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8 months 2 weeks ago

Let us rejoice and give thanks. Not only are we become Christians, but we are become Christ. My brothers, do you understand the grace of God that is given us? Wonder, rejoice, for we are made Christ! If He is the Head, and we the members, then together He and we are the whole man.... This would be foolish pride on our part, were it not a gift of his bounty. But this is what He promised by the mouth of the Apostle: You are the body of Christ, and severally His members.

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(1 Cor. 12:27). p. 415
7 months 3 weeks ago

Frazer is much more savage than most of his savages, for they are not as far removed from the understanding of spiritual matter as a twentieth-century Englishman. His explanations of primitive practices are much cruder than the meaning of these practices themselves.

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Ch. 7 : Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 131
8 months 4 days ago

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy, the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.

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"Whether it is useful to maintain the people in superstition," Treatise on Toleration, 1763
8 months 4 days ago

All the entertainment and talk of history is nothing almost but fighting and killing: and the honour and renown that is bestowed on conquerers (who for the most part are but the great butchers of mankind) farther mislead growing youth, who by this means come to think slaughter the laudible business of mankind, and the most heroick of virtues. By these steps unnatural cruelty is planted in us; and what humanity abhors, custom reconciles and recommends to us, by laying it in the way to honour. Thus, by fashioning and opinion, that comes to be a pleasure, which in itself neither is, nor can be any.

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Sec. 116
6 months 2 weeks ago

As more and more women acquired prestige, fame, or money from feminist writings or from gains from feminist movement for equality in the workforce, individual opportunism undermined appeals for collective struggle. Women who were not opposed to patriarchy, capitalism, classism, or racism labeled themselves "feminist." Their expectations were varied. Privileged women wanted social equality with men of their class; some women wanted equal pay for equal work; others wanted an alternative lifestyle. Many of these legitimate concerns were easily co-opted by the ruling capitalist patriarchy.

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p. 7.
8 months 3 days ago

The notion that truths external to the mind may be known by intuition or consciousness, independently of observation and experience, is, I am persuaded, in these times, the great intellectual support of false doctrines and bad institutions. By the aid of this theory, every inveterate belief and every intense feeling, of which the origin is not remembered, is enabled to dispense with the obligation of justifying itself by reason, and is erected into its own all-sufficient voucher and justification. There never was such an instrument devised for consecrating all deep-seated prejudices.

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(pp. 225-226)
4 months 2 weeks ago

There stood Mucius, despising the enemy and despising the fire, and watched his hand as it dripped blood over the fire on his enemy's altar, until Porsenna, envying the fame of the hero whose punishment he was advocating, ordered the fire to be removed against the will of the victim.

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4 months 1 week ago

And so I am not concerned to justify the perpetrators of violence but to enquire into the function of the violence of the working classes in contemporary socialism.

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p. 42
4 months 4 weeks ago

We have come to see that Huxley was right when he said that "a man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes." The evidences of these greater difficulties lie all about us: in the brave and brilliant atheists who have defied the Methodist God, and have become very nervous; in the women who have emancipated themselves from the tyranny of fathers, husbands, and homes, and with the intermittent but expensive help of a psychoanalyst, are now enduring liberty as interior decorators; in the young men and women who are world-weary at twenty-two; in the multitudes who drug themselves with pleasure; in the crowds enfranchised by the blood of heroes who cannot be persuaded to take an interest in their destiny; in the millions, at last free to think without fear of priest or policeman, who have made the moving pictures and the popular newspapers what they are.

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Preface
8 months 2 days ago

Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.

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Essay "Religion and Time" in Vedanta for the Western World (1945) edited by Christopher Isherwood
8 months 2 days ago

One capitalist always kills many.

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Vol. I, Ch. 32, p. 836.
9 months 3 days ago

Death cannot explain itself. The earnestness consists precisely in this, that the observer must explain it to himself.

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8 months 2 days ago

The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.

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Section 1, paragraph 19
8 months 2 days ago

Some of your hurts you have cured, And the sharpest you still have survived, But what torments of grief you endured From evils which never arrived!

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Borrowing From the French
5 months 4 weeks ago

Natural selection is like artificial selection, but without the human chooser. Instead of a human deciding which offspring shall die in which shall reproduce, nature 'decides'. The quotation marks are vital because nature doesn't consciously decide. This might seem too obvious to emphasize, but you'd be surprised by the number of people who think natural selection implies some kind of personal choice. They couldn't be more wrong. It just is the case that some offspring are more likely to die while others have what it takes to survive and reproduce. Therefore, as the generations go by, the average, typical creature in the population becomes ever better at the arts of surviving and reproducing. Ever better, I should specify, when, when measured against some absolute standard.

