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Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 weeks 2 days ago
In life, in true life, there...

In life, in true life, there can be nothing better than what is. Wanting something different than what is, is blasphemy.

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p. 209
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
4 days ago
All religions promise...
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Montesquieu
Montesquieu
1 month 3 days ago
In a free nation, it matters...

In a free nation, it matters not whether individuals reason well or ill; it is sufficient that they do reason. Truth arises from the collision and from hence springs liberty, which is a security from the effects of reasoning.

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Quoted by Thomas Erskine in the trial of Thomas Paine, 1792
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 2 weeks ago
Whatever bitterness and hate may be...

Whatever bitterness and hate may be found in the movements which we are to examine, it is not bitterness or hate, but love, that is their mainspring. It is difficult not to hate those who torture the objects of our love. Though difficult, it is not impossible; but it requires a breadth of outlook and a comprehensiveness of understanding which are not easy to preserve amid a desperate contest. If ultimate wisdom has not always been preserved by Socialists and Anarchists, they have not differed in this from their opponents; and in the source of their inspiration they have shown themselves superior to those who acquiesce ignorantly or supinely in the injustices and oppressions by which the existing system is preserved.

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Introduction, p. 10.
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
4 weeks 1 day ago
One of the major problems of...

One of the major problems of our society is that so many people are too intelligent to accept religion, but not intelligent or strong-minded enough to look for acceptable alternatives; in the same way, many people are strong-minded enough not to want to be 'organization men', but incapable of seeing beyond an act of protest. These situations produce a sense of being 'between two stools', lacking real motive; a sense of mental strain is produced that may find its outlet in violence, or in organised anti-social behaviour.

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p. 224, Crimes of Freedom -- and their cure
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 1 week ago
What is a rebel? A man...

What is a rebel? A man who says no. 

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Chapter 1
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
4 weeks ago
Nothing can well be imagined more...

Nothing can well be imagined more painful than the present position of woman, unless, on the one hand, she renounces all outward activity and keeps herself within the magic sphere, the bubble of her dreams; or, on the other, surrendering all aspiration, she gives herself to her real life, soul and body. For those to whom it is possible, the latter is best; for out of activity may come thought, out of mere aspiration can come nothing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 3 weeks ago
A little folly is desirable in...

A little folly is desirable in him that will not be guilty of stupidity.

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Book III, Ch. 9. Of Vanity
Philosophical Maxims
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
2 weeks 4 days ago
The big advantage of being a...

The big advantage of being a chemistry major was the freedom to be tasteless.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
2 months 3 weeks ago
We have now completed both the...

We have now completed both the spiritual and the temporal government, that is, the divine and the paternal authority and obedience. But here now we go forth from our house among our neighbors to learn how we should live with one another, every one himself toward his neighbor. Therefore God and government are not included in this commandment nor is the power to kill, which they have taken away. For God has delegated His authority to punish evil-doers to the government instead of parents, who aforetime (as we read in Moses) were required to bring their own children to judgment and sentence them to death. Therefore, what is here forbidden is forbidden to the individual in his relation to any one else, and not to the government.

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[The Large Catechism] by Martin Luther, Translated by F. Bente and W.H.T. Dau Published in: Triglot Concordia: The Symbolical Books of the Ev. Lutheran Church (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921) pp. 565-773,
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
1 month 2 weeks ago
The normal present connects the past...

The normal present connects the past and the future through limitation. Contiguity results, crystallization by means of solidification. There also exists, however, a spiritual present that identifies past and future through dissolution, and this mixture is the element, the atmosphere of the poet.

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Fragment No. 109
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 weeks 2 days ago
In the upper, rich, more educated...

In the upper, rich, more educated classes of European society doubt arose as to the truth of that understanding of life which was expressed by Church Christianity. When, after the Crusades and the maximum development of papal power and its abuses, people of the rich classes became acquainted with the wisdom of the classics and saw, on the one hand, the reasonable lucidity of the teachings of the ancient sages, and on the other hand, the incompatibility of the Church doctrine with the teaching of Christ, they found it impossible to continue to believe the Church teaching.

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Philosophical Maxims
Empedocles
Empedocles
2 months 6 days ago
Fools -- for their thoughts….

Fools -- for their thoughts are not well-considered who suppose that not-being exists or that anything dies and is wholly annihilated.

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fr. 11
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 weeks 2 days ago
The workmen's revolution, with the terrors...

The workmen's revolution, with the terrors of destruction and murder, not only threatens us, but we have already been living upon its verge during the last thirty years, and it is only by various cunning devices that we have been postponing the crisis... The hatred and contempt of the oppressed people are increasing, and the physical and moral strength of the richer classes are decreasing: the deceit which supports all this is wearing out, and the rich classes have nothing wherewith to comfort themselves.

