Skip to main content
Sun, 7 Dec 2025 - 06:08

It is our interest and our task to make the revolution permanent until all the more or less propertied classes have been driven from their ruling positions, until the proletariat has conquered state power and until the association of the proletarians has progressed sufficiently far - not only in one country but in all the leading countries of the world - that competition between the proletarians of these countries ceases and at least the decisive forces of production are concentrated in the hands of the workers. Our concern cannot simply be to modify private property, but to abolish it, not to hush up class antagonisms but to abolish classes, not to improve the existing society but to found a new one.

0
0
Fri, 7 Nov 2025 - 03:04

But voice is a certain sound of that which is animated; for nothing inanimate emits a voice; but they are said to emit a voice from similitude, as a pipe, and a lyre, and such other inanimate things, have extension, modulation, and dialect; for thus it appears, because voice, also, has these.

0
0
Wed, 3 Dec 2025 - 22:19

Thus the labour of a manufacture adds, generally, to the value of the materials which he works upon, that of his own maintenance, and of his masters profits. The labour of a menial servant, on the contrary, adds to the value of nothing.

0
0
Fri, 5 Dec 2025 - 00:31

Judges of elegance and taste consider themselves as benefactors to the human race, whilst they are really only the interrupters of their pleasure ... There is no taste which deserves the epithet good, unless it be the taste for such employments which, to the pleasure actually produced by them, conjoin some contingent or future utility: there is no taste which deserves to be characterized as bad, unless it be a taste for some occupation which has mischievous tendency.

0
0
Tue, 18 Nov 2025 - 04:25

Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.

0
0
Sun, 7 Dec 2025 - 02:53

For I now saw, or thought I saw, what I had always before received with incredulity-that the habit of analysis has a tendency to wear away the feelings: as indeed it has, when no other mental habit is cultivated, and the analysing spirit remains without its natural complements and correctives.

0
0
Sat, 6 Dec 2025 - 21:50

A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.

0
0
Sun, 30 Nov 2025 - 01:59

Let us give Nature a chance; she knows her business better than we do.

0
0
Mon, 10 Nov 2025 - 02:44

Once you've dissected a joke, you're about where you are when you've dissected a frog. It's dead. Banquets of the Black Widowers (1984), p. 49; comparable to "Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."

0
0
Sat, 29 Nov 2025 - 23:28

Man is by nature unable to want God to be God. Indeed, he himself wants to be God, and does not want God to be God.

0
0
Thu, 4 Dec 2025 - 22:44

Even if a civil society were to be dissolved by the consent of all its members (e.g., if a people inhabiting an island decided to separate and disperse throughout the world), the last murderer remaining in prison would first have to be executed, so that each has done to him what his deeds deserve and blood guilt does not cling to the people for not having insisted upon this punishment; for otherwise the people can be regarded as collaborators in his public violation of justice.

0
0
Wed, 5 Nov 2025 - 03:58

Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life. But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first. 19:28-30 (KJV)

0
0
Thu, 6 Nov 2025 - 23:24

Be attentive therefore, according to the instruction of the Gospel, to learn obedience from the lily and the bird. Be not affrighted, do no despair, when thou comparest thy life with these teachers. There is nothing to despair about, for indeed thou shalt learn from them; and the Gospel first comforts thee by telling thee that God is the God of patience, and then it adds: 'Thou shalt learn from the lilies and the birds, learn to be absolutely obedient like the lilies and the birds, learn not to serve two masters; for no man can serve two masters, he must either ... or.

0
0
Sat, 6 Dec 2025 - 21:50

Too little liberty brings stagnation, and too much brings chaos.

0
0
Fri, 12 Dec 2025 - 04:56

Philosophical problems can be compared to locks on safes, which can be opened by dialing a certain word or number, so that no force can open the door until just this word has been hit upon, and once it is hit upon any child can open it.

0
0
Sun, 30 Nov 2025 - 01:59

Saying is one thing, doing another.

0
0
Sun, 7 Dec 2025 - 19:56

It makes a great difference in the force of a sentence whether a man be behind it or no.

0
0
Tue, 9 Dec 2025 - 01:12

Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.

0
0
Fri, 12 Dec 2025 - 04:56

Your questions refer to words; so I have to talk about words. You say: The point isn't the word, but its meaning, and you think of the meaning as a thing of the same kind as the word, though also different from the word. Here the word, there the meaning.

0
0
Mon, 8 Dec 2025 - 23:17

In some places the metropolis makes do with paying a clique of feudal overlords; in others, it has fabricated a fake bourgeoisie of colonized subjects in a system of divide and rule; elsewhere, it has killed two birds with one stone: the colony is both settlement and exploitation.

0
0
Sun, 7 Dec 2025 - 19:56

Nor mourn the unalterable Days That Genius goes and Folly stays.

0
0
Fri, 28 Nov 2025 - 20:15

But men must know that in this theater of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.

0
0
Sun, 30 Nov 2025 - 04:29

Bad company will lead a man to the gallows!

0
0
Mon, 8 Dec 2025 - 23:17

Suppose that I wish to deserve the title of "robber of remorse" and that I place in myself all [the townspeople's] repentence?

0
0
Fri, 5 Dec 2025 - 22:45

It was in the reign of Charles II that they obtained the noble distinction of being exempted from giving their testimony on oath in a court of justice, and being believed on their bare affirmation. On this occasion the chancellor, who was a man of wit, spoke to them as follows: "Friends, Jupiter one day ordered that all the beasts of burden should repair to be shod. The asses represented that their laws would not allow them to submit to that operation. 'Very well,' said Jupiter; 'then you shall not be shod; but the first false step you make, you may depend upon being severely drubbed.'"

