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Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
3 months 2 days ago
Kant [...] stated that he had...

Kant [...] stated that he had "found it necessary to deny knowledge [...] to make room for faith," but all he had "denied" was knowledge of things that are unknowable, and he had not made room for faith but for thought.

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p. 63
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
1 month 2 weeks ago
Neurosis can be understood best as...

Neurosis can be understood best as the battle between tendencies within an individual; deep character analysis leads, if successful, to the progressive solution.

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p. 264
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
2 months ago
All ages before ours believed in...

All ages before ours believed in gods in some form or other. Only an unparalleled impoverishment in symbolism could enable us to rediscover the gods as psychic factors, which is to say, as archetypes of the unconscious. No doubt this discovery is hardly credible as yet.

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p. 72
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
1 month 3 weeks ago
The transition from philosophy to the...

The transition from philosophy to the domain of state and society had been an intrinsic part of Hegel's system.

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P. 251
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 1 week ago
Arts and sciences are not cast...

Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are formed and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing, as bears leisurely lick their cubs into form.

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Book II, Ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
3 weeks 1 day ago
From the poetry of Lord Byron...

From the poetry of Lord Byron they drew a system of ethics, compounded of misanthropy and voluptuousness, a system in which the two great commandments were, to hate your neighbour, and to love your neighbour's wife.

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p. 351
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 2 weeks ago
Love, a tacit agreement...
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Main Content / General
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
1 month 4 weeks ago
Ireland still remains the Holy Isle...

Ireland still remains the Holy Isle whose aspirations must on no account be mixed with the profane class-struggles of the rest of the sinful world ... the Irish peasant must not on any account know that the Socialist workers are his sole allies in Europe.

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Letter to Karl Marx
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 month 1 week ago
That man is the noblest creature...

That man is the noblest creature may also be inferred from the fact that no other creature has yet contested this claim.

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D 58 The proof that man is the noblest of all creatures is that no other creature has ever denied it.
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 2 days ago
If you are not already dead,...

If you are not already dead, forgive. Rancor is heavy, it is worldly; leave it on earth: die light.

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Act 1
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
1 month 2 weeks ago
Power turns pure being into a...

Power turns pure being into a having.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 1 week ago
The greatest improvement in the productive...

The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greatest part of skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is any where directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.

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Chapter I, p. 7
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 4 days ago
Leave this hypocritical prating about the...

Leave this hypocritical prating about the masses. Masses are rude, lame, unmade, pernicious in their demands and influence, and need not to be flattered, but to be schooled. I wish not to concede anything to them, but to tame, drill, divide, and break them up, and draw individuals out of them.

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Considerations by the Way
Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
3 months 2 days ago
Justice is happiness according to virtue....

Justice is happiness according to virtue.

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Chapter V, Section 48, p. 310
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 4 days ago
The bluebird carries the sky on...

The bluebird carries the sky on his back.

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April 3, 1852
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months ago
Of course, I had to own...

Of course, I had to own that he was right; I didn't feel much regret for what I'd done. Still, to my mind, he overdid it, and I'd have liked to have a chance of explaining to him, in a quite friendly, almost affectionate way, that I have never been able to really regret anything in all my life. I've always been far too much absorbed in the present moment, or the immediate future, to think back.

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Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
2 months 3 weeks ago
The pleasures that give most joy...

The pleasures that give most joy are the ones that most rarely come.

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Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
2 months 2 weeks ago
He is worst of all, that...

He is worst of all, that is malicious against his friends.

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Philosophical Maxims
Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
3 weeks 6 days ago
The modern world gives proof at...

The modern world gives proof at every point that it is far easier to destroy institutions than to create them. Nevertheless, few people seem to understand this truth.

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Rousseau & the origins of liberalism, The New Criterion
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 2 days ago
You are never too old to...

You are never too old to set another goal, or to dream a new dream. Unknown, but also attributed to Les Brown, a motivational speaker. Commonly attributed to C.S. Lewis, but never with a primary source listed.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 4 days ago
The Indian...stands free and unconstrained in...

The Indian...stands free and unconstrained in Nature, is her inhabitant and not her guest, and wears her easily and gracefully. But the civilized man has the habits of the house. His house is a prison.

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April 26, 1841
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 4 days ago
Shallow men believe in luck. Worship

Shallow men believe in luck.

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Worship
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
2 months 1 day ago
We are firmly convinced that the...

