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Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 months 1 week ago
The meaning of experience is typically...

The meaning of experience is typically one generation behind the experience. The content of new situations, both private and corporate, is typically the preceding situation.

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quoted in "The Prospects of Recording" by Glenn Gould, The Glenn Gould reader, 1984, p. 345
Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
5 months 2 weeks ago
The demands of a free populace,...

The demands of a free populace, too, are very seldom harmful to liberty, for they are due either to the populace being oppressed or to the suspicious that it is going to be oppressed... and, should these impressions be false, a remedy is provided in the public platform on which some man of standing can get up, appeal to the crowd, and show that it is mistaken. And though, as Tully remarks, the populace may be ignorant, it is capable of grasping the truth and readily yields when a man, worthy of confidence, lays the truth before it.

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Book 1, Ch. 4 (as translated by LJ Walker and B Crick)
Philosophical Maxims
Mencius
Mencius
2 months 4 days ago
If the king loves music, there...

If the king loves music, there is little wrong in the land.

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Discourses, as quoted in "I Want to Know!" by Ivan Gogol Esipoff, The Etude, Vol. LXIII, No. 9 (September 1945), p. 496
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
5 months 2 days ago
Leading a human life is a...

Leading a human life is a full-time occupation, to which everyone devotes decades of intense concern.

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"The Absurd" (1971), p. 15.
Philosophical Maxims
Hermann Weyl
Hermann Weyl
1 month 3 weeks ago
The Greeks made Space the subject-matter...

The Greeks made Space the subject-matter of a science of supreme simplicity and certainty. and certainty Out of it grew, in the mind of classical antiquity, the idea of pure science. Geometry became one of the most powerful expressions of that sovereignty of the intellect that inspired the thought of those times. At a later epoch, when the intellectual despotism of the Church... had crumbled, and a wave of scepticism threatened to sweep away all that had seemed most fixed, those who believed in Truth clung to Geometry as to a rock, and it was the highest ideal of every scientist to carry on his science "more geometrico". Matter... could be measured as a quantity and... its characteristic expression as a substance was the Law of Conservation of Matter... This, which has hitherto represented our knowledge of space and matter, and which was in many quarters claimed by philosophers as a priori knowledge, absolutely general and necessary, stands to-day a tottering structure.

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Introduction
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
2 months 6 days ago
So today... red and blue voters...

So today... red and blue voters rely on a completely different set of facts. ...Polls ...suggest that a substantial... majority of Republican voters believe that the Democrats... stole the election, and that Joe Biden is not the legitimate president... When you don't have a common factual basis, you... reinforce the kinds of filter bubbles that people have started to move into.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
5 months 1 week ago
Politics is, as it were, the...

Politics is, as it were, the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its two opposite halves, - sometimes split into quarters, it may be, which grind on each other. Not only individuals, but States, have thus a confirmed dyspepsia, which expresses itself, you can imagine by what sort of eloquence. Thus our life is not altogether a forgetting, but also, alas! to a great extent, a remembering of that which we should never have been conscious of, certainly not in our waking hours. Why should we not meet, not always as dyspeptics, to tell our bad dreams, but sometimes as eupeptics, to congratulate each other on the ever glorious morning? I do not make an exorbitant demand, surely.

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p. 495
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
4 months 3 weeks ago
Most men and women, by birth...

Most men and women, by birth or nature, lack the means to advance in wealth and power, but all have the ability to advance in knowledge.

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As quoted in The Golden Ratio (2002) by Mario Livio
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
5 months 2 weeks ago
But the Jews are so hardened...

But the Jews are so hardened that they listen to nothing; though overcome by testimonies they yield not an inch. It is a pernicious race, oppressing all men by their usury and rapine. If they give a prince or magistrate a thousand florins, they extort twenty thousand from the subjects in payment. We must ever keep on guard against them.

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863
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 months 1 week ago
Every innovation scraps its immediate predecessor...

Every innovation scraps its immediate predecessor and retrieves still older figures - it causes floods of antiques or nostalgic art forms and stimulates the search for museum pieces.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
5 months 1 week ago
He sees as well as you...

He sees as well as you do that courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty, or mercy, which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions.

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Letter XXIX
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
6 months 2 weeks ago
This is the mistake which I...
This is the mistake which I seem to make eternally, that I imagine the sufferings of others as far greater than they really are. Ever since my childhood, the proposition, my greatest dangers lie in pity, has been confirmed again and again.
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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 3 weeks ago
No man expects…

No man expects such exact fidelity as a traitor.

