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Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
4 months 6 days ago
I strongly suspect that most of...

I strongly suspect that most of the great knowers of Suchness paid very little attention to art.... (To a person whose transfigured and transfiguring mind can see the All in every this, the first-rateness or tenth-rateness of even a religious painting will be a matter of the most sovereign indifference.) Art, I suppose, is only for beginners, or else for those resolute dead-enders, who have made up their minds to be content with the ersatz of Suchness, with symbols rather than with what they signify, with the elegantly composed recipe in lieu of actual dinner.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 months 2 weeks ago
The love of God....
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Adam Smith
Adam Smith
4 months 1 week ago
I. The subjects of every state...

I. The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities, that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.

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Chapter II, Part II, p. 892.
Philosophical Maxims
Edward Said
Edward Said
2 months 2 weeks ago
I retain my faith in the...

I retain my faith in the humanist tradition, that it's possible to deal with discrepant experiences truthfully without resolving into simple things like only women should write about women, only Chicanos should write about Chicanos, only Latinos should write about Latinos... I think that's the most damaging crime, and misapprehension of what I'm saying. That's why they debate all these things and they trace them back to me and people say 'you did that!' Absolutely not. I'm talking from a universalistic, if you like cosmopolitan point of view to which I adhere and which is the only way the world makes sense to me. I don't believe in the politics of identity, although in many ways paradoxically I seem to be the father of identity politics, but it's a thing I totally disbelieve in because I realise the damage that identities have done.

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Interview with Michaël Zeeman for Leven en Werken
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
3 days ago
How many, once lauded in song,...

How many, once lauded in song, are given over to the forgotten; and how many who sung their praises are clean gone long ago!

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VII, 6
Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
4 months 3 weeks ago
Gentleness, as opposed to an irascible...

Gentleness, as opposed to an irascible temper, greatly contributes to the tranquility and happiness of life, by preserving the mind from perturbation, and arming it against the assaults of calumny and malice.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
4 months 6 days ago
The difference between the first- and...

The difference between the first- and second-best things in art absolutely seems to escape verbal definition - it is a matter of a hair, a shade, an inward quiver of some kind - yet what miles away in the point of preciousness!

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To Henry Rutgers Marshall, 7 February 1899
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
4 months 2 weeks ago
There are four classes of Idols...

There are four classes of Idols which beset men's minds. To these for distinction's sake I have assigned names - calling the first class, Idols of the Tribe; the second, Idols of the Cave; the third, Idols of the Market-Place; the fourth, Idols of the Theater.

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Aphorism 39
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
3 months 1 week ago
I consider you the most honest...

I consider you the most honest and truthful of men, more honest and truthful than anyone; and if they say that your mind...that is, that you're sometimes afflicted in your mind, it's unjust. I made up my mind about that, and disputed with others, because, though you really are mentally afflicted (you won't be angry with that, of course; I'm speaking from a higher point of view), yet the mind that matters is better in you than in any of them. It's something, in fact, they have never dreamed of. For there are two sorts of mind: one that matters, and one that doesn't matter.

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Part 3, Chapter 8
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 4 days ago
When technology extends one of our...

When technology extends one of our senses, a new translation of culture occurs as swiftly as the new technology is interiorized.

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(p. 47)
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
2 months 2 weeks ago
Those who devote themselves to rituals...

Those who devote themselves to rituals must ignore themselves. Rituals produce a distance from the self, a self-transcendence.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
3 days ago
Is it not better to use...

Is it not better to use what is in thy power like a free man than to desire in a slavish and abject way what is not in thy power?

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IX, 40
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
5 months 1 week ago
God creates out of nothing....

God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but He does what is still more wonderful: He makes saints out of sinners.

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Philosophical Maxims
Will Durant
Will Durant
3 weeks 5 days ago
British rule in India is the...

British rule in India is the most sordid and criminal exploitation of one nation by another in all recorded history. I propose to show that England has year by year been bleeding India to the point of death, and that self-government of India by the Hindus could not within any reasonable probability, have worse results than the present form of alien domination.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
3 weeks 6 days ago
In brief, all this Mammon-Gospel, of...

In brief, all this Mammon-Gospel, of Supply-and-demand, Competition, Laissez-faire, and Devil take the hindmost, begins to be one of the shabbiest Gospels ever preached on Earth; or altogether the shabbiest.

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Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
6 days ago
Whether we and our politicians know...

Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.

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Part of an endorsement statement for The Dying of the Trees (1997) by Charles E. Little
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
2 months 3 weeks ago
As soon as a thought or...

As soon as a thought or word becomes a tool, one can dispense with actually 'thinking' it, that is, with going through the logical acts involved in verbal formulation of it. As has been pointed out, often and correctly, the advantage of mathematics-the model of all neo-positivistic thinking-lies in just this 'intellectual economy.' Complicated logical operations are carried out without actual performance of the intellectual acts upon which the mathematical and logical symbols are based. ... Reason ... becomes a fetish, a magic entity that is accepted rather than intellectually experienced.

