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Albert Camus
Albert Camus
7 months 1 week ago
Knowing that certain nights whose sweetness...

Knowing that certain nights whose sweetness lingers will keep returning to the earth and sea after we are gone, yes, this helps us to die.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
3 months 3 days ago
The eye of the intellect "sees...

The eye of the intellect "sees in all objects what it brought with it the means of seeing."

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Varnhagen von Ense's Memoirs.
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
6 months 1 week ago
I am condemned...

I am condemned to be free.

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Part 4, chapter 1
Philosophical Maxims
Empedocles
Empedocles
6 months 2 days ago
But, when the elements have been...

But, when the elements have been mingled in the fashion of a man and come to the light of day, or in the fashion of the race of wild beasts or plants or birds, then men say that these come into being; and when they are separated, they call that woeful death. They call it not aright; but I too follow the custom, and call it so myself.

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fr. 9 As quoted by John Burnet, Early Greek philosophy (1908) p. 240
Philosophical Maxims
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
3 months 1 week ago
The principles of the good society...

The principles of the good society call for a concern with an order of being--which cannot be proved existentially to the sense organs--where it matters supremely that the human person is inviolable, that reason shall regulate the will, that truth shall prevail over error.

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p. 127
Philosophical Maxims
Cato the Younger
Cato the Younger
6 months 2 days ago
It is worth observing, how we...

It is worth observing, how we feel ourselves affected in reading the characters of Cæsar, and Cato, as they are so finely drawn and contrasted in Salust. In one, the ignoscendo, largiundo; in the other, nil largiundo. In one, the miseris perfugium; in the other, malis perniciem. In the latter we have much to admire, much to reverence, and perhaps something to fear; we respect him, but we respect him at a distance. The former makes us familiar with him; we love him, and he leads us whither he pleases.

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Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (2nd ed. 1759), pp. 206-207
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
5 months 1 week ago
The state is therefore everyone; the...

The state is therefore everyone; the rules within the state are laws which safeguard the welfare of all and which must originate from the welfare of all.

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
5 months 1 week ago
Even those who have renounced Christianity...

Even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardor of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham
6 months 2 weeks ago
Of corruption, the principal and direct...

Of corruption, the principal and direct use is, to engage the representatives of the people to betray their trust, and sell themselves and the people to the universal corrupter-the monarch, in his capacity of corrupter-general.

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Constitutional Code (written between 1820 and 1832), quoted in The Works of Jeremy Bentham, Vol. XVII (1841), p. 76
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
6 months 2 weeks ago
We hold, that the moral obligation...

We hold, that the moral obligation of providing for old age, helpless infancy, and poverty, is far superior to that of supplying the invented wants of courtly extravagance, ambition and intrigue.

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Address and Declaration at a Select Meeting of the Friends of Universal Peace and Liberty (August 20, 1791) p. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 months 1 week ago
Let opinion be taken away, and...

Let opinion be taken away, and no man will think himself wronged. If no man shall think himself wronged, then is there no more any such thing as wrong.

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IV. 7, trans. Méric Casaubon
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
7 months 1 week ago
Wonder is the feeling of a...

Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
7 months 1 week ago
I don't believe in flying saucers......

I don't believe in flying saucers... The energy requirements of interstellar travel are so great that it is inconceivable to me that any creatures piloting their ships across the vast depths of space would do so only in order to play games with us over a period of decades.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
6 months 2 weeks ago
The foundations on which several duties...

The foundations on which several duties are built, and the foundations of right and wrong from which they spring, are not perhaps easily to be let into the minds of grown men, not us'd to abstract their thoughts from common received opinions. Much less are children capable of reasonings from remote principles. They cannot conceive the force of long deductions. The reasons that move them must be obvious, and level to their thoughts, and such as may be felt and touched. But yet, if their age, temper, and inclination be consider'd, they will never want such motives as may be sufficient to convince them.

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Sec. 81
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
6 months 3 weeks ago
The greatest error of all the...

The greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men: as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a tarrasse, for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state, for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and contention; or a shop, for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse, for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate.

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Book I, v, 11
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
6 months 1 week ago
I do not think it can...

I do not think it can be questioned that sympathy is a genuine motive, and that some people at some times are made somewhat uncomfortable by the sufferings of some other people. It is sympathy that has produced the many humanitarian advances of the last hundred years. We are shocked when we hear stories of the ill-treatment of lunatics, and there are now quite a number of asylums in which they are not ill-treated. Prisoners in Western countries are not supposed to be tortured, and when they are, there is an outcry if the facts are discovered. We do not approve of treating orphans as they are treated in Oliver Twist.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 months 1 week ago
When thou art offended at any...

