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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1 month 2 weeks ago
Patriotism ruins history. Conversation with Friedrich...

Patriotism ruins history.

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Conversation with Friedrich Wilhem Riemer
Philosophical Maxims
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
2 months 2 weeks ago
As for types like my own,...

As for types like my own, obscurely motivated by the conviction that our existence was worthless if we didn't make a turning point of it, we were assigned to the humanities, to poetry, philosophy, painting - the nursery games of humankind, which had to be left behind when the age of science began. The humanities would be called upon to choose a wallpaper for the crypt, as the end drew near.

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Ch. 6
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months 3 weeks ago
I would say to the readers...

I would say to the readers of the Scriptures, if they wish for a good book, read the Bhagavad-Gita...translated by Charles Wilkins. It deserves to be read with reverence even by yankees...Besides the Bhagvat-Geeta, our Shakespeare seems sometimes youthfully green...Ex oriente lux may still be the motto of scholars, for the Western world has not yet derived from the East all the light it is destined to derive thence.

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Quoted in Sushama Londhe, A Tribute to Hinduism (New Delhi: Pragun Publication, 2008) p. 26
Philosophical Maxims
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam
2 months 4 weeks ago
What we have is a device...

What we have is a device for producing sentences in response to sentences. But none of these sentences is at all connected to the real world. If one coupled two of these machines and let them play the Imitation Game with each other, then they would go on 'fooling' each other forever, even if the rest of the world disappeared! There is no more reason to regard the machine's talk of apples as referring to real world apples than there is to regard the ant's 'drawing' as referring to Winston Churchill.

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Chap. 1 : Brains in a vat
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
5 months ago
The human understanding is unquiet; it...

The human understanding is unquiet; it cannot stop or rest, and still presses onward, but in vain. Therefore it is that we cannot conceive of any end or limit to the world, but always as of necessity it occurs to us that there is something beyond... But he is no less an unskilled and shallow philosopher who seeks causes of that which is most general, than he who in things subordinate and subaltern omits to do so.

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Aphorism 48
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
3 months 2 weeks ago
Positive philosophy made its counter-attack against...

Positive philosophy made its counter-attack against critical rationalism on two fronts. Comte fought against the French form of negative philosophy, against the heritage of Descartes and the Enlightenment. In Germany, the struggle was directed against Hegel's system. Schelling received an express commission from Frederick William IV 'to destroy the dragon seed' of Hegelianism, while Stahl, another anti-Hegelian, became the philosophical spokesman of the Prussian monarchy in 1840.

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P. 326
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
4 months 3 weeks ago
The government of an exclusive company...

The government of an exclusive company of merchants is, perhaps, the worst of all governments for any country whatever.

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Chapter VII, Part Second, p. 619.
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 3 weeks ago
Deny them this participation of freedom,...

Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond, which originally made, and must still preserve the unity of the empire.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
2 months 1 week ago
It is our deliberate opinion that...

It is our deliberate opinion that the French Revolution, in spite of all its crimes and follies, was a great blessing to mankind.

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'Sir James Mackintosh', The Edinburgh Review (July 1835), quoted in T. B. Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to The Edinburgh Review, Vol. II (1843), p. 215
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
4 months 1 week ago
Of practical wisdom these are the...

Of practical wisdom these are the three fruits: to deliberate well, to speak to the point, to do what is right.

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
3 months 3 weeks ago
How it could come to pass...

How it could come to pass I do not know, but I remember it clearly. The dream embraced thousands of years and left in me only a sense of the whole. I only know that I was the cause of their sin and downfall. Like a vile trichina, like a germ of the plague infecting whole kingdoms, so I contaminated all this earth, so happy and sinless before my coming. They learnt to lie, grew fond of lying, and discovered the charm of falsehood.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 3 weeks ago
The days .... come and go...

The days .... come and go like muffled and veiled figures, sent from a distant friendly party; but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away.

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Works and Days
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
5 months 1 week ago
He who created you without you...

He who created you without you will not justify you without you.