0
0
Fri, 7 Nov 2025 - 03:04

Evils draw men together.

0
0
Sun, 7 Dec 2025 - 22:49

Mr. Galton ...in his English Men of Science, has given ...cases showing individual variations in the type of memory... Some have it verbal. Others... for facts and figures, others for form. Most say... [it] must first be rationally conceived and assimilated.

0
0
Fri, 7 Nov 2025 - 03:04

[U]niversal is known according to reason, but that which is particular, according to sense...

0
0
Mon, 10 Nov 2025 - 02:44

Q. You do not consider your statement a disloyal one? A. No, sir. Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty. Q. You are sure that your statement represents scientific truth? A. I am.

0
0
Sat, 6 Dec 2025 - 21:50

When a man acts in ways that annoy us we wish to think him wicked, and we refuse to face the fact that his annoying behaviour is a result of antecedent causes which, if you follow them long enough, will take you beyond the moment of his birth and therefore to events for which he cannot be held responsible by any stretch of imagination.

0
0
Mon, 8 Dec 2025 - 23:17

If you want to deserve Hell, you need only stay in bed. The world is iniquity; if you accept it, you are an accomplice, if you change it you are an executioner.

0
0
Tue, 25 Nov 2025 - 01:55

Rules necessary for definitions. Not to leave any terms at all obscure or ambiguous without definition; Not to employ in definitions any but terms perfectly known or already explained.

0
0
Wed, 5 Nov 2025 - 03:58

Follow me. 9:9 (KJV) Said to Matthew.

0
0
Wed, 5 Nov 2025 - 03:58

He questioned them about the Saviour: Did He really speak privately with a woman and not openly to us? Are we to turn about and all listen to her? Did He prefer her to us? Then Mary wept and said to Peter, My brother Peter, what do you think? Do you think that I have thought this up myself in my heart, or that I am lying about the Saviour? Levi answered and said to Peter, Peter you have always been hot tempered. Now I see you contending against the woman like the adversaries. But if the Saviour made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her? Surely the Saviour knows her very well. That is why He loved her more than us. Rather let us be ashamed and put on the perfect Man, and separate as He commanded us and preach the gospel, not laying down any other rule or other law beyond what the Saviour said. And when they heard this they began to go forth to proclaim and to preach. Mary 9:4-10

0
0
Sat, 6 Dec 2025 - 21:50

I quite understand the principle of confining employment as far as possible to the British without regard for efficiency. I think, however, that the Ministry is not applying the principle sufficiently widely. I know many Englishmen who have married foreigners, and many English potential wives who are out of a job. Would not a year be long enough to train an English wife to replace the existing foreign one in such cases?

0
0
Sun, 7 Dec 2025 - 06:08

An increase in the productivity of labour means nothing more than that the same capital creates the same value with less labour, or that less labour creates the same product with more capital.

0
0
Mon, 8 Dec 2025 - 21:06

The Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or-if they think there is not-at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.

0
0
Sun, 7 Dec 2025 - 22:49

We have nothing to do but to receive, resting absolutely upon the merit, power, and love of our Redeemer.

0
0
Tue, 25 Nov 2025 - 01:55

What would you say of that man who was made king by the error of the people, if he had so far forgotten his natural condition as to imagine that this kingdom was due to him, that he deserved it, and that it belonged to him of right? You would marvel at his stupidity and folly. But is there less in the people of rank who live in so strange a forgetfulness of their natural condition?

0
0
Wed, 3 Dec 2025 - 23:42

The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny ; flattery to treachery ; standing armies to arbitrary government ; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy.

0
0
Sun, 23 Nov 2025 - 07:31

A little river seems to him, who has never seen a larger river, a mighty stream; and so with other things-a tree, a man-anything appears greatest to him that never knew a greater.

0
0
Tue, 9 Dec 2025 - 00:33

Being happy involves both a certain achievement in action and a rational assurance about the outcome.

0
0
Mon, 8 Dec 2025 - 21:06

The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronising and spoiling sport, and back-biting; the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither.

0
0
Mon, 8 Dec 2025 - 21:24

Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.

0
0
Sat, 6 Dec 2025 - 05:48

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.

0
0
Sun, 7 Dec 2025 - 06:08

Revolutions are the locomotives of history.

0
0
Sun, 7 Dec 2025 - 02:19

I did not know that mankind were suffering for want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that it is very malleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.

0
0
Mon, 8 Dec 2025 - 23:17

When Descartes said, "Conquer yourself rather than the world," what he meant was, at bottom, - the same - that we should act without hope. Marxists, to whom I have said thus have answered: "Your action is limited, obviously, by your death: but you can rely upon the help of others.

0
0
Mon, 8 Dec 2025 - 21:06

My dear Wormwood, I note what you say about guiding your patient's reading and taking care that he sees a good deal of his materialist friend. But are you not being a trifle naive? It sounds as if you suppose that argument was the way to keep him out of the enemy's clutches. That might have been so if he had lived a few centuries earlier.

0
0
Sat, 6 Dec 2025 - 05:48

The animals are much more content with mere existence than we are; the plants are wholly so; and man is so according to how dull and insensitive he is. The animal's life consequently contains less suffering but also less pleasure than the human's, the direct reason being that on the one hand it is free from care and anxiety and the torments that attend them, but on the other is without hope and therefore has no share in that anticipation of a happy future which, together with the enchanting products of the imagination which accompany it, is the source of most of our greatest joys and pleasures. The animal lacks both anxiety and hope because its consciousness is restricted to what is clearly evident and thus to the present moment: the animal is the present incarnate.

0
0

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia