Skip to main content

Main navigation

☰ ˟
  • Home
  • Articulation
  • Contact
  • Shop
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 1 day ago
If production be capitalistic in form,...

If production be capitalistic in form, so, too, will be reproduction.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Vol. I, Ch. 23, pg. 620.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 6 days ago
It is difficult, it is impossible...

It is difficult, it is impossible to believe that the Good Lord - "Our Father" - had a hand in the scandal of creation. Everything suggests that He took no part in it, that it proceeds from a god without scruples, a feculent god. Goodness does not create, lacking imagination; it takes imagination to put together a world, however botched. At the very least, there must be a mixture of good and evil in order to produce an action or a work.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
3 weeks 2 days ago
The Bible is literature, not dogma.

The Bible is literature, not dogma.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Thales of Miletus
Thales of Miletus
1 month 1 week ago
Hope is the only good that...

Hope is the only good that is common to all men; those who have nothing else possess hope still.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908) by Tryon Edwards, p. 234
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
1 week 6 days ago
I agree as to the doubtful...

I agree as to the doubtful value of competitive examination. The qualities which you really want, viz., self-control, self-reliance, habits of accurate thought, integrity and what you generally call trustworthiness, are not decided by competitive examination, which test little else than the memory.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Letter to Lord Stanley (May 17, 1857), published in Florence Nightingale on Wars and the War Office: Collected Works of Florence Nightingale. Vol. 15 (2011), edited by Lynn McDonald, p. 265.
Philosophical Maxims
Ernst Mach
Ernst Mach
3 weeks 5 days ago
I know of nothing more terrible...

I know of nothing more terrible than the poor creatures who have learned too much. Instead of the sound powerful judgement which would probably have grown up if they had learned nothing, their thoughts creep timidly and hypnotically after words, principles and formulae, constantly by the same paths. What they have acquired is a spider's web of thoughts too weak to furnish sure supports, but complicated enough to provide confusion.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
On the Relative Educational Value of the Classics and the Mathematico-Physical Sciences in Colleges and High Schools, an address in (16 April 1886)
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 1 day ago
Everyone who knows anything of history...

Everyone who knows anything of history also knows that great social revolutions are impossible without the feminine ferment. Social progress may be measured precisely by the social position of the fair sex (plain ones included).

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Letter to Ludwig Kugelmann, dated 12 December 1868.
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
2 months 1 week ago
You are in the same manner...

You are in the same manner surrounded with a small circle of persons... full of desire. They demand of you the benefits of desire... You are therefore properly the king of desire. ...equal in this to the greatest kings of the earth... It is desire that constitutes their power; that is, the possession of things that men covet.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months ago
"The cardinal difficulty," said MacPhee, "in...

"The cardinal difficulty," said MacPhee, "in collaboration between the sexes is that women speak a language without nouns. If two men are doing a bit of work, one will say to the other, 'Put this bowl inside the bigger bowl which you'll find on the top shelf of the green cupboard.' The female for this is, 'Put that in the other one in there.' And then if you ask them, 'in where?' they say, 'in there, of course.' There is consequently a phatic hiatus."

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 8 : Moonlight at Belbury, section 2
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months ago
The Guide sang: The new age,...

The Guide sang: The new age, the new art, the new ethic and thought, And fools crying, Because it has begun It will continue as it has begun! The wheel runs fast, therefore the wheel will run Faster for ever. The old age is done, We have new lights and see without the sun. (Though they lay flat the mountains and dry up the sea, Wilt thou yet change, as though God were a god?)

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Pilgrim's Regress 186-187
Philosophical Maxims
Antisthenes
Antisthenes
1 month 3 weeks ago
The ability to hold….

When he was asked what advantage had accrued to him from philosophy, his answer was, "The ability to hold converse with myself."

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
§ 4
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
2 months 2 weeks ago
I became evil for no reason....

I became evil for no reason. I had no motive for my wickedness except wickedness itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved the self-destruction, I loved my fall, not the object for which I had fallen but my fall itself. My depraved soul leaped down from your firmament to ruin. I was seeking not to gain anything by shameful means, but shame for its own sake.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
II, 4
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
2 months 4 weeks ago
There has never been any custom,...

There has never been any custom, however useless it may become with changing conditions, that isn't clung to desperately simply because it is something old and familiar.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
3 weeks 2 days ago
Injustice in this world is not...

Injustice in this world is not something comparative; the wrong is deep, clear, and absolute in each private fate.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. IV: The Aristocratic Ideal
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 1 day ago
When any work seems to have...

When any work seems to have required immense force and labor to affect it, the idea is grand. Stonehenge, neither for disposition nor ornament, has anything admirable; but those huge rude masses of stone, set on end, and piled each on other, turn the mind on the immense force necessary for such a work. Nay, the rudeness of the work increases this cause of grandeur, as it excludes the idea of art and contrivance; for dexterity produces another sort of effect, which is different enough from this.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Part II Section XII
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
1 month ago
Man has many wishes that he...