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169
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
Anxiety - or the fanaticism of...

Anxiety - or the fanaticism of the worst.

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Philosophical Maxims
Richard Rorty
Richard Rorty
4 months 1 week ago
Philosophers get attention only when they...

Philosophers get attention only when they appear to be doing something sinister-corrupting the youth, undermining the foundations of civilization, sneering at all we hold dear. The rest of the time everybody assumes that they are hard at work somewhere down in the sub-basement, keeping those foundations in good repair. Nobody much cares what brand of intellectual duct tape is being used.

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"Philosophical Convictions." The Nation, June 14, 2004.
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 1 day ago
Practice no sloth...
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Peter Singer
Peter Singer
4 months 1 week ago
Human beings are social animals. We...

Human beings are social animals. We were social before we were human.

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Chapter 1, The Origins Of Altruism, p. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Owen
Robert Owen
2 months 2 weeks ago
All the measures now proposed are...

All the measures now proposed are only a compromise with the errors of the present systems; but as these errors now almost universally exist, and must be overcome solely by the force of reason; and as reason, to effect the most beneficial purposes, makes her advance by slow degrees, and progressively substantiates one truth of high import after another, it will be evident, to minds of comprehensive and accurate thought, that by these and similar compromises alone can success be rationally expected in practice. For such compromises bring truth and error before the public; and whenever they are fairly exhibited together, truth must ultimately prevail.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
4 months 3 weeks ago
This art is music. It stands...

This art is music. It stands quite apart from all the others. In it we do not recognize the copy, the repetition, of any Idea of the inner nature of the world. Yet it is such a great and exceedingly fine art, its effect on man's innermost nature is so powerful, and it is so completely and profoundly understood by him in his innermost being as an entirely universal language, whose distinctness surpasses even that of the world of perception itself, that in it we certainly have to look for more than that.

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Vol. I, Ch. III, The World As Representation: Second Aspect, as translated by Eric F. J. Payne, 1958
Philosophical Maxims
William Whewell
William Whewell
3 weeks ago
When common words are appropriated as...

When common words are appropriated as technical terms, their meaning and relations in common use should be retained as far as can conveniently be done.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
3 months 2 weeks ago
Is this fight against history part...

Is this fight against history part of the fight against a dimension of the mind in which centrifugal faculties and forces might develop-faculties and forces that might hinder the total coordination of the individual with the society? Remembrance of the Fast may give rise to dangerous insights, and the established society seems to be apprehensive of the subversive contents of memory. Remembrance is a mode of dissociation from the given facts, a mode of "mediation" which breaks, for short moments, the omnipresent power of the given facts. Memory recalls the terror and the hope that passed. Both come to life again.

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p. 98
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
This idea of weapons of mass...

This idea of weapons of mass extermination is utterly horrible and is something which no one with one spark of humanity can tolerate. I will not pretend to obey a government which is organising a mass massacre of mankind.

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Speech in Birmingham, England encouraging civil disobedience in support of nuclear disarmament, 4/15/1961
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
3 months 3 weeks ago
Africans are always vicious... mostly inclined...

Africans are always vicious... mostly inclined to lasciviousness, vengeance, theft and lies.

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As quoted in David Johnson, 'Representing the Cape "Hottentots"
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
4 months 3 weeks ago
[L]ike Coleridge, he might plead as...

[L]ike Coleridge, he might plead as a set-off that he had been to many persons, through his conversation, a source not only of much instruction but of great elevation of character. On me his influence was most salutary. It was moral in the best sense. He took a sincere and kind interest in me, far beyond what could have been expected towards a mere youth from a man of his age, standing, and what seemed austerity of character. There was in his conversation and demeanour a tone of high-mindedness which did not show itself so much, if the quality existed as much, in any of the other persons with whom at that time I associated. My intercourse with him was the more beneficial, owing to his being of a different mental type from all other intellectual men whom I frequented...

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(pp. 75-76)
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
2 months 2 weeks ago
Unfortunately, instead of working out that...

