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Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 2 weeks ago
Speed, it seems to me, provides...

Speed, it seems to me, provides the one genuinely modern pleasure.

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Wanted, A New Pleasure
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 2 weeks ago
A just system...
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Gottlob frege
Gottlob frege
2 months 1 week ago
Being true is different from being...

Being true is different from being taken as true, whether by one or by many or everybody, and in no case is it to be reduced to it. There is no contradiction in something's being true which everybody takes to be false. I understand by 'laws of logic' not psychological laws of takings-to-be-true, but laws of truth. ...If being true is thus independent of being acknowledged by somebody or other, then the laws of truth are not psychological laws: they are boundary stones set in an eternal foundation, which our thought can overflow, but never displace. It is because of this that they have authority for our thought if it would attain truth. They do not bear the relation to thought that the laws of grammar bear to language; they do not make explicit the nature of our human thinking and change as it changes.

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Introduction, Tr. Montgomery Furth
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 2 weeks ago
Shallow men believe in luck. Worship

Shallow men believe in luck.

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Worship
Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
3 weeks 6 days ago
Given our anthropocentric bias, thinking of...

Given our anthropocentric bias, thinking of non-human vertebrates not just as equivalent in moral status to toddlers or infants, but as though they were toddlers or infants, is a useful exercise. Such reconceptualisation helps correct our lack of empathy for sentient beings whose physical appearance is different from "us". Ethically, the practice of intelligent "anthropomorphism" shouldn't be shunned as unscientific, but embraced insofar as it augments our stunted capacity for empathy. Such anthropomorphism can be a valuable corrective to our cognitive and moral limitations. This is not a plea to be sentimental, simply for impartial benevolence.

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Reprogramming Predators, BLTC Research, 2009
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 2 weeks ago
The gods had condemned Sisyphus to...

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 2 weeks ago
There always comes a time in...

There always comes a time in history when the person who dares to say that 2+2=4 is punished by death. And the issue is not what reward or what punishment will be the outcome of that reasoning. The issue is simply whether or not 2+2=4.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 2 weeks ago
I believe in Christianity as I...

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

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"Is Theology Poetry?", 1945
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 2 weeks ago
A dog cannot relate his autobiography;...

A dog cannot relate his autobiography; however eloquently he may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were honest but poor.

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Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948), part II, chapter 1, p. 74
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
2 months 1 week ago
As we shall see later, the...

As we shall see later, the most important factor in the training of good mental habits consists in acquiring the attitude of suspended conclusion, and in mastering the various methods of searching for new materials to corroborate or to refute the first suggestions that occur. To maintain the state of doubt and to carry on systematic and protracted inquiry ― these are the essentials of thinking.

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Chapter 1: "What Is Thought?"
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 month 2 weeks ago
It really comes down to parsimony,...

It really comes down to parsimony, economy of explanation. It is possible that your car engine is driven by psychokinetic energy, but if it looks like a petrol engine, smells like a petrol engine and performs exactly as well as a petrol engine, the sensible working hypothesis is that it is a petrol engine.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
3 months 2 weeks ago
And as to you, Sir, treacherous...

And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger) and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any. 

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Letter to George Washington, 30 July 1796
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 2 weeks ago
He kept the middle way, that's...

He kept the middle way, that's all: he was the type of man for whom one has an affection of the mild but steady order - which is the kind that wears best.

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 months 4 days ago
We should have with each person...

We should have with each person the relationship of one conception of the universe to another conception of the universe, and not to a part of the universe.

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p. 129
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 2 weeks ago
One thing I have frequently observed...

One thing I have frequently observed in children, that when they have got possession of any poor creature, they are apt to use it ill: they often torment, and treat it very roughly, young birds, butterflies, and such other poor animals which fall into their hands, and that with a seeming kind of pleasure. This I think should be watched in them, and if they incline to any such cruelty, they should be taught the contrary usage. For the custom of tormenting and killing of beasts, will, by degrees, harden their minds even towards men; and they will delight in the suffering and destruction of inferior creatures, will not be apt to be very compassionate or benign to those of their own kind. Our practice takes notice of this in the exclusion of butchers from juries of life and death.

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Sec. 116
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
3 months 2 weeks ago
In every province, the chief occupations,...

In every province, the chief occupations, in order of importance, are lovemaking, malicious gossip, and talking nonsense.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 2 weeks ago
I doubt not, but from self-evident...

I doubt not, but from self-evident Propositions, by necessary Consequences, as incontestable as those in Mathematics, the measures of right and wrong might be made out.