Man has many wishes that he does not really wish to fulfil, and it would be a misunderstanding to suppose the contrary. He wants them to remain wishes, they have value only in his imagination; their fulfilment would be a bitter disappointment to him. Such a desire is the desire for eternal life. If it were fulfilled, man would become thoroughly sick of living eternally, and yearn for death. In reality man wishes merely to avoid a premature, violent or gruesome death. Everything has its measure, says a pagan philosopher; in the end we weary of everything, even of life; a time comes when man desires death. Consequently there is nothing frightening about a normal, natural death, the death of a man who has fulfilled himself and lived out his life.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Lecture XXX, Atheism alone a Positive View
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
1 week 6 days ago
In erotic love, two people who...

In erotic love, two people who were separate become one. In motherly love, two people who were one become separate. The mother must not only tolerate, she must wish and support the child's separation.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 2
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 1 day ago
If it be said, that an...

If it be said, that an Omnipotent Creator, though under no necessity of employing contrivances such as man must use, thought fit to use them in order to leave traces that would enable man to recognize his creative hand, the answer is that this equally implies a limit to his omnipotence. For if he wanted men to know that they themselves and the world are his work, he, being omnipotent, had only to will that they should be aware of it.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
pages 177-178;Early Modern Texts page 16
Philosophical Maxims
Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin
3 weeks 1 day ago
Everything is what it is: liberty...

Everything is what it is: liberty is liberty, not equality or fairness or justice or culture, or human happiness or a quiet conscience.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
2 months 4 weeks ago
Certain success evicts one from the...

Certain success evicts one from the paradise of winning against the odds.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 1 day ago
The believing we do something when...

The believing we do something when we do nothing is the first illusion of tobacco.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
1859
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 1 day ago
It is strange that men will...

It is strange that men will talk of miracles, revelations, inspiration, and the like, as things past, while love remains.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 163
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 1 day ago
No congress, nor mob, nor guillotine,...

No congress, nor mob, nor guillotine, nor fire, nor all together, can avail, to cut out, burn, or destroy the offense of superiority in persons. The superiority in him is inferiority in me.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 65
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
3 weeks 2 days ago
The empiricist thinks he believes only...

The empiricist thinks he believes only what he sees, but he is much better at believing than at seeing.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"Objections to Belief in Substance", p. 201
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 2 days ago
The truth is a trap...

The truth is a trap: you can not get it without it getting you; you cannot get the truth by capturing it, only by its capturing you.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 6 days ago
The most interesting aspect of suffering...

The most interesting aspect of suffering is the sufferer's belief in its absoluteness. He believes he has a monopoly on suffering. I think that I alone suffer, that I alone have the right to suffer, although I also realize that there are modalities of suffering more terrible than mine, pieces of flesh falling from the bones, the body crumbling under one's very eyes, monstrous, criminal , shameful sufferings. One asks oneself, How can this be, and if it be, how can one still speak of finality and other such old wives' tales? Suffering moves me so much that I lose all my courage. I lose heart because I do not understand why there is suffering in the world.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
in essay: the monopoly of suffering
Philosophical Maxims
Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch
3 weeks 1 day ago
I think being a woman is...

I think being a woman is like being Irish... Everyone says you're important and nice, but you take second place all the same.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The Red and the Green (1965), ch. 2, p. 30.
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
2 weeks 4 days ago
In fact, for a voluntarist like...

In fact, for a voluntarist like Schopenhauer, a theory so sanely and cautiously empirical and rational as that of Darwin, left out of account the inward force, the essential motive, of evolution. For what is, in effect, the hidden force, the ultimate agent, which impels organisms to perpetuate themselves and to fight for their persistence and propagation? Selection, adaptation, heredity, these are only external conditions. This inner, essential force has been called will on the supposition that there exists also in other beings that which we feel in ourselves as a feeling of will, the impulse to be everything, to be others as well as ourselves yet without ceasing to be what we are.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
4 months ago
Words are connected to reality...
0
⚖0
Main Content / General
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
2 months 3 weeks ago
To two men living the same...

To two men living the same number of years, the world always provides the same sum of experiences. It is up to us to be conscious of them.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
2 months 4 days ago
Human reason has this peculiar fate...

Human reason has this peculiar fate that in one species of its knowledge it is burdened by questions which, as prescribed by the very nature of reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as transcending all its powers, it is also not able to answer.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Preface, A vii
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 1 day ago
I hardly know an intellectual man,...

I hardly know an intellectual man, even, who is so broad and truly liberal that you can think aloud in his society. Most with whom you endeavor to talk soon come to a stand against some institution in which they appear to hold stock, - that is, some particular, not universal, way of viewing things.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 490
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
2 months 4 days ago
A country cannot subsist well without...

A country cannot subsist well without liberty, nor liberty without virtue.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tryon Edwards, p. 301.
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 month 1 week ago
Holding fast to these things, you...

Holding fast to these things, you will know the worlds of gods and mortals which permeates and governs everything. And you will know, as is right, nature similar in all respects, so that you will neither entertain unreasonable hopes nor be neglectful of anything.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in Divine Harmony: The Life and Teachings of Pythagoras by John Strohmeier and Peter Westbrook.
Philosophical Maxims
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
1 month 3 weeks ago
The noblest people are those despising...

