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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 4 weeks ago
Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it,...

Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.

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Art
Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
2 months 3 weeks ago
The fundamental criterion for judging any...

The fundamental criterion for judging any procedure is the justice of its likely results.

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Chapter IV, Section 37, p. 230
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 3 weeks ago
To work and create "for nothing,"...

To work and create "for nothing," to sculpture in clay, to know one's creation has no future, to see one's work destroyed in a day while being aware that fundamentally this has no more importance than building for centuries, this is the difficult wisdom that absurd thought sanctions. Performing these two tasks simultaneously, negating on the one hand and magnifying on the other, it the way open to the absurd creator. He must give the void its colors.

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Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
2 months 4 days ago
Heroic love is the property of...

Heroic love is the property of those superior natures who are called insane not because they do not know, but because they over-know.

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As quoted in The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), by Miguel de Unamuno, as translated by J. E. Crawford
Philosophical Maxims
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
1 week 3 days ago
It doesn't matter that it can't...

It doesn't matter that it can't last, that we don't find it more often. To know that there is such perfection, that there has been such perfection - it is worth living for. It exists. It has been - it is. One can contemplate it and feel complete peace.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
Anyone who speaks in the name...

Anyone who speaks in the name of others is always an impostor.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 3 weeks ago
Love is something more stern and...

Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness.

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Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
3 weeks 4 days ago
Audacity augments courage…

Audacity augments courage; hesitation, fear.

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Maxim 63 Variant translation: "Valour grows by daring, fear by holding back."
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
All the concessions we make to...

All the concessions we make to Eros are holes in our desire for the absolute.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 4 weeks ago
The frontiers are not east or...

The frontiers are not east or west, north or south, but wherever a man fronts a fact, though that fact be his neighbor, there is an unsettled wilderness between him and Canada, between him and the setting sun, or, farther still, between him and it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 4 weeks ago
While there are manners and compliments...

While there are manners and compliments we do not meet, we do not teach one another the lessons of honesty and sincerity that the brutes do, or of steadiness and solidity that the rocks do. The fault is commonly mutual, however; for we do not habitually demand any more of each other.

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p. 490
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
1 month 2 weeks ago
Because energy is not restrained by...

Because energy is not restrained by other elements that are at once antagonistic and cooperative, action proceeds by jerks and spasms. There is discontinuity.

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p. 189
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 1 week ago
In his Experiment in Autobiography (1934),...

In his Experiment in Autobiography (1934), H.G. Wells pointed out that ever since the beginning of life, most creatures have been 'up against it'. Their lives are a drama of struggle against the forces of nature. Yet nowadays you can say to a man: Yes, you earn a living, you support a family, you love and hate, but -- what do you do? His real interest may be in something else -- art, science, literature, philosophy. The bird is a creature of the air, the fish is a creature of the water, and man is a creature of the mind.

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pp. 346-347
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
1 month 1 week ago
The reason that people take selfies...

The reason that people take selfies is not narcissism. Rather, it is inner emptiness. There is no meaning to stabilize the ego. Faced with its inner emptiness, the ego constantly produces itself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee
1 week 3 days ago
Now who are the individuals who...

Now who are the individuals who are the greatest benefactors of the living generation of mankind? I should say: Confucius and Lao-Tse; the Buddha; the Prophets of Israel and Judah; Zoroaster, Jesus, Muhammad; and Socrates.

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Ch. 8: Civilization on Trial
Philosophical Maxims
Willard van Orman Quine
Willard van Orman Quine
1 month 1 week ago
The word 'definition' has come to...

The word 'definition' has come to have a dangerously reassuring sound, owing no doubt to its frequent occurrence in logical and mathematical writings.

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"Two dogmas of Empiricism", p. 26
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
1 month 2 weeks ago
From whence it follows, that were...

From whence it follows, that were the publique and private interest are most closely united, there is the publique most advanced.

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The Second Part, Chapter 19, p. 97
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 4 weeks ago
One may discover the root of...

One may discover the root of a Hindoo religion in his own private history, when, in the silent intervals of the day or night, he does sometimes inflict on himself like austerities with a stern satisfaction.

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Snakes in the Ganga, 2022
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
1 month 2 weeks ago
No work of art can be...

No work of art can be instantaneously perceived because there is the no opportunity for conservation and increase in tension, and hence none for that release and unfolding which gives volume to a work of art.

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p. 189
Philosophical Maxims
David Wood
David Wood
6 days ago
Nietzsche would say my friends lacked...

Nietzsche would say my friends lacked ears.