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p. 23.
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
4 months 2 weeks ago
For man seeketh in society comfort,...

For man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection: and they be three wisdoms of divers natures, which do often sever: wisdom of the behaviour, wisdom of business, and wisdom of state.

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Book II, xxiii
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
4 months 1 week ago
To be aware of limitations is...

To be aware of limitations is already to be beyond them.

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As quoted in Inwardness and Existence (1989) by Walter A. Davis, p. 18
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
6 days ago
I have often thought that nothing...

I have often thought that nothing would do more extensive good at small expense than the establishment of a small circulating library in every county, to consist of a few well-chosen books, to be lent to the people of the country under regulations as would secure their safe return in due time.

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Letter to John Wyche
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 days ago
The refutation of suicide: is it...

The refutation of suicide: is it not inelegant to abandon a world which has so willingly put itself at the service of our melancholy?

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
2 months 3 weeks ago
Don Quixote made himself ridiculous; but...

Don Quixote made himself ridiculous; but did he know the most tragic ridicule of all, the inward ridicule, the ridiculousness of a man's self to himself, in the eyes of his own soul? Imagine Don Quixote's battlefield to be his own soul; imagine him to be fighting in his soul to save the Middle Ages from the Renaissance, to preserve the treasure of his infancy; imagine him an inward Don Quixote, with a Sancho at his side, inward and heroic too - and tell me if you find anything comic in the tragedy.

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Philosophical Maxims
Paracelsus
Paracelsus
3 weeks ago
Destruction perfects that which is good;...

Destruction perfects that which is good; for the good cannot appear on account of that which conceals it. The good is least good whilst it is thus concealed. The concealment must be removed so that the good may be able freely to appear in its own brightness. For example, the mountain, the sand, the earth, or the stone in which a metal has grown is such a concealment. Each one of the visible metals is a concealment of the other six metals.

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Hermetic and Alchemical Writings (1894), edited by Arthur Edward Waite; Coelum Philosophorum or Book of Vexations, originally 1543
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
4 months 1 week ago
Have patience awhile; slanders are not...

Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.

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As quoted in Gems of Thought (1888) edited by Charles Northend
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
3 months 1 week ago
I am not so much afraid...

I am not so much afraid of death, as ashamed thereof; 'tis the very disgrace and ignominy of our natures, that in a moment can so disfigure us that our nearest friends, Wife, and Children stand afraid and start at us.

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Section 40
Philosophical Maxims
Chrysippus
Chrysippus
3 months 3 weeks ago
If I knew that it was...

If I knew that it was fated for me to be sick, I would even wish for it; for the foot also, if it had intelligence, would volunteer to get muddy.

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As quoted by Epictetus, Discourses, ii. 6. 10.
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
4 months 1 week ago
He thought human life a poor...

He thought human life a poor thing at best, after the freshness of youth and of unsatisfied curiosity had gone by. This was a topic on which he did not often speak, especially, it may be supposed, in the presence of young persons: but when he did, it was with an air of settled and profound conviction. He would sometimes say, that if life were made what it might be, by good government and good education, it would be worth having: but he never spoke with anything like enthusiasm even of that possibility.

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(p. 48)
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
4 months 1 week ago
The object of this Essay is...

The object of this Essay is to explain as clearly as I am able grounds of an opinion which I have held from the very earliest period when I had formed any opinions at all on social political matters, and which, instead of being weakened or modified, has been constantly growing stronger by the progress reflection and the experience of life. That the principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes - the legal subordination of one sex to the other - is wrong itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.

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Ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months 1 week ago
I am grateful for what I...

I am grateful for what I am & have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite - only a sense of existence. Well, anything for variety. I am ready to try this for the next 1000 years, & exhaust it. How sweet to think of! My extremities well charred, and my intellectual part too, so that there is no danger of worm or rot for a long while. My breath is sweet to me. O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it - for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.

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Letter to Harrison Gray Otis Blake (6-7 December 1856), as published in The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau (1958)
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
3 weeks ago
Drunkenness is nothing….

Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness.

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Line 18.
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
2 months 2 weeks ago
They certainly demonstrate that Seth, whether...

They certainly demonstrate that Seth, whether an aspect of Jane Robert's unconscious mind or a genuine "spirit," was of a high level of intelligence. Yet when Jane Roberts produced a book that purported to be the after-death journal of the philosopher William James, it was difficult to take it seriously. James's works are noted for their vigour and clarity of style; Jane Robert's "communicator" writes like an undergraduate . . . there is a clumsiness here that is quite unlike James's swift-moving, colloquial prose.

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p. 390
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 6 days ago
These Lectures, conjoined with those which...

