering, who neither see nor hear the good that is near them, and few are the ones who know how to secure release from their troubles. Such is the fate that harms their minds; like pebbles they are tossed about from one thing to another with cares unceasing. For the dread companion Strife harms them unawares, whom one must not walk behind, but withdraw from and flee.

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As quoted in Divine Harmony: The Life and Teachings of Pythagoras by John Strohmeier and Peter Westbrook
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
1 month 3 weeks ago
What is the first business of...

What is the first business of one who practices philosophy? To get rid of self-conceit. For it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows.

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Book II, ch. 17, 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
1 month ago
That is what is meant, I...

That is what is meant, I think by the allegation that it is good simply to be alive, even if one is undergoing terrible experiences. The situation is roughly this: There are elements which, if added to one's experience, make life better; there are other elements which, if added to one's experience, make life worse. But what remains when these are set aside is not merely neutral: it is emphatically positive. Therefore life is worth living even when the bad elements of experience are plentiful, and the good ones too meager to outweigh the bad ones on their own. The additional positive weight is supplied by experience itself, rather than by any of its contents.

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"Death", p. 2. This passage not present in the 1970 version (Nous, IV, no. 1), but present in the 1979 version.
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
1 month 2 weeks ago
Christ ought to be preached with...

Christ ought to be preached with this goal in mind - that we might be moved to faith in him so that he is not just a distant historical figure but actually Christ for you and me.

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p. 69
Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
1 month ago
In forming a store of good...

In forming a store of good works thou shouldst be diligent, so that it may come to thy assistance among the spirits.

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
1 month 1 week ago
His reputation will go…

His reputation will go on increasing because scarcely anyone reads him.

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"Dante", 1765
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 1 week ago
The very cannibalism of the counterrevolution...

The very cannibalism of the counterrevolution will convince the nations that there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror.

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"The Victory of the Counter-Revolution in Vienna," Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 7 November 1848.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
6 days ago
The terrifying experience and obsession of...

The terrifying experience and obsession of death, when preserved in consciousness, becomes ruinous. If you talk about death, you save part of yourself. But at the same time, something of your real self dies, because objectified meanings lose the actuality they have in consciousness.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 1 week ago
Money is therefore not only the...

Money is therefore not only the object but also the fountainhead of greed.

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Notebook II, The Chapter on Money, p. 142.
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
6 days ago
The growth of the mind is...

The growth of the mind is the widening of the range of consciousness, and ... each step forward has been a most painful and laborious achievement.

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p. 340
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
2 weeks ago
The people reign over the American...

The people reign over the American political world as God rules over the universe. It is the cause and the end of all things; everything rises out of it and is absorbed back into it.

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Chapter IV, Part I.
Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
1 week ago
If there be such a thing...

If there be such a thing as truth, it must infallibly be struck out by the collision of mind with mind.

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Vol. 1, bk. 1, ch.4
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
1 month 1 week ago
Necessity may be defined in two...

Necessity may be defined in two ways, conformably to the two definitions of cause, of which it makes an essential part. It consists either in the constant conjunction of like objects, or in the inference of the understating from one object to another.

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§ 8.27
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
6 days ago
Erosion of our being by our...

Erosion of our being by our infirmities: the resulting void is filled by the presence of consciousness, what am I saying? - that void is consciousness itself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
1 month 2 weeks ago
Confidence in another man's virtue is...

Confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence. Variant: Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.

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Book I, Ch. 14
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 5 days 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, even if this view is still not a clear one.

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Journal entry
Philosophical Maxims
Porphyry
Porphyry
3 weeks 2 days ago
So people should abstain from other...

So people should abstain from other animals just as they should from the human.

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4, 9, 6
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
1 month 1 week ago
It is the duty of every...

It is the duty of every patriot to protect his country from its government.

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Edward Abbey, "A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." as written in "A Voice Crying in the Wilderness" (Vox Clamantis en Deserto): Notes from a Secret Journal (1990), ISBN 0312064888
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
2 months 1 week ago
Spontaneous love can reach the point...

Spontaneous love can reach the point of despair, shows that it is in despair, that even when it is happy it loves with the power of despair.

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Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 weeks ago
We are all instruments endowed with...

We are all instruments endowed with feeling and memory. Our senses are so many strings that are struck by surrounding objects and that also frequently strike themselves.

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"Conversation Between D'Alembert and Diderot"
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 weeks ago
It is requisite to choose the...

It is requisite to choose the most excellent life; for custom will make it pleasant. Wealth is an infirm anchor, glory is still more infirm; and in a similar manner, the body, dominion, and honour. For all these are imbecile and powerless. What then are powerful anchors. Prudence, magnanimity, fortitude. These no tempest can shake. This is the Law of God, that virtue is the only thing that is strong; and that every thing else is a trifle.

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Pythagorean Ethical Sentences From Stobæus
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 weeks ago
There is only one passion, the...

There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.

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"Will, Freedom"
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
Just now
Man does not exercise his thought...

