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Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 weeks 1 day ago
The wrinkles of a nation are...

The wrinkles of a nation are as visible as those of an individual.

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Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
2 weeks 2 days ago
Following Foucault, we may define the...

Following Foucault, we may define the art of life as a practice of suicide, of giving oneself to death, of depsychologizing oneself, of playing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 4 days ago
Real life is, to most men,...

Real life is, to most men, a long second-best, a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible; but the world of pure reason knows no compromise, no practical limitations, no barrier to the creative activity embodying in splendid edifices the passionate aspiration after the perfect from which all great work springs. Remote from human passions, remote even from the pitiful facts of nature, the generations have gradually created an ordered cosmos, where pure thought can dwell as in its natural home, and where one, at least, of our nobler impulses can escape from the dreary exile of the actual world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 4 weeks ago
I don't know why we are...

I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.

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As quoted in The Beginning of the End (2004) by Peter Hershey, p. 109 Also, as quoted in "The Relentless Rise of Science as Fun", by Jeremy Burgess, in New Scientist, Volume 143, Issues 1932-1945, originally published 1994.
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
2 months 2 days ago
The essence of totalitarian government, and...

The essence of totalitarian government, and perhaps the nature of every bureaucracy, is to make functionaries and mere cogs in the administrative machinery out of men, and thus to dehumanise them.

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As quoted in Ideas in literature: Ten things Hannah Arendt said that are eerily relevant in today's political times
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 months 2 days ago
It is because we are predominantly...

It is because we are predominantly purposeful beings that we are perpetually correcting our immediate sensations. But men are free not to be utilitarianly purposeful. They can sometime be artists, for example. In which case they may like to accept the immediate sensation uncorrected, because it happens to be beautiful.

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"One and Many," p. 11
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 weeks 1 day ago
Not one moment when I have...

Not one moment when I have not been conscious of being outside Paradise.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 1 day ago
Catherine: Why commit Evil?

Catherine: Why commit Evil? Goetz: Because Good has already been done. Catherine: Who has done it? Goetz: God the Father. I, on the other hand, am improvising.

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Act 3, sc. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 weeks 1 day ago
The moment we believe we've understood...

The moment we believe we've understood everything grants us the look of a murderer.

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Philosophical Maxims
George Berkeley
George Berkeley
1 month 1 week ago
Since therefore, as well those degrees...

Since therefore, as well those degrees of heat that are not painful, as those that are, can exist in a thinking substance; may we not conclude that external bodies are absolutely incapable of any degree of heat whatsoever?

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Philonous to Hylas. Hylas replies with, "So it seems".
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 3 days ago
Better to be despised for too...

Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security.

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 weeks 4 days ago
The key to a Christian conception...

The key to a Christian conception of studies is the realization that prayer consists of attention. It is the orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable toward God. The quality of the attention counts for much in the quality of the prayer. Warmth of heart cannot make up for it.

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"Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God"
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
3 weeks 4 days ago
No system would have ever been...

No system would have ever been framed if people had been simply interested in knowing what is true, whatever it may be. What produces systems is the interest in maintaining against all comers that some favourite or inherited idea of ours is sufficient and right.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 months 2 days ago
To travel is to discover that...

To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong.

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Part II: Malaya,
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
2 months 6 days ago
Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate...

Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in favor of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favor of the masters.

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Chapter x, Part II, p. 168.
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
Just now
A wise man rules his passions,...

A wise man rules his passions, a fool obeys them.

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Maxim 49
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
2 weeks 2 days ago
In most men, the conscious and...

In most men, the conscious and the unconscious being hardly ever make contact; consequently the conscious aim is to make himself as comfortable as possible with as little effort as possible. But there are other men, whom we have been calling, for convenience, 'Outsiders', whose conscious and unconscious being keep in closer contact, and the conscious mind is forever aware of the urge to care about 'more abundant life', and care less about comfort and stability and the rest of the notions that are so dear to the bourgeois.

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Chapter Nine, Breaking the Circuit
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 3 days ago
From each according to his abilities,...

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.

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The Criticism of the Gotha Program (1875) Variant translation: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 week 5 days ago
Even truth needs to be clad...

Even truth needs to be clad in new garments if it is to appeal to a new age.

