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Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
3 months 1 week ago
The blessing that the market does...

The blessing that the market does not ask about birth is paid for in the exchange society by the fact that the possibilities conferred by birth are molded to fit the production of goods that can be bought on the market.

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E. Jephcott, trans., p. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
3 months 3 weeks ago
Every presentation of philosophy, whether oral...

Every presentation of philosophy, whether oral or written, is to be taken and can only be taken in the sense of a means. Every system is only an expression or image of reason, and hence only an object of reason, an object which reason-a living power that procreates itself in new thinking beings-distinguishes from itself and posits as an object of criticism. Every system that is not recognized and appropriated as just a means, limits and warps the mind for it sets up the indirect and formal thought in the place of the direct, original and material thought.

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Z. Hanfi, trans., in The Fiery Brook (1972), p. 67
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 3 weeks ago
When Confucius and the Indian Scriptures...

When Confucius and the Indian Scriptures were made known, no claim to monopoly of ethical wisdom could be thought of... It is only within this century [the 1800 's] that England and America discovered that their nursery tales were old German and Scandinavian stories; and now it appears that they came from India, and are therefore the property of all the nations.

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Quoted in S. Londhe, A Tribute to Hinduism, 2008
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 2 days ago
Virtue refuses facility for her companion...

Virtue refuses facility for her companion ... the easy, gentle, and sloping path that guides the footsteps of a good natural disposition is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.

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Ch. 11. Of Cruelty (tr. Donald M. Frame)
Philosophical Maxims
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Leibniz
4 months 4 weeks ago
And as every…

And as every present state of a simple substance is naturally a consequence of its preceding state, so its present is pregnant with its future.

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La monadologie (22).
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 3 weeks ago
None shall rule but the humble,...

None shall rule but the humble, And none but Toil shall have.

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Boston Hymn
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 1 week ago
To believe in God is to...

To believe in God is to yearn for His existence and, furthermore, it is to act as if He did exist.

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Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
2 months 3 weeks ago
In fact writing a computer program...

In fact writing a computer program is a pretty good way to summarize knowledge about any set of rules.

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Chapter 2, "Silken Fetters" (p. 58)
Philosophical Maxims
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam
3 months 2 days ago
To sum up: we have seen...

To sum up: we have seen that of the three notions of 'partial interpretation' discussed, each is either unsuitable for Carnap's purposes (starting with observation terms), or incompatible with a rather minimal scientific realism; and, in addition, the second notion depends upon gross and misleading changes in our use of language. Thus in none of these senses is 'a partially interpreted calculus in which only the observation terms are directly interpreted' an acceptable model for a scientific theory.

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"What theories are not"
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
4 months 6 days ago
None but God is wise…

None but God is wise.

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As quoted in The Diegesis (1829) by Robert Taylor, p. 219
Philosophical Maxims
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
1 month 3 weeks ago
Democracy is a meaningless word unless...

Democracy is a meaningless word unless it signifies that differences of opinion have been expressed, represented, and even satisfied in the decision.

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Ch. IV: "The Line of Least Resistance", pp. 47-48
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
3 weeks ago
Then what should we work for?...

Then what should we work for? Only this: proper understanding; unselfish action; truthful speech. A resolve to accept whatever happens as necessary and familiar, flowing like water from that same source and spring.

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(Hays translation) IV, 33
Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
3 weeks 3 days ago
Novelty is a new kind of...

Novelty is a new kind of loneliness.

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Healing
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
In the fact of being born...

In the fact of being born there is such an absence of necessity that when you think about it a little more than usual, you are left-ignorant how to react-with a foolish grin

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
The great majority of men and...

The great majority of men and women, in ordinary times, pass through life without ever contemplating or criticising, as a whole, either their own conditions or those of the world at large. They find themselves born into a certain place in society, and they accept what each day brings forth, without any effort of thought beyond what the immediate present requires. Almost as instinctively as the beasts of the field, they seek the satisfaction of the needs of the moment, without much forethought, and without considering that by sufficient effort the whole conditions of their lives could be changed.

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Introduction, p. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
4 months 1 day ago
I pray you, magnificent Sir, do...

I pray you, magnificent Sir, do not trouble yourself to return to us, but await our coming to you.

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Third Dialogue
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
2 weeks 1 day ago
But what can be the...

But what can be the attraction of getting to know such a tiny section of nature thoroughly, while one leaves everything subtler and more complex shyly and timidly alone? Does the product of such a modest effort deserve to be called by the proud name of a theory of the universe? In my belief the name is justified; for the general laws on which the structure of theoretical physics is based claim to be valid for any natural phenomenon whatsoever. With them, it ought to be possible to arrive at the description, that is to say, the theory, of every natural process, including life, by means of pure deduction, if that process of deduction were not far beyond the capacity of the human intellect. The physicist's renunciation of completeness for his cosmos is therefore not a matter of fundamental principle.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
1 month 2 weeks ago
We have not a direct intuition...

