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Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
1 month 3 weeks ago
Origen, of course, is also a...

Origen, of course, is also a great advocate of the allegorical approach. Yet I think you will have to admit that our modem theologians either despise this method of interpretation or are completely ignorant of it. As a matter of fact they surpass the pagans of antiquity in the subtlety of their distinctions.

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p. 63
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
2 months 2 weeks ago
How absurd men are! They never...

How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech. Either/Or Part I, Swenson Translation p. 19 Variations include: People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought, which they avoid. People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 1 week ago
All testing, all confirmation and...

All testing, all confirmation and disconfirmation of a hypothesis takes place already within a system. And this system is not a more or less arbitrary and doubtful point of departure for all our arguments; no it belongs to the essence of what we call an argument. The system is not so much the point of departure, as the element in which our arguments have their life.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 weeks 1 day ago
The human understanding...
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Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 2 weeks ago
Money, then, appears as this overturning...

Money, then, appears as this overturning power both against the individual and against the bonds of society, etc., which claim to be essences in themselves. It transforms fidelity into infidelity, love into hate, hate into love, virtue into vice, vice into virtue, servant into master, master into servant, idiocy into intelligence and intelligence into idiocy.

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"The Power of Money in Bourgeois Society" p. 105, The Marx-Engels Reader
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
2 months 2 weeks ago
Arrogance on the part of the...
Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive.
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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
1 week 6 days ago
I believe it to be this;...

I believe it to be this; that my will, absolutely of itself, and without the intervention of any instrument that might weaken its effect, shall act in a sphere perfectly congenial - reason upon reason, spirit upon spirit; in a sphere to which it does not give the laws of life, of activity, of progress, but which has them in itself, therefore, upon self-active reason. But spontaneous, self-active reason is will. The law of the transcendental world must, therefore, be a Will.

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Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p.110
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
1 month 1 week ago
It is not murder which is...

It is not murder which is forgiven but the killer, his person as it appears in circumstances and intentions. The trouble with the Nazi criminals was precisely that they renounced voluntarily all personal qualities, as if nobody were left to be either punished or forgiven. They protested time and again that they had never done anything out of their own initiative, that they had no intentions whatsoever, good or bad, and that they only obeyed orders.

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
1 month 4 weeks ago
He who disdained not to assume...

He who disdained not to assume us unto Himself, did not disdain to take our place and speak our words, in order that we might speak His words.

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p.421
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
1 month 2 weeks ago
In reality, during the continuance of...

In reality, during the continuance of any one regulated proportion, between the respective values of the different values of the different metals in the coin, the value of the most precious metal regulates the value of the whole coin.

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Chapter V, p. 50.
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
4 days ago
Diogenes, in his mud-covered sandals, tramps...

Diogenes, in his mud-covered sandals, tramps over the carpets of Aristippus. The cynic pullulated at every corner, and in the highest places. This cynic did nothing but saboter the civilisation of the time. He was the nihilist of Hellenism. He created nothing, he made nothing. His role was to undo - or rather to attempt to undo, for he did not succeed in his purpose. The cynic, a parasite of civilisation, lives by denying it, for the very reason that he is convinced that it will not fail. What would become of the cynic among a savage people where everyone, naturally and quite seriously, fulfils what the cynic farcically considers to be his personal role?

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Chapter XI: The Self-Satisfied Age
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
2 months 2 weeks ago
This fact, that the opposite of...

This fact, that the opposite of sin is by no means virtue, has been overlooked. The latter is partly a pagan view, which is content with a merely human standard, and which for that very reason does not know what sin is, that all sin is before God. No, the opposite of sin is faith.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
1 month 3 weeks ago
There is nothing more notable in...

There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.

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Book III, Ch. 13
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
1 month 2 weeks ago
It is an uphill race, and...

It is an uphill race, and a race against time, for if the American form of democracy overtakes us first, the majority will no more relax their despotism than a single despot would. But our only chance is to come forward as Liberals, carrying out the democratic idea, not as Conservatives, resisting it.

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Letter to Henry Fawcett (5 February 1860), quoted in Michael St. John Packe, The Life of John Stuart Mill (1954), p. 418
Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
1 month 1 week ago
If the only alternative to fascism...

If the only alternative to fascism we produce is a corporate-driven, milquetoast, neoliberal Democratic Party, fascism will come to America. Let us be very clear. It's like a Weimar America.

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Speaking to Chris Hedges on The Real News Network, Cornel West's presidential candidacy is 'for the least of these'. June 16, 2023.
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
Just now
I am dreaming ...? Let me...

I am dreaming ...? Let me dream, if this dream is my life. Do not awaken me from it. I believe in the immortal origin of this yearning for immortality, which is the very substance of my soul. But do I really believe in it ...? And wherefore do you want to be immortal? you ask me, wherefore? Frankly, I do not understand the question, for it is to ask the reason of the reason, the end of the end, the principle of the principle.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
2 months 2 weeks ago
Now just as the historical gives...

Now just as the historical gives occasion for the contemporary to become a disciple, but only it must be noted through receiving the condition from the God himself, since otherwise we speak Socratically, so the testimony of contemporaries gives occasion for each successor to become a disciple, but only it must be noted through receiving the condition from the God himself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 week 3 days ago
Good health is the best weapon...

Good health is the best weapon against religion. Healthy bodies and healthy minds have never been shaken by religious fears.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 1 week ago
She believed in nothing; only her...

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist.

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The Words (1964), speaking of his grandmother.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 2 weeks ago
Freedom of opinion can only exist...

Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure...

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A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42 (1996), p. 443
Philosophical Maxims
Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin
5 days ago
The simple point which I am...

The simple point which I am concerned to make is that where ultimate values are irreconcilable, clear-cut solutions cannot, in principle, be found. To decide rationally in such situations is to decide in the light of general ideals, the overall pattern of life pursued by a man or a group or a society.

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Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
2 months 1 week ago
Now in this island of Atlantis...

Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. This vast power, gathered into one, endeavored to subdue at a blow our country and yours and the whole of the region within the straits, and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 1 week ago
There are always two parties, the...

There are always two parties, the party of the Past and the party of the Future: the Establishment and the Movement. At times the resistance is reanimated, the schism runs under the world and appears in Literature, Philosophy, Church, State and social customs.

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p. 529, col. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
1 month 4 days ago
Boasting, like gilded armour, is very...

Boasting, like gilded armour, is very different inside from outside.

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Stobaeus, iii. 22. 40
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
6 days ago
It is the sphere farthest removed...

It is the sphere farthest removed from the concreteness of society which may show most clearly the extent of the conquest of thought by society.

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p. 104
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 2 weeks ago
I wish to write such rhymes...

I wish to write such rhymes as shall not suggest a restraint, but contrariwise the wildest freedom.

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June 27, 1839
Philosophical Maxims
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
1 month 1 week ago
The only knowledge that can truly...

The only knowledge that can truly orient action is knowledge that frees itself from mere human interests and is based in Ideas-in other words knowledge that has taken a theoretical attitude.

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p. 301
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
6 days ago
Although a poem be not made...

Although a poem be not made by counting of syllables upon the fingers, yet "numbers" is the most poetical synonym we have for verse, and "measure" the most significant equivalent for beauty, for goodness, and perhaps even for truth. Those early and profound philosophers, the followers of Pythagoras, saw the essence of all things in number, and it was by weight, measure, and number, as we read in the Bible, that the Creator first brought Nature out of the void.

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Interpretations of Poetry and Religion (1900), p. 251
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
1 week 6 days ago
History is mere Empiricism; it has...

History is mere Empiricism; it has only facts to communicate, and all its proofs are founded upon facts alone. To attempt to rise to Primeval History on this foundation of fact, or to argue by this means how such or such a thing might have been, and then to take for granted that it has been so in reality,is to stray beyond the limits of History, and produce an a priori History; just as the Philosophy of Nature, referred to in our preceding lecture, endeavoured to find an a priori Science of Physics.

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p. 140
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
2 months 1 week ago
How natural it is that those...

How natural it is that those who have spent a long time in the study of philosophy appear ridiculous when they enter the courts of law as speakers. Those who have knocked about in courts and the like from their youth up seem to me, when compared with those who have been brought up in philosophy and similar pursuits, to be as slaves in breeding compared with freemen. The latter always have leisure, and they talk at their leisure in peace; and they do not care at all whether their talk is long or short, if only they attain the truth. But the men of the other sort are always in a hurry and the other party in the suit does not permit them to talk about anything they please.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
5 days ago
When we come to inanimate elements,...

When we come to inanimate elements, the prevailing view has been that time and sequential change are entirely foreign to their nature. According to this view they do not have careers; they simply change their relations is space. We have only to think of the classic conception of atoms. The Newtonian atom, for example, moved and was moved, thus changing its position in space, but it was unchangeable in its own being. ... In itself it was like a God, the same yesterday, today, and forever.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 2 weeks ago
The unity is brought about by...

The unity is brought about by force.

