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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
3 days ago
One of the most striking signs...

One of the most striking signs of the decay of art is the intermixing of different genres.

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Propylaea (1798) Introduction
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
2 months 3 weeks ago
The soul of man…

The soul of man is divided into three parts, intelligence, reason, and passion. Intelligence and passion are possessed by other animals, but reason by man alone.

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As reported by Alexander Polyhistor, and Diogenes Laërtius in Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, "Pythagoras", Sect. 30, in the translation of C. D. Yonge
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 2 weeks ago
'Tis the sharpness of our mind...

Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.

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Book I, Ch. 14
Philosophical Maxims
Ernest Renan
Ernest Renan
6 days ago
The regeneration of the inferior…

The regeneration of the inferior or bastard races by the superior ones is consistent with God's plans for humanity. The man of the people, in our countries, is always a fallen aristocrat; his hands are made to handle the sword rather than the laborer's tools. He prefers warring to working, that is, he returns to his original calling.

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93, as translated by Asselin Charles, in "Colonial Discourse Since Christopher Columbus," Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 26, No. 2 (November 1995), 147
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 3 days ago
Suffer little children, and forbid them...

Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.

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18:16-17 (KJV) Variant translation: Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
3 months 2 weeks ago
A metaphysics of morals is therefore...

A metaphysics of morals is therefore indispensably necessary, not merely because of a motive to speculation - for investigating the source of the practical basic principles that lie a priori in our reason - but also because morals themselves remain subject to all sorts of corruption as long as we are without that clue and supreme norm by which to appraise them correctly...

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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
3 months 2 weeks ago
Morals excite passions, and produce or...

Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason.

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Part 1, Section 1
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
4 months 1 week ago
Weisinger, a couple of years ago,...

Weisinger, a couple of years ago, made up the following story: "Isaac Asimov was asked how Superman could fly faster than the speed of light, which was supposed to be an absolute limit. To this Asimov replied, 'That the speed of light is a limit is a theory; that Superman can travel faster than light is a fact.'"

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 months 6 days ago
If you want to go down...

If you want to go down deep you do not need to travel far; indeed, you don't have to leave your most immediate and familiar surroundings.

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p. 50e
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
2 months 2 days ago
Even to-day, in spite of some...

Even to-day, in spite of some signs which are making a tiny breach in that sturdy faith, even to-day, there are few men who doubt that motorcars will in five years' time be more comfortable and cheaper than to-day. They believe in this as they believe that the sun will rise in the morning. The metaphor is an exact one. For, in fact, the common man, finding himself in a world so excellent, technically and socially, believes that it has been produced by nature, and never thinks of the personal efforts of highly-endowed individuals which the creation of this new world presupposed. Still less will he admit the notion that all these facilities still require the support of certain difficult human virtues, the least failure of which would cause the rapid disappearance of the whole magnificent edifice.... These traits together make up the well-known psychology of the spoilt child. Chap.

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VI: The Dissection Of The Mass-Man Begins
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
3 months 2 weeks ago
Accent is the soul…

Accent is the soul of language; it gives to it both feeling and truth.

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English translation as quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tryon Edwards, p. 2.
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 1 week ago
I wish that life should not...

I wish that life should not be cheap, but sacred. I wish the days to be as centuries, loaded, fragrant.

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Considerations by the Way
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 1 week ago
I had better never see a...

I had better never see a book than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul.

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par. 15
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
2 months 1 week ago
In the first place, the German...

In the first place, the German is a branch of the Teutonic race. Of the latter it is sufficient to say here that its mission was to combine the social order established in ancient Europe with the true religion preserved in ancient Asia, and in this way to develop in and by itself a new and different age after the ancient world had perished.

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The Chief Difference Between The Germans And The Other Peoples Of Teutonic Descent.
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 1 week ago
Well is it known that ambition...

Well is it known that ambition can creep as well as soar.

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No. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
3 months 3 weeks ago
If you act externally with men...

If you act externally with men in conformity with your rank, you should recognize, by a more secret but truer thought, that you have nothing naturally superior to them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 3 weeks ago
You've got the temperament of a...

You've got the temperament of a scholar, and you live on your own and write books. You don't have anything to do with civilization. You've been in London a few days and you can't wait to get back home. But how about the people who can't write books -- people there's no outlet for in this civilization? What about your new men who don't know what to do?

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p. 200
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
2 months 1 day ago
Men have been released from [concentration]...

Men have been released from [concentration] camps who have taken over the jargon of their jailers and with cold reason and mad consent (the price, as it were, of their survival) tell their story as if it could not have been otherwise than it was, contending that they have not been treated so badly after all.

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p. 45.
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 1 week ago
United States! the ages plead, -...

United States! the ages plead, - Present and Past in under-song, - Go put your creed into your deed, Nor speak with double tongue.

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Ode, st. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Heraclitus
Heraclitus
4 months ago
It is better...

It is better to conceal ignorance than to expose it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 1 week ago
This was her finest role and...

This was her finest role and the hardest one to play. Choosing between heaven and a ridiculous fidelity, preferring oneself to eternity or losing oneself in God is the age-old tragedy in which each must play his part.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
4 months 1 week ago
The man who does not wish...
The man who does not wish to belong to the mass needs only to cease taking himself easily; let him follow his conscience, which calls to him: Be your self! All you are now doing, thinking, desiring, is not you yourself.
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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
3 months 2 weeks ago
There is an inconvenience which attends...

There is an inconvenience which attends all abstruse reasoning. That it may silence, without convincing an antagonist, and requires the same intense study to make us sensible of its force, that was at first requisite for its invention. When we leave our closet, and engage in the common affairs of life, its conclusions seem to vanish, like the phantoms of the night on the appearance of the morning; and 'tis difficult for us to retain even that conviction, which we had attain'd with difficulty.

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Part 1, Section 1
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 days ago
Properly speaking, the Land belongs to...

Properly speaking, the Land belongs to these two: To the Almighty God; and to all His Children of Men that have ever worked well on it, or that shall ever work well on it. No generation of men can or could, with never such solemnity and effort, sell Land on any other principle: it is not the property of any generation, we say, but that of all the past generations that have worked on it, and of all the future ones that shall work on it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
6 days ago
It is hard to see how...

It is hard to see how the discarding of liberal values is going to lead to anything in the long term other than increasing social conflict and ultimately a return to violence as a means of resolving differences.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
2 months 6 days ago
It is a universal revolution and...

It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range.

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Philosophical Maxims
Susan Neiman
Susan Neiman
1 month 1 day ago
What concerns me most here are...

What concerns me most here are the ways in which contemporary voices considered to be leftist have abandoned the philosophical ideas that are central to any left-wing standpoint: a commitment to universalism over tribalism, a firm distinction between justice and power, and a belief in the possibility of progress.

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Polity (2023), p. 5
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
2 months 2 days ago
Strictly speaking, the mass, as a...

Strictly speaking, the mass, as a psychological fact, can be defined without waiting for individuals to appear in mass formation. In the presence of one individual we can decide whether he is "mass" or not. The mass is all that which sets no value on itself - good or ill - based on specific grounds, but which feels itself "just like everybody," and nevertheless is not concerned about it; is, in fact, quite happy to feel itself as one with everybody else.

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Chap.I: The Coming Of The Masses
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 1 week ago
Editor Preface In this book, originating...

Editor Preface In this book, originating in the year 1848, the requirement for being a Christian is forced up by the pseudonymous author to the supreme ideality. Yet the requirement should indeed be stated, presented, and heard. From the Christian point of view, there ought to be no scaling down of the requirement, nor suppression of it-instead of a personal admission and confession. The requirement should be heard-and I understand what is said as spoken to me alone-so that I might learn not only to resort to grace but to resort to it in relation to the use of grace.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks 2 days ago
The covetous man....
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Main Content / General
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 2 weeks ago
No society can surely be flourishing...

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged.

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Chapter VIII, p. 94.
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
4 months 1 week ago
If the very essence of knowledge...

If the very essence of knowledge changes, at the moment of the change to another essence of knowledge there would be no knowledge, and if it is always changing, there will always be no knowledge, and by this reasoning there will be neither anyone to know nor anything to be known. But if there is always that which knows and that which is known if the beautiful, the good, and all the other verities exist I do not see how there is any likeness between these conditions of which I am now speaking and flux or motion.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 days ago
Certainly the Art of Writing is...

Certainly the Art of Writing is the most miraculous of all things man has devised.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 1 week ago
Custom reconciles us to every thing....

Custom reconciles us to every thing.

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Part IV Section XVIII
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 1 week ago
The profit of books is according...

The profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader. The profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine until an equal mind and heart finds and publishes it.

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Quotation and Originality
Philosophical Maxims
Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Berdyaev
1 month 3 weeks ago
Nobody is bound to have an...

Nobody is bound to have an optimistic outlook on the future: that is not a precept of the Christian religion. ... It is a matter of immense importance that illusions should be dispelled and man come face to face with positive realities.

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p. 131
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 1 week ago
I call this Divine humility because...

I call this Divine humility because it is a poor thing to strike our colours to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to Him as a last resort, to offer up "our own" when it is no longer worth keeping. If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him, and come to Him because there is "nothing better" now to be had.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 1 week ago
The sky is the daily bread...

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

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May 25, 1843
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 months 1 week ago
Yes - you, you alone must...

Yes - you, you alone must pay for everything because you turned up like this, because I'm a scoundrel, because I'm the nastiest, most ridiculous, pettiest, stupidest, and most envious worm of all those living on earth who're no better than me in any way, but who, the devil knows why, never get embarrassed, while all my life I have to endure insults from every louse - that's my fate. What do I care that you do not understand any of this?

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Part 2, Chapter 9
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 1 week ago
I take it for granted, when...

I take it for granted, when I am invited to lecture anywhere, - for I have had a little experience in that business, - that there is a desire to hear what I think on some subject, though I may be the greatest fool in the country, - and not that I should say pleasant things merely, or such as the audience will assent to; and I resolve, accordingly, that I will give them a strong dose of myself. They have sent for me, and engaged to pay for me, and I am determined that they shall have me, though I bore them beyond all precedent.

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p. 484
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
3 months 1 week 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
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
3 months 5 days ago
Amy Kofman: Have you read all...

Amy Kofman: Have you read all the books in here?Derrida: No, only four of them. But I read those very, very carefully.

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Derrida (2003 documentary), referring to his personal library
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 1 week ago
Pornography and obscenity...work by specialism and...

Pornography and obscenity...work by specialism and fragmentation. They deal with a figure without a ground -- situations in which the human factor is suppressed in favor of sensations and kicks.

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Letter to Clare Westcott, November 26 1975. Letters of Marshall McLuhan, p. 514
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 1 week ago
As art sinks into paralysis, artists...

As art sinks into paralysis, artists multiply. This anomaly ceases to be one if we realize that art, on its way to exhaustion, has become both impossible and easy.

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Philosophical Maxims
Max Scheler
Max Scheler
2 months 1 day ago
Beyond all conscious lying and falsifying,...

Beyond all conscious lying and falsifying, there is a deeper "organic mendacity." Here the falsification is not formed in consciousness, but at the same stage of the mental process as the impressions and value feelings themselves: on the road of experience into consciousness. There is "organic mendacity" whenever a man's mind admits only those impressions which serve his "interest" or his instinctive attitude. Already in the process of mental reproduction and recollection, the contents of his experience are modified in this direction. He who is "mendacious" has no need to lie! In his case, the automatic process of forming recollections, impressions, and feelings is involuntarily slanted, so that conscious falsification becomes unnecessary.

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L. Coser, trans. (1973), pp. 77-78
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 1 week ago
I came into this world, not...

I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad.

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Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
2 months 3 weeks ago
Remind yourself that all men assert...

Remind yourself that all men assert that wisdom is the greatest good, but that there are few who strenuously seek out that greatest good.

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Pythagorean Ethical Sentences From Stobæus
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
3 months 5 days ago
In the Greek conception of parrhesia......

In the Greek conception of parrhesia... truth-having is guaranteed by the possession of... moral qualities... required... to know... and... convey such truth...

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Philosophical Maxims
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
2 weeks 6 days ago
Even if I set out to...

Even if I set out to make a film about a fillet of sole, it would be about me.

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On the autobiographical nature of his films, in The Atlantic
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 month 3 weeks ago
No member of a crew is...

No member of a crew is praised for the rugged individuality of his rowing.

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"Harvard: The Future," The Atlantic Monthly, September 1936
Philosophical Maxims
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