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Book IV, Ch. 3, sec. 18
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Owen
Robert Owen
1 month 1 week ago
Is it not the interest of...

Is it not the interest of the human race, that every one should be so taught and placed, that he would find his highest enjoyment to arise from the continued practice of doing all in his power to promote the well-being, and happiness, of every man, woman, and child, without regard to their class, sect, party, country or colour?

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Paper Dedicated to the Governments of Great Britain, Austria, Russia, France, Prussia and the United States of America (1841) 17th of "20 Questions to the Human Race"
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 month 2 weeks ago
It is a bad plan…

It is a bad plan that admits of no modification.

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Maxim 469
Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
4 months 1 week ago
Continence is a branch of temperance,...

Continence is a branch of temperance, which prevents the diseases, infamy, remorse, and punishment, to which those are exposed, who indulge themselves in unlawful amours.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 week 2 days ago
Paris, which for sixty years past...

Paris, which for sixty years past has been the City of Insurrections. The French People had plumed themselves on being, whatever else they were not, at least the chosen "soldiers of liberty," who took the lead of all creatures in that pursuit, at least; and had become, as their orators, editors and litterateurs diligently taught them, a People whose bayonets were sacred, a kind of Messiah People, saving a blind world in its own despite, and earning for themselves a terrestrial and even celestial glory very considerable indeed.

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Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
3 months 1 week ago
To a wise man, the whole...

To a wise man, the whole earth is open; for the native land of a good soul is the whole earth.

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Freeman (1948), p. 166 \
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
3 months 5 days ago
Agesilaus was very fond of his...

Agesilaus was very fond of his children; and it is reported that once toying with them he got astride upon a reed as upon a horse, and rode about the room; and being seen by one of his friends, he desired him not to speak of it till he had children of his own.

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Of Agesilaus the Great
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
2 months 1 week ago
The soul contains few secrets and...

The soul contains few secrets and longings which cannot be sensibly discussed, analyzed, and polled. Solitude, the very condition which sustained the individual against and beyond his society, has become technically impossible. Logical and linguistic analysis demonstrate that the old metaphysical problems are illusory problems; the quest for the "meaning" of things can be reformulated as the quest for the meaning of words, and the established universe of discourse and behavior can provide perfectly adequate criteria for the answer.

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p. 71
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
2 months 1 week ago
Loren von Stein thus turned the...

Loren von Stein thus turned the dialectic into an ensemble of objective laws calling for social reform as the adequate solution of all contradictions and neutralized the critical elements of the dialectic.

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P. 388
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
4 months 6 days ago
It is on account neither of...

It is on account neither of God's weakness nor ignorance that evil comes into the world, but rather it is due to the order of his wisdom and the greatness of his goodness that diverse grades of goodness occur in things, many of which would be lacking if no evil were permitted. Indeed, the good of patience would not exist without the evil of persecution; nor the good of preservation of life in a lion if not for the evil of the destruction of the animals on which it lives.

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q. 3, art. 6, ad 4
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 2 weeks ago
For each new class which puts...

For each new class which puts itself in the place of one ruling before it, is compelled, merely in order to carry through its aim, to represent its interests the common interest of all the members of society, that is, sality, and represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones. The class making a revolution appears from the very start, if only because it is opposed to a class, not as a class but as the representative of the whole of society; it appears as the whole mass of society confronting the one ruling class.

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"Concerning the production of Consciousness"
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
4 months 2 weeks ago
No power can maintain itself if...
No power can maintain itself if only hypocrites represent it.
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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 week 2 days ago
The Book had in a high...

The Book had in a high degree excited us to self-activity, which is the best effect of any book.

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Bk. I, ch. 4.
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
4 months 2 days ago
Pleasant it is…

Pleasant it is, when over a great sea the winds trouble the waters, to gaze from shore upon another's great tribulation: not because any man's troubles are a delectable joy, but because to perceive from what ills you are free yourself is pleasant.

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Book II, lines 1-4 (tr. Rouse)
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 2 weeks ago
The aim of art, the aim...

The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom, even temporarily.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
1 month 2 weeks ago
Mankind was never so happily inspired...

Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral.

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An Inland Voyage (1878).
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 2 weeks ago
Luxury is the opposite of the...

Luxury is the opposite of the naturally necessary.

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Notebook V, The Chapter on Capital, p. 448.
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
1 month 3 weeks ago
THERE IS NEVER ANYTHING TO PRO-DUCE....

THERE IS NEVER ANYTHING TO PRO-DUCE. In spite of all its materialist efforts, production remains a utopia. We can wear ourselves out in materializing things, in rendering them visible, but we will never cancel the secret.

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(p. 65)
Philosophical Maxims
Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch
2 months 1 week ago
The novel, the novel proper that...

The novel, the novel proper that is, is about people's treatment of each other, and so it is about human values.

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Ch. 10, p. 138
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 2 weeks ago
I should like to believe my...

I should like to believe my people's religion, which was just what I could wish, but alas, it is impossible. I have really no religion, for my God, being a spirit shown merely by reason to exist, his properties utterly unknown, is no help to my life. I have not the parson's comfortable doctrine that every good action has its reward, and every sin is forgiven. My whole religion is this: do every duty, and expect no reward for it, either here or hereafter.

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Greek Exercises (1888), written two days after his sixteenth birthday.
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
3 days ago
What, if you were to pass...

What, if you were to pass from the consideration of those single men against whom anger has broken out to view whole assemblies cut down by the sword, the people butchered by the soldiery let loose upon it, and whole nations condemned to death in one common ruin... as though by men who either freed themselves from our charge or despised our authority?

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 week 2 days ago
I take the liberty of asserting...

I take the liberty of asserting that there is one valid reason, and only one, for either punishing a man or rewarding him in this world; one reason, which ancient piety could well define: That you may do the will and commandment of God with regard to him; that you may do justice to him. This is your one true aim in respect of him; aim thitherward, with all your heart and all your strength and all your soul, thitherward, and not elsewhither at all! This aim is true, and will carry you to all earthly heights and benefits, and beyond the stars and Heavens. All other aims are purblind, illegitimate, untrue; and will never carry you beyond the shop-counter, nay very soon will prove themselves incapable of maintaining you even there. Find out what the Law of God is with regard to a man; make that your human law, or I say it will be ill with you, and not well!

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Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
4 months ago
If it is pleasing to observe...

If it is pleasing to observe in nature her desire to paint God in all his works, in which we see some traces of him because they are his images, how much more just is it to consider in the productions of minds the efforts which they make to imitate the essential truth, even in shunning it, and to remark wherein they attain it and wherein they wander from it, as I have endeavored to do in this study.

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Philosophical Maxims
B. F. Skinner
B. F. Skinner
2 weeks ago
A person who has been punished...

A person who has been punished is not thereby simply less inclined to behave in a given way; at best, he learns how to avoid punishment.

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Beyond Freedom and Dignity
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 2 weeks ago
All of the new media have...

All of the new media have enriched our perceptions of language and older media. They are to the man-made environment what species are to biology.

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(p. 84)
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
2 months 2 weeks ago
Throughout all organic nature there is...

Throughout all organic nature there is at work a modifying influence of the kind... as the cause, these specific differences: an influence which, though slow in its action, does, in time, if the circumstances demand it, produce marked changes-an influence, which to all appearance, would produce in the millions of years, and under the great varieties of condition which geological records imply, any amount of change.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
We suffer: the external world begins...

We suffer: the external world begins to exist . . . ; we suffer to excess: it vanishes. Pain instigates the world only to unmask its unreality.

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Philosophical Maxims
Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch
2 months 1 week ago
A bad review is even less...

A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia.

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Quoted in The Times (6 July 1989).
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
3 months 3 weeks ago
...happiness is not an ideal of...

...happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination, resting solely on empirical grounds.

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Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Ethics (1785), Second Section.
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 2 weeks ago
A poem is one undivided unimpeded...

A poem is one undivided unimpeded expression fallen ripe into literature, and it is undividedly and unimpededly received by those for whom it was matured.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
3 months 2 weeks ago
The discovery of truth is prevented...

The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.

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Vol. 2, Ch. 1, § 17
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
4 months 2 days ago
For what is it that everyone...

For what is it that everyone is seeking? To live securely, to be happy, to do everything as they wish to do, not to be hindered, not to be subject to compulsion.

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Book IV, ch. 1, 46.
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 2 weeks ago
The bias of each medium of...

The bias of each medium of communication is far more distorting than the deliberate lie.

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JQ. Journalism quarterly, Volume 50, Association for Education in Journalism, 1973, p. 145
Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
3 months 3 weeks ago
So in all human affairs one...

So in all human affairs one notices, if one examines them closely, that it is impossible to remove one inconvenience without another emerging.

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Book 1, Ch. 6 (as translated by LJ Walker and B Crick)
Philosophical Maxims
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