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Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 2 days ago
Nothing proves that we are more...

Nothing proves that we are more than nothing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 weeks ago
It cannot at this time be...

It cannot at this time be too often repeated; line upon line; precept upon precept; until it comes into the currency of a proverb, To innovate is not to reform.

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p. 20
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 4 weeks ago
The infliction of cruelty with a...

The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.

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Ch. 1: The Value of Scepticism
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 3 weeks ago
You will hear every day the...

You will hear every day the maxims of a low prudence. You will hear, that the first duty is to get land and money, place and name. "What is this Truth you seek? What is this Beauty?" men will ask, with derision. If, nevertheless, God have called any of you to explore truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. When you shall say, "As others do, so will I. I renounce, I am sorry for it, my early visions; I must eat the good of the land, and let learning and romantic expectations go, until a more convenient season." - then dies the man in you; then once more perish the buds of art, and poetry, and science, as they have died already in a thousand thousand men. The hour of that choice is the crisis of your history; and see that you hold yourself fast by the intellect. ... Bend to the persuasion which is flowing to you from every object in Nature, to be its tongue to the heart of man, and to show the besotted world how passing fair is wisdom.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
2 months 4 weeks ago
It belongs to the imperfection of...

It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
1 month 4 weeks ago
I have described religion…

I have described religion as the metaphysics of the people.

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E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 140
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
1 week 6 days ago
Du pouvoir de transformer un homme...

From the power to transform him into a thing by killing him there proceeds another power, and much more prodigious, that which makes a thing of him while he still lives.

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in The Simone Weil Reader, p. 155
Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
1 month 3 weeks ago
Justice as fairness provides what we...

Justice as fairness provides what we want.

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Chapter III, Section 30, pg. 190
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
1 month 2 days ago
The possibility of divorce renders both...

The possibility of divorce renders both marriage partners stricter in their observance of the duties they owe to each other. Divorces help to improve morals and to increase the population.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 2 days ago
"Where do you get those superior...

"Where do you get those superior airs of yours?" "I've managed to survive, you see, all those nights when I wondered: am I going to kill myself at dawn?"

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
2 months 6 days ago
It cannot be that axioms established...

It cannot be that axioms established by argumentation should avail for the discovery of new works, since the subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of argument. But axioms duly and orderly formed from particulars easily discover the way to new particulars, and thus render sciences active.

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Aphorism 24
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
1 month 3 weeks ago
It often happens that reforms merely...

It often happens that reforms merely have the effect of transferring the undesirable tendencies of individuals from one channel to another channel. An old outlet for some particular wickedness is closed; but a new outlet is opened. The wickedness is not abolished; it is merely provided with a different set of opportunities for self-expression.

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Ch. 3, p. 20 [2012 reprint]
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 5 days ago
Habit is a second nature. Book...

Habit is a second nature.

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Book III, Ch. 10
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
3 weeks 3 days ago
I am an orphan, alone; nevertheless...

I am an orphan, alone; nevertheless I am found everywhere. I am one, but opposed to myself. I am youth and old man at one and the same time. I have known neither father nor mother, because I have had to be fetched out of the deep like a fish, or fell like a white stone from heaven. In woods and mountains I roam, but I am hidden in the innermost soul of man. I am mortal for everyone, yet I am not touched by the cycle of aeons.

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Combining alchemical assertions
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
1 month 3 weeks ago
The necessity of faith as an...

The necessity of faith as an ingredient in our mental attitude is strongly insisted on by the scientific philosophers of the present day; but by a singularly arbitrary caprice they say that it is only legitimate when used in the interests of one particular proposition, - the proposition, namely, that the course of nature is uniform. That nature will follow to-morrow the same laws that she follows to-day is, they all admit, a truth which no man can know; but in the interests of cognition as well as of action we must postulate or assume it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard
2 weeks 6 days ago
Ideas are invented only as correctives...

Ideas are invented only as correctives to the past. Through repeated rectifications of this kind one may hope to disengage an idea that is valid.

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A Retrospective Glance at the Lifework of a Master of Books
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 weeks 6 days ago
Verily I say unto you, If...

Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
2 months 3 weeks ago
There's nothing like deduction. We've determined...

There's nothing like deduction. We've determined everything about our problem but the solution.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 4 weeks ago
A religious creed differs from a...

