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Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 2 weeks ago
The fundamental cause of the trouble...

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
2 months 2 days ago
On Ps 60:3: To Thee have...

On Ps 60:3: To Thee have I cried from the ends of the earth.

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Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
1 month 1 week ago
The Enlightenment worldview held by Du...

The Enlightenment worldview held by Du Bois is ultimately inadequate, and, in many ways, antiquated, for our time. The tragic plight and absurd predicament of Africans here and abroad requires a more profound interpretation of the human condition - one that goes beyond the false dichotomies of expert knowledge vs. mass ignorance, individual autonomy vs. dogmatic authority, and self-mastery vs. intolerant tradition.

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The Future of the Race (1997) by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Cornel West, p. 64
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 week 5 days ago
Life inspires more dread than death...

Life inspires more dread than death - it is life which is the great unknown.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
1 month 2 weeks ago
The imagination is always restless and...

The imagination is always restless and suggests a variety of thoughts, and the will, reason being laid aside, is ready for every extravagant project; and in this State, he that goes farthest out of the way, is thought fittest to lead, and is sure of most followers: And when Fashion hath once Established, what Folly or craft began, Custom makes it Sacred, and 'twill be thought impudence or madness, to contradict or question it. He that will impartially survey the Nations of the World, will find so much of the Governments, Religion, and Manners brought in and continued amongst them by these means, that they will have but little Reverence for the Practices which are in use and credit amongst Men.

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First Treatise of Government
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
4 weeks ago
Assist a man in raising a...

Assist a man in raising a burden; but do not assist him in laying it down.

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Symbol 11
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
2 months 6 days ago
Be loyal and trustworthy. Do...

Be loyal and trustworthy. Do not befriend anyone who is lower than yourself in this regard. When making a mistake, do not be afraid to correct it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
2 days ago
The thesis of the identity of...

The thesis of the identity of concept and thing is in general the vital nerve of idealist thought, and indeed traditional thought in general. ... Negative dialectics as critique means above all criticism of precisely this claim to identity.

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p. 20
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 week 2 days ago
Verily I say unto you, That...

Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

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19:23-24 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
1 month 6 days ago
As we speak…

As we speak cruel time is fleeing. Seize the day, believing as little as possible in the morrow.

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Book I, ode xi, line 7
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
1 month 3 weeks ago
But the best demonstration by far...

But the best demonstration by far is experience, if it go not beyond the actual experiment.

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Aphorism 70
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
3 weeks ago
Distance is a great promoter of...

Distance is a great promoter of admiration!

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As quoted in Thesaurus of Epigrams: A New Classified Collection of Witty Remarks, Bon Mots and Toasts (1942) by Edmund Fuller
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
1 month 3 weeks ago
A constant element of enjoyment must...

A constant element of enjoyment must be mingled with our studies, so that we think of learning as a game rather than a form of drudgery, for no activity can be continued for long if it does not to some extent afford pleasure to the participant.

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Letter to Christian Northoff (1497), as translated in Collected Works of Erasmus (1974), p. 114
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
1 month 2 weeks ago
I am trying here to prevent...

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would be either a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

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Book II, Chapter 3, "The Shocking Alternative"
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 week 5 days ago
The obsession with suicide is characteristic...

The obsession with suicide is characteristic of the man who can neither live nor die, and whose attention never swerves from this double impossibility.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 2 weeks ago
Wherever the want of clothing forced...

Wherever the want of clothing forced them to it, the human race made clothes for thousands of years, without a single man becoming a tailor.

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Vol. I, Ch. 1, Section 2, pg. 49.
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
2 weeks ago
Before abstraction everything is one, but...

Before abstraction everything is one, but one like chaos; after abstraction everything is united again, but this union is a free binding of autonomous, self-determined beings. Out of a mob a society has developed, chaos has been transformed into a manifold world.

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Fragment No. 95
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
1 month 2 weeks ago
I want you to read the...

I want you to read the true system of the heart, drafted by a decent man and published under another name. I do not want you to be biased against good and useful books merely because a man unworthy of reading them has the audacity to call himself the Author.