Unfortunately, instead of working out that they have probably misunderstood evolution, creationists conclude, instead, that evolution must be false.

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Heat the Hornet, a review of Jerry Coyne's book Why Evolution is True
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 6 days ago
Next, if you choose to view...

Next, if you choose to view its results and the mischief that it does, no plague has cost the human race more dear

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Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
3 months 4 weeks ago
The one infinite is perfect, in...

The one infinite is perfect, in simplicity, of itself, absolutely, nor can aught be greater or better, This is the one Whole, God, universal Nature, occupying all space, of whom naught but infinity can give the perfect image or semblance.

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II 12 as translated by Dorothea Waley Singer
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 2 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
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
3 months ago
Since my world picture approximates reality...

Since my world picture approximates reality only crudely, I cannot aspire to optimize anything; at most, I can aim at satisficing. Searching for the best can only dissipate scarce cognitive resources; the best is the enemy of the good.

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(p.361) p. 361; As cited in Ronald J. Baker (2010) Implementing Value Pricing: A Revolutionary Business Model for Professional Firms. p. 122.
Philosophical Maxims
Georges Sorel
Georges Sorel
1 month 1 day ago
We must not always attach too...

We must not always attach too much importance to violent attacks on the bourgeoisie; they may be motivated by the desire to reform and to perfect capitalism.

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p. 125
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
2 months 3 weeks ago
The need to speak, even if...

The need to speak, even if one has nothing to say, becomes more pressing when one has nothing to say, just as the will to live becomes more urgent when life has lost its meaning.

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(p. 30)
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
4 months 3 weeks ago
A mind of slow apprehension is...

A mind of slow apprehension is therefore not necessarily a weak mind. The one who is alert with abstractions is not always profound, he is more often very superficial.

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Kant, Immanuel (1996), page 99
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 2 weeks ago
I have at last come to...

I have at last come to the end of the Faerie Queene: and though I say "at last", I almost wish he had lived to write six books more as he had hoped to do - so much have I enjoyed it.

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On Edmund Spenser's long poem in a letter to Arthur Greeves (7 March 1916), published in The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
3 months 3 weeks ago
Yes, I dreamed a dream, my...

Yes, I dreamed a dream, my dream of the third of November. They tease me now, telling me it was only a dream. But does it matter whether it was a dream or reality, if the dream made known to me the truth? If once one has recognized the truth and seen it, you know that it is the truth and that there is no other and there cannot be, whether you are asleep or awake. Let it be a dream, so be it, but that real life of which you make so much I had meant to extinguish by suicide, and my dream, my dream - oh, it revealed to me a different life, renewed, grand and full of power!

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 2 weeks ago
Of course a war is entertaining....

Of course a war is entertaining. The immediate fear and suffering of the humans is a legitimate and pleasing refreshment for our myriads of toiling workers. But what permanent good does it do us unless we make use of it for bringing souls to Our Father Below? When I see the temporal suffering of humans who finally escape us, I feel as if I had been allowed to taste the first course of a rich banquet and then denied all the rest. It is worse than not to have tasted it at all. The Enemy, true to His barbarous methods of warfare, allows us to see the short misery of His favourites only to tantalize and torment us - to mock the incessant hunger, which, during this present phase of great conflict, His blockade is admittedly imposing.

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Letter V
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 6 days ago
No man ought to glory except...

No man ought to glory except in that which is his own.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
5 months 2 weeks ago
The papers were always talking about...

The papers were always talking about the debt owed to society. According to them, it had to be paid. But that doesn't speak to the imagination. What really counted was the possibility of escape, a leap to freedom, out of the implacable ritual, a wild run for it that would give whatever chance for hope there was. Of course, hope meant being cut down on some street corner, as you ran like mad, by a random bullet. But when I really thought it through, nothing was going to allow me such a luxury. Everything was against it; I would just be caught up in the machinery again.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
3 months 2 weeks ago
But if it bee well considered,...

