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Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
3 months 2 weeks ago
The cause of anger…

The cause of anger is the belief that we are injured; this belief, therefore, should not be lightly entertained. We ought not to fly into a rage even when the injury appears to be open and distinct: for some false things bear the semblance of truth. We should always allow some time to elapse, for time discloses the truth.

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De Ira (On Anger): Book 2, cap. 22, line 2 Alternate translation: Time discovers truth. (translator unknown).
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
5 months 3 weeks ago
The mystery is that the world...

The mystery is that the world is at it is -- a mystery that is the source of all joy and all sorrow, of all hope and fear, and the source of development both creative and degenerative. The contingency of all into which time enters is the source of pathos, comedy, and tragedy.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
4 months 2 weeks ago
I am too much of a...

I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything - especially as I am now so much occupied with theology - but I don't see my way to your conclusion.

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Letter to Herbert Spencer (22 March 1886); this is often quoted with a variant spelling as: I am too much of a skeptic to deny the possibility of anything.
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
5 months 2 weeks ago
Emptiness empties the one seeing into...

Emptiness empties the one seeing into what is seen.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
5 months 1 day ago
Mass man is a phenomenon of...

Mass man is a phenomenon of electric speed, not of physical quantity.

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Access, Issues 165-176, National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting, 1984, p. xxiii
Philosophical Maxims
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam
5 months 1 week ago
In short, analytic statements are statements...

In short, analytic statements are statements which we all accept and for which we do not give reasons. This is what we mean when we say that they are true by 'implicit convention'. The problem is then to distinguish them from other statements that we accept, and do not give reasons for, in particular from the statements that we unreasonably accept. To resolve this difficulty, we have to point out some of the crucial distinguishing features of analytic statements (e.g. the fact that the subject concept is not a law-cluster concept), and we have to connect these features with what, in the preceding section, was called the 'rationale' of the analytic-synthetic distinction. Having done this, we can see that the acceptance of analytic statements is rational, even though there are no reasons (in the sense of' evidence') in connection with them.

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The analytic and the synthetic
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
5 months 3 weeks ago
Professional philosophers are usually only apologists:...

Professional philosophers are usually only apologists: that is, they are absorbed in defending some vested illusion or some eloquent idea. Like lawyers or detectives, they study the case for which they are retained.

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pp. 48-49
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
7 months 5 days ago
Every man takes the limits of...

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

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"Psychological Observations"
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
5 months 2 weeks ago
Jung fiercely resented the implication that...

Jung fiercely resented the implication that he was a hypocritical, self-seeking Judas, a 'rat'. Yet there was just enough truth in it to strike home. He was undoubtedly a man who liked his own way, no matter what the cost to others.

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p. 72
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
5 months 3 weeks ago
Surrender of individuality by the many...

Surrender of individuality by the many to someone who is taken to be a superindividual explains the retrograde movement of society. Dictatorships and totalitarian states, and belief in the inevitability of this or that result coming to pass are, strange as it may sound, ways of denying the reality of time and the creativeness of the individual.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
3 months 3 days ago
Louisiana, as ceded by France to...

Louisiana, as ceded by France to the United States, is made a part of the United States; its white inhabitants shall be citizens, and stand, as to their rights and obligations, on the same footing with other citizens of the United States, in analogous situations.

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Draft of proposed Amendment to the Constitution by Jefferson, who thought an amendment would be necessary to authorize the Louisiana Purchase to be incorporated into the United States
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
5 months 2 weeks ago
The reward in heaven is the...

The reward in heaven is the perpetual bait, a bait that has caught man in an iron net, a strait-jacket which does not let him expand or grow. All pioneers of truth have been, and still are, reviled; they have been, and still are, persecuted. But did they ask humanity to pay the price? Did they seek to bribe mankind to accept their ideas? They knew too well that he who accepts a truth because of the bribe, will soon barter it away to a higher bidder...Proud and self-reliant characters prefer hatred to such sickening artificial love. Not because of any reward does a free spirit take his stand for a great truth, nor has such a one ever been deterred because of fear of punishment.

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Philosophical Maxims
A. J. Ayer
A. J. Ayer
6 months ago
I saw a Divine Being. I'm...

I saw a Divine Being. I'm afraid I'm going to have to revise all my various books and opinions.

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National Post (3 March 2001).
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
5 months 3 weeks ago
If any man will come after...

If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.

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16:24-28 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Henry George
Henry George
3 months 2 days ago
More is given to us than...

More is given to us than to any people at any time before; and, therefore, more is required of us. We have made, and still are making, enormous advances on material lines. It is necessary that we commensurately advance on moral lines. Civilization, as it progresses, requires a higher conscience, a keener sense of justice, a warmer brotherhood, a wider, loftier, truer public spirit. Falling these, civilization must pass into destruction. It cannot be maintained on the ethics of savagery. For civilization knits men more and more closely together, and constantly tends to subordinate the individual to the whole, and to make more and more important social conditions.

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Ch. 21 : Conclusion
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
5 months 4 weeks ago
To be or not to be...Neither...

To be or not to be...Neither one nor the other.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
7 months 4 days ago
Nature is full of genius, full...

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

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January 5, 1856
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
8 months 4 days ago
An authorship that began with Either/Or...

An authorship that began with Either/Or and advanced step by step seeks here its decisive place of rest, at the foot of the altar, where the author, personally most aware of his own imperfections and guilt, certainly does not call himself a truth-witness but only a singular kind of poet and thinker who, without authority, has had nothing new to bring but “has wanted once again to read through, if possible in a more inward way, the original text handed down from the fathers.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
3 months ago
Some people, when they do someone...

Some people, when they do someone a favor, are always looking for a chance to call it in. And some aren't, but they're still aware of it--still regard it as a debt. But others don't even do that. They're like a vine that produces grapes without looking for anything in return. (Hays translation) A man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear grapes again in season.

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V, 6
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
6 months 3 weeks ago
Everyday we act in ways that...

Everyday we act in ways that reflect our ethical judgements.

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Chapter 3, From Evolution To Ethics?, p. 69
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
6 months 3 days ago
The Doctrine of a Perfect God...

The Doctrine of a Perfect God; in whose nature nothing arbitrary or changeable can have a place; in whose Highest Being we all live, and in this Life may, and ought at all times to be, blessed;-this Doctrine, which ignorant men think they have sufficiently demolished when they have proclaimed it to be Mysticism, is by no means Mysticism, for it has an immediate reference to human action, and in deed to the inmost spirit which ought to inspire and guide all our actions. It can only become Mysticism when it is associated with the pretext that the insight into this truth proceeds from a certain inward and mysterious light, which is not accessible to all men, but is only bestowed upon a few favourites chosen from among the rest:-in which pretext the Mysticism consists, for it betrays a presumptuous contemplation of personal merit, and a pride in mere sensuous Individuality.

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p, 122-123
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
8 months 4 days ago
The person who is going to...

The person who is going to preach ought to live in the Christian thoughts and ideas: they ought to be his daily life. If so, this is the view of Christianity, then you, too, will have eloquence enough and precisely that which is needed when you speak extemporaneously without specific preparation. However, it is fallacious eloquence if someone, without otherwise occupying himself with, without living in these thoughts, once in a while sits down and laboriously collects such thoughts, perhaps in the field of literature, and then works them into a well-composed discourse, which is then committed to memory and delivered superbly, with respect both to voice and diction and gestures.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
7 months 4 days ago
The greatest challenge to any thinker...

The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.

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Attributed to Russell in Crainer's The Ultimate Book of Business Quotations (1997), p. 258
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
3 months 2 weeks ago
Although, said he…

"Although," said he [Cato], "all the world has fallen under one man's sway, although Caesar's legions guard the land, his fleets the sea, and Caesar's troops beset the city gates, yet Cato has a way of escape; with one single hand he will open a wide path to freedom. This sword, unstained and blameless even in civil war, shall at last do good and noble service: the freedom which it could not give to his country it shall give to Cato!

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De Providentia (On Providence), 2.10; translation by John W. Basore
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
3 months 2 weeks ago
A free man must be able...

A free man must be able to endure it when his fellow men act and live otherwise than he considers proper. He must free himself from the habit, just as soon as something does not please him, of calling for the police.

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Ch. 1 : The Foundations of Liberal Policy § 11 : The Limits of Governmental Activity
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
4 months 2 weeks ago
The method of scientific investigation is...

The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind.

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Our Knowledge of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
7 months 3 days ago
When a whole nation is roaring...

When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart.

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December 10, 1824
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
7 months 4 days ago
Of all the animals kept by...

Of all the animals kept by the farmer, the labourer, the instrumentum vocale, was,thenceforth, the most oppressed, the worst nourished, the most brutally treated.

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Vol. I, Ch. 25, Section 4(e), pg. 742.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
3 months 3 weeks ago
The Noble in the high place,...

The Noble in the high place, the Ignoble in the low; that is, in all times and in all countries, the Almighty Maker's Law.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
7 months 4 days ago
In the welter of conflicting fanaticisms,...

In the welter of conflicting fanaticisms, one of the few unifying forces is scientific truthfulness, by which I mean the habit of basing our beliefs upon observations and inferences as impersonal, and as much divested of local and temperamental bias, as is possible for human beings.

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Chapter XXXI "The Philosophy of Logical Analysis"
Philosophical Maxims
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
3 months 1 week ago
When the mirror meets with an...