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First Dialogue; translated by Judith R. Bush, Christopher Kelly, Roger D. Masters
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
1 week 2 days ago
The liberating force of technology-the instrumentalization...

The liberating force of technology-the instrumentalization of things-turns into ... the instrumentalization of man.

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p. 159
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
4 weeks ago
Attempt nothing above thy strength!

Attempt nothing above thy strength!

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
2 months 4 days ago
The highest perfection of human life...

The highest perfection of human life consists in the mind of man being detached from care, for the sake of God.

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III, 130, 3
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
2 months 2 weeks ago
But it is clear there is...

But it is clear there is a difference in the ends proposed: for in some cases they are activities, and in others results beyond the mere activities, and where there are certain ends beyond and beside the actions, the results are naturally superior to the activities. Now, as there are numerous kinds of actions and numerous arts and sciences, it follows that the ends are also various. Thus the end of the healing art is health, of ship-building ships, of strategy victory, of economy wealth.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 week 5 days ago
It is difficult, it is impossible...

It is difficult, it is impossible to believe that the Good Lord - "Our Father" - had a hand in the scandal of creation. Everything suggests that He took no part in it, that it proceeds from a god without scruples, a feculent god. Goodness does not create, lacking imagination; it takes imagination to put together a world, however botched. At the very least, there must be a mixture of good and evil in order to produce an action or a work.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 days ago
Man is said to be a...

Man is said to be a reasoning animal. I do not know why he has not been defined as an affective or feeling animal. Perhaps that which differentiates him from other animals is feeling rather than reason. More often I have seen a cat reason than laugh or weep. Perhaps it weeps or laughs inwardly - but then perhaps, also inwardly, the crab resolves equations of the second degree.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
1 month 2 weeks ago
Put in a nut-shell, my thesis...

Put in a nut-shell, my thesis amounts to this. The repeated attempts made by Rudolf Carnap to show that the demarcation between science and metaphysics coincides with that between sense and nonsense have failed. The reason is that the positivistic concept of 'meaning' or 'sense' (or of verifiability, or of inductive confirmability, etc.) is inappropriate for achieving this demarcation - simply because metaphysics need not be meaningless even though it is not science. In all its variations demarcation by meaninglessness has tended to be at the same time too narrow and too wide: as against all intentions and all claims, it has tended to exclude scientific theories as meaningless, while failing to exclude even that part of metaphysics which is known as 'rational theology'.

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Ch 11. "The Demarcation between Science and Metaphysics." (Summary, p. 253)
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 week 5 days ago
No one should forget: Eros alone...

No one should forget: Eros alone can fulfill life; knowledge, never. Only Eros makes sense; knowledge is empty infinity; - for thoughts, there is always time; life has its time; there is no thought that comes too late; any desire can become a regret.

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Philosophical Maxims
Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch
1 week 1 day ago
Perhaps when distant people on other...

Perhaps when distant people on other planets pick up some wave-length of ours all they hear is a continuous scream.

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The Message to the Planet (1989) p. 509.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 2 weeks ago
I am ashamed of belonging to...

I am ashamed of belonging to the species Homo Sapiens...You & I may be thankful to have lived in happier times - you more than I, because you have no children.

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Letter to Lucy Donnelly, 6/23/1946
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 week 5 days ago
One disgust, then another...

One disgust, then another - to the point of losing the use of speech and even of the mind...The greatest exploit of my life is to be still alive.

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 days ago
Those who keep the masses of...

Those who keep the masses of men in subjection by exercising force and cruelty deprive them at once of two vital foods, liberty and obedience; for it is no longer within the power of such masses to accord their inner consent to the authority to which they are subjected. Those who encourage a state of things in which the hope of gain is the principal motive take away from men their obedience, for consent which is its essence is not something which can be sold.

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p. 97
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 week 5 days ago
Word - that invisible dagger.

Word - that invisible dagger.

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Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
2 days ago
What appears as the positive is...

What appears as the positive is essentially the negative, i.e. the thing that is to be criticized.

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p. 18
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
1 month 2 weeks ago
The evil that has resulted from...