These Lectures, conjoined with those which have already appeared under the titles of "The Characteristics of the Present Age," and "The Nature of the Scholar," in the latter of which the tone of thought that governs the present course is applied to a particular subject, form a complete scheme of popular instruction, of which the present work exhibits the highest and clearest summit; and, taken together, they are the result of a process of self-culture, unceasingly pursued during the last six or seven years of my life, with greater leisure and in riper maturity, by means of that Philosophy in which I have been a partaker for thirteen years, and which, although, I hope, it has changed many things in me, has nevertheless itself suffered no change whatever during that period.

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Preface
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
5 months 1 week ago
Seek first God's Kingdom, that is,...

Seek first God's Kingdom, that is, become like the lilies and the birds, become perfectly silent - then shall the rest be added unto you.

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Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
3 months 3 weeks ago
Herbert Spencer is little read now....

Herbert Spencer is little read now. Philosophers do not regard him as a major thinker.

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Social Darwinism has long been in disrepute. Chapter 3, From Evolution To Ethics?, p. 61
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 4 days ago
When we invent a new technology,...

When we invent a new technology, we become cannibals. We eat ourselves alive since these technologies are merely extensions of ourselves. The new environment shaped by electric technology is a cannibalistic one that eats people. To survive one must study the habits of cannibals.

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(p. 261)
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 days ago
One of the biggest paradoxes of...

One of the biggest paradoxes of our world: memories vanish when we want to remember, but fix themselves permanently in the mind when we want to forget.

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Philosophical Maxims
A. J. Ayer
A. J. Ayer
3 months 2 days ago
I see philosophy as a fairly...

I see philosophy as a fairly abstract activity, as concerned mainly with the analysis of criticism and concepts, and of course most usefully of scientific concepts.

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As quoted in Profile of Sir Alfred Ayer (June 1971) by Euro-Television, quoted in A.J. Ayer: A Life (1999), p. 2
Philosophical Maxims
John Searle
John Searle
2 months 1 week ago
Well, what does "good" mean anyway...?...

Well, what does "good" mean anyway...? As Wittgenstein suggested, "good," like "game," has a family of meanings. Prominent among them is this one: "meets the criteria or standards of assessment or evaluation."

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P. 152.
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 2 weeks ago
There is a plague on Man,...

There is a plague on Man, the opinion that he knows something.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
5 months 3 days ago
Great feelings take with them their...

Great feelings take with them their own universe, splendid or abject. They light up with their passion an exclusive world in which they recognize their climate. There is a universe of jealousy, of ambition, of selfishness or generosity. A universe in other words a metaphysic and an attitude of mind.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
4 months 5 days ago
The claims of existing social arrangements...

The claims of existing social arrangements and of self interest have been duly allowed for. We cannot at the end count them a second time because we do not like the result.

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Chapter III, Section 23, pg. 135
Philosophical Maxims
Heraclitus
Heraclitus
4 months 3 weeks ago
Corpses are...

Corpses are more fit to be cast out than dung.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 4 days ago
The hardware world tends to move...

The hardware world tends to move into software form at the speed of light.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 4 weeks ago
Verily, verily, I say unto you,...

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.

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6:53-56
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 2 days ago
If a lion could talk, we...

If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.

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Pt II, p. 223 of the 1968 English edition
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
2 months 3 weeks ago
That science is incapable of solving...

That science is incapable of solving in its own way those fundamental questions is no sufficient reason for slighting them.

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p. 14
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 6 days ago
The supervision of the state extends...

The supervision of the state extends to the lock upon the door, and there begins mine own. The lock is the boundary line between the power of the government and my own private power. It is the intention of locks to make possible self-protection. In my own house my person is sacred and inviolable even to the government. In civil cases government has no right to attack me in my house, but must wait till I am upon public ground.

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P. 324
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
5 months 1 week ago
The various languages placed side by...
The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages. The "thing in itself" (which is precisely what the pure truth, apart from any of its consequences, would be) is likewise something quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for. This creator only designates the relations of things to men, and for expressing these relations he lays hold of the boldest metaphors.' To begin with, a nerve stimulus is transferred into an image: first metaphor. The image, in turn, is imitated in a sound: second metaphor. And each time there is a complete overleaping of one sphere, right into the middle of an entirely new and different one.
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Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
3 months 4 days ago
There is, properly speaking, no Misfortune...

There is, properly speaking, no Misfortune in the world. Happiness and Misfortune stand in continual balance. Every Misfortune is, as it were, the obstruction of a stream, which, after overcoming this obstruction, but bursts through with the greater force.

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Philosophical Maxims
Julius Evola
Julius Evola
2 weeks ago
We cannot ask ourselves whether 'woman'...

We cannot ask ourselves whether 'woman' is superior or inferior to 'man' any more than we can ask ourselves whether water is superior or inferior to fire. There can be no doubt that a woman who is perfectly woman is superior to a man who is imperfectly man, just as a farmer who is faithful to his land and performs his work perfectly is superior to a king who cannot do his own work.

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Eros and the Mysteries of Love: The Metaphysics of Sex
Philosophical Maxims
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