When the mirror meets with an ugly woman, when a rare ink-stone finds a vulgar owner, and when a good sword is in the hands of a common general, there is utterly nothing to be done about it.

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p. 317
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
5 months 4 weeks ago
There was a time when time...

There was a time when time did not yet exist. ... The rejection of birth is nothing but the nostalgia for this time before time.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
7 months 1 week ago
Love in animals, has not for...

Love in animals, has not for its only object animals of the same species, but extends itself farther, and comprehends almost every sensible and thinking being. A dog naturally loves a man above his own species, and very commonly meets with a return of affection.

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Part 2, Section 12
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
5 months 3 weeks ago
The application of scientific formulations of...

The application of scientific formulations of the principle of probability statistically determined is thus a logical corollary of the principle already stated, that the subject matter of scientific findings is relational, not individual. It is for this reason that it is safe to predict the ultimate triumph of the statistical doctrine.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
8 months 1 day ago
People are entirely too disbelieving of...

People are entirely too disbelieving of coincidence. They are far too ready to dismiss it and to build arcane structures of extremely rickety substance in order to avoid it. I, on the other hand, see coincidence everywhere as an inevitable consequence of the laws of probability, according to which having no unusual coincidence is far more unusual than any coincidence could possibly be.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
5 months 2 weeks ago
The main importance of Francis Bacon's...

The main importance of Francis Bacon's influence does not lie in any peculiar theory of inductive reasoning which he happened to express, but in the revolt against second-hand information of which he was a leader.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
7 months 1 week ago
I prefer the company of peasants...

I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.

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Philosophical Maxims
Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard
5 months 3 weeks ago
If I were asked to name...

If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.

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Ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
3 months ago
You have a mind? -Yes. Well,...

You have a mind? -Yes. Well, why not use it?

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(Hays translation)
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
6 months 4 days ago
The march of the human mind...

The march of the human mind is slow.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
7 months 3 days ago
My thinking is first and last...

My thinking is first and last and always for the sake of my doing.

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Sometimes paraphrased as "Thinking is for doing", perhaps originally by S.T. Fiske (1992) Ch. 22
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
8 months 1 day ago
I don't say it was deliberate...

I don't say it was deliberate fraud. He was probably madly sincere, and sincerely mad.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 2 weeks ago
It can scarcely be.....
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Main Content / General
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
3 months 3 days ago
The exclusive right of legislation and...

The exclusive right of legislation and taxation in the representatives of the people.

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Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
6 months 2 weeks ago
Reason is immortal, all else mortal....

Reason is immortal, all else mortal.

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As quoted in Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Sect. 30, as translated by Robert Drew Hicks (1925)
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
5 months 3 weeks ago
Jesus said to His disciples, "Compare...

Jesus said to His disciples, "Compare me to someone and tell Me whom I am like." Simon Peter said to Him, "You are like a righteous angel." Matthew said to Him, "You are like a wise philosopher." Thomas said to Him, "Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom You are like." Jesus said, "I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated by the bubbling spring which I have measured out." And He took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?" Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up."

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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
3 months 2 weeks ago
I will tell you: that perfect...

I will tell you: that perfect man, who has attained virtue, never cursed his luck, and never received the results of chance with dejection; he believed that he was citizen and soldier of the universe, accepting his tasks as if they were his orders. Whatever happened, he did not spurn it, as if it were evil and borne in upon him by hazard; he accepted it as if it were assigned to be his duty. "Whatever this may be,"he says, "it is my lot; it is rough and it is hard, but I must work diligently at the task."

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Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
6 months 1 day ago
The more I see of the...

The more I see of the world, the more I am convinced that civilisation is a blessing not sufficiently estimated by those who have not traced its progress; for it not only refines our enjoyments, but produces a variety which enables us to retain the primitive delicacy of our sensations. Without the aid of the imagination all the pleasures of the senses must sink into grossness, unless continual novelty serve as a substitute for the imagination, which, being impossible, it was to this weariness, I suppose, that Solomon alluded when he declared that there was nothing new under the sun!

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Letter 2
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
7 months 6 days ago
The man of principles has character....

The man of principles has character. Of him we know definitely what to expect. He does not act on the basis of his instinct, but on the basis of his will. Therefore, without being redundant one can classify characteristics according to a person's faculty of desire (what is practical), as a) his nature, or natural talent, b) his temperament, or disposition, and c) his general character, or mode of thinking.

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Kant, Immanuel (1996), page 195
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
5 months 3 weeks ago
This new philosophy, however, was far...

This new philosophy, however, was far from giving the temporal an inherent position and function in the constitution of things. Change was acting on the side of man but only because of fixed laws which governed the changes that take place. There was hope in change just because the laws that govern it do not change.

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Philosophical Maxims
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