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Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
2 months 2 days ago
What is an artist? A provincial...

What is an artist? A provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one... It's this in-between that I'm calling a province, this frontier country between the tangible world and the intangible one - which is really the realm of the artist.

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Every Time We Say Goodbye in Sight and Sound [London]
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
3 weeks 3 days ago
Death gestured with his hands and...

Death gestured with his hands and bade the king thrice welcome.

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Book VIII, line 168
Philosophical Maxims
Ernest Renan
Ernest Renan
1 month 2 weeks ago
To rule the imperial…..

To rule the imperial population, behold our vocation.

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94
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 3 weeks ago
That chastity of honour which felt...

That chastity of honour which felt a stain like a wound.

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Volume iii, p. 332
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
4 months 1 week ago
A physician, after he had felt...

A physician, after he had felt the pulse of Pausanias, and considered his constitution, saying, "He ails nothing," "It is because, sir," he replied, "I use none of your physic."

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Of Pausanias the Son of Phistoanax
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 weeks 6 days ago
And virtue they will curse, speaking...

And virtue they will curse, speaking harsh words.

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XI, 32
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
4 months 1 week ago
Force without wisdom…

Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.

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Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
5 months 1 day ago
It is enough to ask somebody...

It is enough to ask somebody for his weapons without saying 'I want to kill you with them', because when you have his weapons in hand, you can satisfy your desire.

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Book 1, Ch 44 (as translated by Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella)
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 2 weeks ago
Every noble work is at first...

Every noble work is at first impossible.

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From Past and Present (1843), Chapter XI : Labour
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
3 months 2 weeks ago
Dialectical thought understands the critical tension...

Dialectical thought understands the critical tension between "is" and "ought" first as an ontological condition, pertaining to the structure of Being itself. However, the recognition of this state of Being - its theory - intends from the beginning a concrete practice. Seen in the light of a truth which appears in them falsified or denied, the given facts themselves appear false and negative.

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p. 133
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 3 weeks ago
Since the working-class lives from hand...

Since the working-class lives from hand to mouth,it buys as long as it has the means to buy.

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Vol. II, Ch. XX, p. 449.
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 3 weeks ago
Too busy with the crowded hour...

Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.

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Quatrains, Nature
Philosophical Maxims
Emmanuel Levinas
Emmanuel Levinas
3 months 2 weeks ago
If every pure character in the...

If every pure character in the Old Testament announces the Messiah, if every unworthy person is his torturer and every woman his Mother, does not the Book of Books lose all life with this obsessive theme? On the doctrine of prefiguration.

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Persons or Figures
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle
2 weeks 5 days ago
But though much may be said...

But though much may be said to Excuse the Chymists when they write Darkly, and Ænigmatically, about the Preparation of their Elixir, and Some few other grand Arcana, the divulging of which they may upon Grounds Plausible enough esteem unfit; yet when they pretend to teach the General Principles of Natural Philosophers, this Equivocall Way of Writing is not to be endur'd. For in such Speculative Enquiries, where the naked Knowledge of the Truth is the thing Principally aim'd at, what does he teach me worth thanks that does not, if he can, make his Notion intelligible to me, but by Mystical Termes, and Ambiguous Phrases darkens what he should clear up; and makes me add the Trouble of guessing at the sence of what he Equivocally expresses, to that of examining the Truth of what he seems to deliver.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 3 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
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 months 1 week ago
We reason deeply...
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Main Content / General
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
3 months 4 weeks ago
The best doctor is the one...

The best doctor is the one you run for and can't find.

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As quoted in Selected Thoughts from the French: XV Century - XX Century, with English Translations (1913) by James Raymond Solly, p. 67
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 3 weeks ago
...the reality of society involves the...

...the reality of society involves the socialization of certain unrealities.

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p. 455
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 3 weeks ago
England has to fulfill a double...

England has to fulfill a double mission in India: one destructive, the other regenerating - the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and the laying the material foundations of Western society in Asia... When a great social revolution shall have mastered the results of the bourgeois epoch... and subjected them to the common control of the most advanced peoples, then only will human progress cease to resemble that hideous, pagan idol, who would not drink the nectar but from the skulls of the slain.

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"The Future Results of British Rule in India," New York Daily Tribune, 08 August 1853
Philosophical Maxims
Mozi
Mozi
1 month 1 day ago
When feudal lords love one another...

When feudal lords love one another there will be no more war; when heads of houses love one another there will be no more mutual usurpation; when individuals love one another there will be no more mutual injury. When ruler and ruled love each other they will be gracious and loyal; when father and son love each other they will be affectionate and filial; when older and younger brothers love each other they will be harmonious. When all the people in the world love one another, then the strong will not overpower the weak, the many will not oppress the few, the wealthy will not mock the poor, the honoured will not disdain the humble, and the cunning will not deceive the simple. And it is all due to mutual love that calamities, strife, complaints, and hatred are prevented from arising. Therefore the benevolent exalt it.

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Book 4; Universal Love II
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
2 months 2 weeks ago
Ten years ago, you could have...

Ten years ago, you could have traveled thousands of miles through the United States and never seen a baseball cap turned back to front. Today, the reverse baseball cap is ubiquitous. I do not know what the pattern of geographical spread of the reverse baseball cap precisely was, but epidemiology is certainly among the professions primarily qualified to study it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months 3 weeks ago
The yogi, absorbed in contemplation, contributes...

The yogi, absorbed in contemplation, contributes in his degree to creation: he breathes a divine perfume, he hears wonderful things. Divine forms traverse him without tearing him, and, united to the nature which is proper to him, he goes, he acts as animating original matter. To some extent, and at rare intervals even I am a yogi .

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Quoted in R. Malhotra and V. Viswanathan, Snakes in the Ganga: Breaking India 2.0., 2022
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 3 weeks ago
Man cannot will unless he has...

Man cannot will unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 3 weeks ago
We begin again to structure the...

We begin again to structure the primordial feelings...from which 3000 years of literacy divorced us. We begin again to live a myth.

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(p. 17)
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 2 weeks ago
I would really like to slow...

I would really like to slow down the speed of reading with continual punctuation marks. For I would like to be read slowly. (As I myself read.)

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p. 77e
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
3 months 1 week ago
In training a child to activity...

In training a child to activity of thought, above all things we must beware of what I will call "inert ideas"-that is to say, ideas that are merely received into the mind without being utilised, or tested, or thrown into fresh combinations.In the history of education, the most striking phenomenon is that schools of learning, which at one epoch are alive with a ferment of genius, in a succeeding generation exhibit merely pedantry and routine. The reason is, that they are overladen with inert ideas. Education with inert ideas is not only useless: it is, above all things, harmful.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
4 months 3 weeks ago
Even serious students are misled by...

Even serious students are misled by the myth of the subject.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 3 weeks ago
For what are they all in...

For what are they all in their high conceit, When man in the bush with God may meet?

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Good-bye, st. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva
2 months 1 week ago
The gradual spread of sterility in...

The gradual spread of sterility in seeding plants would result in a global catastrophe that could eventually wipe out higher life forms, including humans, from the planet.

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On the terminator gene, from the book "Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply" (2001), p.83
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
5 months 3 weeks ago
Let us suppose that a man...

Let us suppose that a man believes in eternal life on Christ's word. In that case he believes without any fuss about being profound and searching and philosophical and racking his brains.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
3 months 2 weeks ago
Communism is the doctrine of the...

Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 2 weeks ago
If you are in a strait,...

If you are in a strait, a very good indication as to choice-perhaps the best you could get-is a book you have a great curiosity about. You are then in the readiest and best of all possible conditions to improve by that book.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle
2 weeks 5 days ago
That then, that I wish for,...

That then, that I wish for, as to systems, is this, that men, in the first place, would forbear to establish any theory, till they have consulted with (though not a fully competent number of experiments, such as may afford them all the phænomena to be explicated by that theory, yet) a considerable number of experiments, in proportion to the comprehensiveness of the theory to be erected on them. And, in the next place, I would have such kind of supestructures looked upon only as temporary ones; which though they may be preferred before any others, as being the least imperfect, or, if you please, the best in their kind that we yet have, yet are they not entirely to be acquiesced in, as absolutely perfect, or uncapable of improving alterations.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin
3 months 2 weeks ago
I am normally said to be...

I am normally said to be free to the degree to which no man or body of men interferes with my activity. Political liberty in this sense is simply the area within which a man can act unobstructed by others. If I am prevented by others from doing what I could otherwise do, I am to that degree unfree; and if this area is contracted by other men beyond a certain minimum, I can be described as being coerced, or, it may be, enslaved. Coercion is not, however, a term that covers every form of inability. If I say that I am unable to jump more than ten feet in the air, or cannot read because I am blind, or cannot understand the darker pages of Hegel, it would be eccentric to say that I am to that degree enslaved or coerced. Coercion implies the deliberate interference of other human beings within the area in which I could otherwise act.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months 3 weeks ago
It was his peculiar doctrine that...

It was his peculiar doctrine that a man has a perfect right to interfere by force with the slaveholder, in order to rescue the slave. I agree with him. They who are continually shocked by slavery have some right to be shocked by the violent death of the slaveholder, but no others.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
3 months 2 weeks ago
As the oil is in the...

As the oil is in the olive, so is the teshuvah, repentance, hidden within sin.

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p. 44
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 weeks 6 days ago
Look to the essence of a...