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Notebook I, The Chapter on Money, p. 70.
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
2 months 2 weeks ago
Whoever has overthrown an existing law...
Whoever has overthrown an existing law of custom has hitherto always first been accounted a bad man: but when, as did happen, the law could not afterwards be reinstated and this fact was accepted, the predicate gradually changed: - history treats almost exclusively of these bad men who subsequently became good men!
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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
2 months 1 week ago
Can one be a saint without...

Can one be a saint without God?, that's the problem, in fact the only problem, I'm up against today.

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Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
1 month 4 days ago
The principles of ethics come from...

The principles of ethics come from our own nature as social, reasoning beings.

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Chapter 6, A New Understanding Of Ethics, p. 149
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
1 month 1 week ago
We are observing ourselves being observed...

We are observing ourselves being observed by the painter, and made visible to his eyes by the same light that enables us to see him. And just as we are about to apprehend ourselves, transcribed by his hand as though in a mirror, we find that we can in fact apprehend nothing of that mirror but its lusterless back. The other side of a psyche.

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Las Menias
Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
1 month 3 weeks ago
This return of Republics back to...

This return of Republics back to their principles also results from the simple virtue of one man, without depending on any law that excites him to any execution: none the less, they are of such influence and example that good men desire to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life contrary to those examples.

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Book 3, Ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
2 months 2 weeks ago
Where is the boundary for the...

Where is the boundary for the single individual in his concrete existence between what is lack of will and what is lack of ability; what is indolence and earthly selfishness and what is the limitation of finitude? For an existing person, when is the period of preparation over, when this question will not arise again in all its initial, troubled severity; when is the time in existence that is indeed a preparation? Let all the dialecticians convene-they will not be able to decide this for a particular individual in concreto.

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Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 weeks 4 days ago
Hear gladly!

Hear gladly!

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
1 month 2 weeks ago
The king Frederic has sent me...

The king Frederic has sent me some of his dirty linen to wash; I will wash yours another time.

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Reply to General Manstein. Voltaire writes to his niece Dennis, July 24, 1752, "Voilà le roi qui m'envoie son linge à blanchir"; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed.,1919
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 2 weeks ago
Nine-tenths of the activities of a...

Nine-tenths of the activities of a modern Government are harmful; therefore the worse they are performed, the better.

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The Problem of China (1922), Ch. XII: The Chinese Character
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
1 month 2 weeks ago
He advanced toward me without moving...

He advanced toward me without moving his hat, or making the least inclination of his body; but there appeared more real politeness in the open, humane air of his countenance, than in drawing one leg behind the other, and carrying that in the hand which is made to be worn on the head. "Friend," said he, "I perceive thou art a stranger, if I can do thee any service thou hast only to let me know it." "Sir," I replied, bowing my body, and sliding one leg toward him, as is the custom with us, "I flatter myself that my curiosity, which you will allow to be just, will not give you any offence, and that you will do me the honor to inform me of the particulars of your religion." "The people of thy country," answered the Quaker, "are too full of their bows and their compliments; but I never yet met with one of them who had so much curiosity as thyself. Come in and let us dine first together."

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Voltaire's account of meeting the Quaker Andrew Pit
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 weeks ago
Faith is not in power but...

Faith is not in power but in truth.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
2 months 2 weeks ago
Remember that time slurs over everything,...

Remember that time slurs over everything, let all deeds fade, blurs all writings and kills all memories. Except are only those which dig into the hearts of men by love.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
1 month 2 weeks ago
To give the monopoly of the...

To give the monopoly of the home-market to the produce of domestic industry, in any particular art or manufacture, is in some measure to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, and must, in almost all cases, be either a useless or a hurtful regulation.

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Chapter II, p. 489.
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
4 days ago
The hypostasis of the particular methods...

The hypostasis of the particular methods of procedure employed by natural science ... results in the view that all theoretical differences which rest on historically conditioned antagonisms of interest are to be settles by a "crucial experiment" rather than by struggle and counter-struggle. The harmonious relation of individuals to one another becomes a fact, therefore, that has even more general character than a law of nature.

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p. 148.
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 weeks 4 days ago
If thy fellows hurt thee in...

If thy fellows hurt thee in small things, suffer it! and be as bold with them!

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
2 months 1 week ago
Where any answer is possible, all...

Where any answer is possible, all answers are meaningless.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
1 week 2 days ago
It makes unavoidably necessary an entirely...

It makes unavoidably necessary an entirely new organization of society in which production is no longer directed by mutually competing individual industrialists but rather by the whole society operating according to a definite plan and taking account of the needs of all.

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
1 month 2 weeks ago
Money is always to be found….

Money is always to be found when men are to be sent to the frontiers to be destroyed: when the object is to preserve them, it is no longer so.

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"Charity", 1770
Philosophical Maxims
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