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Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
3 months 2 weeks ago
Money, as a matter of principle,...

Money, as a matter of principle, makes everything the same.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee
2 months 2 weeks ago
So-called racial characteristics are not really...

So-called racial characteristics are not really racial at all but are due to the historical experiences of the communities in question.

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Abridgement of Vols. 1-6 by D. C. Somervell
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
1 month 3 days ago
We come from a dark abyss,...

We come from a dark abyss, we end in a dark abyss, and we call the luminous interval life. As soon as we are born the return begins, at once the setting forth and the coming back; we die in every moment. Because of this many have cried out: The goal of life is death! But as soon as we are born we begin the struggle to create, to compose, to turn matter into life; we are born in every moment. Because of this many have cried out: The goal of ephemeral life is immortality! In the temporary living organism these two streams collide ... both opposing forces are holy. It is our duty, therefore, to grasp that vision which can embrace and harmonize these two enormous, timeless, and indestructible forces, and with this vision to modulate our thinking and our action.

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
3 months 2 weeks ago
Art is the symbol of the...

Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.

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The Pre-War Notebook (1933-1939), published in First and Last Notebooks (1970) edited by Richard Rees
Philosophical Maxims
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
2 months 3 weeks ago
You never have to change anything...

You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.

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As quoted in The #1 New York Times Bestseller (1992) by John Bear, p. 93
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 2 days ago
My new trade of nail-making is...

My new trade of nail-making is to me in this country what an additional title of nobility or the ensigns of a new order are in Europe.

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As quoted in The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson, by Henry Wiencek, Smithsonian Magazine,
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
5 months 4 days ago
It is a want of feeling...

It is a want of feeling to talk of priests and bells while so many infants are perishing in the hospitals, and aged and infirm poor in the streets, from the want of necessaries.

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Worship and Church Bells, 1797
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
4 months ago
Philosophy ... bears witness to the...

Philosophy ... bears witness to the deepest love of reflection, to absolute delight in wisdom.

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"Logological Fragments," Philosophical Writings, M. Stolijar, trans. (Albany: 1997) #12
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 3 days ago
All sources of energy upon which...

All sources of energy upon which industry depends are wasted when they are employed; and industry is expending them at a continually increasing rate. Already coal has been largely replaced by oil, and oil is being used up so fast that East and West alike conceive it necessary to their own prosperity to destroy the industry of the other. And what is true of oil is equally true of other natural resources. Every day, many square miles of forest are turned into newspaper, but there is no known process by which newspaper can be turned into forest. You will say that this need not worry us, since newspapers will be replaced by radio, but radio requires electricity, electricity requires power, and power depends upon raw materials.

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Part I: Man and Nature, Ch. 4: The Limits of Human Power, p. 30
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
5 months 2 days ago
It is in the social sphere,...

It is in the social sphere, in the realm of politics and economics, that the Will to Order becomes really dangerous.

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Chapter 3 (p. 22)
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
6 months ago
Law could never, by determining exactly...

Law could never, by determining exactly what is noblest and must just for one and all, enjoin upon them that which is best; for the differences of men and of actions and the fact that nothing, I may say, in human life is ever at rest, forbid any science whatsoever to promulgate any simple rule for everything and for all time. So, that which is persistently simple is inapplicable to things which are never simple.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
5 months 3 days ago
A gun gives you the body,...

A gun gives you the body, not the bird.

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Quoted by Ralph Waldo Emerson, in C. J. Woodbury (ed.) Talks with Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1890
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 3 weeks ago
An intellectual dapperling of these times...

An intellectual dapperling of these times boasts chiefly of his irresistible perspicacity, his "dwelling in the daylight of truth," and so forth; which, on examination, turns out to be a dwelling in the rush-light of "closet logic," and a deep unconsciousness that there is any other light to dwell in or any other objects to survey with it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
1 month 3 days ago
As long as our souls remain...

As long as our souls remain strong, that is all that matters; as long as they don't decline. Because with the fall of certain souls in this world, the world itself will collapse. These are the pillars which support it. They are few, but enough.

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"My Friend Poet. Mount Athos.", Ch. 19, p. 215
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 3 days ago
It is sometimes maintained that racial...

It is sometimes maintained that racial mixture is biologically undesirable. There is no evidence whatever for this view. Nor is there, apparently, any reason to think that Negroes are congenitally less intelligent than white people, but as to that it will be difficult to judge until they have equal scope and equally good social conditions.

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Part II: Man and Man, Ch. 12: Racial Antagonism, p. 108
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
5 months 3 days ago
And now, at half-past ten o'clock,...

And now, at half-past ten o'clock, I hear the cockerels crow in Hubbard's barns, and morning is already anticipated. It is the feathered, wakeful thought in us that anticipates the following day.

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July 11, 1851
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
5 months 3 days ago
Homeliness is almost as great a...

Homeliness is almost as great a merit in a book as in a house, if the reader would abide there. It is next to beauty, and a very high art.

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Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 32
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
5 months 2 days ago
Alexander's career was piracy pure and...

Alexander's career was piracy pure and simple, nothing but an orgy of power and plunder, made romantic by the character of the hero. There was no rational purpose in it, and the moment he died his generals and governors attacked one another.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
5 months 4 days ago
Government has no other end than...

Government has no other end than the preservation of property.

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Second Treatise of Government, Ch. VII. sec. 94
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
4 months 1 week ago
We are constantly railing against the...

We are constantly railing against the passions; we ascribe to them all of man's afflictions, and we forget that they are also the source of all his pleasures ... But what provokes me is that only their adverse side is considered ... and yet only passions, and great passions, can raise the soul to great things. Without them there is no sublimity, either in morals or in creativity. Art returns to infancy, and virtue becomes small-minded.

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As translated in Diderot (1977) by Otis Fellows, p. 39
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
6 months 5 days ago
Socialism itself can hope to exist...
Socialism itself can hope to exist only for brief periods here and there, and then only through the exercise of the extremest terrorism. For this reason it is secretly preparing itself for rule through fear and is driving the word 'justice' into the heads of the half-educated masses like a nail so as to rob them of their reason... and to create in them a good conscience for the evil game they are to play.
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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
1 month 1 week ago
Profound love demands a deep conception...

Profound love demands a deep conception and out of this develops reverence for the mystery of life. It brings us close to all beings, to the poorest and smallest as well as all others.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 3 weeks ago
Here numerous persons, with big wigs...

Here numerous persons, with big wigs many of them, and austere aspect, whom I take to be Professors of the Dismal Science, start up in an agitated vehement manner: but the Premier resolutely beckons them down again.

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Latter Day Pamphlets, No. 1.
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
5 months 2 days ago
The necessity of faith as an...

The necessity of faith as an ingredient in our mental attitude is strongly insisted on by the scientific philosophers of the present day; but by a singularly arbitrary caprice they say that it is only legitimate when used in the interests of one particular proposition, - the proposition, namely, that the course of nature is uniform. That nature will follow to-morrow the same laws that she follows to-day is, they all admit, a truth which no man can know; but in the interests of cognition as well as of action we must postulate or assume it.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks 6 days ago
The multitude is the real...
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Main Content / General
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
1 month 3 days ago
Comrades, I've voyaged long and far...

Comrades, I've voyaged long and far on sea and soul,my eyes have seen disease, gods, ghosts, and men, and yetin no land have I seen a more false, murderous sirenthan that wind-headed, babbling, blind bitch-hound called Hope!

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Odysseus, Book X, line 892
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
6 months ago
It is because you yourself fear...

It is because you yourself fear the propaganda created, after all, only by the stupidity of your own bigots.

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Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
3 months 4 weeks ago
Third, consider the insistency of an...

Third, consider the insistency of an idea. The insistency of a past idea with reference to the present is a quantity which is less, the further back that past idea is, and rises to infinity as the past idea is brought up into coincidence with the present.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 1 week ago
We only labor to stuff the...

We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.

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Book I, Ch. 25
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
5 months 2 weeks ago
The Catholic faith..

The Catholic faith, I now realized could be maintained without presumption. This was especially true after I had heard one or two parts of the Old Testament explained allegorically, whereas before this, when I had interpreted them literally, they had killed me spiritually.

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A. Outler, trans. (Dover: 2002), Book 5, Chapter 14, p. 81.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
5 months 3 days ago
The object before us, to begin...

The object before us, to begin with, material production.

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Introduction, p. 3, first text page, first line.
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 months 2 weeks ago
The very proclaimers of "America first"...

The very proclaimers of "America first" have long before this betrayed the fundamental principles of real Americanism...the other truly great Americans who aimed to make of this country a haven of refuge, who hoped that all the disinherited and oppressed people in coming to these shores would give character, quality and meaning to the country.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
4 months 2 days ago
Originally, ethics has no existence apart...