We are firmly convinced that the most imperfect republic is a thousand times better than the most enlightened monarchy. In a republic, there are at least brief periods when the people, while continually exploited, is not oppressed; in the monarchies, oppression is constant. The democratic regime also lifts the masses up gradually to participation in public life--something the monarchy never does. Nevertheless, while we prefer the republic, we must recognise and proclaim that whatever the form of government may be, so long as human society continues to be divided into different classes as a result of the hereditary inequality of occupations, of wealth, of education, and of rights, there will always be a class-restricted government and the inevitable exploitation of the majorities by the minorities. The State is nothing but this domination and this exploitation, well regulated and systematised.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months ago
I like thought which preserves a...

I like thought which preserves a whiff of flesh and blood, and I prefer a thousand times an idea rising from sexual tension or nervous depression to empty abstraction.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
2 months 1 week ago
Justice is the end of government....

Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been, and ever will be, pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.

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Chapter XV.
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 month 3 weeks ago
England is the paradise of individuality,...

England is the paradise of individuality, eccentricity, heresy, anomalies, hobbies, and humors.

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"The British Character"
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
2 months 2 weeks ago
When going to the temple to...

When going to the temple to adore Divinity neither say nor do any thing in the interim pertaining to the common affairs of life.

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Symbol 1
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
1 month 3 weeks ago
The Interpretation of the Laws of...

The Interpretation of the Laws of Nature in a Common-wealth, dependeth not on the books of Moral Philosophy. The Authority of writers, without the Authority of the Commonwealth, maketh not their opinions Law, be they never so true.

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The Second Part, Chapter 26, p. 143
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
1 month 3 weeks ago
Institutionalized desublimation thus appears to be...

Institutionalized desublimation thus appears to be an aspect of the "conquest of transcendence" achieved by the one-dimensional society. Just as this society tends to reduce, and even absorb opposition (the qualitative difference!) in the realm of politics and higher culture, so it does in the instinctual sphere. The result is the atrophy of the mental organs for grasping the contradictions and the alternatives and, in the one remaining dimension of technological rationality, the Happy Consciousness comes to prevail.

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p. 79
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
1 month 1 week ago
In order to survive, the organization...

In order to survive, the organization must have an objective that appeals to its customers, so that they will make the contributions necessary to sustain it. Hence, organization objectives are constantly adapted to conform to the changing values of customers, or to secure new groups of customers in place of customers who have dropped away. The organization may also undertake special activities to induce acceptance of its objectives by customers - advertising, missionary work, and propaganda of all sorts.

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p. 114.
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 4 days ago
Death cannot explain itself. The earnestness...

Death cannot explain itself. The earnestness consists precisely in this, that the observer must explain it to himself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
3 months 6 days ago
Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions...

Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. The understanding can intuit nothing, the senses can think nothing. Only through their unison can knowledge arise.

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A 51, B 75
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
3 months 3 days ago
There is but one unconditional commandment,...

There is but one unconditional commandment, which is that we should seek incessantly, with fear and trembling, so to vote and to act as to bring about the very largest total universe of good which we can see. Abstract rules indeed can help; but they help the less in proportion as our intuitions are more piercing, and our vocation is the stronger for the moral life. For every real dilemma is in literal strictness a unique situation; and the exact combination of ideals realized and ideals disappointed which each decision creates is always a universe without a precedent, and for which no adequate previous rule exists.

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"The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life", International Journal of Ethics, April 1891
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
1 month 1 week ago
In the process of decision those...

In the process of decision those alternatives are chosen which are considered to be appropriate means of reaching desired ends. Ends themselves, however, are often merely instrumental to more final objectives. We are thus led to the conception of a series, or hierarchy, of ends. Rationality has to do with the construction of means-ends chains of this kind.

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p. 62.
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
1 month 3 weeks ago
The world of immediate experience-the world...

The world of immediate experience-the world in which we find ourselves living-must be comprehended, transformed, even subverted in order to become that which it really is.

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p. 123
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
3 months 5 days ago
I die adoring God…

I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.

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Déclaration de Voltaire, note to his secretary, Jean-Louis Wagnière, 28 February 1778
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
3 months 3 days ago
For the philosophy which is so...