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De Ira (On Anger): Book 2, cap. 28, line 7.
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
6 months 1 week ago
Misfortune shows those who are not...

Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
4 months 4 days ago
Science is the knowledge of Consequences,...

Science is the knowledge of Consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another: by which, out of that we can presently do, we know how to do something else when we will, or the like, another time.

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The First Part, Chapter 5, p. 21
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 1 week ago
I am convinced that those societies...

I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments.

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Letter to Colonel Edward Carrington, Paris,
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
5 months 2 days ago
To a wise man, the whole...

To a wise man, the whole earth is open; for the native land of a good soul is the whole earth.

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Freeman (1948), p. 166 \
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
2 months 3 weeks ago
The consciousness of brutes would appear...

The consciousness of brutes would appear to be related to the mechanism of their body simply as a collateral product of its working, and to be as completely without any power of modifying that working as the steam-whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive engine is without influence upon its machinery. Their volition, if they have any, is an emotion indicative of physical changes, not a cause of such changes.

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Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
3 months 1 week ago
He is a despicable sage whose...

He is a despicable sage whose wisdom does not profit himself.

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Maxim 629
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
5 months 2 weeks ago
Avarice, the spur of industry, is...

Avarice, the spur of industry, is so obstinate a passion, and works its way through so many real dangers and difficulties, that it is not likely to be scared by an imaginary danger, which is so small, that it scarcely admits of calculation. Commerce, therefore, in my opinion, is apt to decay in absolute governments, not because it is there less secure, but because it is less honourable.

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Part I, Essay 12: Of Civil Liberty
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 1 week ago
I agree with you that there...

I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents... The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature, for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society... Every one, by his property, or by his satisfactory situation, is interested in the support of law and order. And such men may safely and advantageously reserve to themselves a wholesome control over their public affairs, and a degree of freedom, which, in the hands of the canaille [the masses] of the cities of Europe, would be instantly perverted to the demolition and destruction of everything public and private.

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Letter to John Adams
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
1 month 3 weeks ago
The awareness that we are all...

The awareness that we are all human beings together has become lost in war and through politics. We have reached the point of regarding each other only as members of a people either allied with us or against us and our approach; prejudice, sympathy, or antipathy are all conditioned on that. Now we must rediscover the fact that we - all together - are human beings, and that we must strive to concede to each other what moral capacity we have. Only in this way can we begin to believe that in other peoples as well as in ourselves there will arise the need for a new spirit which can be the beginning of a feeling of mutual trustworthiness toward each other.

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Radio appeal for peace, Oslo, Norway (30 March 1958); also in Peace or Atomic War (1958) Three Appeals Broadcast from Oslo, Norway, on April 28, 29, and 30, 1958.
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
1 month 3 weeks ago
Only at quite rare moments have...

Only at quite rare moments have I felt really glad to be alive. I could not but feel with a sympathy full of regret all the pain that I saw around me, not only that of men but that of the whole creation. From this community of suffering I have never tried to withdraw myself. It seemed to me a matter of course that we should all take our share of the burden of pain which lies upon the world.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 week 3 days ago
Ethical judgments....
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Main Content / General
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 1 week ago
All, too, will bear in mind...

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 1 week ago
We never repent of having eaten...

We never repent of having eaten too little.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 3 days ago
A witty statesman said, you might...

A witty statesman said, you might prove anything by figures.

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Ch. 2, Statistics.
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
5 months 1 week ago
It is said that…

It is said that God is always on the side of the big battalions.

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Letter to François-Louis-Henri Leriche (6 February 1770) Note: In his Notebooks (c.1735-c.1750)
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
3 months ago
To sum up the whole, we...

To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god. The aim of the Baconian philosophy was to provide man with what he requires while he continues to be man. The aim of the Platonic philosophy was to raise us far above vulgar wants. The aim of the Baconian philosophy was to supply our vulgar wants. The former aim was noble; but the latter was attainable.

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'Lord Bacon', The Edinburgh Review (July 1837), quoted in T. B. Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to The Edinburgh Review, Vol. II (1843), p. 395
Philosophical Maxims
Joseph de Maistre
Joseph de Maistre
1 month 1 week ago
Nothing great has great beginnings...

Nothing great has great beginnings.

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XXIII, p. 73
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 months 1 week ago
The media themselves are the avant-garde...

The media themselves are the avant-garde of our society. Avant-garde no longer exists in painting, music and poetry, it's the media themselves.

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p. 274
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
4 months 4 days ago
The apparatus defeats its own purpose...

The apparatus defeats its own purpose if its purpose is to create a humane existence on the basis of a humanized nature.

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pp. 145-146
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 2 weeks ago
God never sends evils…

God never sends evils.

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Ch. 12
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
5 months 2 weeks ago
Despotic government supports itself by abject...

Despotic government supports itself by abject civilization, in which debasement of the human mind, and wretchedness in the mass of the people, are the chief criterions. Such governments consider man merely as an animal; that the exercise of intellectual faculty is not his privilege; that he has nothing to do with the laws but to obey them; and they politically depend more upon breaking the spirit of the people by poverty, than they fear enraging it by desperation.

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Means by Which the Fund Is to Be Created
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
6 months 1 day ago
The aged are cared for until...

The aged are cared for until death; adults are employed in jobs that make full use of their abilities; and children are nourished, educated, and fostered;...orphans... the disabled and the diseased are all well taken care of....

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
5 months 1 week ago
Philosophy of religion ... really amounts...

Philosophy of religion ... really amounts to ... philosophizing on certain favorite assumptions that are not confirmed at all.

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E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 143
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 1 week ago
Having destroyed all my connections, burned...

Having destroyed all my connections, burned my bridges, I should feel a certain freedom, and in fact I do. One so intense I am afraid to rejoice in it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 months 3 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
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
5 months 1 week ago
Philosophy stands in the same relation...

Philosophy stands in the same relation to the study of the actual world as masturbation to sexual love.

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The German Ideology, International Publishers, ed. Chris Arthur, p. 103.
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
5 months 1 week ago
Tout existant naît sans raison, se...

Tout existant naît sans raison, se prolonge par faiblesse et meurt par rencontre. Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance.

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Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
5 months 2 weeks ago
Through failures one becomes intelligent; but...

Through failures one becomes intelligent; but the one who has trained himself in this subject so that he can make others wise through their own failures, has used his intelligence. Ignorance is not stupidity.

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Kant, Immanuel (1996), page 100
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 3 weeks ago
If you set a high value...

If you set a high value on liberty, you must set a low value on everything else.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 4 weeks ago
And the soul, my soul at...

And the soul, my soul at least, longs for something else, not absorption, not quietude, not peace, not appeasement, it longs ever to approach and never to arrive, it longs for the never-ending longing, for an eternal hope which is eternally renewed but never wholly fulfilled. And together with all this, it longs for an eternal lack of something and an eternal suffering. A suffering, a pain, thanks to which it grows without ceasing in consciousness and longing. Do not write upon the gate of heaven that sentence which Dante placed over the threshold of hell, Lasciate ogni speranza! [Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate: All hope abandon, ye who enter in] Do not destroy time!

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 months 3 weeks ago
The problem is that sex is...

The problem is that sex is the most dangerous way of trying to achieve personal growth, because the life force has mixed it so liberally with a string sense of "magic", which, in the attempt at possession turns out to be an illusion. The attempt to possess a woman through an act of sex is as frustrating as trying to possess the scent of a rose by cooking and eating it.

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p. 250
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 1 week ago
Every man would like to be...

Every man would like to be God, if it were possible; some few find it difficult to admit the impossibility.

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Ch. 1: The Impulse to Power
Philosophical Maxims
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
5 months 6 days ago
The dissimulation of the woven texture...

The dissimulation of the woven texture can in any case take centuries to undo its web: a web that envelops a web, undoing the web for centuries; reconstituting it too as an organism, indefinitely regenerating its own tissue behind the cutting trace, the decision of each reading. There is always a surprise in store for the anatomy or physiology of any criticism that might think it had mastered the game, surveyed all the threads at once, deluding itself, too, in wanting to look at the text without touching it, without laying a hand on the "object," without risking- which is the only chance of entering into the game, by getting a few fingers caught- the addition of some new thread.

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Plato's Pharmacy
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 1 week ago
His power to adore is responsible...

His power to adore is responsible for all his crimes: a man who loves a god unduly forces other men to love his god, eager to exterminate them if they refuse.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
6 months 2 weeks ago
One must have a good memory...
One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises one makes.
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Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
4 months 1 week ago
The tendency to regard continuity, in...

The tendency to regard continuity, in the sense in which I shall define it, as an idea of prime importance in philosophy conveniently may be be termed synechism. The present paper is intended chiefly to show what synechism is, and what it leads to.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 months 1 week ago
The bible belt is oral territory...

The bible belt is oral territory and therefore despised by the literati.

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The Critic, Volume 33, Thomas More Association, 1974, p. 12
Philosophical Maxims
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