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Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
6 days ago
..If you are troubled by external...

..If you are troubled by external circumstances, it is not the circumstances that trouble you, but your own perception of them - and they are in your power to change at any time.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 5 days ago
Compared to the refined culture of...

Compared to the refined culture of sclerotic forms and frames, which mask everything, the lyrical mode is utterly barbarian in its expression. Its value resides precisely in its savage quality: it is only blood, sincerity, and fire.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee
1 month 3 weeks ago
Right and wrong are the same...

Right and wrong are the same in Palestine as anywhere else. What is peculiar about the Palestine conflict is that the world has listened to the party that has committed the offence and has turned a deaf ear to the victims.

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Foreword to The Transformation of Palestine
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Schmitt
Carl Schmitt
1 week 1 day ago
The friend, enemy, and combat concepts...

The friend, enemy, and combat concepts receive their real meaning precisely because they refer to the real possibility of physical killing. War follows from enmity. War is the existential negation of the enemy.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
1 month 4 days ago
In the 1980s and 90s there...

In the 1980s and 90s there was an extension of the autonomy of individual property owners in... a movement towards neoliberalism represented by Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and... by the Chicago school of economics that denigrated... the role of the state in the economy, that said the private markets would be able to solve most social distribution problems and the like. This was true in many ways. The world did become much richer in this period, but it also became much more unequal... Without adequate regulation and... effort to protect people against the excesses of market capitalism, you had people... left behind, even as their societies as a whole, grew. ...This ...became one of the triggers for the kind of populism we've seen arise in many rich countries.

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14:13
Philosophical Maxims
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
1 month 3 weeks ago
Lost time was like a run...

Lost time was like a run in a stocking. It always got worse.

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The Steep Ascent
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 5 days ago
Without its assiduity to the ridiculous,...

Without its assiduity to the ridiculous, would the human race have lasted more than a single generation?

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Hölderlin
Friedrich Hölderlin
3 months 1 week ago
The earth with yellow pears And...

The earth with yellow pears And overgrown with roses wild Upon the pond is bent, And swans divine, With kisses drunk You drop your heads In the sublimely sobering water. But where, with winter come, am I To find, alas, the floweres, and where The sunshine And the shadow of the world? Cold the walls stand And the wordless, in the wind The weathercocks are rattling.

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"Halves of Life"
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
2 months 3 weeks ago
Information has no scent.

Information has no scent.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
2 months 3 weeks ago
To uphold the institutions of our...

To uphold the institutions of our country-that's it-the institutions which protect and sustain a handful of people in the robbery and plunder of the masses, the institutions which drain the blood of the native as well as of the foreigner, turn it into wealth and power

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Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
5 months 1 week ago
Men seem to pursue honour in...

Men seem to pursue honour in order that they may believe themselves to be good. Accordingly, they seek to be honoured by the wise, and by those who know them well, and on the score of virtue; it is clear, therefore, that in their opinion at any rate, virtue is superior to honour. Perhaps, then, one ought to say that virtue rather than honour is the end of the political life; yet even virtue is plainly too imperfect: for it seems that a man might have all the virtues and yet be asleep, or fail to achieve anything all his life; moreover, such a person may suffer the greatest evils and misfortunes. And no one, in this case, would call a man, who passed his life in this manner, happy, except for argument's sake.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
4 months 3 days ago
There is nothing outside…

There is nothing outside the text," which Derrida opponents have characterized to mean that nothing exists but language.

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Il n'y a pas de hors-texte. Of Grammatology (1967). G. Spivak translated this as "
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
4 months 1 week ago
Phenomena of the external sense are...

Phenomena of the external sense are examined and set forth in physics; those of the internal sense in empirical psychology. Pure mathematics considers space in geometry and time in pure mechanics. To these is to be added a certain concept, intellectual to be sure in itself, but whose becoming actual in the concrete requires the auxiliary notions of time and space in the successive addition and simultaneous juxtaposition of separate units, which is the concept of number treated in arithmetic.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
4 months 2 weeks ago
Adam was created righteous, acceptable, and...

Adam was created righteous, acceptable, and without sin. He had no need from his labor in the garden to be made righteous and acceptable to God. Rather, the Lord gave Adam work in order to cultivate and protect the garden. This would have been the freest of all works because they were done simply to please God and not to obtain righteousness. ... The works of the person who trusts God are to be understood in a similar manner. Through faith we are restored to paradise and created anew. We have no need of works in order to be righteous; however, in order to avoid idleness and so that the body might be cared for an disciplined, works are done freely to please God.

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pp. 73-74
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 1 week ago
Man is a credulous animal, and...

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.

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Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
3 months 4 weeks ago
The evidence of our own eyes...

The evidence of our own eyes makes it more plausible to believe that the world was not created by any god at all. If, however, we insist on believing in divine creation, we are forced to admit that the god who made the world cannot be all-powerful and all good. He must be either evil or a bungler.

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The God of Suffering? Project Syndicate, 2008
Philosophical Maxims
Leszek Kołakowski
Leszek Kołakowski
1 month 1 day ago
...shall we say that the difference...

...shall we say that the difference between a vegetarian and a cannibal is just a matter of taste?

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"The Idolatry of Politics", New Republic, 1986-June-16, page 31.
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months 1 week ago
For eighteen hundred years, though perchance...

For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation?

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 1 week ago
The most essential characteristic of scientific...

The most essential characteristic of scientific technique is that it proceeds from experiment, not from tradition. The experimental habit of mind is a difficult one for most people to maintain; indeed, the science of one generation has already become the tradition of the next...

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The Scientific Outlook, 1931
Philosophical Maxims
Julius Evola
Julius Evola
2 weeks 3 days ago
Be radical, have principles, be absolute,...

Be radical, have principles, be absolute, be that which the bourgeoisie calls an extremist: give yourself without counting or calculating, don't accept what they call 'the reality of life' and act in such a way that you won't be accepted by that kind of 'life', never abandon the principle of struggle.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 1 week ago
Poetry teaches the enormous force of...

Poetry teaches the enormous force of a few words, and, in proportion to the inspiration, checks loquacity.

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Parnassus (1874) Preface
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 1 week ago
There are two equal and opposite...

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.

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Preface
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
4 months 3 days ago
There has been an inversion in...

There has been an inversion in the hierarchy of the two principles of antiquity, "Take care of yourself" and "Know yourself." In Greco-Roman culture, knowledge of oneself appeared as the consequence of the care of the self. In the modern world, knowledge of oneself constitutes the fundamental principle.

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"Technologies of the Self," Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth (1994), p. 228
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
3 months 4 weeks ago
Our own experience provides the basic...

Our own experience provides the basic material for our imagination, whose range is therefore limited. It will not help to try to imagine that one has webbing on one's arms, which enables one to fly around at dusk and dawn catching insects in one's mouth; that one has very poor vision, and perceives the surrounding world by a system of reflected high-frequency sound signals; and that one spends the day hanging upside down by one's feet in an attic. Insofar as I can imagine this (which is not very far), it tells me only what it would be like for me to behave as a bat behaves. But that is not the question. I want to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat. Yet if I try to imagine this, I am restricted to the resources of my own mind, and those resources are inadequate to the task.

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p. 169.
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
3 months 6 days ago
No theory, no ready-made system, no...

No theory, no ready-made system, no book that has ever been written will save the world. I cleave to no system. I am a true seeker.

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As quoted in Michael Bakunin (1937) by E.H. Carr, p. 175
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
3 months 5 days ago
Let us not pretend to doubt...

Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts.

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Vol. V, par. 265
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
2 months 3 weeks ago
I spoke after Sasha, for an...

I spoke after Sasha, for an hour. I discussed the farce of a government undertaking to carry democracy abroad by suppressing the last vestiges of it at home. I took up the contention of Judge Mayer that only such ideas are permissible as are "within the law." Thus he had instructed the jurymen when he had asked them if they were prejudiced against those who propagate unpopular ideas. I pointed out that there had never been an ideal, however humane and peaceful, which in its time had been considered "within the law." I named Jesus, Socrates, Galileo, Giordano Bruno. "Were they 'within the law"?" I asked. "And the men who set America free from British rule, the Jeffersons and the Patrick Henrys? The William Lloyd Garrisons, the John Browns, the David Thoreaus and Wendell Phillipses-were they within the law?"