A religious creed differs from a scientific theory in claiming to embody eternal and absolutely certain truth, whereas science is always tentative, expecting that modification in its present theories will sooner or later be found necessary, and aware that its method is one which is logically incapable of arriving at a complete and final demonstration.

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Religion and Science (1935), Ch. I: Ground of Conflict
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
2 months 6 days ago
Once we have tasted the sweetness...

Once we have tasted the sweetness of what is spiritual, the pleasures of the world will have no attraction for us. If we disregard the shadows of things, then we will penetrate their inner substance.

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Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
2 weeks 4 days ago
Human life, by its very nature,...

Human life, by its very nature, has to be dedicated to something, an enterprise glorious or humble, a destiny illustrious or trivial. We are faced with a condition, strange but inexorable, involved in our very existence.

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Chapter XIV: Who Rules The World?
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 3 weeks ago
In any case, if you ever...

In any case, if you ever leave me with a handsome man, do not tell me that you trust me because, let me warn you: that is not what will prevent me from deceiving you, if I want to. On the contrary.

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Jessica to her husband Hugo, Act 3, sc. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 5 days ago
Accustom him to every thing, that...

Accustom him to every thing, that he may not be a Sir Paris, a carpet-knight, but a sinewy, hardy, and vigorous young man.

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Ch. 26. Of the Education of Children, tr. Cotton, rev. W. Hazlitt, 1842
Philosophical Maxims
John Searle
John Searle
Just now
You need to know enough philosophy...

You need to know enough philosophy so that the methods of logical analysis are available to you to be used as a tool. One of the most depressing things about educated people today is that so few of them, even among professional intellectuals, are able to follow the steps of a simple logical argument.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
3 months ago
Knowledge more than a Means.
Knowledge more than a Means. Also without this passion I refer to the passion for knowledge, science would be furthered: science has hitherto increased and grown up without it. The good faith in science, the prejudice in its favour, by which States are at present dominated (it was even the Church formerly), rests fundamentally on the fact that the absolute inclination and impulse has so rarely revealed itself in it, and that science is regarded not as a passion, but as a condition and an "ethos." Indeed, amour-plaisir of knowledge (curiosity) often enough suffices, amour-vanity suffices, and habituation to it, with the afterthought of obtaining honour and bread; it even suffices for many that they do not know what to do with a surplus of leisure, except to continue reading, collecting, arranging, observing and narrating; their "scientific impulse" is their ennui.
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Philosophical Maxims
Willard van Orman Quine
Willard van Orman Quine
1 week 6 days ago
No particular experiences are linked with...

No particular experiences are linked with any particular statements in the interior of the field, except indirectly through considerations of equilibrium affecting the field as a whole.

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"Two Dogmas of Empiricism"
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
Just now
The world would...
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Main Content / General
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 4 weeks ago
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong,...

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
3 weeks 6 days ago
Education has for its object the...

Education has for its object the formation of character. To curb restive propensities, to awaken dormant sentiments, to strengthen the perceptions, and cultivate the tastes, to encourage this feeling and repress that, so as finally to develop the child into a man of well proportioned and harmonious nature - this is alike the aim of parent and teacher.

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Pt. II, Ch. 17 : The Rights of Children
Philosophical Maxims
George Berkeley
George Berkeley
1 month 4 days ago
Seeing therefore they are both [heat...

Seeing therefore they are both [heat and pain] immediately perceived at the same time, and the fire affects you only with one simple, or uncompounded idea, it follows that this same simple idea is both the intense heat immediately perceived, and the pain; and consequently, that the intense heat immediately perceived, is nothing distinct from a particular sort of pain.

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Philonous to Hylas
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 2 days ago
A distant enemy is always preferable...

A distant enemy is always preferable to one at the gate.

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Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
2 months ago
Have patience awhile; slanders are not...

Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.

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As quoted in Gems of Thought (1888) edited by Charles Northend
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 2 days ago
There is no false sensation.

There is no false sensation.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
1 month 3 weeks ago
Indeed, if we consider the unblushing...

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
1 month 3 weeks ago
One right-thinking man thinks like all...

One right-thinking man thinks like all other right-thinking men of his time-that is to say, in most cases, like some wrong-thinking man of another time.

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"One and Many," p. 12
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
1 month 3 weeks ago
First Shakespeare sonnets seem meaningless; first...

