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Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 months 1 week ago
The happiness of men consists in...

The happiness of men consists in life. And life is in labor.

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What Is To Be Done? (1886) Chap. XXXVIII
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
4 months 1 week ago
Nietzsche understands the aesthetic state of...

Nietzsche understands the aesthetic state of the observer and recipient on the basis of the state of the creator. Thus the effect of the artwork is nothing else than a reawakening of the creator's state in the one who enjoys the artwork. Observation of art follows in the wake of creation. Nietzsche says (SM, 821), "-the effect of artworks is arousal of the art-creating state, rapture."

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p. 117
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 2 weeks ago
...he always firmly believed that they...

...he always firmly believed that they were purely on the defensive in that rebellion. He considered the Americans as standing at that time, and in that controversy, in the same relation to England, as England did to king James the Second, in 1688.

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p. 396
Philosophical Maxims
Joseph de Maistre
Joseph de Maistre
1 week 4 days ago
Any institution is only a political...

Any institution is only a political structure. In physics and in morals, the laws are the same; you cannot build a large structure on a narrow foundation, nor a durable structure on a moving or transient base. In the political order, therefore, if one wants to build on a large scale and for the centuries, one must rely on an opinion, on a large and profound belief. For if this opinion does not dominate a majority of minds and if it is not deeply rooted, it will furnish only a narrow and transient base.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Owen
Robert Owen
2 months 1 week ago
Man is the creature of circumstances....

Man is the creature of circumstances.

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"The Philanthropist"
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
2 weeks ago
I said only one word, brought...

I said only one word, brought only one message: Love. Love - nothing else.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
4 months 2 weeks ago
There is nothing in any object,...

There is nothing in any object, consider'd in itself, which can afford us a reason for drawing a conclusion beyond it; [...] even after the observation of the frequent or constant conjunction of objects, we have no reason to draw any inference concerning any object beyond those of which we have had experience.

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Part 3, Section 12
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
3 months 5 days ago
Art expresses, it does not state;...

Art expresses, it does not state; it is concerned with existences in their perceived qualities, not with conceptions symbolized in terms.

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p. 139
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
4 weeks ago
What profit is there in crossing...

What profit is there in crossing the sea and in going from one city to another? If you would escape your troubles, you need not another place but another personality. Perhaps you have reached Athens, or perhaps Rhodes; choose any state you fancy, how does it matter what its character may be? You will be bringing to it your own.

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Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
4 months 3 weeks ago
A constant element of enjoyment must...

A constant element of enjoyment must be mingled with our studies, so that we think of learning as a game rather than a form of drudgery, for no activity can be continued for long if it does not to some extent afford pleasure to the participant.

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Letter to Christian Northoff (1497), as translated in Collected Works of Erasmus (1974), p. 114
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 1 week ago
Kierkegaard was by far the most...

Kierkegaard was by far the most profound thinker of the last century. Kierkegaard was a saint.

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As quoted in "Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard on the ethico-religious" by Roe Fremstedal in Ideas in History Vol. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 1 week ago
Thus then does the Doctrine of...

Thus then does the Doctrine of Knowledge, which in its substance is the realisation of the absolute Power of intelligising which has now been defined, end with the recognition of itself as a mere Schema in a Doctrine of Wisdom, although indeed a necessary and indispensable means to such a Doctrine: - a Schema, the sole aim of which is, with the knowledge thus acquired, - by which knowledge alone a Will, clear and intelligible to itself and reposing upon itself without wavering or perplexity, is possible, - to return wholly into Actual Life; - not into the Life of blind and irrational Instinct which we have laid bare in all its nothingness, but into the Divine Life which shall become visible to us.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 4 days ago
The spoken Word, the written Poem,...

The spoken Word, the written Poem, is said to be an epitome of the man; how much more the done Work. Whatsoever of morality and of intelligence; what of patience, perseverance, faithfulness, of method, insight, ingenuity, energy; in a word, whatsoever of Strength the man had in him will lie written in the Work he does. To work: why, it is to try himself against Nature, and her everlasting unerring Laws; these will tell a true verdict as to the man.

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Philosophical Maxims
Max Scheler
Max Scheler
3 months 4 days ago
To its very core, the mind...

To its very core, the mind of ressentiment man is filled with envy, the impulse to detract, malice, and secret vindictiveness. These affects have become fixed attitudes, detached from all determinate objects. Independently of his will, this man's attention will be instinctively drawn by all events which can set these affects in motion. The ressentiment attitude even plays a role in the formation of perceptions, expectations, and memories. It automatically selects those aspects of experience which can justify the factual application of this pattern of feeling.

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L. Coser, trans. (1973), p. 74
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
4 months 2 weeks ago
I soon perceived that she possessed...

I soon perceived that she possessed in combination, the qualities which in all other persons whom I had known I had been only too happy to find singly. In her, complete emancipation from every kind of superstition (including that which attributes a pretended perfection to the order of nature and the universe), and an earnest protest against many things which are still part of the established constitution of society, resulted not from the hard intellect, but from strength of noble and elevated feeling, and co-existed with a highly reverential nature.

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(p. 186)
Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
1 week 6 days ago
The problem is that rural America...

The problem is that rural America has been a colony, certainly throughout my lifetime. I don't think anybody's paid attention to rural America since about 1945 or '50. Certainly not since 1952, when Eisenhower's Secretary of Agriculture said to the farmers: "Get big or get out." They've just abandoned rural America to corporations and technologies.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 2 weeks ago
But the individual....
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Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
4 months 1 week ago
It seems to me...

It seems to me that the current political task in a society like ours is to criticize the working of institutions that are apparently the most neutral and independent, to criticize these institutions and attack them in such a way that the political violence that exercises itself obscurely through them becomes manifest, so that one can fight against them.

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Debate with Noam Chomsky, École Supérieure de Technologie à Eindhoven, November 1971
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 1 week ago
Nature is the best posture-master. p....

Nature is the best posture-master.

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p. 167
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
4 months 1 week ago
The point, as Marx saw it,...

The point, as Marx saw it, is that dreams never come true.

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"On Violence"
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
2 months 2 weeks ago
[In cloning,] the Father and the...

[In cloning,] the Father and the Mother have disappeared, not in the service of an aleatory liberty of the subject, but in the service of a matrix called code.

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"Clone Story," p. 96
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
3 days ago
I believe with Schopenhauer: We...

I believe with Schopenhauer: We can do what we wish, but we can only wish what we must. Practically, I am, nevertheless, compelled to act as if freedom of the will existed. If I wish to live in a civilized community, I must act as if man is a responsible being. I know that philosophically a murderer is not responsible for his crime; nevertheless, I must protect myself from unpleasant contacts. I may consider him guiltless, but I prefer not to take tea with him.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months ago
And the conversion of the other...

And the conversion of the other Don Quixote - he who was converted only to die - was possible because he was mad, and it was his madness, and not his death or his conversion that immortalized him, earning him forgiveness for this crime of having been born. Felix culpa! And neither was his madness cured, but only transformed. His death was his last knightly adventure; in dying he stormed heaven, which suffereth violence.

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Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
5 months 3 days ago
You [a disciple], shall I...

You [a disciple], shall I teach you about knowledge? What you know, you know, what you don't know, you don't know. This is true knowledge.

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Philosophical Maxims
Cisero
Cisero
5 months 1 day ago
If you have a garden..

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

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To Varro, in Ad Familiares IX, 4
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
1 month 2 weeks ago
Through all of history and pre-history...

Through all of history and pre-history it has been accepted that there is something wrong with the human animal. Health may be the natural condition of other species, but in humans it is sickness that is normal. To be chronically unwell is part of what it means to be human. It is no accident that every culture has its own versions of therapy. Tribal shamans and modern psychotherapists answer the same needs and practise the same trade.

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Beyond the Last Thought: Freud's cigars and the long way round to Nirvana (p. 84)
Philosophical Maxims
Heraclitus
Heraclitus
5 months 3 days ago
Dogs, also, bark..

Dogs, also, bark at what they do not know.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 months 4 weeks ago
Familiar things happen, and mankind does...

Familiar things happen, and mankind does not bother about them. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.

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Ch. 1: "The Origins of Modern Science", p. 6
Philosophical Maxims
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
3 weeks 3 days ago
A work of art bears within...

A work of art bears within itself its own verification: conceptions which are devised or stretched do not stand being portrayed in images, they all come crashing down, appear sickly and pale, convince no one. But those works of art which have scooped up the truth and presented it to us as a living force - they take hold of us, compel us, and nobody ever, not even in ages to come, will appear to refute them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
4 months 2 weeks ago
Nature is satisfied with little; and...

Nature is satisfied with little; and if she is, I am also.

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As quoted in The Story of Philosophy (1933) by Will Durant, p. 176
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 3 weeks ago
The oldest and best known evil...

The oldest and best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was new and untried.

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Book III, Ch. 9. Of Vanity
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 months 4 weeks ago
The human body is an instrument...

The human body is an instrument for the production of art in the life of the human soul.

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p. 349.
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Simmel
Georg Simmel
3 weeks 2 days ago
Every relationship between two individuals or...

Every relationship between two individuals or two groups will be characterized by the ratio of secrecy that is involved in it. Even when one of the parties does not notice the secret factor, yet the attitude of the concealer, and consequently the whole relationship, will be modified by it.

