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Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 3 weeks ago
It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the...

It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the universal favor with which the New Testament is outwardly received, and even the bigotry with which it is defended, there is no hospitality shown to, there is no appreciation of, the order of truth with which it deals.

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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 week 1 day ago
As long as you live…

As long as you live, keep learning how to live.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 weeks ago
A word spoken in season, at...

A word spoken in season, at the right moment, is the mother of ages.

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Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 561.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 3 weeks ago
England, it is true, in causing...

England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindostan, was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is not the question. The question is, can mankind fulfil its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution.

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"The British Rule in India," New York Daily Tribune, 10 June 1853.
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
2 months 2 weeks ago
When we see a great man...

When we see a great man desiring power instead of his real goal we soon recognize that he is sick, or more precisely that his attitude to his work is sick. He overreaches himself, the work denies itself to him, the incarnation of the spirit no longer takes place, and to avoid the threat of senselessness he snatches after empty power. This sickness casts the genius on to the same level as those hysterical figures who, being by nature without power, slave for power, in order that they may enjoy the illusion that they are inwardly powerful, and who in this striving for power cannot let a pause intervene, since a pause would bring with it the possibility of self-reflection and self-reflection would bring collapse.

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p. 180
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 3 weeks ago
The sculptural qualities of the image...

The sculptural qualities of the image dim down the purely personal identity.

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(p. 369)
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 1 week ago
The object before us....
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Main Content / General
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 3 weeks ago
Pornography and violence are by-products of...

Pornography and violence are by-products of societies in which private identity has been...destroyed by sudden environmental change.

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Letter to Clare Westcott, November 26 1975. Letters of Marshall McLuhan, p. 514
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 months 1 week ago
Some philosophers fail to distinguish propositions...

Some philosophers fail to distinguish propositions from judgments; ... But in the real world it is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. The importance of truth is that it adds to interest.

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p. 259.
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
2 months 2 weeks ago
The little world of childhood with...

The little world of childhood with its familiar surroundings is a model of the greater world. The more intensively the family has stamped its character upon the child, the more it will tend to feel and see its earlier miniature world again in the bigger world of adult life. Naturally this is not a conscious, intellectual process.

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The Theory of Psychoanalysis
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 week 1 day ago
That most knowing….

That most knowing of persons - gossip.

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Line 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 3 weeks ago
Aeschylus had a clear eye for...

Aeschylus had a clear eye for the commonest things. His genius was only an enlarged common sense. He adverts with chaste severity to all natural facts. His sublimity is Greek sincerity and simpleness, naked wonder which mythology had not helped to explain... Whatever the common eye sees at all and expresses as best it may, he sees uncommonly and describes with rare completeness. The multitude that thronged the theatre could no doubt go along with him to the end... The social condition of genius is the same in all ages. Aeschylus was undoubtedly alone and without sympathy in his simple reverence for the mystery of the universe.

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January 29, 1840
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 3 weeks ago
To found a great empire for...

To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers; but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers.

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Chapter VII, Part Third, p. 667.
Philosophical Maxims
Montesquieu
Montesquieu
2 months 1 week ago
If one only wished to be...

If one only wished to be Sad, this could be horrible for the rest of civilisation; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.

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As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts : Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors, Both Ancient and Modern (1891) edited by Tryon Edwards.
Philosophical Maxims
Al-Ghazali
Al-Ghazali
3 months ago
The lowest degree of education is...

The lowest degree of education is to distinguish oneself from the ignorant ordinary man. The educated man does not loathe honey even if he finds it in the surgeon's cupping-glass; he realizes that the cupping glass does not essentially alter the honey. The natural aversion from it in such a case rests on popular ignorance, arising from the fact that the cupping-glass is made only for impure blood. Men imagine that the blood is impure because it is in the cupping-glass, and are not aware that the impurity is due to a property.

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III. The Classes of Seekers, p. 31.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
Self-pity is not as sterile as...

Self-pity is not as sterile as we suppose. Once we feel its mere onset, we assume a thinker's attitude, and come to think of it, we come to think!

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 3 weeks ago
One always dies too soon...

One always dies too soon - or too late. And yet, life is there, finished: the line is drawn, and it must all be added up. You are nothing other than your life.

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Inès, Act 1, sc. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
Melancholy redeems this universe, and yet...

Melancholy redeems this universe, and yet it is melancholy that separates us from it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 2 weeks ago
Ye know not what manner of...

Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. (KJV) 9:55-56 Rebuking James and John for asking if he would command fire to come down from heaven, to consume a village of Samaritans for not receiving them, because they seemed to be headed for Jerusalem.

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Jesus on usury from the Sermon on the Mount, Luke 6:34-35
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 3 weeks ago
Undeterred by this examination, the French...

Undeterred by this examination, the French Revolution gave rise to ideas which led beyond the ideas of the entire old world order. The revolutionary movement which began in 1789 in the Cercle Social, which in the middle of its course had as its chief representatives Leclerc and Roux, and which finally with Babeuf's conspiracy was temporarily defeated, gave rise to the communist idea which Babeuf's friend Buonarroti re-introduced in France after the Revolution of 1830. This idea, consistently developed, is the idea of the new world order.

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Chapter 6, 3
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
4 months 3 weeks ago
It is impossible for motion to...

It is impossible for motion to subsist without place, and void, and time.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 3 weeks ago
Visual space is the space of...

Visual space is the space of detachment. Audile-tactile space is the space of involvement.

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(p. 194)
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 months 1 week ago
I also am other than what...

I also am other than what I imagine myself to be. To know this is forgiveness.

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p. 200
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
2 months 3 weeks ago
Opinion is ultimately determined by the...

Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect.

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Pt. IV, Ch. 30 : General Considerations
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
3 months 3 weeks ago
The heroes in paganism correspond exactly...