Man does not exercise his thought because he finds it amusing, but because, obliged as he is to live immersed in the world and to force his way among things, he finds himself under the necessity of organizing his psychic activities, which are not very different from those of the anthropoid, in the form of thought - which is what the animal does not do.

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p. 28
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 1 week ago
There are two classes of poets...

There are two classes of poets - the poets by education and practice, these we respect; and poets by nature, these we love.

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Parnassus (1874) Preface
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
2 months 1 week ago
No one talks more passionately about...
No one talks more passionately about his rights than he who in the depths of his soul doubts whether he has any. By enlisting passion on his side he wants to stifle his reason and its doubts: thus he will acquire a good conscience and with it success among his fellow men.
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Philosophical Maxims
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
1 month ago
To the question what wine he...

To the question what wine he found pleasant to drink, he replied, "That for which other people pay."

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Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 54
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
1 month 1 week ago
In all determinations of morality, this...

In all determinations of morality, this circumstance of public utility is ever principally in view; and wherever disputes arise, either in philosophy or common life, concerning the bounds of duty, the question cannot, by any means, be decided with greater certainty, than by ascertaining, on any side, the true interests of mankind. If any false opinion, embraced from appearances, has been found to prevail; as soon as farther experience and sounder reasoning have given us juster notions of human affairs, we retract our first sentiment, and adjust anew the boundaries of moral good and evil.

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§ 2.17 : Of Benevolence, Pt. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
1 month 2 weeks ago
All registers which, it is acknowledged,...

All registers which, it is acknowledged, ought to be kept secret, ought certainly never to exist.

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Chapter II, Part II, Appendix to Articles I and II, p. 935.
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
2 weeks ago
History, it is easily perceived, is...

History, it is easily perceived, is a picture-gallery containing a host of copies and very few originals.

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p. 88
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
6 days ago
Life is too full of death...

Life is too full of death for death to be able to add anything to it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
1 month 4 weeks ago
Earnest in practicing the ordinary virtues,...

Earnest in practicing the ordinary virtues, and careful in speaking about them, if, in his practice, he has anything defective, the superior man dares not but exert himself; and if, in his words, he has any excess, he dares not allow himself such license. Thus his words have respect to his actions, and his actions have respect to his words; is it not just an entire sincerity which marks the superior man?

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
2 months 1 week ago
Printing will tell you such useful...

Printing will tell you such useful things and such interesting things that not being able to read would be as bad as not being able to see.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 1 week ago
When you live alone you no...

When you live alone you no longer know what it is to tell a story: the plausible disappears at the same time as the friends. You let events flow by too: you suddenly see people appear who speak and then go away; you plunge into stories of which you can't make head or tail: you'd make a terrible witness.

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Diary entry of Tuesday, 30 January
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
1 month 2 weeks ago
When I play with my cat….

When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?

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Ch. 12 (tr. Donald M. Frame) , tr. David Wills, 2008
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 1 week ago
To fear love is to fear...

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
6 days ago
Crime in full glory consolidates authority...

Crime in full glory consolidates authority by the sacred fear it inspires.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
1 month 1 week ago
Why has the Revolution of France...

Why has the Revolution of France been stained with crimes, which the Revolution of the United States of America was not? Men are physically the same in all countries; it is education that makes them different. Accustom a people to believe that priests or any other class of men can forgive sins, and you will have sins in abundance.

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Worship and Church Bells, 1797
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 1 week 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
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
1 month 1 week ago
I can imagine no man who...

I can imagine no man who will look with more horror on the End than a conscientious revolutionary who has, in a sense sincerely, been justifying cruelties and injustices inflicted on millions of his contemporaries by the benefits which he hopes to confer on future generations: generations who, as one terrible moment now reveals to him, were never going to exist. Then he will see the massacres, the faked trials, the deportations, to be all ineffaceably real, an essential part, his part, in the drama that has just ended: while the future Utopia had never been anything but a fantasy.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
1 month 2 weeks ago
In the long-run the workman may...

In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate.

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Chapter VIII, p. 80.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
6 days ago
The need to devour oneself absolves...

The need to devour oneself absolves one of the need to believe.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
1 month 1 week ago
My desire for knowledge is intermittent...

My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. I do not know that this higher knowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge before - a discovery that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
2 months 1 week ago
Since... nature is a principle of...

Since... nature is a principle of motion and mutation... it is necessary that we should not be ignorant of what motion is... But motion appears to belong to things continuous; and the infinite first presents itself to the view in that which is continuous. ...Frequently ...those who define the continuous, employ the nature or the infinite, as if that which is divisible to infinity is continuous.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
2 days ago
He that is to govern a...

He that is to govern a whole Nation, must read in himself, not this, or that particular man; but Mankind; which though it be hard to do, harder than to learn any Language, or Science; yet, when I shall have set down my own reading orderly, and perspicuously, the pains left another, will be only to consider, if he also find not the same in himself. For this kind of Doctrine, admitteth no other Demonstration.

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The Introduction, p. 2
Philosophical Maxims
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