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p. 462
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
4 months 2 weeks ago
If at times I have thought...

If at times I have thought myself unfortunate, it is because of a confusion, an error. I have mistaken myself for someone else... Who am I really? I am the author of The World as Will and Representation, I am the one who has given an answer to the mystery of Being that will occupy the thinkers of future centuries. That is what I am, and who can dispute it in the years of life that still remain for me?

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From The Total Library by Jorge Luis Borges, 1999
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
4 months 3 weeks ago
These two states which it is...

These two states which it is necessary to know together in order to see the whole truth, being known separately, lead necessarily to one of these two vices, pride or indolence, in which all men are invariably led before grace, since if they do not remain in their disorders through laxity, they forsake them through vanity, so true is that which you have just repeated to me from St. Augustine, and which I find to a great extent; for in fact homage is rendered to them in many ways.

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Philosophical Maxims
Julius Evola
Julius Evola
3 weeks ago
A political, economic, and social order...

A political, economic, and social order created merely for the sake of temporal life is exclusively characteristic of the modern world, that is, of the antitraditional world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
4 months 3 weeks ago
Our stubbornness is right, because we...

Our stubbornness is right, because we want to preserve the liberty which we have in Christ. Only by preserving our liberty shall we be able to retain the truth of the Gospel inviolate.

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Chapter 2
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 1 week ago
One always dies too soon...

One always dies too soon - or too late. And yet, life is there, finished: the line is drawn, and it must all be added up. You are nothing other than your life.

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Inès, Act 1, sc. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months 3 weeks ago
If an angel were ever to...

If an angel were ever to tell us anything of his philosophy I believe many propositions would sound like 2 times 2 equals 13.

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B 44
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
3 months 2 weeks ago
Power acquired by violence…

Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey.

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Article on Political Authority, Vol. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months 3 weeks ago
Man is always partial and is...

Man is always partial and is quite right to be. Even impartiality is partial.

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F 78
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 2 weeks ago
A process which led from the...

A process which led from the amœba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress - though whether the amœba would agree with this opinion is not known.

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Ch. 1: Mysticism and Logic
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 2 weeks ago
Justice was in all countries originally...

Justice was in all countries originally administered by the priesthood; nor indeed could laws in their first feeble state have either authority or sanction, so as to compel men to relinquish their natural independence, had they not appeared to come down to them enforced by beings of more than human power. The first openings of civility have been everywhere made by religion. Amongst the Romans, the custody and interpretation of the laws continued solely in the college of the pontiffs for above a century.

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An Essay towards an Abridgment of English History (1757-c. 1763), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI (1856), p. 196
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months 3 weeks ago
One cannot demand of a scholar...

One cannot demand of a scholar that he show himself a scholar everywhere in society, but the whole tenor of his behavior must none the less betray the thinker, he must always be instructive, his way of judging a thing must even in the smallest matters be such that people can see what it will amount to when, quietly and self-collected, he puts this power to scholarly use.

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J 85
Philosophical Maxims
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
4 months 3 days ago
He was going into a theatre,...

He was going into a theatre, meeting face to face those who were coming out, and being asked why, "This," he said, "is what I practise doing all my life."

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Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 64
Philosophical Maxims
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
1 week 2 days ago
Plausible as the idea of the...

Plausible as the idea of the United States of Europe as a peace arrangement may seem to some at first glance, it has on closer examination not the least thing in common with the method of thought and the standpoint of social democracy . . . At the present stage of development of the world market and of world economy, the conception of Europe as an isolated economic unit is a sterile concoction of the brain. Europe no more forms a special unit within world economy than does Asia or America.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
4 months 2 weeks ago
But the chief design of this...

But the chief design of this paper is not to disprove it, which many have sufficiently done; but to entreat Americans to consider.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 1 week ago
The space of early Greek cosmology...

The space of early Greek cosmology was structured by logos - resonant utterance or word.

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p. 35
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
4 months 2 weeks ago
The law of simplicity and naïveté...

The law of simplicity and naïveté applies to all fine art, for it is compatible with what is most sublime. True brevity of expression consists in a man only saying what is worth saying, while avoiding all diffuse explanations of things which every one can think out for himself; that is, it consists in his correctly distinguishing between what is necessary and what is superfluous. On the other hand, one should never sacrifice clearness, to say nothing of grammar, for the sake of being brief. To impoverish the expression of a thought, or to obscure or spoil the meaning of a period for the sake of using fewer words shows a lamentable want of judgment.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 3 weeks ago
I want death to…

I want death to find me planting my cabbages.

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Ch. 20. Of the Force of Imagination (tr. Donald M. Frame)
Philosophical Maxims
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