Look to the essence of a thing, whether it be a point of doctrine, of practice, or of interpretation.

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VIII, 22
Philosophical Maxims
Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
2 months 2 weeks ago
Democracies owe their existence to national...

Democracies owe their existence to national loyalties - the loyalties that are supposedly shared by government and opposition, by all political parties, and by the electorate as a whole. Wherever the experience of nationality is weak or non-existent, democracy has failed to take root. For without national loyalty, opposition is a threat to government, and political disagreements create no common ground.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
4 months 3 weeks ago
We have nothing to do but...

We have nothing to do but to receive, resting absolutely upon the merit, power, and love of our Redeemer.

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Reported in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895) edited by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 225
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 1 week ago
This mortal Don Quixote died and...

This mortal Don Quixote died and descended into hell, which he entered lance on rest, and freed all the condemned, as he freed the galley slaves, and he shut the gates of hell, and tore down the scroll that Dante saw there and replaced it by one on which was written "Long live hope!" and escorted by those whom he had freed, and they laughing at him, he went to heaven. And God laughed paternally at him, and this divine laughter filled his soul with eternal happiness.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
4 months 3 weeks ago
Every philosophy is complete in itself...

Every philosophy is complete in itself and, like a genuine work of art, contains the totality. Just as the works of Apelles and Sophocles, if Raphael and Shakespeare had known them, should not have appeared to them as mere preliminary exercises for their own work, but rather as a kindred force of the spirit, so, too reason cannot find in its own earlier forms mere useful preliminary exercises for itself.

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Difference of the Fichtean and Schellingean System of Philosophy, cited in W. Kaufmann, Hegel (1966), p. 49
Philosophical Maxims
Henry George
Henry George
3 weeks 1 day ago
My primary object is to defend...

My primary object is to defend and advance a principle in which I see the only possible relief from much that enthralls and degrades and distorts, turning light to darkness and good to evil, rather than to gage a philosopher or weigh a philosophy. Yet the examination I propose must lead to a decisive judgment upon both.

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Introduction : The Reason for the Examination
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 1 week ago
Of course, however…

Of course, however, the living voice and the intimacy of a common life will help you more than the written word. You must go to the scene of action, first, because men put more faith in their eyes than in their ears, and second, because the way is long if one follows precepts, but short and helpful, if one follows patterns.

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Line 5. Alternate translation: Teaching by precept is a long road, but short and beneficial is the way by example.
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 months 3 weeks ago
The peculiar and amusing nature of...

The peculiar and amusing nature of those answers stems from the fact that modern history is like a deaf person who is in the habit of answering questions that no one has put to them. If the purpose of history be to give a description of the movement of humanity and of the peoples, the first question - in the absence of a reply to which all the rest will be incomprehensible - is: what is the power that moves peoples? To this, modern history laboriously replies either that Napoleon was a great genius, or that Louis XIV was very proud, or that certain writers wrote certain books. All that may be so and mankind is ready to agree with it, but it is not what was asked.

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Vol 2, pt 5, p 236 - Selected Works, Moscow, 1869
Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
2 months 2 days ago
To be sure, risks abound; but...

To be sure, risks abound; but no one is proposing compassionate stewardship of ecosystems by philosophers. Humans are capable of choosing our own future pain-sensitivity too; but any species-wide genomic shift in human pain tolerance will depend on the willingness of prospective parents to use preimplantation genetic screening.

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Compassionate Biology: How CRISPR-based gene drives" could cheaply, rapidly and sustainably reduce suffering throughout the living world", BLTC Research, 2016
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
4 months 1 week ago
Lycurgus the Lacedæmonian brought long hair...

Lycurgus the Lacedæmonian brought long hair into fashion among his countrymen, saying that it rendered those that were handsome more beautiful, and those that were deformed more terrible. To one that advised him to set up a democracy in Sparta, "Pray," said Lycurgus, "do you first set up a democracy in your own house."

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57 Lycurgus
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
3 months 6 days ago
Silent listening unites a people and...

Silent listening unites a people and creates community without communication.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 3 weeks ago
I grasp at each second, trying...

I grasp at each second, trying to suck it dry: nothing happens which I do not seize, which I do not fix forever in myself, nothing, neither the fugitive tenderness of those lovely eyes, nor the noises of the street, nor the false dawn of early morning: and even so the minute passes and I do not hold it back, I like to see it pass.

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Philosophical Maxims
Parmenides
Parmenides
4 months 1 week ago
For it is the same thing...

For it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be.

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Frag. B 3, quoted by Plotinus, Enneads V, i.8
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 3 weeks ago
"They have an engine called the...

"They have an engine called the Press whereby the people are deceived."

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Ch. 13 : They Have Pulled Down Deep Heaven on Their Heads
Philosophical Maxims
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