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3 months 2 weeks ago

Fear for the Other, fear for the other man's death is my fear, but is in no way an individual's taking fright.

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The Levinas reader by Levinas, Emmanuel p. 84
4 months 3 weeks ago

Written words differ from spoken words in being material structures. A spoken word is a process in the physical world, having an essential time-order; a written word is a series of pieces of matter, having an essential space-order.

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An Outline of Philosophy Ch.4 Language, 1927
1 month 4 days ago

What we see as death, empty space, or nothingness is only the trough between the crests of this endlessly waving ocean. It is all part of the illusion that there should seem to be something to be gained in the future, and that there is an urgent necessity to go on and on until we get it. Yet just as there is no time but the present, and no one except the all-and-everything, there is never anything to be gained-though the zest of the game is to pretend that there is.

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p. 96
2 months 2 days ago

It's easy to support the status quo if one is not another of its victims.

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Reply to Meet the people who want to turn predators into herbivores, TreeHugger, 4 Dec. 2015
3 months 2 weeks ago

The development of the human mind has practically extinguished all feelings, except a few sporadic kinds, like sound, colors, smells, warmth, etc., which now appear to be disconnected and separate.

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1 month 2 weeks ago

Rosa Luxemburg is an outstanding example of a type of mind that is often met with in the history of Marxism and appears to be specially attracted by the Marxist outlook. It is characterized by slavish submission to authority, together with a belief that in that submission the values of scientific thought can be preserved. No doctrine was so well suited as Marxism to satisfy both these attitudes, or to provide a mystification combining extreme dogmatism with the cult of "scientific" thinking, in which the disciple could find mental and spiritual peace. Marxism thus played the part of a religion for the intelligentsia, which did not prevent some of them, like Rosa Luxemburg herself, from trying to improve the deposit of faith by reverting to first principles, thus strengthening their own belief that they were independent of dogma.

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(pp. 94-5)
4 months 3 weeks ago

Words are good servants but bad masters.

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As quoted by Laura Huxley, in conversation with Alan Watts about her memoir This Timeless Moment (1968), in Pacifica Archives #BB2037
1 month 2 weeks ago

We must now ask how changes of this sort can come about, considering first discoveries, or novelties of fact, and then inventions, or novelties of theory. That distinction between discovery and invention or between fact and theory will, however, immediately prove to be exceedingly artificial.

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p. 52
3 weeks 1 day ago

The various philosophies of life presented themselves as a conquest of materialism, or in any case, they readily claimed it. That does not change anything: their valuations, revaluations, and explanations of disvalue have been emptied into the over-all secularization stream, where they have only hastened the tendency to unlearn, which is a neutralizing process, after all.

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3 months 3 weeks ago

The Life according to Reason consists herein, -that the Individual forget himself in the Race, place his own life in the life of the Race, and dedicate it thereto;-the Life opposed to Reason, on the contrary, consists in this, that the Individual think of nothing but himself, love nothing but himself and in relation to himself, and set his whole existence in his own personal well-being alone: -and since we may briefly call that which is according to Reason good, and that which is opposed to Reason evil, so there is but One Virtue, to forget one's own personality;-and but One Vice,-to make self the object of our thoughts.

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p. 33
3 months 2 weeks ago

Felicity is a continual progress of the desire from one object to another, the attaining of the former being still but the way to the latter.The cause whereof is that the object of man's desire is not to enjoy once only, and for one instant of time, but to assure forever the way of his future desire. And therefore the voluntary actions and inclinations of all men tend not only to the procuring, but also to the assuring of a contented life, and differ only in the way, which ariseth partly from the diversity of passions in diverse men, and partly from the difference of the knowledge or opinion each one has of the causes which produce the effect desired.

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The First Part, Chapter 11, p. 47
4 months 3 weeks ago

The Austrians are a highly civilised race, half-surrounded by Slavs in a relatively backward state of culture. ... Servia, a country so barbaric that a man can secure the throne by instigating the assassination of his predecessor, is engaged constantly in fermenting the racial discontent of men of the same race who are Austrian subjects.

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War: The Offspring of Fear (1914), quoted in Ray Monk, Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude, 1872-1921 (1996), p. 373
4 months 3 weeks ago

An individual may perceive a way of life, or a method of social organisation, by which more of the desires of mankind could be satisfied than under the existing method. If he perceives truly, and can persuade men to adopt his reform, he is justified. Without rebellion, mankind would stagnate, and injustice would be irremediable.

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Ch. 15: Power and moral codes
4 months 2 weeks ago

With a drunken man do not walk on the road.

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1 month 2 weeks ago

Consider, for example, the state of Science generally, in Europe, at this period. It is admitted, on all sides, that the Metaphysical and Moral Sciences are falling into decay, while the Physical are engrossing, every day, more respect and attention. In most of the European nations there is now no such thing as a Science of Mind; only more or less advancement in the general science, or the special sciences, of matter.