We have not a direct intuition of simultaneity, nor of the equality of two durations. If we think we have this intuition, this is an illusion. We replace it by the aid of certain rules which we apply almost always without taking count of them....We ...choose these rules, not because they are true, but because they are the most convenient, and we may recapitulate them as follows: "The simultaneity of two events, or the order of their succession, the equality of two durations, are to be so defined that the enunciation of the natural laws may be as simple as possible. In other words, all these rules, all these definitions, are only the fruit of an unconscious opportunism."

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Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 months 1 week ago
Human nature asserts itself regardless of...

Human nature asserts itself regardless of all laws, nor is there any plausible reason why nature should adapt itself to a perverted conception of morality.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 3 weeks ago
Better to be despised for too...

Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security.

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Philosophical Maxims
Carl Schmitt
Carl Schmitt
3 weeks 2 days ago
The equation state = politics becomes...

The equation state = politics becomes erroneous and deceptive at exactly the moment when state and society penetrate each other.

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Philosophical Maxims
René Descartes
René Descartes
5 months 2 days ago
In my opinion…

In my opinion, all things in nature occur mathematically.

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Sources: Correspondence with Mersenne note for line 7 (1640), page 36, Die Wiener Zeit page 532 (2008); StackExchange Math Q/A Where did Descartes write...
Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
3 weeks 3 days ago
As soon as the generals and...

As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it. Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail, the way you didn't go. Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection.

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"Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" in Farming: A Hand Book
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
3 months 2 weeks ago
Thought is led, by the situation...

Thought is led, by the situation of its objects, to measure their truth in terms of another logic, another universe of discourse. And this logic projects another mode of existence: the realization of the truth in the words and deeds of man. And inasmuch as this project involves man as societal animal," the polis, the movement of thought has a political content. Thus, the Socratic discourse is political discourse inasmuch as it contradicts the established political institutions. The search for the correct definition, for the "concept" of virtue, justice, piety, and knowledge becomes a subversive undertaking, for the concept intends a new polis.

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pp. 133-134
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
I do nothing, granted. But I...

I do nothing, granted. But I see the hours pass - which is better than trying to fill them.

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Philosophical Maxims
chanakya
chanakya
2 months 4 days ago
The wise man should restrain his...

The wise man should restrain his senses like the crane and accomplish his purpose with due knowledge of his place, time and ability.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
4 days ago
Philosophy makes progress...
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William James
William James
4 months 3 weeks ago
Modern transcendental idealism, Emersonianism, for instance,...

Modern transcendental idealism, Emersonianism, for instance, also seems to let God evaporate into abstract Ideality. Not a deity in concreto, not a superhuman person, but the immanent divinity in things, the essentially spiritual structure of the universe, is the object of the transcendentalist cult. In that address of the graduating class at Divinity College in 1838 which made Emerson famous, the frank expression of this worship of mere abstract laws was what made the scandal of the performance.

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Lecture II, "Circumscription of the Topic"
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
If someone incessantly drops the word...

If someone incessantly drops the word "life," you know he's a sick man.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
4 months 3 weeks ago
Scientists try to eliminate their false...

Scientists try to eliminate their false theories, they try to let them die in their stead. The believer-whether animal or man-perishes with his false beliefs.

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Epistemology Without A Knowing Subject
Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
4 months 2 weeks ago
With a few glorious and glaring...

With a few glorious and glaring exceptions, the shadow of Jim Crow was cast in its new glittering form expressed in the language of superficial diversity... The disarray of a scattered curriculum, the disenchantment of talented yet deferential faculty, and the disorientation of precious students loom large... To witness a faculty enthusiastically support a candidate for tenure then timidly defer to a rejection based on the Harvard administration's hostility to the Palestinian cause was disgusting... We all know the mendacious reasons given had nothing to do with academic standards... This kind of narcissistic academic professionalism, cowardly deference to the anti-Palestinian prejudices of the Harvard administration, and indifference to my Mother's death constitutes an intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of deep deaths...

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Quoted in Civil rights activist Cornel West resigns from Harvard, By Jackie Salo, New York Post, July 13, 2021
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
3 months 6 days ago
Fairness means not to use fraud...

Fairness means not to use fraud and trickery in the exchange of commodities and services and the exchange of feelings.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
Let us speak plainly: everything which...

Let us speak plainly: everything which keeps us from self-dissolution, every lie which protects us against our unbreathable certitudes is religious.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
4 months 4 weeks ago
Oatmeal indeed supplies the common people...

Oatmeal indeed supplies the common people of Scotland with the greatest and best part of their food, which is in general much inferior to that of their neighbours of the same rank in England.

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Chapter VIII, p. 91 (Oatmeal in England makes for great horses, in Scotland Great Men).
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
4 months 3 weeks ago
Such arguments ill become us, since...

Such arguments ill become us, since the time of reformation came, under Gospel light. All distinctions of nations, and privileges of one above others, are ceased; Christians are taught to account all men their neighbours; and love their neighbours as themselves; and do to all men as they would be done by; to do good to all men; and Man-stealing is ranked with enormous crimes. Is the barbarous enslaving our inoffensive neighbours, and treating them like wild beasts subdued by force, reconcilable with all these Divine precepts? Is this doing to them as we would desire they should do to us? If they could carry off and enslave some thousands of us, would we think it just?-One would almost wish they could for once; it might convince more than Reason, or the Bible.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months 3 weeks ago
It is remarkable, that almost all...

It is remarkable, that almost all speakers and writers feel it to be incumbent on them, sooner or later, to prove or to acknowledge the personality of God. ... In reading a work on agriculture, we have to skip the author's moral reflections, and the words "Providence" and "He" scattered along the page, to come at the profitable level of what he has to say. What he calls his religion is for the most part offensive to the nostrils. ... There is more religion in men's science than there is science in their religion.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leszek Kołakowski
Leszek Kołakowski
1 month 2 weeks ago
Bukharin, like Lenin, regarded the system...

Bukharin, like Lenin, regarded the system of basing economic life on mass terror not as a transient necessity but as a permanent principle of socialist organization. He did not shrink from justifying all means of coercion and held, like Trotsky at the same period, that the new system called essentially for the militarization of labour - i.e. the use of police and military force to compel the whole population to work in such places and conditions as the state might arbitrarily decree. Indeed, once the market is abolished there is no longer any free sale of labour or competition between workers, and police coercion is therefore the only means of allocating "human resources". If hired labour is eliminated, only compulsory labour remains. In other words, socialism - as conceived by both Trotsky and Bukharin at this time - is a permanent, nation-wide labour camp.

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(pg. 28-9)
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
4 months 3 weeks ago
Europeans are awakening more and more...

Europeans are awakening more and more to a sense that beasts have rights, in proportion as the strange notion is being gradually overcome and outgrown, that the animal kingdom came into existence solely for the benefit and pleasure of man. This view, with the corollary that non-human living creatures are to be regarded merely as things, is at the root of the rough and altogether reckless treatment of them, which obtains in the West.

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Part III, Ch. VIII, 7, p. 225
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
3 weeks ago
In the case of most pains...

In the case of most pains let this remark of Epicurus aid thee, that the pain is neither intolerable nor everlasting, if thou bear in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination…

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VII, 64
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 2 weeks ago
Go and shew John again those...

Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.

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11:4-6 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
3 weeks 1 day ago
If there is a revelation, it...

If there is a revelation, it can not then contradict nature.

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Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
4 months 2 weeks ago
Human social institutions can effect the...

Human social institutions can effect the course of human evolution. Just as climate-change, food supply, predators, and other natural forces of selection have molded our nature, so too can our culture.

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Chapter 6, A New Understanding Of Ethics, p. 172
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
3 weeks ago
Socrates used to call the opinions...

Socrates used to call the opinions of the many by the name of Lamiae, bugbears to frighten children.

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XI, 23
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
One cannot live without motives. I...

One cannot live without motives. I have no motives left, and I am living.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
4 months 3 weeks ago
A thing forgotten on one day...

A thing forgotten on one day will be remembered on the next. Something we have made the most strenuous efforts to recall, but all in vain, will, soon after... saunter into the mind... The sphere of possible recollection may be wider than we think, and... apparent oblivion is no proof against possible recall under other conditions.

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Ch. 16
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 2 weeks ago
Peace be with you. Receive my...

Peace be with you. Receive my peace unto yourselves. Beware that no one lead you astray saying Lo here or lo there! For the Son of Man is within you. Follow after Him! Those who seek Him will find Him. Go then and preach the gospel of the Kingdom. Do not lay down any rules beyond what I appointed you, and do not give a law like the lawgiver lest you be constrained by it.

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Chapter 4. tion.
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
2 weeks 1 day ago
No one can read the...

No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alan Watts
Alan Watts
1 month 6 days ago
Wonder is not a disease. Wonder,...

Wonder is not a disease. Wonder, and its expression in poetry and the arts, are among the most important things which seem to distinguish men from other animals, and intelligent and sensitive people from morons.

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Inside Information p. 7
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 3 weeks ago
I have seen manners that make...

I have seen manners that make a similar impression with personal beauty, that give the like exhilaration and refine us like that; and in memorable experiences they are suddenly better than beauty, and make that superfluous and ugly. But they must be marked by fine perception, the acquaintance with real beauty. They must always show control; you shall not be facile, apologetic, or leaky, but king over your word; and every gesture and action shall indicate power at rest. They must be inspired by the good heart. There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy, and not pain, around us.

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p. 167
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
4 months 3 weeks ago
I asked my guide how it...

I asked my guide how it was possible the judicious part of them could suffer such incoherent prating? "We are obliged," said he, "to suffer it, because no one knows, when a brother rises up to hold forth, whether he will be moved by the spirit or by folly. In this uncertainty, we listen patiently to every one. We even allow our women to speak in public; two or three of them are often inspired at the same time, and then a most charming noise is heard in the Lord's house." "You have no priests, then?" said I. "No, no, friend," replied the Quaker; "heaven make us thankful!" Then opening one of the books of their sect, he read the following words in an emphatic tone: "'God forbid we should presume to ordain any one to receive the Holy Spirit on the Lord's day, in exclusion to the rest of the faithful!'

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Further account of his conversations with Andrew Pit
Philosophical Maxims
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