The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools in teaching natural philosophy as an accomplishment only has been that of generating in the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking through the works of creation to the Creator Himself, they stop short and employ the knowledge they acquire to create doubts of His existence. They labor with studied ingenuity to ascribe everything they behold to innate properties of matter and jump over all the rest by saying that matter is eternal.

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A Discourse, &c. &c.
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 2 weeks ago
If you die, I will lie...

If you die, I will lie down beside you and I will stay there until the end, without eating or drinking, you will rot in my arms and I will love you as carcass: for you love nothing if you do not love everything.

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Act 10, sc. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 2 weeks ago
It is freedom, it is particularity,...

It is freedom, it is particularity, it is solitude that we are aiming at, and not Evil for its own sake.

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p. 179
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 2 weeks ago
In all affairs - love, religion,...

In all affairs - love, religion, politics, or business - it's a healthy idea, now and then, to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

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As quoted in The Reader's Digest, Vol. 37 (1940), p. 90; no specific source given.
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 weeks 3 days ago
In effect, to follow, not to...

In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination; to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 2 weeks ago
The aggregate capital appears as the...

The aggregate capital appears as the capital stock of all individual capitalists combined. This joint stock company has in common with many other stock companies that everyone knows what he puts in, but not what he will get out of it.

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Vol. II, Ch. XX, p. 437.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 2 weeks ago
The plan we are advocating amounts...

The plan we are advocating amounts essentially to this: that a certain small income, sufficient for necessaries, should be secured to all, whether they work or not, and that a larger income, as much larger as might be warranted by the total amount of commodities produced, should be given to those who are willing to engage in some work which the community recognizes as useful.

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Ch. IV: Work and Pay, discussing Universal Basic Income (UBI)
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 2 weeks ago
The circulation of capital realizes value,...

The circulation of capital realizes value, while living labour creates value.

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Notebook V, The Chapter on Capital, p. 463.
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
1 month 2 weeks ago
The Christian Religion not only was...

The Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: and whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.

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Section 10 : Of Miracles Pt. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 weeks ago
Laws are always unstable unless they...

Laws are always unstable unless they are founded on the manners of a nation; and manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people.

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Chapter XVI.
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 months 2 weeks ago
Well, some get lucky sometimes...
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Main Content / General
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
1 month 3 weeks ago
There is no need for you...

There is no need for you to develop an armed insurrection. Christ himself has already begun an insurrection with his mouth.

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pp. 67-68
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
2 months 1 day ago
It is the act of an...

It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for his own bad condition; it is the act of one who has begun to be instructed, to lay the blame on himself; and of one whose instruction is completed, neither to blame another, nor himself.

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(5) [tr. George Long (1888)].
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
1 month 2 weeks ago
It is in the social sphere,...

It is in the social sphere, in the realm of politics and economics, that the Will to Order becomes really dangerous.

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Chapter 3 (p. 22)
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 2 weeks ago
I fancy I need more than...

I fancy I need more than another to speak (rather than write), with such a formidable tendency to the lapidary style. I build my house of boulders.

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Letter to Thomas Carlyle, 30 October 1841
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
1 month 2 weeks ago
He advanced toward me without moving...

He advanced toward me without moving his hat, or making the least inclination of his body; but there appeared more real politeness in the open, humane air of his countenance, than in drawing one leg behind the other, and carrying that in the hand which is made to be worn on the head. "Friend," said he, "I perceive thou art a stranger, if I can do thee any service thou hast only to let me know it." "Sir," I replied, bowing my body, and sliding one leg toward him, as is the custom with us, "I flatter myself that my curiosity, which you will allow to be just, will not give you any offence, and that you will do me the honor to inform me of the particulars of your religion." "The people of thy country," answered the Quaker, "are too full of their bows and their compliments; but I never yet met with one of them who had so much curiosity as thyself. Come in and let us dine first together."

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Voltaire's account of meeting the Quaker Andrew Pit
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 week 5 days ago
To have grazed every form of...

To have grazed every form of failure, including success.

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Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
2 months 1 day ago
Reason is not measured by size...

Reason is not measured by size or height, but by principle.

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Book I, ch. 12, 26.
Philosophical Maxims
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