The noblest people are those despising wealth, learning, pleasure and life; esteeming above them poverty, ignorance, hardship and death.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Stobaeus, iv. 29a. 19
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 1 day ago
My desire for knowledge is intermittent...

My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. I do not know that this higher knowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge before - a discovery that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 2 days ago
All exact science is dominated by...

All exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation. When a man tells you that he knows the exact truth about anything, you are safe in inferring that he is an inexact man.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The Scientific Outlook (1931), Part I, chapter II, "Characteristics of the Scientific Method"
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
1 month 5 days ago
People praise virtue, but they hate...

People praise virtue, but they hate it, they run away from it. It freezes you to death, and in this world you've got to keep your feet warm.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
René Descartes
René Descartes
2 months 1 week ago
Thus, all unknown quantities can be...

Thus, all unknown quantities can be expressed in terms of a single quantity, whenever the problem can be constructed by means of circles and straight lines, or by conic sections, or even by some other curve of degree not greater than the third or fourth.But I shall not stop to explain this in more detail, because I should deprive you of the pleasure of mastering it yourself, as well as of the advantage of training your mind by working over it, which is in my opinion the principal benefit to be derived from this science. Because, I find nothing here so difficult that it cannot be worked out by anyone at all familiar with ordinary geometry and with algebra, who will consider carefully all that is set forth in this treatise.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
First Book
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 week 3 days ago
If it were true what in...

If it were true what in the end would be gained? Nothing but another truth. Is this such a mighty advantage? We have enough old truths still to digest, and even these we would be quite unable to endure if we did not sometimes flavor them with lies.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
E 10
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 weeks 6 days ago
To repeat to yourself a thousand...

To repeat to yourself a thousand times a day: 'Nothing on Earth has any worth,' to keep finding yourself at the same point, to circle stupidly as a top, eternally...

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
2 weeks ago
You've got the temperament of a...

You've got the temperament of a scholar, and you live on your own and write books. You don't have anything to do with civilization. You've been in London a few days and you can't wait to get back home. But how about the people who can't write books -- people there's no outlet for in this civilization? What about your new men who don't know what to do?

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 200
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
2 months 4 weeks ago
They do not know the penalty...

They do not know the penalty of unrighteousness, which is the thing they most ought to know. For it is not what they think it is scourgings and death, which they sometimes escape entirely when they have done wrong but a penalty which it is impossible to escape. Two patterns, my friend, are set up in the world, the divine, which is most blessed, and the godless, which is most wretched, and their silliness and extreme foolishness blind them to the fact that through their unrighteous acts they are made like the one and unlike the other. They therefore pay the penalty for this by living a life that conforms to the pattern they resemble.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
2 months 1 week ago
Women are the most…

Women are the most charitable creatures, and the most troublesome. He who shuns women passes up the trouble, but also the benefits. He who puts up with them gains the benefits, but also the trouble. As the saying goes, there's no honey without bees.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Act III, scene iv
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Just now
For man to be able to...

For man to be able to live he must either not see the infinite, or have such an explanation of the meaning of life as will connect the finite with the infinite.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 months ago
It is not only when it...

It is not only when it takes the form of physical addiction that sex is evil. It is also evil when it manifests itself as a way of satisfying the lust for power or the climber's craving for position and social distinction.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 14, p. 358 [2012 reprint]
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 months 2 days ago
As the strata of the earth...

As the strata of the earth preserve in succession the living creatures of past epochs, so the shelves of libraries preserve in succession the errors of the past and their expositions, which like the former were very lively and made a great commotion in their own age but now stand petrified and stiff in a place where only the literary palaeontologist regards them.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Vol. 2 "On Books and Writing" as translated in Essays and Aphorisms (1970), as translated by R. J. Hollingdale
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months ago
'But what of the poor Ghosts...

But what of the poor Ghosts who never get into the omnibus at all?' 'Everyone who wishes it does. Never fear. There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 9, p. 72; part of this has also been rendered in a variant form, and quoted as:
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
2 months 2 weeks ago
Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes....

Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Therefore, give yourself fully to your endeavors. Decide to construct your character through excellent actions, and determine to pay the price for a worthy goal. The trials you encounter will introduce you to your strengths. Remain steadfast... and one day you will build something that endures, something worthy of your potential.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
2 months 1 week ago
If, being duke and peer, you...

If, being duke and peer, you would not be contented with my standing uncovered before you, but should also wish that I should esteem you, I should ask you to show me the qualities that merit my esteem. If you did this, you would gain it, and I could not refuse it to you with justice; but if you did not do it, you would be unjust to demand it of me; and assuredly you would not succeed, were you the greatest prince in the world.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
  • Load More

User login

  • Create new account
  • Reset your password

Social

☰ ˟
  • Main Feed
  • Philosophical Maxims

Civic

☰ ˟
  • Propositions
  • Issue / Solution

Who's new

  • Søren Kierkegaard
  • Jesus
  • Friedrich Nietzsche
  • VeXed
  • Slavoj Žižek

Who's online

There are currently 0 users online.

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia