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Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 1 day ago
Every toiling Manchester, its smoke and...

Every toiling Manchester, its smoke and soot all burnt, ought it not, among so many world-wide conquests, to have a hundred acres or so of free greenfield, with trees on it, conquered, for its little children to disport in; for its all-conquering workers to take a breath of twilight air in? You would say so! A willing Legislature could say so with effect. A willing Legislature could say very many things! And to whatsoever 'vested interest,' or such like, stood up, gainsaying merely, "I shall lose profits,"-the willing Legislature would answer, "Yes, but my sons and daughters will gain health, and life, and a soul."-

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Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
4 months 2 days ago
Miracles are propitious accidents, the natural...

Miracles are propitious accidents, the natural causes of which are too complicated to be readily understood.

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
5 months 3 weeks ago
For if a thing is not...

For if a thing is not diminished by being shared with others, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned and not shared.

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1:1:1 English Latin Latin: Omnis enim res quae dando non deficit, dum habetur et non datur, nondum habetur quomodo habenda est.
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 1 week ago
The Revolution and Hanover succession had...

The Revolution and Hanover succession had been objects of the highest veneration to the old Whigs. They thought them not only proofs of the sober and steady spirit of liberty which guided their ancestors; but of their wisdom and provident care of posterity.-The modern Whigs have quite other notions of these events and actions. They do not deny that Mr. Burke has given truly the words of the acts of parliament which secured the succession, and the just sense of them. They attack not him but the law.

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p. 436
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
5 months 1 week ago
Technological progress has merely provided us...

Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.

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Ch. 1, p. 9 [2012 reprint]. Also in "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" in Adonis and the Alphabet (1956); later in Collected Essays (1959), p. 293
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
5 months 1 week ago
In England women are still occasionally...

In England women are still occasionally used instead of horses for hauling canal boats, because the labour required to produce horses and machines is an accurately known quantity, while that required to maintain the women of the surplus population is below all calculation.

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Vol. I, Ch. 15, Section 2, pg. 430.
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
5 months 2 weeks ago
You worry whether the drought will...

You worry whether the drought will end. It is far better that you pray that God may water your mind lest virtue wither away in it. You are greatly concerned with money that is lost or being wasted, or you worry about the advance of old age. I think it much to be desired that you provide first of all for the needs of your soul.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
5 months 1 week ago
If the whole of natural theology,...

If the whole of natural theology, as some people seem to maintain, resolves itself into one simple, though somewhat ambiguous, at least undefined proposition, that the cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence: If this proposition be not capable of extension, variation, or more particular explication: If it affords no inference that affects human life, or can be the source of any action or forbearance: And if the analogy, imperfect as it is, can be carried no farther than to the human intelligence, and cannot be transferred, with any appearance of probability, to the other qualities of the mind; if this really be the case, what can the most inquisitive, contemplative, and religious man do more than give a plain, philosophical assent to the proposition, as often as it occurs, and believe that the arguments on which it is established exceed the objections which lie against it?

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Philo to Cleanthes, Part XII
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Mannheim
Karl Mannheim
1 month 1 week ago
Once we recognize that all historical...

Once we recognize that all historical knowledge is relational knowledge, and can only be formulated with reference to the position of the observer, we are faced, once more, with the task of discriminating between what is true and what is false in such knowledge.

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Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
5 months 4 days ago
Harvard now, I think, suffers from...

Harvard now, I think, suffers from a kind of self-idolatry, that it needs to be critical of itself in order to grow. And again, if you can be in contact with the best of its past, then it's got a chance. But if it just remains well adjusted to the status quo, generating careerist and opportunist students rather than critically oriented students who have a heart and soul, concerned about suffering here and around the world - then Harvard has a chance. I'm not giving up on Harvard, but I am making my way to New York.

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Speaking in Too Radical for Harvard? Cornel West on Failed Fight for Tenure, Biden's First 50 Days & More, Democracy Now!
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
2 months 4 weeks ago
I say that where the public...

I say that where the public morality is concerned it may be the duty of the State to interfere with the contracts of individuals... It must then, I think, be admitted that, where health is concerned, and where morality is concerned, the State is justified in interfering with the contracts of individuals.

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Speech in the House of Commons (22 May 1846), quoted in Speeches of the Right Honourable T. B. Macaulay, M.P. (1854), p. 442
Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
5 months 4 days ago
The most taboo issue on U.S....

The most taboo issue on U.S. campuses these days, in many instances, has to do with the vicious Israeli occupation of precious Palestinians. It's very difficult to have a respectful, robust conversation about that. And I am unequivocal in my solidarity with Palestinian brothers and sisters... I'm not in any way going to stop talking about the Palestinian plight and predicament.

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Speaking in Too Radical for Harvard? Cornel West on Failed Fight for Tenure, Biden's First 50 Days & More, Democracy Now!
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
6 months 1 week ago
He who is punished is never...
He who is punished is never he who performed the deed. He is always the scapegoat.
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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
5 months 1 week ago
Night is falling: at dusk, you...

Night is falling: at dusk, you must have good eyesight to be able to tell the Good Lord from the Devil.

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Act 10, sc. 2
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 months 1 week ago
Truth is the cry....
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Main Content / General
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
4 months 6 days ago
Fifth, in what measure this unification...

Fifth, in what measure this unification acts, seems to be regulated only by special rules; or, at least, we cannot in our present knowledge say how far it goes. But it may be said that, judging by appearances, the amount of arbitrariness in the phenomenon of human minds is neither altogether trifling nor very prominent.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
5 months 5 days ago
Philosophy is a battle….

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language.

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§ 109
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
4 months 3 weeks ago
It is difficult to walk at...

It is difficult to walk at one and the same time many paths of life.

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Pythagorean Ethical Sentences From Stobæus
Philosophical Maxims
Averroes
Averroes
5 months 4 weeks ago
If teleological study of the world...

If teleological study of the world is philosophy, and if the Law commands such a study, then the Law commands philosophy.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Kuhn
Thomas Kuhn
2 months ago
Ever since prehistoric antiquity one field...

Ever since prehistoric antiquity one field of study after another has crossed the divide between what the historian might call its prehistory as a science and its history proper. These transitions to maturity have seldom been so sudden or so unequivocal as my necessarily schematic discussion may have implied. But neither have they been historically gradual, coextensive, that is to say, with the entire development of the fields within which they occurred.

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p. 22
Philosophical Maxims
Susan Neiman
Susan Neiman
3 months ago
Like many others, I came to...

Like many others, I came to philosophy to study matters of life and death, and was taught that professionalization required forgetting them. The more I learned, the more I grew convinced of the opposite: the history of philosophy was indeed animated by the questions that drew us there.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
5 months 4 days ago
When I say that this phase...

When I say that this phase is necessary, the word phase is perhaps not the most rigorous one. It is not a question of a chronological phase, a given moment, or a page that one day simply will be turned, in order to go on to other things. The necessity of this phase is structural; it is the necessity of an interminable analysis: the hierarchy of dual oppositions always reestablishes itself. Unlike those authors whose death does not await their demise, the time for overturning is never a dead letter.

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p. 41-42
Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
5 months 1 week ago
Men resign themselves to their position...

Men resign themselves to their position should it ever occur to them to question it; and since all may view themselves as assigned their vocation, everyone is held to be equally fated and equally noble in the eyes of providence.

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Chapter IX, Section 82, p. 547
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 2 weeks ago
The value of life lies not...

The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.

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Book I, Ch. 20
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
5 months 1 week ago
England and France, the two most...

England and France, the two most civilized nations on earth, who are in contrast to each other because of their different characters, are, perhaps chiefly for that reason, in constant feud with one another. Also, England and France, because of their inborn characters, of which the acquired and artificial character is only the result, are probably the only nations who can be assumed to have a particular and, as long as both national characters are not blended by the force of war, unalterable characteristics. That French has become the universal language of conversation, especially in the feminine world, and that English is the most widely used language of commerce among tradesmen, probably reflects the difference in their continental and insular geographic situation.

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Kant, Immanuel (1996), page 226
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
5 months 5 days ago
The human body is the best...

The human body is the best picture of the human soul.

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Pt II, p. 178
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
5 months 4 weeks ago
Truth is the ultimate end of...

Truth is the ultimate end of the whole universe.

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I, 1, 2
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
5 months 5 days ago
It seems to me that, in...

It seems to me that, in every culture, I come across a chapter headed Wisdom. And then I know exactly what is going to follow: Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

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Conversation of 1934
Philosophical Maxims
Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
3 months 3 days ago
Conservatives believe that our identities and...

Conservatives believe that our identities and values are formed through our relations with other people, and not through our relation with the state. The state is not an end but a means. Civil society is the end, and the state is the means to protect it. The social world emerges through free association, rooted in friendship and community life. And the customs and institutions that we cherish have grown from below, by the 'invisible hand' of co-operation. They have rarely been imposed from above by the work of politics, the role of which, for a conservative, is to reconcile our many aims, and not to dictate or control them.

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"Stand up for the real meaning of freedom," The Spectator
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
4 months 2 weeks ago
Shakespeare's fault is not the greatest...

Shakespeare's fault is not the greatest into which a poet may fall. It merely indicates a deficiency of taste.

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Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
1 month 1 week ago
Fools, art is a heavy task,...

Fools, art is a heavy task, more heavy than gold crowns;it's far more difficult to match firm words than armies,they're disciplined troops, unconquered, to be placed in rhythm,the mind's most mighty foe, and not disperse in air.I'd give, believe me, a whole land for one good song,for I know well that only words, that words alone,like the high mountains, have no fear of age or death.