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chapter 45
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
2 months 3 weeks ago
I believe that man is the...

I believe that man is the product of natural evolution that is born from the conflict of being a prisoner and separated from nature, and from the need to find unity and harmony with it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Schelling
Friedrich Schelling
3 months 1 week ago
The end of the philosophical dialogue...

The end of the philosophical dialogue lies in itself; it can never serve a purpose outside of itself. Just as a sculptor does not cease to be a work of art even if it lies at the bottom of the sea, so indeed every work of philosophy endures, even if uncomprehended in its own time. One would be grateful if it were merely a matter of incomprehension. Instead, the work is usually refitted and appropriated by various entities-some playing the part of the opponent; others, that of the proponent.

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P.3-4
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
3 weeks 3 days ago
Our plans miscarry…

Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind.

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Line 2 Alternate translation: If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable. (translator unknown).
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
4 months 3 weeks ago
Cease therefore to be…

Cease therefore to be dismayed by the mere novelty and so to reject reason from your mind with loathing: weigh the questions rather with keen judgment and if they seem to you to be true, surrender, or if the thing is false, gird yourself to the encounter.

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Book II, lines 1040-1043 (tr. Munro)
Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
1 month 2 weeks ago
...it won't just be the quality...

...it won't just be the quality and quantity of consciousness in the world that will be transformed in the post-Darwinian Transition. As (post-)humanity emerges from the neurochemical Dark Ages, enriched dopaminergic function in particular may sharpen the sheer intensity and meaningfulness of every moment of conscious existence. For a generation whose lifetimes span both modes of awareness, it will be as if they had just woken up. They will feel they had hitherto been sleep-walking through life in a twilit stupor. Thereafter their former mundane and minimal existence may be recalled only as some kind of zombified trance-state whose nature they were physiologically incapable of recognising...

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The Hedonistic Imperative: Heaven on Earth?, "Eden", BLTC Research
Philosophical Maxims
René Descartes
René Descartes
4 months 2 weeks ago
Thus, all unknown quantities can be...

Thus, all unknown quantities can be expressed in terms of a single quantity, whenever the problem can be constructed by means of circles and straight lines, or by conic sections, or even by some other curve of degree not greater than the third or fourth.But I shall not stop to explain this in more detail, because I should deprive you of the pleasure of mastering it yourself, as well as of the advantage of training your mind by working over it, which is in my opinion the principal benefit to be derived from this science. Because, I find nothing here so difficult that it cannot be worked out by anyone at all familiar with ordinary geometry and with algebra, who will consider carefully all that is set forth in this treatise.

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First Book
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 1 week ago
Value, therefore, does not stalk about...

Value, therefore, does not stalk about with a label describing what it is.

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Vol. I, Ch. 1, Section 4, pg. 85.
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
4 months 2 weeks ago
The mad mob does not ask...

The mad mob does not ask how it could be better, only that it be different. And when it then becomes worse, it must change again. Thus they get bees for flies, and at last hornets for bees. Whether Soldiers Can Also Be in a State of Grace

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1526
Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
4 months 1 week ago
The even larger difference between rich...

The even larger difference between rich and poor makes the latter even worse off, and this violates the principle of mutual advantage.

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Chapter II, Section 13, pg. 79
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
4 months 3 weeks ago
If what the philosophers say be...

If what the philosophers say be true,—that all men's actions proceed from one source; that as they assent from a persuasion that a thing is so, and dissent from a persuasion that it is not, and suspend their judgment from a persuasion that it is uncertain, so likewise they seek a thing from a persuasion that it is for their advantage.

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Book I, ch. 18, 1.
Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
2 months 3 weeks ago
Open, honest, truth-telling individuals value privacy....

Open, honest, truth-telling individuals value privacy. We all need spaces where we can be alone with thoughts and feelings - where we can experience healthy psychological autonomy and can choose to share when we want to.

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All About Love: New Visions
Philosophical Maxims
Parmenides
Parmenides
3 months 3 weeks ago
Never will this prevail, that the...

