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Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
1 month 2 weeks ago
The invasion... exhibits in stark terms,...

The invasion... exhibits in stark terms, the choice that is before us today between maintaining a liberal government that respects the rights of individuals, or moving over to a form of centralized illiberal dictatorship, even if that... illiberal government is somehow democratically legitimated. ...That's the central issue in global politics today. ...That's basically what the... Ukraine invasion is about, and that's why... all liberal societies that care about those individual freedoms... have a very powerful interest in the outcome of that war, because Putin and Russia are at the center of an international network of illiberal forces that are seeking to overturn liberal values in virtually every part of the world, and therefore... that's all part of a larger global struggle over our fundamental liberal values.

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26:50 Question & Answer period follows
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 months 3 days ago
What excited me was the recognition...

What excited me was the recognition that this was simply another version of the problem that had obsessed me all of my life -- the problem of those moments when life seems entirely delightful, when we experience a sensation of what G.K. Chesterton called "absurd good news." Life normally strikes most of us as hard, dull and unsatisfying; but in these moments, consciousness seems to glow and expand, and all the contradictions seem to be resolved. Which of the two visions is true? My own reflections had led me to conclude that the vision of "absurd good news" is somehow broader and more comprehensive than the feeling that life is dull, boring and meaningless. Boredom is basically a feeling of narrowness, and surely a narrow vision is bound to be less true than a broad one?

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p. 16
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 2 weeks ago
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like...

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
Life is too full of death...

Life is too full of death for death to be able to add anything to it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
4 months 1 week ago
The only justifiable stopping place for...

The only justifiable stopping place for the expansion of altruism is the point at which all whose welfare can be affected by our actions are included within the circle of altruism. This means that all beings with the capacity to feel pleasure or pain should be included; we can improve their welfare by increasing their pleasures and diminishing their pains.

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Chapter 4, Reason, p. 120
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
3 months 1 week ago
With the disintegration of all that...

With the disintegration of all that Nietzsche had revered, existence, to him, had become a desert in which only one thing remained, namely that which had relentlessly forced him into this path: truthfulness that knows no limits and is not subject to any condition.

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p. 45
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
4 months 3 weeks ago
It is also a study peculiarly...

It is also a study peculiarly adapted to an early stage in the education of philosophical students, since it does not presuppose the slow process of acquiring, by experience and reflection, valuable thoughts of their own.

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(pp. 19-20)
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
5 months 4 days ago
So it is more…

So it is more useful to watch a man in times of peril, and in adversity to discern what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off, reality remains.

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Book III, lines 55-58 (reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations)
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
3 months 1 week ago
The young man who has not...

The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool.

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Ch. 3, P. 57
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
2 months 6 days ago
Only two suppositions seem to be...

Only two suppositions seem to be open to us - Either each species of crocodile has been specially created, or it has arisen out of some pre-existing form by the operation of natural causes. Choose your hypothesis; I have chosen mine. I can find no warranty for believing in the distinct creation of a score of successive species of crocodiles in the course of countless ages of time.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
3 months 1 week ago
'Resignation' is a keynote in Comte's...

Resignation' is a keynote in Comte's writings, deriving directly from assent to invariable social laws. 'True resignation, that is, a disposition to endure necessary evils steadfastly and without any hope of compensation therefore, can result only from a profound feeling for the invariable laws that govern the variety of natural phenomena.

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P. 345
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
4 months 3 weeks ago
Society should treat all equally well...

Society should treat all equally well who have deserved equally well of it, that is, who have deserved equally well absolutely. This is the highest abstract standard of social and distributive justice; towards which all institutions, and the efforts of all virtuous citizens, should be made in the utmost degree to converge.

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Ch. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 1 week ago
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
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 2 weeks ago
Talents differ; all is well and...

Talents differ; all is well and wisely put; If I cannot carry forests on my back, Neither can you crack a nut.

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Fable
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months 3 weeks ago
The title wise is, for the...

The title wise is, for the most part, falsely applied. How can one be a wise man, if he does not know any better how to live than other men? - if he is only more cunning and intellectually subtle?

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p. 487
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
4 months 3 weeks ago
And as to you, Sir, treacherous...

And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger) and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any. 

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Letter to George Washington, 30 July 1796
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
We dread the future only when...

We dread the future only when we are not sure we can kill ourselves when we want to.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 3 weeks ago
In order to....
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Main Content / General
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 months 3 days ago
During his lifetime Gurdjieff did not...

During his lifetime Gurdjieff did not publish any books on the techniques of his teaching, and his pupils were bound to secrecy on the subject. Since his death in Paris in 1949, however, many of his works have been published, and there has been a flood of memoirs by disciples and admirers. Gurdjieff was in almost ever respect the antithesis of Aleister Crowley. Whereas Crowley craved publicity, Gurdjieff shunned it. Crowley was forgotten for two decades after his death; Gurdjieff on the contrary, has become steadily better known, and his influence continues to grow. One of the main reasons for this is that there was so little of the charlatan about him. He is no cult figure with hordes of gullible disciples. What he has to teach makes an appeal to the intelligence, and can be fully understood only by those who are prepared to make a serious effort.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
3 months 2 weeks ago
We have a priori reasons for...

We have a priori reasons for believing that in every sentence there is some one order of words more effective than any other; and that this order is the one which presents the elements of the proposition in the succession in which they may be most readily put together.

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Pt. I, sec. 3, "The Principle of Economy Applied to Sentences"
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 months 3 weeks ago
After having thus successively taken each...

After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the government then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence: it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

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Book Four, Chapter VI.
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
4 months 3 weeks ago
We see in tragedy the noblest...

We see in tragedy the noblest men, after a long conflict and suffering, finally renounce forever all the pleasure of life and the aims till then pursued so keenly, or cheerfully and willingly give up life itself.

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Book 1
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
4 months 3 weeks ago
Since the great foundation of fear...

Since the great foundation of fear is pain, the way to harden and fortify children against fear and danger is to accustom them to suffer pain. This 'tis possible will be thought, by kind parents, a very unnatural thing towards their children; and by most, unreasonable...

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Sec. 115
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 2 weeks ago
Every innovation scraps its immediate predecessor...

Every innovation scraps its immediate predecessor and retrieves still older figures - it causes floods of antiques or nostalgic art forms and stimulates the search for museum pieces.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 1 week ago
A new commandment I give unto...

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

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13:34-35 KJV
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 months 3 weeks ago
He was as great as a...

He was as great as a man can be without morality.

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Said of Napoleon (1842)
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
4 months 1 week ago
Struggling to be brief…

Struggling to be brief I become obscure.

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Line 25
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
Nothing deserves to be undone, doubtless...

Nothing deserves to be undone, doubtless because nothing deserved to be done.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Mannheim
Karl Mannheim
2 weeks 3 days ago
To-day, there are too many points...

To-day, there are too many points of view of equal value and prestige, each showing the relativity of the other, to permit us to take any one position and to regard it as impregnable and absolute. Only this socially disorganized intellectual situation makes possible the insight, hidden until now by a generally stable social structure and the practicability of certain traditional norms, that every point of view is particular to a social situation.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 2 weeks ago
We are not necessarily doubting that...

We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.

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Letters of C. S. Lewis (29 April 1959), para. 1, p. 285 - as reported in The Quotable Lewis (1989), p. 469
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 2 weeks ago
Looking for God-or Heaven-by exploring space...

Looking for God-or Heaven-by exploring space is like reading or seeing all Shakespeare's plays in the hope that you will find Shakespeare as one of the characters or Stratford as one of the places. Shakespeare is in one sense present at every moment in every play.

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"The Seeing Eye", in Christian Reflections (1967), p. 167
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
3 weeks ago
We are not simple people who...

We are not simple people who believe in happiness; nor weaklings who crumple to the ground in distress at the first reverse; nor skeptics observing the bloody effort of marching humanity from the lofty heights of a mocking, sterile wit. Believing in the fight, though we entertain no illusions about it, we are armed against every disappointment.

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Toda Raba
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
4 months 1 week ago
He who does wrong is more...

He who does wrong is more unhappy than he who suffers wrong.

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Philosophical Maxims
Will Durant
Will Durant
1 month 1 week ago
Civilization exists by geological consent, subject...

Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.

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What is Civilization? Ladies' Home Journal, LXIII
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 4 weeks ago
It was truly very good reason...

It was truly very good reason that we should be beholden to God only, and to the favour of his grace, for the truth of so noble a belief, since from his sole bounty we receive the fruit of immortality, which consists in the enjoyment of eternal beatitude.... The more we give and confess to owe and render to God, we do it with the greater Christianity.

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Ch. 12
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 1 week ago
The greatest height of heroism to...

The greatest height of heroism to which an individual, like a people, can attain is to know how to face ridicule; better still, to know how to make oneself ridiculous and not to shrink from the ridicule.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 1 week ago
For is not a Symbol ever,...

For is not a Symbol ever, to him who has eyes for it, some dimmer or clearer revelation of the God-like? B

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k. III, ch. 3.
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
4 months 1 week ago
Mediocrity in poets…

Mediocrity in poets has never been tolerated by either men, or gods, or booksellers.

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Lines 372-373
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 1 week ago
Verily I say unto thee, That...

Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.

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26:34 (KJV) Said to Peter.
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 2 weeks ago
Radio provides a speed-up of information...

Radio provides a speed-up of information that also causes acceleration in other media. It certainly contracts the world to village size and creates insatiable village tastes for gossip, rumour, and personal malice.

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(p. 24)
Philosophical Maxims
L.P. Jacks
L.P. Jacks
2 weeks 3 days ago
The spirit of fellowship, with its...

The spirit of fellowship, with its attendant cheerfulness, is in the air. It is comparatively easy to love one's neighbor when we realize that he and we are common servants and common sufferers in the same cause. A deep breath of that spirit has passed into the life of England. No doubt the same thing has happened elsewhere.

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The Peacefulness of Being at War. in The New Republic (11 September 1915), p. 152.
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
4 months 3 weeks ago
We do not, however, reckon that...

We do not, however, reckon that trade disadvantageous which consists in the exchange of the hard-ware of England for the wines of France;and yet hard-ware is a very durable commodity, and were it not for this continual exportation, might too be accumulated for ages together, to the incredible augmentation of the pots and pans of the country. But it readily occurs that the number of such utensils is in every country necessarily limited by the use which there is for them;that it would be absurd to have more pots and pans than were necessary for cooking the victuals usually consumed there;and that if the quantity of victuals were to increase, the number of pots and pans would readily increase along with it, apart of the increased quantity of victuals being employed in purchasing them, or in maintaining an additional number of workman whose business it was to make them.

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Chapter I, p. 471.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
2 weeks 6 days ago
God forbid we should ever be...

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

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Letter to William Stephens Smith (13 November 1787). Manuscript at the Library of Congress.
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
5 months 2 weeks ago
The best way to describe anyone...

The best way to describe anyone is to give an example of the kind of thing he would do.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 months 2 weeks ago
To evoke in oneself a feeling...

To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed through words, so to convey this so that others may experience the same feeling - this is the activity of art.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Mannheim
Karl Mannheim
2 weeks 3 days ago
The thought of every group is...

The thought of every group is seen as arising out of its life conditions. Thus, it becomes the task of the sociological history of thought to anlayse without regard for party biases all the factors in the actually existing social situation which may influence thought. This sociologically oriented history of ideas is destined to provide modern men with a revised view of the whole historical process.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
3 months 4 days ago
We cannot think first and act...

We cannot think first and act afterwards. From the moment of birth we are immersed in action, and can only fitfully guide it by taking thought.

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Ch. 12: "Religion and Science", p. 261
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 2 weeks ago
Language is a part of our...

Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.

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Journal entry (14 May 1915), p. 48
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
3 months 1 week ago
This language controls by reducing the...

This language controls by reducing the linguistic forms and symbols of reflection, abstraction, development, contradiction; by substituting images for concepts. It denies or absorbs the transcendent vocabulary; it does not search for but establishes and imposes truth and falsehood.

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p. 103
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
Good nature is, of all moral...

Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for the others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish for ever.

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Ch. 1: In Praise of Idleness
Philosophical Maxims
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