Skip to main content

Main navigation

☰ ˟
  • Home
  • Articulation
  • Contact
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham
5 months 2 days ago
The principle of utility judges any...

The principle of utility judges any action to be right by the tendency it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interests are in question... if that party be the community the happiness of the community, if a particular individual, the happiness of that individual.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Introduction, 1789 edition
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
4 weeks 1 day ago
The abolition of the evil is...

The abolition of the evil is not impossible; it ought never therefore to be despaired of. Every plan should be adopted, every experiment tried, which may do something towards the ultimate object.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
The first thinker was, without a...

The first thinker was, without a doubt, the first man obsessed by why. An unaccustomed mania, not at all contagious: rare indeed are those who suffer from it, who are a prey to questioning, and who can accept no given because they were born in consternation.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
5 months 1 week ago
It is true that may hold...

It is true that may hold in these things, which is the general root of superstition; namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Sylva Sylvarum Century X, 1627
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
4 months 4 weeks ago
In the deepest heart of all...

In the deepest heart of all of us there is a corner in which the ultimate mystery of things works sadly.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"Is Life Worth Living?"
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
4 months 3 days ago
In no other country in the...

In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or more alert than in the United States, and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward doctrines which in any way threaten the way property is owned.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book Three, Chapter XXI.
Philosophical Maxims
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
4 months 3 weeks ago
Technically speaking, since our complex societies...

Technically speaking, since our complex societies are highly susceptible to interferences and accidents,they certainly offer ideal opportunities for a prompt disruption of normal activities. These disruptions can, with minimum expense, have considerably destructive consequences. Global terrorism is extreme both in its lack of realistic goals and in its cynical exploitation of the vulnerability of complex systems.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Habermas (2004) in: Giovanna Borradori (2004) Philosophy in a Time of Terror: : Dialogues with Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida. p. 34
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 2 weeks ago
The true Church of England, at...

The true Church of England, at this moment, lies in the Editors of its Newspapers. These preach to the people daily, weekly; admonishing kings themselves; advising peace or war, with an authority which only the first Reformers, and a long-past class of Popes, were possessed of; inflicting moral censure; imparting moral encouragement, consolation, edification; in all ways diligently "administering the Discipline of the Church."

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
3 months 2 weeks ago
We cannot grasp any idea, any...

We cannot grasp any idea, any organ of meditation, we cannot possess it in full force, until we have felt and sensed it, as much so as if it were an odor or a color.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 2 weeks ago
The truth is sum, ergo cogito...

The truth is sum, ergo cogito - I am, therefore I think, although not everything that is thinks. Is not consciousness of thinking above all consciousness of being? Is pure thought possible, without consciousness of self, without personality? Can there exist pure knowledge without feeling, without that species of materiality which feelings lends to it? Do we not perhaps feel thought, and do we not feel ourselves in the act of knowing and willing? Could not the man in the stove [Descartes] have said: "I feel, therefore I am"? or "I will, therefore I am"? And to feel oneself, is it not perhaps to feel oneself imperishable?

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
3 months 2 weeks ago
The mass-man sees in the State...

The mass-man sees in the State an anonymous power, and feeling himself, like it, anonymous, he believes that the State is something of his own. Suppose that in the public life of a country some difficulty, conflict, or problem presents itself, the mass-man will tend to demand that the State intervene immediately and undertake a solution directly with its immense and unassailable resources. This is the gravest danger that to-day threatens civilisation: State intervention; the absorption of all spontaneous social effort by the State.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter XIII: The Greatest Danger, The State
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
4 weeks 1 day ago
The question Whether one generation of...

The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water. Yet it is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also, among the fundamental principles of every government. The course of reflection in which we are immersed here on the elementary principles of society has presented this question to my mind; & that no such obligation can be so transmitted I think very capable of proof. I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, 'that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living': that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it. The portion occupied by any individual ceases to be his when himself ceases to be, & reverts to the society.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Letter to James Madison,
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
5 months 1 day ago
Where there is friendship…

Where there is friendship, there is our natural soil.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Letter to Nicolas-Claude Thieriot, 1734
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
2 months 6 days ago
The British state has defaulted on...

The British state has defaulted on its core functions while attempting to remake society.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
New Statesman, 9 October 2024
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
Just now
I find that....
0
⚖0
Main Content / General
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
1 month 2 weeks ago
A free man must be able...

A free man must be able to endure it when his fellow men act and live otherwise than he considers proper. He must free himself from the habit, just as soon as something does not please him, of calling for the police.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 1 : The Foundations of Liberal Policy § 11 : The Limits of Governmental Activity
Philosophical Maxims
Ian Hacking
Ian Hacking
3 months 1 week ago
Statistics began as the systematic study...

Statistics began as the systematic study of quantitative facts about the state.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter 12, Political Arithmetic, p. 102.
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 3 weeks ago
In television, images are projected at...

In television, images are projected at you. You are the screen. The images wrap around you. You are the vanishing point.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The diplomat, Issues 197-208, 1966, p. 20
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
4 months 4 weeks ago
The survival of democracy depends on...

The survival of democracy depends on the ability of large numbers of people to make realistic choices in the light of adequate information.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter 6 (p. 47)
Philosophical Maxims
Chrysippus
Chrysippus
4 months 2 weeks ago
Wise people are in want of...

Wise people are in want of nothing, and yet need many things. On the other hand, nothing is needed by fools, for they do not understand how to use anything, but are in want of everything.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in Moral Epistles by Seneca, iii. 10.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 4 weeks ago
The first premise of all human...

The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organisation of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Volume I; Part 1; "Feuerbach. Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook"; Section A, "Idealism and Materialism".
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
3 months 2 weeks ago
Without a strategic retreat into the...

Without a strategic retreat into the self, without vigilant thought, human life is impossible. Call to mind all that mankind owes to certain great withdrawals into the self! It is no chance that all the great founders of religions preceded their apostolates by famous retreats. Buddha withdraws to the forest; Mahomet withdraws to his tent, and even there he withdraws from his tent by wrapping his head in his cloak; above all, Jesus goes apart into the desert for forty days.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 35
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
4 months 3 days ago
The power of the periodical press...

The power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter XI.
Philosophical Maxims
Judith Butler
Judith Butler
3 months 1 day ago
Although it is commonly supposed that...

Although it is commonly supposed that war making is the specific activity of nations, the blind rage that motivates war destroys the very social bonds that make nations possible. Of course, it can fortify the nationalism of a nation, producing a provisional coherence bolstered by war and enmity, but it also erodes the social relations that make politics possible. The power of destruction unleashed by war breaks social ties and produces anger, revenge, and distrust ("embitterment") such that it becomes unclear whether reparation is possible, undermining not only those relations that may have been built in the past, but also the future possibility of peaceful coexistence.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 154
Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
4 weeks 1 day ago
To farm is to be placed...

To farm is to be placed absolutely.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"Imagination in Place"
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 6 days ago
Age imprints more wrinkles in the...

Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book III, Ch. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 4 weeks ago
These principles it is necessary strictly...

These principles it is necessary strictly to attend to, because they will serve much to explain the whole course both of government and real property, wherever the German nations obtained a settlement; the whole of their government depending for the most part upon two principles in our nature,-ambition, that makes one man desirous, at any hazard or expense, of taking the lead amongst others; and admiration, which makes others equally desirous of following him from the mere pleasure of admiration, and a sort of secondary ambition, one of the most universal passions among men. These two principles, strong both of them in our nature, create a voluntary inequality and dependence.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
An Essay towards an Abridgment of English History (1757-c. 1763), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI (1856), p. 282
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
5 months 3 weeks ago
He is a dreamer of ancient...

He is a dreamer of ancient times, or rather, of the myths of what ancient times used to be. Such men are harmless in themselves, but their queer lack of realism makes them fools for others.

1
⚖1
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
5 months 4 weeks ago
The truly good and wise man...

The truly good and wise man will bear all kinds of fortune in a seemly way, and will always act in the noblest manner that the circumstances allow.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 months 4 weeks ago
A king is history's slave. Bk....

A king is history's slave.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Bk. IX, ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 4 weeks 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.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Considerations by the Way
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson
3 months 3 weeks ago
All the living hold together, and...

All the living hold together, and all yield to the same tremendous push. The animal takes its stand on the plant, man bestrides animality, and the whole of humanity, in space and in time, is one immense army galloping beside and before and behind each of us in an overwhelming charge able to beat down every resistance and clear the most formidable obstacles, perhaps even death.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Creative Evolution (1907), Chapter III. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1911, p. 271
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months ago
There's a Bible on that shelf...

There's a Bible on that shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire - poison and antidote.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
In Kenneth Harris Talking To: Bertrand Russell, 1971
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 2 weeks ago
"You will have less money." Yes,...