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4 months 3 weeks ago

A spectre is haunting Europe; the spectre of Communism.

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Preamble, paragraph 1, line 1.
3 months 3 weeks ago

How many women thus waste life away the prey of discontent, who might have practised as physicians, regulated a farm, managed a shop, and stood erect, supported by their own industry, instead of hanging their heads surcharged with the dew of sensibility, that consumes the beauty to which it at first gave lustre.

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Ch. 9
1 month 2 weeks ago

I cannot sufficiently admire the eminence of those men's wits, that have received and held it to be true, and with the sprightliness of their judgments offered such violence to their own senses, as that they have been able to prefer that which their reason dictated to them, to that which sensible experiments represented most manifestly to the contrary. ...I cannot find any bounds for my admiration, how that reason was able in Aristarchus and Copernicus, to commit such a rape on their senses, as in despite thereof to make herself mistress of their credulity.

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Thomas Salusbury translation (1661) p. 301 as quoted by Edwin Arthur Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science
4 months 3 weeks ago

It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.

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On Liberty, 1859
2 weeks 6 days ago

He was a man who looked at what ought to be done, not to the reputation which is got by a man's acts.

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I, 16
3 months 5 days ago

Passion, intellect, moral activity - these three have never been satisfied in a woman. In this cold and oppressive conventional atmosphere, they cannot be satisfied. To say more on this subject would be to enter into the whole history of society, of the present state of civilisation.

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4 months 3 weeks ago

There is something in human history like retribution; and it is a rule of historical retribution that its instrument be forged not by the offended, but by the offender himself. The first blow dealt to the French monarchy proceeded from the nobility, not from the peasants. The Indian revolt does not commence with the ryots, tortured, dishonoured and stripped naked by the British, but with the sepoys, clad, fed and petted, fatted and pampered by them.

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In an article written for the New York Daily Tribune, September 16, 1857
4 months 3 weeks ago

But, if it will help ease your irritated souls, please know, dearly departed, that you have ruined our lives.

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Aegistheus, Act 2
4 months 3 weeks ago

The present hour is always wealthiest when it is poorer than the future ones, as that is the pleasantest site which affords the pleasantest prospect.

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Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 210
1 month 2 weeks ago

It was a rude gross error, that of counting the Great Man a god. Yet let us say that it is at all times difficult to know what he is, or how to account of him and receive him!

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3 months 3 weeks ago

Spirit: Do not be deceived by sophists and half philosophers; things do not appear to thee by means of any representatives. Of the thing that exists, and that can exist, thou art conscious immediately ; thou, thyself, art that of which thou art conscious. By a fundamental law of thy being thou art thus presented to thyself, and thrown out of thyself.

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Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 53
1 month 2 weeks ago

It is certain that nature inclines us toward the amorous orgy, just as much as toward the gastronomic orgy, and that while both are blameworthy in the excess, they would become praiseworthy in an order in which they could be equilibrated.

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Charles Fourier: The Visionary and His World, J. Beecher (1986), p. 310
4 months 3 weeks ago

The frontiers are not east or west, north or south, but wherever a man fronts a fact, though that fact be his neighbor, there is an unsettled wilderness between him and Canada, between him and the setting sun, or, farther still, between him and it.

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5 months 3 weeks ago

Beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may.

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3 months 2 weeks ago

Our questions and answers are in part determined by the historical tradition in which we find ourselves. We apprehend truth from our own source within the historical tradition. The content of our truth depends upon our appropriating the historical foundation. Our own power of generation lies in the rebirth of what has been handed down to us. If we do not wish to slip back, nothing must be forgotten; but if philosophising is to be genuine our thoughts must arise from our own source. Hence all appropriation of tradition proceeds from the intentness of our own life. The more determinedly I exist, as myself, within the conditions of the time, the more clearly I shall hear the language of the past, the nearer I shall feel the glow of its life.

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2 weeks 5 days ago

It is somewhat strange to me, that neither the Spagyrists themselves, nor yet their Adversaries, should have taken notice that Chymists have rather supposed than evinced, that the Analysis of bodies by fire, or even that at least some Analysis is the onely instrument of investigating what Ingredients mixt bodies are made up of, since in divers cases That may be discovered by Composition as well as by Resolution; as it may appear, that Vitriol consists of metalline parts (whether Martial, or Venereal, or both) associated by Coagulation with acid ones, one may, I say, discover this as well by making true Vitriol with Spirit (improperly called Oil) of Sulphur, or that of Salt, as by distilling or Resolving Vitriol by the fire.

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4 months 3 weeks ago

The soul is subject to dollars.

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par. 6
5 months 1 week ago

For it still seemed to me that it is not we who sin, but some other nature sinned in us. And it gratified my pride to be beyond blame, and when I did anything wrong not to have to confess that I had done wrong. I loved to excuse my soul and to accuse something else inside me (I knew not what) but which was not I. But, assuredly, it was I, and it was my impiety that had divided me against myself. That sin then was all the more incurable because I did not deem myself a sinner.

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A. Outler, trans. (Dover: 2002), Book 5, Chapter 10, p. 77
3 months 1 week ago

Objectification is above all exteriorization, the alienation of spirit from itself.

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p. 63
3 months 3 weeks ago

If there is to be any philosophy at all, this contradiction must be resolved - and the solution of this problem, or answer to the question: how can we think both of Presentations as conforming to objects, and objects as conforming to presentations? is, not the first, but the highest task of transcendental philosophy.

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3 months 2 weeks ago

He felt neither guilt nor distress at the pleasure with which he was now filled by the proximity of this young creature, and when he discovered in himself even physical symptoms of his inclination he did not take fright, but continued cheerfully and serenely to see Nick whenever the ordinary run of his duties suggested it, congratulating himself upon the newly achieved solidity and rational calm of his spiritual life.

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The Bell (1958) p. 91
3 months 2 weeks ago

Meditation on any theme, if positive and honest, inevitably separates him who does the meditating from the opinion prevailing around him, from that which ... can be called "public" or "popular" opinion.

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p. 15
3 months 2 weeks ago

If, as I believe, the ends of men are many, and not all of them are in principle compatible with each other, then the possibility of conflict - and of tragedy - can never wholly be eliminated from human life, either personal or social. The necessity of choosing between absolute claims is then an inescapable characteristic of the human condition. This gives its value to freedom as Acton conceived of it - as an end in itself, and not as a temporary need, arising out of our confused notions and irrational and disordered lives, a predicament which a panacea could one day put right.

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3 months 5 days ago

Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves. If we do not understand the language in which they are written, we miss a great deal of what we know and tell ourselves in those hours when we are not busy manipulating the outside world.

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As quoted in The New York Times
1 month 1 week ago

Lay hold of today's task, and you will not need to depend so much upon tomorrow's. While we are postponing, life speeds by.

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5 months 6 days ago

You are in the same manner surrounded with a small circle of persons... full of desire. They demand of you the benefits of desire... You are therefore properly the king of desire. ...equal in this to the greatest kings of the earth... It is desire that constitutes their power; that is, the possession of things that men covet.

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3 months 6 days ago

The characteristic of the really great writer is the ability of his mind to to suddenly leap beyond his ordinary human values, into sudden perception of universal values.

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p. 33
2 months 2 weeks ago

Hayek fails to account either for the passion among intellectuals for equality, or for the resulting success of socialists and their egalitarian successors in driving the liberal idea from the stage of politics. This passion for equality is not a new thing, and indeed pre-dates socialism by many centuries, finding its most influential expression in the writings of Rousseau. There is no consensus as to how equality might be achieved, what it would consist in if achieved, or why it is so desirable in the first place. But no argument against the cogency or viability of the idea has the faintest chance of being listened to or discussed by those who have fallen under its spell.

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Hayek and conservatism, in Edward Feser (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hayek
4 months 2 weeks ago

To be an intellectual really means to speak a truth that allows suffering to speak. That is, it creates a vision of the world that puts into the limelight the social misery that is usually hidden or concealed by the dominant viewpoints of a society. "Intellectual" in that sense simply means those who are willing to reflect critically upon themselves as well as upon the larger society and to ascertain whether there is some possibility of amelioration and betterment.

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"Chekhov, Coltrane, and Democracy: Interview by David Lionel Smith." in The Cornel West Reader. Basic Books. 2000. p. 551. ISBN 978-0-465-09110-2.
1 month 3 weeks ago

Some anarchists have claimed not merely that we would be better off without a state, but that any state necessarily violates people's moral rights and hence is intrinsically immoral. Our starting point then, though nonpolitical, is by intention far from nonmoral. Moral philosophy sets the background for, and boundaries of, political philosophy. What persons may and may not do to one another limits what they may do through the apparatus of a state, or do to establish such an apparatus.

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Ch. 1 : Why State of Nature Theory?; Political Philosophy, p. 6
3 weeks 3 days ago

What is the purpose of this struggle? This is what the wretched self-seeking mind of man is always asking, forgetting that the Great Spirit does not toil within the bounds of human time, place, or casualty. The Great Spirit is superior to these human questionings. It teems with many rich and wandering drives which to our shallow minds seem contradictory; but in the essence of divinity they fraternize and struggle together, faithful comrades-in-arms. The primordial Spirit branches out, overflows, struggles, fails, succeeds, trains itself. It is the Rose of the Winds.

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