Originally, ethics has no existence apart from religion, which holds it in solution.

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Ch. 1, The Confusion of Ethical Thought
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
4 weeks 1 day ago
Let it not be in any...

Let it not be in any man's power to say truly of thee that thou art not simple or that thou art not good; but let him be a liar whoever shall think anything of this kind about thee; and this is altogether in thy power.

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X, 32
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
4 months 3 weeks ago
The criticism of the reformers was...

The criticism of the reformers was directed not so much at the weakness or cruelty of those in authority, as at a bad economy of power.

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Chapter Two, pp.. 79
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
3 months 3 weeks ago
Even at the outset, the total...

Even at the outset, the total and massive quality has its uniqueness; even when vague and undefined, it is just that which it is and not anything else. If the perception continues, discrimination inevitably sets in. Attention must move, and as it moves, parts, members, emerge from the background. And if attention moves in a unified direction instead of wandering, it is controlled by the pervading qualitative unity; attention is controlled by it because it operates within it.

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p. 199
Philosophical Maxims
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee
2 months 2 weeks ago
Our western science is a child...

Our western science is a child of moral virtues; and it must now become the father of further moral virtues if its extraordinary material triumphs in our time are not to bring human history to an abrupt, unpleasant and discreditable end.

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"A Turning Point in Man's Destiny", The New York Times Magazine (26 December 1954) p. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
5 months 4 days ago
Whoever heard me assert that the...

Whoever heard me assert that the grey cat playing just now in the yard is the same one that did jumps and tricks there five hundred years ago will think whatever he likes of me, but it is a stranger form of madness to imagine that the present-day cat is fundamentally an entirely different one.

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Quoted by Jorge Luis Borges in his essay "A History of Eternity"
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
5 months 2 days ago
Be gentle with them, Timothy. They...

Be gentle with them, Timothy. They want to be free, but they don't know how. Teach them. Reassure them.

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Reported to be Huxley's last words to Timothy Leary, which Huxley whispered from his deathbed. Quoted in Leary, Timothy (1990) . "Life on a Grounded Space Colony".
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
4 weeks 1 day ago
The best revenge is not to...

The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.

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VI, 6
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
6 months 3 days ago
Irony limits, finitizes, and circumscribes and...

Irony limits, finitizes, and circumscribes and thereby yields truth, actuality, content; it disciplines and punishes and thereby yields balance and consistency.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 1 week ago
To call out for the hand...

To call out for the hand of the enemy is a rather extreme measure, yet a better one, I think, than to remain in continual fever over an accident that has no remedy. But since all the precautions that a man can take are full of uneasiness and uncertainty, it is better to prepare with fine assurance for the worst that can happen, and derive some consolation from the fact that we are not sure that it will happen.

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Ch. 25
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 3 weeks ago
History a distillation of Rumour. Pt....

History a distillation of Rumour.

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Pt. I, Bk. VII, ch. 5.
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
5 months 3 weeks ago
The superior man is satisfied...

The superior man is satisfied and composed; the mean man is always full of distress. The virtuous is frank and open; the non-virtuous is secretive and worrying.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
4 months 1 week ago
There is in fact a manly...

There is in fact a manly and legitimate passion for equality that spurs all men to wish to be strong and esteemed. This passion tends to elevate the lesser to the rank of the greater. But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.

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Chapter III, Part I
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 2 days ago
The end of the human race...

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.

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Civilization
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 3 days ago
Love is better than hate, because...

Love is better than hate, because it brings harmony instead of conflict into the desires of the persons concerned. Two people between whom there is love succeed or fail together, but when two people hate each other the success of either is the failure of the other.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
3 weeks 1 day ago
The really good music, whether...

The really good music, whether of the East or of the West, cannot be analyzed.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
5 months 2 days ago
Every one is familiar with the...

Every one is familiar with the phenomenon of feeling more or less alive on different days. Every one knows on any given day that there are energies slumbering in him which the incitements of that day do not call forth, but which he might display if these were greater. Most of us feel as if we lived habitually with a sort of cloud weighing on us, below our highest notch of clearness in discernment, sureness in reasoning, or firmness in deciding. Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half-awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources.

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The Energies of Men
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 months 2 weeks ago
The vitality of the ordinary members...

The vitality of the ordinary members of society is dependent on its Outsiders.

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Chapter Three, The Romantic Outsider
Philosophical Maxims
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