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What is to be Done (1899) p. 262
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 month 1 week ago
Religions are not true or false,...

Religions are not true or false, but better or worse.

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This statement is presented in quotes in The Philosophy of Religion and Advaita Vedanta (2008) by Arvind Sharma, p. 216
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 month 1 day ago
Fertilisation of the soul is the...

Fertilisation of the soul is the reason for the necessity of art.

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Ch. 13: "Requisites for Social Progress", p. 283
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
1 month 3 weeks ago
Poetry must have something in it...

Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
2 months 2 weeks ago
We inherit the warlike type; and...

We inherit the warlike type; and for most of the capacities of heroism that the human race is full of we have to thank this cruel history. Dead men tell no tales, and if there were any tribes of other type than this they have left no survivors. Our ancestors have bred pugnacity into our bone and marrow, and thousands of years of peace won't breed it out of us. The popular imagination fairly fattens on the thought of wars. Let public opinion once reach a certain fighting pitch, and no ruler can withstand it. In the Boer war both governments began with bluff, but they couldn't stay there; the military tension was too much for them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
2 months 1 week ago
A real subjection is born mechanically...

A real subjection is born mechanically from a fictitious relation. So it is not necessary to use force to constrain the convict to good behavior, the madman to calm, the worker to work, the schoolboy to application, the patient to the observation of the regulations.

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Part Four, Complete and austere institutions
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 2 weeks ago
The only possible solution which will...

The only possible solution which will preserve Germany's honor and Germany's interest is, we repeat, a war with Russia.

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Marx-Engels Gesamt-Ausgabe, Erste Abteilung, Volume 7, March to December 1848, p. 304.
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
2 months 3 weeks ago
Nothing is terrible except….

Nothing is terrible except fear itself.

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De Augmentis Scientiarum, Book II, "Fortitudo"
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
2 months 6 days ago
The pleasures that give most joy...

The pleasures that give most joy are the ones that most rarely come.

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Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
2 weeks ago
God looks at the clean hands,...

God looks at the clean hands, not the full ones.

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Maxim 715
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
1 month 2 days ago
Conformity is an imitation of grace....

Conformity is an imitation of grace.

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p. 146
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 1 week ago
It seems to me that, in...

It seems to me that, in every culture, I come across a chapter headed Wisdom. And then I know exactly what is going to follow: Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

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Conversation of 1934
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 1 week ago
That history just unfolds, independently of...

That history just unfolds, independently of a specified direction, of a goal, no one is willing to admit.

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Philosophical Maxims
René Descartes
René Descartes
2 months 3 weeks ago
What I have given in the...

What I have given in the second book on the nature and properties of curved lines, and the method of examining them, is, it seems to me, as far beyond the treatment in the ordinary geometry, as the rhetoric of Cicero is beyond the a, b, c of children.

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Letter to Marin Mersenne (1637) as quoted by D. E. Smith & M. L. Latham Tr. The Geometry of René Descartes
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
4 weeks 1 day ago
In a book called Symbolism, Its...

In a book called Symbolism, Its Meaning and Effect, Whitehead points out that perception is usually a matter of symbols, just like language; I say I see a book when I actually see a red oblong. The Transactionists (who have been influenced by Whitehead rather than Husserl) take this one stage further, and point out that when I 'perceive' something, I am actually making a bet with myself that what I perceive is what I think it is. In order to act and live at all, I have to make these bets; I cannot afford to make absolutely certain that things are what I think they are. But this means that we should not take our perceptions at face value, any more than Nietzsche was willing to take philosophy at its face value; we must allow for prejudice and distortion.

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p. 66
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
2 months 3 weeks ago
Who then to frail mortality shall...

Who then to frail mortality shall trust But limns the water, or but writes in dust.

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Philosophical Maxims
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
2 weeks 4 days ago
I do feel that evolution is...

I do feel that evolution is being controlled by some sort of divine engineer. I can't help thinking that. And this engineer knows exactly what he or she is doing and why, and where evolution is headed. That's why we've got giraffes and hippopotami and the clap.

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On evolution vs. "intelligent design", interviewed by Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
2 months 2 weeks ago
To this I answer: That force...

To this I answer: That force is to be opposed to nothing, but to unjust and unlawful force. Whoever makes any opposition in any other case, draws on himself a just condemnation, both from God and man...

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Second Treatise of Government, Ch. XVIII, sec. 204
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
1 month 3 weeks ago
The most formidable of all the...