For the philosophy which is so important in each of us is not a technical matter; it is our more or less dumb sense of what life honestly and deeply means. It is only partly got from books; it is our individual way of just seeing and feeling the total push and pressure of the cosmos. ...I have heard friends and colleagues try to popularize philosophy... but they soon grew dry, and then technical, and the results were only partially encouraging. So my enterprise is a bold one. The founder of pragmatism... gave... lectures... with that very word in its title,-flashes of brilliant light relieved against Cimmerian darkness! None of us... understood all that he said-yet here I stand making a very similar venture. ...There is... a curious fascination in hearing deep things talked about, even though neither we nor the disputants understand them. We get the problematic thrill, we feel the presence of the vastness.

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Lecture I, The Present Dilemma in Philosophy
Philosophical Maxims
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam
1 month 1 week ago
Part of what makes moral philosophy...

Part of what makes moral philosophy an anachronistic field is that its practitioners continue to argue in this very traditional and aprioristic way even though they themselves do not claim that one can provide a systematic and indubitable 'foundation' for the subject. Most of them rely on what are supposed to be 'intuitions' without claiming that those intuitions deliver uncontroversial ethical premises, on the one hand, or that they have an ontological or epistemological explanation of the reliability of those intuitions, on the other.

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How Not to Solve Ethical Problems
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
3 months 1 week ago
This avidity alone, of acquiring goods...

This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society.

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Part 2, Section 2
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
3 months 6 days ago
A country cannot subsist well without...

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

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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
bell hooks
bell hooks
1 month 2 weeks ago
My thoughts have been shaped by...

My thoughts have been shaped by the conviction that feminism must become a mass based political movement if it is to have a revolutionary, transformative impact on society.

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p. xiii.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 4 days ago
I dislike Communism because it is...

I dislike Communism because it is undemocratic, and capitalism because it favors exploitation.

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Unarmed Victory (1963), p. 14
Philosophical Maxims
Averroes
Averroes
3 months 3 weeks ago
To master this instrument the religious...

To master this instrument the religious thinker must make a preliminary study of logic, just as the lawyer must study legal reasoning. This is no more heretical in the one case than in the other. And logic must be learned from the ancient masters, regardless of the fact that they were not Muslims.

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Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 month ago
I'm not clever enough to be...

I'm not clever enough to be a physicist. When asked about why he chose to become a biologist.

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UR Samtiden - Verklighetens magi 27 October 2012.
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 1 week ago
I perfectly agree with your Lordship...

I perfectly agree with your Lordship too, that to crush the Industry of so great and so fine a province of the empire, in order to favour the monopoly of some particular towns in Scotland or England, is equally unjust and impolitic. The general opulence and improvement of Ireland might certainly, under proper management, afford much greater resources to the Government, than can ever be drawn from a few mercantile or manufacturing towns.

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Letter to Henry Dundas (1 November 1779), quoted in Adam Smith, The Correspondence of Adam Smith, eds. E. C. Mossner and I. S. Ross (1987), p. 241
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 month 3 weeks ago
Culture is on the horns of...

Culture is on the horns of this dilemma: if profound and noble, it must remain rare, if common, it must become mean.

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Ch. IV: The Aristocratic Ideal
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
3 months 5 days ago
Let us maintain inviolably equality in...

Let us maintain inviolably equality in the sacred right of suffrage: public security can never have a basis more solid.

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Author's Inscription: French Edition
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
1 week 3 days ago
The heterodox current in Judaism led...

The heterodox current in Judaism led by Jesus seems to have had no notion of an immortal soul, created by God and then infused into the body: immortality meant being raised from the dead in the body one had in life, then living for ever in a world without decay or corruption. In the Christian religion invented by Paul and Augustine, which was strongly influenced by Plato, immortality meant something quite different - a life out of time, enjoyed by the 'soul' or 'spirit' of the departed. How this Platonic immortality could preserve anything like the persons that once lived was not made clear.

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Cross-correspondences (pp. 32-3)
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 2 weeks ago
In reading Jung's account of his...

In reading Jung's account of his cases, it is impossible not to be aware that his success was due partly to an element of ruthlessness; he was dominated by curiosity rather than compassion.

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p. 36
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
1 month 2 weeks ago
Someone has said that it requires...

Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think. The widespread mental indolence, so prevalent in society, proves this to be only too true. Rather than to go to the bottom of any given idea, to examine into its origin and meaning, most people will either condemn it altogether, or rely on some superficial or prejudicial definition of non-essentials.

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Philosophical Maxims
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