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Chapter 8, Performative Reflexivity, p. 133
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 3 weeks ago
Friendship is the greatest of worldly...

Friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice to a young man about a place to live, I think I shd. say, 'sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.

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Letter to Arthur Greeves (29 December 1935) - in They Stand Together: The Letters of C. S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves (1914-1963) (1979), p. 477
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 3 weeks ago
The belief in a political Utopia...

The belief in a political Utopia is especially dangerous. This is possibly connected with the fact that the search for a better world, like the investigation of our environment, is (if I am correct) one of the oldest and most important of all the instincts.

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
1 month 1 week ago
The needs of a human being...

The needs of a human being are sacred. Their satisfaction cannot be subordinated either to reasons of state, or to any consideration of money, nationality, race, or colour, or to the moral or other value attributed to the human being in question, or to any consideration whatsoever. There is no legitimate limit to the satisfaction of the needs of a human being except as imposed by necessity and by the needs of other human beings. The limit is only legitimate if the needs of all human beings receive an equal degree of attention.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 3 weeks ago
To be happy, we must not...

To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
2 months 3 weeks ago
As medium for reaching understanding, speech...

As medium for reaching understanding, speech acts serve: a) to establish and renew interpersonal relations, whereby the speaker takes up a relation to something in the world of legitimate social orders; b) to represent states and events, whereby the speaker takes up a relation to something in the world of existing states of affairs; c) to manifest experiences that is, to represent oneself- whereby the speaker takes up a relation to something in the subjective world to which he has privileged access.

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p. 308
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
3 months 1 day ago
The more exquisite any good is,...

The more exquisite any good is, of which a small specimen is afforded us, the sharper is the evil, allied to it; and few exceptions are found to this uniform law of nature. The most sprightly wit borders on madness; the highest effusions of joy produce the deepest melancholy; the most ravishing pleasures are attended with the most cruel lassitude and disgust; the most flattering hopes make way for the severest disappointments. And, in general, no course of life has such safety (for happiness is not to be dreamed of) as the temperate and moderate, which maintains, as far as possible, a mediocrity, and a kind of insensibility, in every thing. As the good, the great, the sublime, the ravishing are found eminently in the genuine principles of theism; it may be expected, from the analogy of nature, that the base, the absurd, the mean, the terrifying will be equally discovered in religious fictions and chimeras.

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Part XV - General corollary
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
1 month 2 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
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
2 months 4 weeks ago
The force of mind is only...

The force of mind is only as great as its expression; its depth only as deep as its power to expand and lose itself.

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Preface (J. B. Baillie translation), § 10
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
If there is anyone who owes...

If there is anyone who owes everything to Bach, it is certainly God.

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Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
2 months 2 weeks ago
Be ruled by time, the wisest...

Be ruled by time, the wisest counsellor of all.

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Pericles (Tr. Dryden and Clough)
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 4 weeks ago
Instead of deciding once in three...

Instead of deciding once in three or six years which member of the ruling class was to misrepresent the people in Parliament, universal suffrage was to serve the people, constituted in Communes, as individual suffrage serves every other employer in the search for the workmen and managers in his business.

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The Civil War in France : "The Third Address", May 1871
Philosophical Maxims
Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Berdyaev
1 month 2 weeks ago
This was once revealed to me...

This was once revealed to me in a dream.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 2 weeks ago
To all my friends...
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Susan Neiman
Susan Neiman
2 weeks 4 days ago
Statues are not about history. We...

Statues are not about history. We don't memorialize each piece of history. We memorialize things that we want to value and things that we want our children to walk by and say "This person embodied the values that I care about." Therefore, statues are about values not about history.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 3 weeks ago
"A pleasure is full grown only...

"A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered. You are speaking, Hmān, as if the pleasure were one thing and the memory another. It is all one thing. The séroni could say it better than I say it now. Not better than I could say it in a poem. What you call remembering is the last part of the pleasure, as the crah is the last part of a poem. When you and I met, the meeting was over very shortly, it was nothing. Now it is growing something as we remember it. But still we know very little about it. What it will be when I remember it as I lie down to die, what it makes in me all my days till then-that is the real meeting. The other is only the beginning of it."

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Hyoi, p. 73
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
1 month 3 weeks ago
The pursuit of individual happiness within...

The pursuit of individual happiness within those limits prescribed by social conditions, is the first requisite to the attainment of the greatest general happiness.

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Ethics (New York:1915), § 70, pp. 190-191
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 month 1 week ago
Once we know our weaknesses they...

Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.

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D 5
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
1 month 2 weeks ago
[I]t would be a piece of...

[I]t would be a piece of ingenuousness to accuse the man of to-day of his lack of moral code. The accusation would leave him cold, or rather, would flatter him. Immoralism has become a commonplace, and anybody and everybody boasts of practising it.

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Chapter XV: We Arrive At The Real Question
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 4 weeks ago
All human activity is prompted by...

All human activity is prompted by desire. There is a wholly fallacious theory advanced by some earnest moralists to the effect that it is possible to resist desire in the interests of duty and moral principle. I say this is fallacious, not because no man ever acts from a sense of duty, but because duty has no hold on him unless he desires to be dutiful. If you wish to know what men will do, you must know not only, or principally, their material circumstances, but rather the whole system of their desires with their relative strengths.

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(wav audio file of Russell's voice)
Philosophical Maxims
Ptahhotep
Ptahhotep
2 months 2 weeks ago
If you are well-to-do and can...

If you are well-to-do and can maintain your household, love your wife in your home according to good custom...Make her happy while you are alive, for she is land profitable to her lord.

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Maxim no. 21.
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 4 weeks ago
Of the evils most liable to...

Of the evils most liable to attend on any sort of early proficiency, and which often fatally blights its promise, my father most anxiously guarded against. This was self-conceit. He kept me, with extreme vigilance, out of the way of hearing myself praised, or of being led to make self-flattering comparisons between myself and others. From his own intercourse with me I could derive none but a very humble opinion of myself; and the standard of comparison he always held up to me, was not what other people did, but what a man could and ought to do. He completely succeeded in preserving me from the sort of influences he so much dreaded. I was not at all aware that my attainments were anything unusual at my age.

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(pp. 32-33)
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
1 month 2 weeks ago
This idea is that laws which...

This idea is that laws which purport to be statements of what actually occurs are statistical in character as distinct from so-called dynamic laws that are abstract and mathematical, and disguised definitions. Recognition of the statistical nature of physical laws was first effected in the case of gases when it became evident that generalizations regarding the behavior of swarms of molecules were not descriptions or predictions of the behavior of any individual particle. A single molecule is not and cannot be a gas. It is consequently absurd to suppose that a scientific law is about the elementary constituents of a gas. It is a statement of what happens when a large number of such constituents interact with one another under certain conditions.

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Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
2 months 1 week ago
A blow from your friend is...

A blow from your friend is better than a kiss from your enemy.

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As quoted in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists‎ (2007) by James Geary, p. 118
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
3 months ago
In the natural state no concept...

In the natural state no concept of God can arise, and the false one which one makes for himself is harmful. Hence the theory of natural religion can be true only where there is no science; therefore it cannot bind all men together.

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Part III : Selection on Education from Kant's other Writings, Ch. I Pedagogical Fragments, # 60
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 3 weeks ago
It is change, continuing change, inevitable...

It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be ... This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our everyman must take on a science fictional way of thinking.

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Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
1 month 3 weeks ago
Virtue can only flourish amongst equals....

Virtue can only flourish amongst equals.

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A Vindication of the Rights of Men
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 4 weeks ago
I am sorry to say that...

I am sorry to say that at the moment I am so busy as to be convinced that life has no meaning whatever... I do not see that we can judge what would be the result of the discovery of truth, since none has hitherto been discovered.

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Letter to Will Durant, 20 June, 1931
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
One would have to be as...

One would have to be as unenlightened as an angel or an idiot to imagine that the human escapade could turn out well.

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Philosophical Maxims
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
7 months 3 days ago
The medium of the chorus

In his seminar on The Ethic of Psychoanalysis, Lacan speaks of the role of the Chorus in classical tragedy: we, the spectators, came to the theatre worried, full of everyday problems, unable to adjust without reserve to the problems of the play, that is to feel the required fears and compassions - but not problem, there is a chorus, who feels the sorrow and the compassion instead of us - or, more precisely, we feel the required emotions through the medium of the chorus: 'You are then relieved of all worries, even if you do not feel anything, the Chorus will do so in your place.'

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 month 2 weeks ago
There may be a rationalist who...

There may be a rationalist who has never wavered in his conviction of the mortality of the soul, and there may be a vitalist who has never wavered in his faith in immortality; but at the most this would prove that just as there are natural monstrosities, so there are those who are stupid as regards heart and feeling, however great their intelligence, and those who are stupid intellectually, however great their virtue. But, in normal cases, I cannot believe those who assure me that never, not in a fleeting moment, not in the hours of direst loneliness and grief, has this murmur of uncertainty breathed upon their consciousness.

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Philosophical Maxims
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