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Pharaoh, Book X, line 688
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
3 months 1 week ago
He sleeps well who knows not...

He sleeps well who knows not that he sleeps ill.

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Maxim 77
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
5 months 4 weeks ago
Charity, by which God and neighbor...

Charity, by which God and neighbor are loved, is the most perfect friendship.

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Disputed Questions: On Charity, c. 1270
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 1 week ago
The Upanishads and the Vedas haunt...

The Upanishads and the Vedas haunt me. In them I have found eternal compensation, unfathomable power, unbroken peace.

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Quoted in S. Londhe, A Tribute to Hinduism, 2008
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 1 week ago
Tyrants seldom want pretexts.

Tyrants seldom want pretexts.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 2 weeks ago
And to bring in a new...

And to bring in a new word by the head and shoulders, they leave out the old one.

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Book III, Ch. 5. Upon some Verses of Virgil
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
5 months 1 week ago
I have therefore found it necessary...

I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
5 months 1 week ago
A scheme is unjust when the...

A scheme is unjust when the higher expectations, one or more of them, are excessive. If these expectations were decreased, the situation of the less favored would be improved.

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Chapter II, Section 13, pg. 79
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
6 months 1 week ago
But it is clear there is...

But it is clear there is a difference in the ends proposed: for in some cases they are activities, and in others results beyond the mere activities, and where there are certain ends beyond and beside the actions, the results are naturally superior to the activities. Now, as there are numerous kinds of actions and numerous arts and sciences, it follows that the ends are also various. Thus the end of the healing art is health, of ship-building ships, of strategy victory, of economy wealth.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
5 months 1 week ago
In the days before machinery men...

In the days before machinery men and women who wanted to amuse themselves were compelled, in their humble way, to be artists. Now they sit still and permit professionals to entertain them by the aid of machinery. It is difficult to believe that general artistic culture can flourish in this atmosphere of passivity.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
4 months 1 week ago
I have always taken as the...

I have always taken as the standard of the mode of teaching and writing, not the abstract, particular, professional philosopher, but universal man, that I have regarded man as the criterion of truth, and not this or that founder of a system, and have from the first placed the highest excellence of the philosopher in this, that he abstains, both as a man and as an author, from the ostentation of philosophy, i.e., that he is a philosopher only in reality, not formally, that he is a quiet philosopher, not a loud and still less a brawling one.

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Preface to Second Edition
Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
5 months 4 days ago
The paradox of race in America...

The paradox of race in America is that our common destiny is more pronounced and imperiled precisely when our divisions are deeper.

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(p4)
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
3 months 3 weeks ago
It is not honourable to attack...

It is not honourable to attack an enemy without putting yourself at risk.

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Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
5 months 3 weeks ago
Although life is a matter of...

Although life is a matter of indifference, the use which you make of it is not a matter of indifference.

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Book II, ch. 6, 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 month 6 days ago
Enough of this miserable, whining life....

Enough of this miserable, whining life. Stop monkeying around! Why are you troubled? What's new here? What's so confounding? The one responsible? Take a good look. Or just the matter itself? Then look at that. There's nothing else to look at. And as far as the gods go, by now you could try being more straightforward and kind. It's the same, whether you've examined these things for a hundred years, or only three.

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IX. 37:205
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
5 months 1 week ago
Were a stranger to drop on...

Were a stranger to drop on a sudden into this world, I would show him, as a specimen of its ills, a hospital full of diseases, a prison crowded with malefactors and debtors, a field of battle strewed with carcasses, a fleet foundering in the ocean, a nation languishing under tyranny, famine, or pestilence. To turn the gay side of life to him, and give him a notion of its pleasures; whither should I conduct him? to a ball, to an opera, to court? He might justly think, that I was only showing him a diversity of distress and sorrow.

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Demea to Philo, Part X
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
3 months 6 days ago
But perhaps the rest of us...

But perhaps the rest of us could have separate classes in science appreciation, the wonder of science, scientific ways of thinking, and the history of scientific ideas, rather than laboratory experience.

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Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
5 months ago
Neither our distance from a preventable...

Neither our distance from a preventable evil nor the number of other people who, in respect to that evil, are in the same situation as we are, lessens our obligation to mitigate or prevent that evil.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
5 months 1 week ago
According to Christian teachers, the essential...

According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.

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Book III, Chapter 8, "The Great Sin"
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
5 months 2 weeks ago
As to why some are touched...

As to why some are touched by the law and others not, so that some receive and others scorn the offer of grace...[this is the] hidden will of God, Who, according to His own counsel, ordains such persons as He wills to receive and partake of the mercy preached and offered.

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p. 169
Philosophical Maxims
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