But if it bee well considered, The praise of Ancient Authors, proceeds not from the reverence of the Dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the Living.

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Review and Conclusion, p. 395
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
4 months 3 weeks ago
It may indeed be doubted, whether...

It may indeed be doubted, whether butcher's meat is any where a necessary of life. Grain and other vegetables, with the help of milk, cheese, and butter, or oil, where butter is not to be had, it is known from experience, can, without any butcher's meat, afford the most plentiful, the most wholesome, the most nourishing, and the most invigorating diet.

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Chapter II, Part II, Appendix to Articles I and II.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
For a long time - always,...

For a long time - always, in fact - I have known that life here on earth is not what I needed and that I wasn't able to deal with it; for this reason and for this reason alone, I have acquired a touch of spiritual pride, so that my existence seems to me the degradation and the erosion of a psalm.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
4 months 1 week ago
Perhaps there is one chain [of...

Perhaps there is one chain [of inference] leading from the mental and the physical to a common source. It is conceivable in the abstract that if mental phenomena derive from the properties of matter at all, these may be identical at some level with nonphysical properties from which physical phenomena also derive. ...If there were such properties, they would be discoverable only by explanatory inference from both mental and physical phenomena. ... There would be properties of matter that were not physical from which the mental properties of organic systems were derived. This could still be called panpsychism.

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"Panpsychism" (1979), pp. 184-185.
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
4 months 3 weeks ago
But such a straight identification of...

But such a straight identification of religion with any and every form of happiness leaves the essential peculiarity of religious happiness out. The more commonplace happinesses which we get are 'reliefs,' occasioned by our momentary escapes from evils either experienced or threatened. But in its most characteristic embodiments, religious happiness is no mere feeling of escape. It cares no longer to escape. It consents to the evil outwardly as a form of sacrifice - inwardly it knows it to be permanently overcome. ... In the Louvre there is a picture, by Guido Reni, of St. Michael with his foot on Satan's neck. The richness of the picture is in large part due to the fiend's figure being there. The richness of its allegorical meaning also is due to his being there - that is, the world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.

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Lecture II, "Circumscription of the Topic"
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 2 weeks ago
It is written again, Thou shalt...

It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

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4:7 (KJV) Said to Satan. The reference is to Deuteronomy 6:16, "Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God, as ye tempted him in Massah." (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
1 month 2 weeks ago
News and truth are not the...

News and truth are not the same thing and must be clearly distinguished. The function of news is to signalize an event, the function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts, to set them into relation with each other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act. Only at those points, where social conditions take recognizable and measurable shape, do the body of truth and the body of news coincide.

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Ch. XXIV: "News, Truth, and a Conclusion", p. 358 The clause in bold is sometimes quoted on its own in the form, "The news and the truth are not the same thing."
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
5 months 2 weeks ago
O light! This is the cry...

O light! This is the cry of all the characters of ancient drama brought face to face with their fate. This last resort was ours, too, and I knew it now. In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer. Return to Tipasa (1954) Variant translation: In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
3 months 2 weeks ago
The capitalists soon had everything in...

The capitalists soon had everything in their hands and nothing remained to the workers.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
There is no logical impossibility in...

There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago.

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The Analysis of Mind (1921), Lecture IX: Memory, p. 159
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 2 weeks ago
Chinese script is not visual but...

Chinese script is not visual but iconic and tactile. It does not disturb the tribal bonds.

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(p. 72)
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 months 4 days ago
It seemed perfectly possible that, in...

It seemed perfectly possible that, in spite of my certainty of my own genius, I might die of some illness, or perhaps even in a street accident, before I had ever glimpsed the meaning of life. My moods of happiness and self-confidence convinced me that I had a "destiny" to become a famous writer, and to be remembered as one of the most important thinkers of the century.

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p. 67
Philosophical Maxims
Ptahhotep
Ptahhotep
4 months 1 week ago
To resist him that is set...

To resist him that is set in authority is evil. .

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Maxim no. 31
Philosophical Maxims
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