Never will this prevail, that the things that are not are - bar your thought from this road of inquiry.

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Frag. B 7.1-2, quoted by Plato, Sophist, 237a
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 1 week ago
There is but One Principle that...

There is but One Principle that proceeds from God; and thus, in consequence of the unity of the Power, it is possible for each Individual to schematise his World of Sense in accordance with the law of that original harmony; - and every Individual, under the condition of being found on the way towards the recognition of the Imperative, must so schematise it. I might say: - Every Individual can and must, under the given condition, construct the True World of Sense, - for this indeed has beyond the universal and formal laws above deduced, no other Truth and Reality than this universal harmony.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 2 weeks ago
God's justice and His power are...

God's justice and His power are inseparable; 'tis in vain we invoke His power in an unjust cause. We are to have our souls pure and clean, at that moment at least wherein we pray to Him, and purified from all vicious passions; otherwise we ourselves present Him the rods wherewith to chastise us; instead of repairing anything we have done amiss, we double the wickedness and the offence when we offer to Him, to whom we are to sue for pardon, an affection full of irreverence and hatred. Which makes me not very apt to applaud those whom I observe to be so frequent on their knees, if the actions nearest to the prayer do not give me some evidence of amendment and reformation

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Ch. 56. Of Prayers, tr. Cotton, rev. W. Carew Hazlitt, 1877
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
5 months 6 days ago
A robot may not injure a...

A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
4 months 1 week ago
Let us not forget what befits...

Let us not forget what befits our present state in the pursuit of vain fancies. Mankind has its place in the sequence of things; childhood has its place in the sequence of human life; the man must be treated as a man and the child as a child. Give each his place, and keep him there. Control human passions according to man's nature; that is all we can do for his welfare. The rest depends on external forces, which are beyond our control.

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Philosophical Maxims
Antonio Negri
Antonio Negri
1 month 5 days ago
A specter haunts the world and...

A specter haunts the world and it is the specter of migration.

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213
Philosophical Maxims
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
3 months 4 weeks ago
He was seized and dragged off...

He was seized and dragged off to King Philip, and being asked who he was, replied, "A spy upon your insatiable greed."

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Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 43. Cf. Plutarch, Moralia, 70CD.
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
2 months 3 weeks ago
He who bases or thinks he...

He who bases or thinks he bases his conduct - his inward or his outward conduct, his feeling or his action - upon a dogma or a principle which he deems incontrovertible, runs the risk of becoming a fanatic, and moreover, the moment that this dogma is weakened or shattered, the morality based upon it gives way. If the earth that he thought firm begins to rock, he himself trembles at the earthquake, for we do not all come up to the standard of the ideal Stoic who remains undaunted among the ruins of a world shattered into atoms. Happily the stuff that is underneath a man's ideas will save him. For if a man should tell you that he does not defraud or cuckold his best friend only because he is afraid of hell, you may depend upon it that neither would he do so even if he were to cease to believe in hell, but that he would invent some other excuse instead. And this is all to the honor of the human race.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
5 months 1 week ago
When one merely states that one...

When one merely states that one has many subscribers and keeps on saying it, then one gets many; just as when one sheep goes to water, the next one also goes, and when it is continually said of a large flock of sheep that they go hither and yon to water, then the rest must also go, so people believe that it must be the demand of the times, that for the sake of use and custom, they must also subscribe.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 weeks 3 days ago
Human nature....
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Main Content / General
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
5 months 1 week ago
When someone hides something behind a...
When someone hides something behind a bush and looks for it again in the same place and finds it there as well, there is not much to praise in such seeking and finding. Yet this is how matters stand regarding seeking and finding "truth" within the realm of reason. If I make up the definition of a mammal, and then, after inspecting a camel, declare "look, a mammal' I have indeed brought a truth to light in this way, but it is a truth of limited value. That is to say, it is a thoroughly anthropomorphic truth which contains not a single point which would be "true in itself" or really and universally valid apart from man. At bottom, what the investigator of such truths is seeking is only the metamorphosis of the world into man.
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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
4 months 1 week ago
Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both...

Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity.

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Chapter III, Part II, p. 534.
Philosophical Maxims
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