First Shakespeare sonnets seem meaningless; first Bach fugues, a bore; first differential equations, sheer torture. But training changes the nature of our spiritual experiences. In due course, contact with an obscurely beautiful poem, an elaborate piece of counterpoint or of mathematical reasoning, causes us to feel direct intuitions of beauty and significance. It is the same in the moral world.

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Ch. 14, p. 333 [2012 reprint]
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
2 weeks 6 days ago
I like to walk about amidst...

I like to walk about amidst the beautiful things that adorn the world; but private wealth I should decline, or any sort of personal possessions, because they would take away my liberty.

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"The Irony of Liberalism"
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
2 months 1 day ago
The interest of the dealers, however,...

The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers.

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Chapter XI, Part III, Conclusion of the Chapter, p. 292.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 2 days ago
The poor, by thinking unceasingly of...

The poor, by thinking unceasingly of money, reach the point of losing the spiritual advantages of non-possession, thereby sinking as low as the rich.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
Just now
Driving is a spectacular form of...

Driving is a spectacular form of amnesia. Everything is to be discovered, everything to be obliterated. Admittedly, there is the primal shock of the deserts and the dazzle of California, but when this is gone, the secondary brilliance of the journey begins, that of the excessive, pitiless distance, the infinity of anonymous faces and distances, or of certain miraculous geological formations, which ultimately testify to no human will, while keeping intact an image of upheaval. This form of travel admits of no exceptions: when it runs up against a known face, a familiar landscape, or some decipherable message, the spell is broken: the amnesic, ascetic, asymptotic charm of disappearance succumbs to affect and worldly semiology.

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Vanishing Point (pp. 9-10)
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 4 weeks ago
When I found myself regarded as...

When I found myself regarded as respectable, I began to wonder what sins I had committed. I must be very wicked, I thought. I began to engage in the most uncomfortable introspection. Interview with Irwin Ross, September 1957;If there were a God, I think it very unlikely that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt his existence.

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Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell (2005), p. 385
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
3 weeks 2 days ago
The general co-operation of all members...

The general co-operation of all members of society for the purpose of planned exploitation of the forces of production, the expansion of production to the point where it will satisfy the needs of all, the abolition of a situation in which the needs of some are satisfied at the expense of the needs of others, the complete liquidation of classes and their conflicts, the rounded development of the capacities of all members of society through the elimination of the present division of labor, through industrial education, through engaging in varying activities, through the participation by all in the enjoyments produced by all, through the combination of city and country - these are the main consequences of the abolition of private property.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 5 days ago
He that I am reading seems...

He that I am reading seems always to have the most force.

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Book II, Ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
2 months 4 weeks ago
For as only one thing is...

For as only one thing is necessary, and as the theme of the talk is the willing of only one thing: hence the consciousness before God of one's eternal responsibility to be an individual is that one thing necessary.

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Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
1 month 2 weeks 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
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
1 month 4 weeks ago
Homeliness is almost as great a...

Homeliness is almost as great a merit in a book as in a house, if the reader would abide there. It is next to beauty, and a very high art.

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Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 32
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
1 week 3 days ago
The student of the history of...

The student of the history of progressive thought is well aware that every idea in its early stages has been misrepresented, and the adherents of such ideas have been maligned and persecuted...The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul. If, then, from time immemorial, the New has met with opposition and condemnation, why should my beliefs be exempt from a crown of thorns?

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Philosophical Maxims
Emmanuel Levinas
Emmanuel Levinas
3 weeks 2 days ago
By asserting the objectivity of the...

By asserting the objectivity of the physical world, naturalism identifies the existence and the conditions of existence of the physical world with existence and the conditions of existence in general. It forgets that the world of the physicist necessarily refers back, through its intrinsic meaning, through the subjective world which one tries to exclude from reality as being pure appearance, conditioned by the empirical nature of man, which is incapable of reaching directly to a world of things in themselves. But while the world of the physicist claims to go beyond naive experience, his world really exists only in relation to naive experience.

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The Theory Of Intuition In Husserls Phenomenology 1963, 1995 p. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 weeks 6 days ago
Verily I say unto you, All...

Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.

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Mark 3:28-29 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
1 month 4 weeks ago
The savage in man is never...

The savage in man is never quite eradicated.

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September 26, 1859
Philosophical Maxims
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