When thou art offended at any man's fault, forthwith turn to thyself and reflect in what manner thou doest error thyself... For by attending to this thou wilt quickly forget thy anger, if this consideration is also added, that the man is compelled; for what else could he do? or, if thou art able, take away from him the compulsion.

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X, 30
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
6 months 3 weeks ago
Let the public good overcome all...

Let the public good overcome all private and selfish regards of every kind and degree; though in truth, even private and selfish regards, and every man's own interest, will be best promoted by the preservation of peace.

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
4 months 4 weeks ago
I also am other than what...

I also am other than what I imagine myself to be. To know this is forgiveness.

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p. 200
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
7 months 1 week ago
The absurd does not liberate...

The absurd does not liberate; it binds. It does not authorize all actions. "Everything is permitted" does not mean that nothing is forbidden.

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Philosophical Maxims
Iamblichus
Iamblichus
2 months 1 week ago
They call it "friendship" and "peace,"...

They call it "friendship" and "peace," and further "harmony" and "unanimity": for these are all cohesive and unificatory of opposites and dissimilars. Hence they also call it "marriage." And there are also three ages in life.

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On the Triad
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
3 months 6 days ago
Everyone is sure….

Everyone is sure of this [that errors are normally distributed], Mr. Lippman told me one day, since the experimentalists believe that it is a mathematical theorem, and the mathematicians that it is an experimentally determined fact.

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Calcul des probabilités (2nd ed., 1912), p. 171
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
6 months 1 week ago
If the single man plant himself...

If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him. 6. Nature, Addresses and Lectures.

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The American Scholar
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
5 months 4 days ago
Just because emotion is essential to...

Just because emotion is essential to that act of expression which produces a work of art, it is easy for inaccurate analysis to misconceive its mode of operation and conclude that the work of art has emotion for its significant content. One may cry out with joy or even weep upon seeing a friend from whom one has been long separated. The outcome is not an expressive object -- save to the onlooker. But if the emotion leads one to gather material that is affiliated to the mood which is aroused, a poem may result. In the direct outburst, an objective situation is the stimulus, the cause, of the emotion. In the poem, objective material becomes the content and matter of the emotion, not just its evocative occasion.

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pp. 71-72
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
6 months 1 week ago
I do not believe that I...

I do not believe that I am now dreaming, but I cannot prove that I am not. I am, however, quite certain that I am having certain experiences, whether they be those of a dream or those of waking life.

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Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948), p. 172
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 months 1 week ago
Where have they gone, the brilliant,...

Where have they gone, the brilliant, the insightful ones, the proud?

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(Hays translation) VIII, 25
Philosophical Maxims
B. F. Skinner
B. F. Skinner
3 months 1 week ago
Education is what survives when what...

Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.

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"New methods and new aims in teaching", in New Scientist, 22(392) (21 May 1964), pp.483-4
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
5 months 1 week ago
Your worst sin is that you...

Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
5 months 2 weeks ago
The Universe is one, infinite, immobile....

The Universe is one, infinite, immobile. The absolute potential is one, the act is one, the form or soul is one, the material or body is one, the thing is one, the being in one, one is the maximum and the best... It is not generated, because there is no other being it could desire or hope for, since it comprises all being. It does not grow corrupt. because there is nothing else into which it could change, given that it is itself all things. It cannot diminish or grow, since it is infinite.

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As translated by Paul Harrison
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 week 5 days ago
Do you think that.....
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Main Content / General
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
4 months 1 week ago
In television, images are projected at...

In television, images are projected at you. You are the screen. The images wrap around you. You are the vanishing point.

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The diplomat, Issues 197-208, 1966, p. 20
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
6 months 1 week ago
Thus, Beauty is neither an appearance...

Thus, Beauty is neither an appearance nor a being, but a relationship: the transformation of being into appearance

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p. 408
Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
2 months 1 week ago
Poetry can be written only because...

Poetry can be written only because it has been written.

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"The Responsibility of the Poet"
Philosophical Maxims
Joseph de Maistre
Joseph de Maistre
2 months 1 week ago
Any institution is only a political...

Any institution is only a political structure. In physics and in morals, the laws are the same; you cannot build a large structure on a narrow foundation, nor a durable structure on a moving or transient base. In the political order, therefore, if one wants to build on a large scale and for the centuries, one must rely on an opinion, on a large and profound belief. For if this opinion does not dominate a majority of minds and if it is not deeply rooted, it will furnish only a narrow and transient base.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
6 months 3 weeks ago
We are much beholden to Machiavel...

We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.

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Book II, xxi, 9
Philosophical Maxims
Sir Thomas Browne
Sir Thomas Browne
5 months 2 weeks ago
In the deep discovery of the...

In the deep discovery of the Subterranean world, a shallow part would satisfy some enquirers.

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Chapter I
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
6 months 2 weeks ago
You must not murder. (Exodus 20:13)...

You must not murder. (Exodus 20:13) Q. What does this mean? A. We should fear and love God so that we may not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body, but help and befriend him in every bodily need [in every need and danger of life and body].

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Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
6 months 2 weeks ago
The question here is not, "How...

The question here is not, "How conscience ought to be guided? For Conscience is its own General and Leader; it is therefore enough that each man have one. What we want to know is, how conscience can be her own Ariadne, and disentangle herself from the mazes even of the most raveled and complicated casuistical theology. Here is an ethical proposition that stands in need of no proof: No Action May At Any Time Be Hazarded On The Uncertainty That Perchance It May Not Be Wrong (Quod dubitas, ne feceris! Pliny - which you doubt, then neither do) Hence the Consciousness, that Any Action I am about to perform is Right, is in itself a most immediate and imperative duty. What actions are right, - what wrong - is a matter for the understanding, not for conscience.

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p. 251 Book IV, Part 2, Section 4
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
4 months 1 day ago
I shall not be satisfied unless...

I shall not be satisfied unless I produce something which shall for a few days supersede the last fashionable novel on the tables of young ladies.

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Letter to Macvey Napier
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
4 months 1 week ago
Nothing can be done at once...

Nothing can be done at once hastily and prudently.

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Maxim 557
Philosophical Maxims
Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
4 months 5 days ago
Hayek fails to account either for...

Hayek fails to account either for the passion among intellectuals for equality, or for the resulting success of socialists and their egalitarian successors in driving the liberal idea from the stage of politics. This passion for equality is not a new thing, and indeed pre-dates socialism by many centuries, finding its most influential expression in the writings of Rousseau. There is no consensus as to how equality might be achieved, what it would consist in if achieved, or why it is so desirable in the first place. But no argument against the cogency or viability of the idea has the faintest chance of being listened to or discussed by those who have fallen under its spell.

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Hayek and conservatism, in Edward Feser (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hayek
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
6 months 1 week ago
I think that there is nothing,...

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself, than this incessant business.

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p. 485
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
6 months 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
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
3 months 3 days ago
One life; a little gleam of...

One life; a little gleam of Time between two Eternities; no second chance to us for evermore!

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Philosophical Maxims
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
2 months 2 weeks ago
Human history is not the product...

Human history is not the product of the wise direction of human reason, but is shaped by the forces of emotion-our dreams, our pride, our greed, our fears, and our desire for revenge.

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Confucius Saw Nancy and Essays about Nothing (1936), p. 95
Philosophical Maxims
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam
4 months 2 weeks ago
To require that all of these...

To require that all of these must be reducible to a single version is to make the mistake of supposing that 'Which are the real objects?' is a question that makes sense independently of our choice of concepts.

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Lecture I: Is There Still Anything to Say about Reality and Truth?
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
5 months 1 week ago
I do nothing, granted. But I...

I do nothing, granted. But I see the hours pass - which is better than trying to fill them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
4 months 1 week ago
Invention is the mother of all...

Invention is the mother of all necessities.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
6 months 1 week ago
We are and irrefutable arbiters of...

We are and irrefutable arbiters of value, and in the world of value Nature is only a part. Thus in this world we are greater than Nature. In the world of values, Nature in itself is neutral, neither good nor bad deserving of neither admiration nor censure. It is we who create value and our desires which confer value. In this realm we are kings, and we debase our kingship if we bow down to Nature. It is for us to determine our good life, not for Nature - not even for Nature personified as God.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
7 months 1 week ago
It is true that in the...

It is true that in the confessional it is the pastor who preaches; but the true preacher is still the secret-sharer in your inner being. The pastor can preach only in vague generalities; the preacher in your inner being is just the opposite; he speaks simply and solely about you, to you, and within you.

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Philosophical Maxims
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