The heroes in paganism correspond exactly to the saints in popery, and holy dervises in MAHOMETANISM. The place of, HERCULES, THESEUS, HECTOR, ROMULUS, is now supplied by DOMINIC, FRANCIS, ANTHONY, and BENEDICT. Instead of the destruction of monsters, the subduing of tyrants, the defence of our native country; whippings and fastings, cowardice and humility, abject submission and slavish obedience, are become the means of obtaining celestial honours among mankind.

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Part X - With regard to courage or abasement
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
3 months 2 weeks ago
One common strategy on which we...

One common strategy on which we should all be able to agree is to take steps to reduce the risk of human extinction when those steps are also highly effective in benefiting existing sentient beings. For example, eliminating or decreasing the consumption of animal products will benefit animals, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and lessen the chances of a pandemic resulting from a virus evolving among the animals crowded into today's factory farms, which are an ideal breeding ground for viruses. That therefore looks like a high-priority strategy.

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Chapter 15: Preventing Human Extinction (p. 177)
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
There is no means of proving...

There is no means of proving it is preferable to be than not to be.

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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 week 1 day ago
Our plans miscarry…

Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind.

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Line 2 Alternate translation: If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable. (translator unknown).
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
2 months 4 weeks ago
That children dream not the first...

That children dream not the first half year, that men dream not in some countries, with many more, are unto me sick men's dreams, dreams out of the Ivory gate, and visions before midnight.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 3 weeks ago
Fear? If I have gained anything...

Fear? If I have gained anything by damning myself, it is that I no longer have anything to fear.

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Act 1
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 3 weeks ago
I live in the Managerial Age,...

I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern.

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1961 Preface
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
2 months 6 days ago
Those who will not worship at...

Those who will not worship at the shrine of money, need not hope for recognition. On the other hand, they will also not have to think other people's thoughts or wear other people's political clothes. They will not have to proclaim as true that which is false, nor praise that as humanitarian which is brutal.

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Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
4 months 6 days ago
Of the truths within our reach......

Of the truths within our reach... the mind and the heart are as doors by which they are received into the soul, but... few enter by the mind, whilst they are brought in crowds by the rash caprices of the will, without the council of reason.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
2 months 1 week ago
Our life is a hope which...

Our life is a hope which is continually converting itself into memory and memory in its turn begets hope. Give us leave to live! The eternity that is like an eternal present, without memory and without hope, is death. Thus do ideas exist in the God-Idea, but not thus do men live in the living God, in the God-Man.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 3 weeks ago
In reality, the labourer belongs to...

In reality, the labourer belongs to capital before he has sold himself to capital.

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Vol. I, Ch. 23, pg. 633.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
3 months 3 weeks ago
Scientific theories are distinguished from myths......

Scientific theories are distinguished from myths... in being criticizable, and... open to modifications... They can be neither verified nor probabilified.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
3 months 2 weeks ago
Between the fine point of the...

Between the fine point of the brush and the steely gaze, the scene is about to yield up its volume.

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Las Meninas
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 3 weeks ago
I see that sensible men and...

I see that sensible men and conscientious men all over the world were of one religion.

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The Preacher
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 weeks ago
Never till now, in the history...

Never till now, in the history of an Earth which to this hour nowhere refuses to grow corn if you will plough it, to yield shirts if you will spin and weave in it, did the mere manual two-handed worker (however it might fare with other workers) cry in vain for such "wages" as he means by "fair wages," namely food and warmth!

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 1 day ago
Not because Socrates said so, but...

Not because Socrates said so, but because it is in truth my own disposition - and perchance to some excess - I look upon all men as my compatriots, and embrace a Pole as a Frenchman, making less account of the national than of the universal and common bond.

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Ch. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 3 weeks ago
By nature a philosopher is not...

By nature a philosopher is not in genius and disposition half so different from a street porter, as a mastiff is from a greyhound.

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Chapter II, p. 17.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 3 weeks ago
The circulation of commodities is the...

The circulation of commodities is the original precondition of the circulation of money.

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Notebook I, The Chapter on Money, p. 107.
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 months 1 week ago
The human soul has need of...

The human soul has need of truth and of freedom of expression. The need for truth requires that intellectual culture should be universally accessible, and that it should be able to be acquired in an environment neither physically remote nor psychologically alien.

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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 week 1 day ago
One crime has to be….

One crime has to be concealed by another.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 months 2 weeks ago
A religious symbol does not rest...

A religious symbol does not rest on any opinion. And error belongs only with opinion. One would like to say: This is what took place here; laugh, if you can.

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Ch. 7 : Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 123
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 1 day ago
Wonder is the foundation of all...

Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, research is the means of all learning, and ignorance is the end.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 3 weeks ago
Our conviction that the world is...

Our conviction that the world is meaningless is due in part to the fact (discussed in a later paragraph) that the philosophy of meaningless lends itself very effectively to furthering the ends of political and erotic passion; in part to a genuine intellectual error - the error of identifying the world of science, a world from which all meaning has deliberately been excluded, with ultimate reality.

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Ch. 14, p. 309 [2012 reprint]
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 3 weeks ago
Go where he will, the wise...

Go where he will, the wise man is at home, His hearth the earth, his hall the azure dome.

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Wood-notes, st. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 3 weeks ago
Blood doubly unites us, for we...

Blood doubly unites us, for we share the same blood and we have spilled blood.

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Orestes to Electra, Act 2
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
3 months 2 weeks ago
Ethics increases the range of what...

Ethics increases the range of what it is about ourselves that we can will-extending it from our actions to the motives and character traits and dispositions from which they arise. We want to be able to will the sources of our actions down to the very bottom.

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p. 135.
Philosophical Maxims
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