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Chapter 1, "Facing Mount Rushmore" (p. 34)
8 months 1 day ago

I do not give a damn about the dead. They died for the [Communist] Party and the Party can decide what it wants. I practice a live man's politics, for the living.

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Act 5, sc. 3
8 months 2 days ago

We boil at different degrees.

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Eloquence
6 months 4 weeks ago

Every step closer to my soul excites the scornful laughter of my devils, those cowardly ear-whisperers and poison-mixers. It was easy for them to laugh, since I had to do strange things.

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P. 234
6 months 3 weeks ago

Every intellectual effort sets us apart from the commonplace, and leads us by hidden and difficult paths to secluded spots where we find ourselves amid unaccustomed thoughts.

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p. 15
4 months 1 week ago

It is almost always impossible to evaluate at the time events which you have already experienced, and to understand their meaning with the guidance of their effects. All the more unpredictable and surprising to us will be the course of future events.

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Autobiographical sketch (1970), at Nobelprize.org
6 months 3 weeks ago

He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth.

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Luke 11:23 (KJV)
6 months 3 weeks ago

Desire, to know why, and how, CURIOSITY; such as is in no living creature but Man; so that Man is distinguished, not only by his Reason; but also by this singular Passion from other Animals; in whom the appetite of food, and other pleasures of Sense, by predominance, take away the care of knowing causes; which is a Lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continual and indefatigable generation of Knowledge, exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnal Pleasure.

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The First Part, Chapter 6, p. 26
6 months 3 weeks ago

German idealism rescued philosophy from the attack of British empiricism, and the struggle between the two became not merely a clash of different philosophical school, but a struggle for philosophy as such.

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P. 16
8 months 3 days ago

Man differs from other animals in one very important respect, and that is that he has some desires which are, so to speak, infinite, which can never be fully gratified, and which would keep him restless even in Paradise. The boa constrictor, when he has had an adequate meal, goes to sleep, and does not wake until he needs another meal. Human beings, for the most part, are not like this.

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7 months 2 weeks ago

That which exercises reason is more excellent than that which does not exercise reason; there is nothing more excellent than the universe, therefore the universe exercises reason.

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As quoted in De Natura Deorum by Cicero, ii. 8.; iii. 9.
4 months 2 days ago

Our lives are guided by that general conception of the course of things which has been created by society for social purposes. Our words, our phrases, our forms and processes and modes of thought, are common property, fashioned and perfected from age to age; an heirloom which every succeeding generation inherits as a precious deposit and a sacred trust to be handled on to the next one, not unchanged but enlarged and purified, with some clear marks of its proper handiwork. Into this, for good or ill, is woven every belief of every man who has speech of his fellows. An awful privilege, and an awful responsibility, that we should help to create the world in which posterity will live.

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4 months 1 day ago

The tax upon land values is, therefore, the most just and equal of all taxes. It falls only upon those who receive from society a peculiar and valuable benefit, and upon them in proportion to the benefit they receive. It is the taking by the community, for the use of the community, of that value which is the creation of the community. It is the application of the common property to common uses. When all rent is taken by taxation for the needs of the community, then will the equality ordained by Nature be attained. No citizen will have an advantage over any other citizen save as is given by his industry, skill, and intelligence; and each will obtain what he fairly earns. Then, but not till then, will labor get its full reward, and capital its natural return.

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Book VIII, Ch. 3
7 months 3 weeks ago

The particularity (Jeweiligkeit) of the places and their manifoldness are grounded in space, and the particularity of the time points is grounded in time. That basic characteristic of the thing, that essential determination of the thingness of the thing to be this one (je dieses), is grounded in the essence of space and time. Our question "What is a thing?" includes, therefore, the questions "What is space?" and "What is time?" It is customary The particularity (Jeweiligkeit) os the places.

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p. 16
7 months 3 weeks ago

The organism does not have a point of view: the person or creature does.

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"Panpsychism" (1979), p. 189.
5 months 4 weeks ago

We should be offended when children are denied a proper education. We should be offended when children are told they will spend eternity in hell. We should be offended when medical science, for example stem-cell research, is compromised by the bigoted opinions of powerful and above all well-financed ignoramuses. We should be offended when voodoo, of all kinds, is given equal weight to science. We should be offended by hymen reconstruction surgery. We should be offended by 'female circumcision', euphemism for genital mutilation. We should be offended by stoning.

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I Am Offended!, August 3, 2008
8 months 3 days ago

Descartes is rightly regarded as the father of modern philosophy primarily and generally because he helped the faculty of reason to stand on its own feet by teaching men to use their brains in place whereof the Bible, on the one hand, and Aristotle, on the other, had previously served.

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E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 3
7 months 3 weeks ago

He who feared that he would not succeed sat still.

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Book I, epistle xvii, line 37
6 months 2 weeks ago

How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.

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As quoted in The Book of Positive Quotations (2007) by John Cook, p. 479
6 months 2 weeks ago

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?

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6 months 3 weeks ago

Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.

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(Mark 3:28-29) (KJV)
6 months 5 days ago

Yet there is a certain solitude like no other - that of the man preparing his meal in public on a wall, or on the hood of his car, or along a fence, alone. You see that all the time here. It is the saddest sight in the world. Sadder than destitution, sadder than the beggar is the man who eats alone in public. Nothing more contradicts the laws of man or beast, for animals always do each other the honour of sharing or disputing each other's food. He who eats alone is dead (but not he who drinks alone. Why is this?).

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New York (p. 15)
4 months 3 weeks ago

Every toiling Manchester, its smoke and soot all burnt, ought it not, among so many world-wide conquests, to have a hundred acres or so of free greenfield, with trees on it, conquered, for its little children to disport in; for its all-conquering workers to take a breath of twilight air in? You would say so! A willing Legislature could say so with effect. A willing Legislature could say very many things! And to whatsoever 'vested interest,' or such like, stood up, gainsaying merely, "I shall lose profits,"-the willing Legislature would answer, "Yes, but my sons and daughters will gain health, and life, and a soul."-

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8 months 1 week ago

Christ ought to be preached with this goal in mind - that we might be moved to faith in him so that he is not just a distant historical figure but actually Christ for you and me.

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p. 69
6 months 2 weeks ago

When I was in my teens, I invented a term to describe them. I call it 'holiday consciousness' . . . because I often experienced this sense of optimism and wide-awakeness when setting out on a journey or a holiday. It was always the feeling that the world is self-evidently complex and beautiful, and that life is so obviously good that man's boredom and defeat is an absurdity . . . And then I used to ask: Why do men forget this so easily? And the answer seemed obvious: because the human will is so flabby and weak. Instead of being self-controlled, self-driven creatures, most men are little more than leaves on a stream, they drift along hoping for the best. I once wrote that men are like grandfather clocks driven by watchsprings.

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p. 75
6 months 3 weeks ago

Once the philosophical foundation of democracy has collapsed, the statement that dictatorship is bad is rationally valid only for those who are not its beneficiaries, and there is no theoretical obstacle to the transformation of this statement into its opposite.

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p. 29.
6 months 3 weeks ago

In all ranges of experience, externality of means defines the mechanical.

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p. 206
4 months 2 days ago

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.

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Letter to William Charles Jarvis
4 months 2 days ago

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.

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Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774); The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (19 Vols., 1905) edited by Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, Vol. 1, p. 211
4 months 3 weeks ago

Mark at present so much; what the essence of Scandinavian and indeed of all Paganism is: a recognition of the forces of Nature as godlike, stupendous, personal Agencies,-as Gods and Demons. Not inconceivable to us. It is the infant Thought of man opening itself, with awe and wonder, on this ever-stupendous Universe. To me there is in the Norse system something very genuine, very great and manlike. A broad simplicity, rusticity, so very different from the light gracefulness of the old Greek Paganism, distinguishes this Scandinavian System. It is Thought; the genuine Thought of deep, rude, earnest minds, fairly opened to the things about them; a face-to-face and heart-to-heart inspection of the things,-the first characteristic of all good Thought in all times. Not graceful lightness, half-sport, as in the Greek Paganism; a certain homely truthfulness and rustic strength, a great rude sincerity, discloses itself here.

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8 months 2 days ago

Technology discloses the active relation of man towards nature, as well as the direct process of production of his very life, and thereby the process of production of his basic societal relations, of his own mentality, and his images of society, too.

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Vol. I, Ch. 13: "Machinery and Big Industry".

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