The most formidable of all the ills that threaten the future of the Union arises from the presence of a black population upon its territory; and in contemplating the cause of the present embarrassments, or the future dangers of the United States, the observer is invariably led to this as a primary fact.

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Chapter XVIII.
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 week 6 days ago
It takes intellectual courage to kick...

It takes intellectual courage to kick yourself out of your emotional incredulity and persuade yourself that there is no other rational choice.

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The Intellectual and Moral Courage of Atheism
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
2 days ago
I have never had the least...

I have never had the least sympathy with the a priori reasons against orthodoxy, and I have by nature and disposition the greatest possible antipathy to all the atheistic and infidel school. Nevertheless I know that I am, in spite of myself, exactly what the Christian would call, and, so far as I can see, is justified in calling, atheist and infidel.

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Letter to Charles Kingsley
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 weeks ago
The metropolis today is a classroom;...

The metropolis today is a classroom; the ads are its teachers. The traditional classroom is an obsolete detention home, a feudal dungeon.

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(p. 12)
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 2 weeks ago
...no Monarchy limited or unlimited, nor...

...no Monarchy limited or unlimited, nor any of the old Republics, can possibly be safe as long as this strange, nameless, wild, enthusiastic thing is established in the Center of Europe.

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Letter to John Trevor (January 1791), quoted in Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VI: July 1789-December 1791 (1967), p. 218
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
1 month 1 week ago
The slave frees himself when, of...

The slave frees himself when, of all the relations of private property, he abolishes only the relation of slavery and thereby becomes a proletarian; the proletarian can free himself only by abolishing private property in general.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
2 days ago
We have always thought that Mr....

We have always thought that Mr. Darwin has unnecessarily hampered himself by adhering so strictly to his favourite "Natura non facit saltum." We greatly suspect that she does make considerable jumps in the way of variation now and then, and that these saltations give rise to some of the gaps which appear to exist in the series of known forms.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
2 months 2 weeks ago
Nature may certainly produce whatever can...

Nature may certainly produce whatever can arise from habit: Nay, habit is nothing but one of the principles of nature, and derives all its force from that origin.

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Part 3, Section 16
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
2 months 6 days ago
The mountains will be in labor…

The mountains will be in labor, and a ridiculous mouse will be brought forth.

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Line 139. Horace is hereby poking fun at heroic labours producing meager results; his line is also an allusion to one of Æsop's fables, The Mountain in Labour. Cf. Matthew Paris (AD 1237): Fuderunt partum montes: en ridiculus mus.
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 3 weeks ago
'T is so much to be...

T is so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so. The strange lustre that surrounds him conceals and shrouds him from us; our sight is there broken and dissipated, being stopped and filled by the prevailing light.

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Book III, Ch. 7. Of the Inconveniences of Greatness
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
2 months 2 weeks ago
I am convinced that everything has...

I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges, - astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc.

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M. de Voltaire par M. Bailly et précédées de quelques lettres de M. de Voltaire a l'auteur, Paris 1777, quoted in E. F. Bryant, The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture (2001), Ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 2 weeks ago
If we cannot "practice the presence...

If we cannot "practice the presence of God," it is something to practice the absence of God, to become increasingly aware of our unawareness till we feel like man who should stand beside a great cataract and hear no noise, or like a man in a story who looks in a mirror and finds no face there, or a man in a dream who stretches his hand to visible objects and gets no sensation of touch. To know that one is dreaming is to no longer be perfectly asleep. Bur for news of the fully waking world you must go to my betters.

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"Charity"
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 1 week ago
O ye of little faith, why...

O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread? Do ye not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? Neither the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees?

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16:8-11 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch
1 month 1 week ago
The novel, the novel proper that...

The novel, the novel proper that is, is about people's treatment of each other, and so it is about human values.

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Ch. 10, p. 138
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
2 months 6 days ago
Nor word for word…

Nor word for word too faithfully translate.

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Line 133 (tr. John Dryden)
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
2 months 2 weeks ago
To expect truth to come from...

To expect truth to come from thinking signifies that we mistake the need to think with the urge to know.

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p. 61
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 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.

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The diplomat, Issues 197-208, 1966, p. 20
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
2 weeks ago
There is but a step between...

There is but a step between a proud man's glory and his disgrace.

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Maxim 138
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
2 months 2 weeks ago
A young man before he leaves...

A young man before he leaves the shelter of his father's house, and the guard of a tutor, should be fortify'd with resolution, and made acquainted with men, to secure his virtues, lest he should be led into some ruinous course, or fatal precipice, before he is sufficiently acquainted with the dangers of conversation, and his steadiness enough not to yield to every temptation.

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Sec. 70
Philosophical Maxims
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