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C 33
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 2 days ago
Without the aid of trained emotions...

Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism. I had sooner play cards against a man who was quite skeptical about ethics, but bred to believe that 'a gentleman does not cheat,' than against an irreproachable moral philosopher who had been brought up among sharpers. In battle it is not syllogisms that will keep the reluctant nerves and muscles to their post in the third hour of the bombardment.

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Philosophical Maxims
Judith Butler
Judith Butler
5 days ago
Nonviolence is not an absolute principle,...

Nonviolence is not an absolute principle, but an open-ended struggle with violence and its countervailing forces.

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p. 56
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
4 weeks 1 day ago
The idea does not belong to...

The idea does not belong to the soul; it is the soul that belongs to the idea.

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Vol. I, par. 216
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
Just now
The most important subject...
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Confucius
Confucius
2 months 3 weeks ago
Leaving virtue without proper cultivation;...

Leaving virtue without proper cultivation; not thoroughly discussing what is learned; not being able to move towards righteousness of which a knowledge is gained; and not being able to change what is not good: these are the things which occasion me solicitude.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
2 months 1 day ago
First of all, no one knows...

First of all, no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status; nor does he know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence and strength, and the like. Nor, again, does anyone know his conception of the good, the particulars of his rational plan of life, or even the special features of psychology such as his aversion to risk or liability to optimism or pessimism. More than this, I assume that the parties do not know the particular circumstances of their own society. That is, they do not know its particular economic or political situation, or the level of civilization and culture it has been able to achieve. The persons in the original position have no information as to which generation they belong.

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p. 117
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 month 2 weeks ago
It is not proper either to...

It is not proper either to have a blunt sword or to use freedom of speech ineffectually. Neither is the sun to be taken from the world, nor freedom of speech from erudition.

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As quoted in the translation of Thomas Taylor
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
1 month 1 week ago
There is hardly a pioneer's hut...

There is hardly a pioneer's hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare. I remember reading the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log cabin.

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Book One, Chapter XIII.
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
2 months 2 weeks ago
Show that you know this only

Show that you know this only, how you may never either fail to get what you desire or fall into what you avoid.

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Book II, ch. 1, 37
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
2 months 1 week ago
Throughout your treatment you forget that...

Throughout your treatment you forget that you said that 'free-will' can do nothing without grace, and you prove that 'free-will' can do all things without grace! Your inferences and analogies "For if man has lost his freedom, and is forced to serve sin, and cannot will good, what conclusion can more justly be drawn concerning him, than that he sins and wills evil necessarily?

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p. 149
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
1 month 1 week ago
Our philosophy... reduceth to a single...

Our philosophy... reduceth to a single origin and relateth to a single end, and maketh contraries to coincide so that there is one primal foundation both of origin and of end. From this coincidence of contraries, we deduce that ultimately it is divinely true that contraries are within contraries; wherefore it is not difficult to compass the knowledge that each thing is within every other.

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As translated by Dorothea Waley Singer
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
2 months 3 weeks ago
Let the superior man never fail...

Let the superior man never fail reverentially to order his own conduct, and let him be respectful to others and observant of propriety: then all within the four seas, all men are brothers. What has the superior man to do with being distressed because he has no brothers?

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
1 month 3 weeks ago
The chief function of the disciplinary...

The chief function of the disciplinary power is to 'train', rather than to select and to levy; or, no doubt, to train in order to levy and select all the more. It does not link forces together in order to reduce them; it seeks to bind them together in such a way as to multiply and use them.

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Part Three, The Means of Correct Training
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
3 months 3 days ago
This opinion... appears to be ancient......

This opinion... appears to be ancient... that the one, excess and defect, are the principles of things... It is not... probable that there are more than three principles... [E]ssence is one certain genus of being: so that principles will differ from each other in prior and posterior alone, but not in genus, for in one genus there is always one contrariety, and all contrarieties appear to be referred to one. That there is neither one element, therefore, nor more than two or three, is evident.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
2 months 1 week ago
There are and can be only...

There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. The one flies from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles, the truth of which it takes for settled and immovable, proceeds to judgment and to the discovery of middle axioms. And this way is now in fashion. The other derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all. This is the true way, but as yet untried.

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Aphorism 19
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
Just now
Bitter for a free man….

Bitter for a free man is the bondage of debt.

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Maxim 14 Variant: "Debt is the slavery of the free."
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
2 months 5 days ago
Popery so threatens and so nearly...

Popery so threatens and so nearly surrounds us...every sober man would think it seasonable at this time that all dissenting Protestants should be brought to a good understanding and compliance one with another...I think all Protestants ought now by all ways to be stirred up against them [Catholics] as People that have declared themselves ready by blood, violence, and destruction to ruine our Religion and Government...[they] are nothing but either Enemys in our bowells or spies among us, whilst their General commanders whom they blindly obey declare warr, and an unalterable designe to destroy us.

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Critical Notes Upon Edward Stillingfleet's Mischief and Unreasonableness of Separation' (c. May 1681), quoted in John Marshall, John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 110
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
4 weeks 1 day ago
Just as man as a social...

Just as man as a social being, cannot in the long run exist without a tie to the community, so the individual will never find the real justification for his existence, and his own spiritual and moral autonomy, anywhere except in an extramundane principle capable of relativizing the overpowering influence of external factors.

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p 23
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 days ago
The compassionate are not rich; therefore,...

The compassionate are not rich; therefore, the rich are not compassionate.

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p. 89
Philosophical Maxims
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham
2 months 5 days ago
The community is a fictitious body,...

The community is a fictitious body, composed of the individual persons who are considered as constituting as it were its members. The interest of the community then is what? The sum of the interests of the several members who compose it.

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Ch. 1: Of the Principle of Utility
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 weeks 1 day ago
Without God, everything is nothingness; and...

Without God, everything is nothingness; and with God? Supreme nothingness.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
Just now
By electricity we have not been...

By electricity we have not been driven out of our senses so much as our senses have been driven out of us.

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(p. 375)
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 weeks 1 day ago
To claim you are more detached,...

To claim you are more detached, more alien to everything than anyone, and to be merely a fanatic of indifference!

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 1 day ago
I construct my memories with my...

I construct my memories with my present. I am lost, abandoned in the present. I try in vain to rejoin the past: I cannot escape.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
2 months 6 days ago
It is the natural effect of...

It is the natural effect of improvement, however, to diminish gradually the real price of almost all manufactures.

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Chapter XI, Part III, (Conclusion..) p. 282.
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 weeks 4 days ago
Croire qu'on s'élève parce qu'en gardant...

We believe we are rising because while keeping the same base inclinations (for instance: the desire to triumph over others) we have given them a noble object. We should, on the contrary, rise by attaching noble inclinations to lowly objects.

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La pesanteur et la grâce (1948), p. 61
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
1 month 1 week ago
Even to have come forth is...

Even to have come forth is something, since I see that being able to conquer is placed in the hands of fate. However, there was in me, whatever I was able to do, that which no future century will deny to be mine, that which a victor could have for his own: Not to have feared to die, not to have yielded to any equal in firmness of nature, and to have preferred a courageous death to a noncombatant life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
2 months 3 weeks ago
Charity, by which God and neighbor...

Charity, by which God and neighbor are loved, is the most perfect friendship.

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Disputed Questions: On Charity, c. 1270
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson
3 weeks 4 days ago
The present contains nothing more than...

The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause.

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Creative Evolution (1907), Chapter I, as translated by Arthur Mitchell (1911), p. 14.; italicized in the original.
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 2 days ago
But perhaps I lack the gift....

But perhaps I lack the gift. I see I've described her as being like a sword. That's true as far as it goes. But utterly inadequate by itself, and misleading. I ought to have said 'But also like a garden. Like a nest of gardens, wall within wall, hedge within hedge, more secret, more full of fragrant and fertile life, the further you explore.' And then, of her, and every created thing I praise, I should say 'in some way, in its unique way, like Him who made it.' Thus up from the garden to the Gardener, from the sword to the Smith. to the life-giving Life and the Beauty that makes beautiful.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
2 months 1 day ago
Many conservative writers have contended that...

Many conservative writers have contended that the tendency to equality in modern social movements is the expression of envy. In this way they seek to discredit this trend, attributing it to collectively harmful impulses.

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Chapter IX, Section 82, p. 538
Philosophical Maxims
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