"You will have less money." Yes, and less trouble. "Less influence." Yes, and less envy.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
5 months 3 weeks ago
This is the end of the...

This is the end of the web of the statesman activity: the direct interweaving of the characters of restrained and courageous men, when the kingly science has drawn them together by friendship and community of sentiment into a common life, and having perfected the most glorious and the best of all textures, clothes with it all the inhabitants of the state, both slaves and freemen, holds them together by this fabric, and omitting nothing which ought to belong to a happy state, rules and watches over them.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
4 months 4 days ago
In the deep discovery of the...

In the deep discovery of the Subterranean world, a shallow part would satisfy some enquirers.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter I
Philosophical Maxims
Niels Bohr
Niels Bohr
1 month 1 week ago
No, no, you are not thinking,...

No, no, you are not thinking, you are just being logical.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
In response to those who made purely formal or mathematical arguments, as quoted in What Little I Remember (1979) by Otto Robert Frisch, p. 95
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 4 weeks ago
I believe it to be this;...

I believe it to be this; that my will, absolutely of itself, and without the intervention of any instrument that might weaken its effect, shall act in a sphere perfectly congenial - reason upon reason, spirit upon spirit; in a sphere to which it does not give the laws of life, of activity, of progress, but which has them in itself, therefore, upon self-active reason. But spontaneous, self-active reason is will. The law of the transcendental world must, therefore, be a Will.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p.110
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
3 months 1 week ago
Power is more 'spacious' than violence....

Power is more 'spacious' than violence. And violence becomes power if it 'gives itself more time.' Looked at from this perspective, power rests on an excess of space and time.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
4 months 4 weeks ago
The phenomenon of the will [in...

The phenomenon of the will [in Epictetus ] [...] a different mental ability whose chief characteristic is that it speaks an imperative even when it commands nothing but our ability to think. The goal is to annihilate reality insofar it concerns me.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Hannah Arendt Lecture on Thinking
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 2 weeks ago
And yet life…

And yet life, Lucilius, is really a battle.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
2 months 3 weeks 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.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
UR Samtiden - Verklighetens magi 27 October 2012.
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
4 months 4 weeks ago
"If a nation expects to be...

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free," said Jefferson, "it expects what never was and never will be."

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter 4 (p. 34)
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
4 months 2 weeks ago
For a man petticoat government is...

For a man petticoat government is the limit of insolence.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
3 weeks 5 days ago
A brilliant man is his own...

A brilliant man is his own best company, unless he can find other company of the same sort.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
5 months 3 days ago
Beauty is no quality in things...

Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. One person may even perceive deformity, where another is sensible of beauty; and every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to regulate those of others.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Part I, Essay 23: Of The Standard of Taste
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 2 weeks ago
Yet with every allowance, one feels...

Yet with every allowance, one feels it difficult to see how any mortal ever could consider this Koran as a Book written in Heaven, too good for the Earth; as a well-written book, or indeed as a book at all; and not a bewildered rhapsody; written, so far as writing goes, as badly as almost any book ever was!

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
4 months 3 weeks ago
My intention was not to deal...

My intention was not to deal with the problem of truth, but with the problem of the truth-teller, or of truth telling... [W]ho is able to tell the truth, about what, with what consequences, and with what relations to power. ...[W]ith the question of the importance of telling the truth, knowing who is able to tell the truth, and knowing why we should tell the truth, we have the roots of what we could call the 'critical' tradition in the West.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
A. J. Ayer
A. J. Ayer
3 months 3 weeks ago
The principles of logic and mathematics...

The principles of logic and mathematics are true simply because we never allow them to be anything else. And the reason for this is that we cannot abandon them without contradicting ourselves, without sinning against the rules which govern the use of language, and so making our utterances self-stultifying. In other words, the truths of logic and mathematics are analytic propositions or tautologies.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 77.
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 4 weeks ago
Suppose that I wish to deserve...

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
▼ Source
source
Orestes to Electra, Act 2
Philosophical Maxims
  • Load More

User login

  • Create new account
  • Reset your password

Social

☰ ˟
  • Main Feed
  • Philosophical Maxims

Civic

☰ ˟
  • Propositions
  • Issue / Solution

Users

☰ ˟
  • All users
  • Historical Figures

Who's new

  • Søren Kierkegaard
  • Jesus
  • Friedrich Nietzsche
  • VeXed
  • Slavoj Žižek

Who's online

There are currently 0 users online.

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia