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comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 1 week ago
In principle and in practice...
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Main Content / General
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 4 weeks ago
As soon as one returns to...

As soon as one returns to Doubt (if it could be said that one has ever left it), undertaking anything at all seems not so much useless as extravagant. Doubt works deep within you like a disease, or even more effectively, like a faith.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 3 days ago
If the Russians still adhered to...

If the Russians still adhered to the Greek Orthodox religion, if they had instituted parliamentary government, and if they had a completely free press which daily vituperated us, then - provided they still had armed forces as powerful as they have now - we should still hate them if they gave us ground for thinking them hostile.

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Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
1 month 4 weeks ago
Someone arrived there - who lifted...

Someone arrived there - who lifted the veil of the goddess, at Sais. - But what did he see? He saw - wonder of wonders - himself. Novalis here alludes to Plutarch's account of the shrine of the goddess Minerva, identified with Isis, at Sais, which he reports had the inscription "I am all that hath been, and is, and shall be; and my veil no mortal has hitherto raised."

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Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
1 month 2 weeks ago
Money, as a matter of principle,...

Money, as a matter of principle, makes everything the same.

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Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
4 weeks 1 day ago
For him who loves labor, there...

For him who loves labor, there is always something to do.

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Maxim 219
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 3 days ago
We invite this Congress, and through...

We invite this Congress, and through it the scientists of the world and the general public, to subscribe to the following resolution: "In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them".

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Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
2 months ago
It is of great importance to...

It is of great importance to observe that the character of every man is, in some degree, formed by his profession. A man of sense may only have a cast of countenance that wears off as you trace his individuality, whist the weak, common man has scarcely ever any character, but what belongs to the body; at least, all his opinions have been so steeped in the vat consecrated by authority, that the faint spirit which the grape of his own vine yields, cannot be distinguished.

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Ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
3 months 1 day ago
All things living are in search...

All things living are in search of a better world.

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Preface
Philosophical Maxims
Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
3 weeks 4 days ago
The conservative response to modernity is...

The conservative response to modernity is to embrace it, but to embrace it critically, in full consciousness that human achievements are rare and precarious, that we have no God-given right to destroy our inheritance, but must always patiently submit to the voice of order, and set an example of orderly living.

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"Eliot and Conservatism" (p. 208)
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
3 months 3 weeks ago
If you would govern a...

If you would govern a state of a thousand chariots (a small-to-middle-size state), you must pay strict attention to business, be true to your word, be economical in expenditure and love the people. You should use them according to the seasons.

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Philosophical Maxims
Anaxagoras
Anaxagoras
2 months 3 weeks ago
And since these things are so,...

And since these things are so, we must suppose that there are contained many things and of all sorts in the things that are uniting, seeds of all things, with all sorts of shapes and colours and savours.

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Frag. B 4, quoted in John Burnet's Early Greek Philosophy, (1920), Chapter 6.
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 months 6 days ago
We are all instruments endowed with...

We are all instruments endowed with feeling and memory. Our senses are so many strings that are struck by surrounding objects and that also frequently strike themselves.

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"Conversation Between D'Alembert and Diderot"
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 4 weeks ago
We die in proportion to the...

We die in proportion to the words we fling around us.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 3 days ago
My hearers, this discourse has not...

My hearers, this discourse has not wandered out into the world to look for conflict, it has not tried to get the better of anybody, it has not even tried to uphold anybody, as though there was battle without. It has spoken to you; not by way of explaining anything to you, but trying to speak secretly with you about your relationship to that secret wisdom mentioned in our text. Oh that nothing may upset you in respect to this, “neither life nor death nor things present nor things to come nor any other creature” (Romans 8:38) –not this discourse, which, though it may have profited you nothing, yet has striven for what after all is the first and the last, to help you have what the Scripture calls “faith in yourself before God.

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Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
1 month 4 weeks ago
I shall in no time forget...

I shall in no time forget that moment. We felt as if we had had in our souls a clear passing glimpse into this wondrous World.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 2 weeks ago
But as I listened to him,...

But as I listened to him, I felt a touch of coldness inside of me, as if I had suddenly become aware of the eyes of some dangerous creature. It passed in a moment, but I found myself shuddering.

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p. 29
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
3 months 2 days ago
First, you know, a new theory...

First, you know, a new theory is attacked as absurd; then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant; finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it.

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Lecture VI, Pragmatism's Conception of Truth
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
1 month 3 weeks ago
Freedom of thought and of expression...

Freedom of thought and of expression are not mere rights to be claimed. They have their roots deep in the existence of individuals as developing careers in time. Their denial and abrogation is an abdication of individuality and a virtual rejection of time as opportunity.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 1 week ago
For truth itself has not the...

For truth itself has not the privilege to be spoken at all times and in all sorts.

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Book III, Ch. 13. Of Experience
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
1 month 3 weeks ago
When two, or more men, know...

When two, or more men, know of one and the same fact, they are said to be CONSCIOUS of it one to another; which is as much as to know it together.

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The First Part, Chapter 7, p. 31
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
2 months 3 weeks ago
Generally speaking, all the authorities exercising...

Generally speaking, all the authorities exercising individual control function according to a double mode; that of binary division and branding (mad/sane; dangerous/harmless; normal/abnormal); and that of coercive assignment, of differential distribution (who he is; where he must be; how he is to be characterized' how he is to be recognized' how a constant surveillance is to be exercised over him in a individual way, etc.).

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Part Four, Complete and austere institutions
Philosophical Maxims
Montesquieu
Montesquieu
1 month 2 weeks ago
A man should be mourned at...

A man should be mourned at his birth, not at his death.

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No. 40. (Usbek writing to Ibben)
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 3 days ago
None can be an impartial or...

None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 3 weeks ago
Philosophy is a battle….

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language.

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§ 109
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month ago
Human perception is literally incarnation. "Catholic...

Human perception is literally incarnation.

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"Catholic Humanism and Modern Letters", in Christian Humanism in Letters, The McAuley Lectures (1954), p. 49-67
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 months 6 days ago
Evil always turns up in this...

Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other.

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As quoted in Dictionary of Foreign Quotations (1980) by Mary Collison, Robert L. Collison, p. 98
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
3 months 3 weeks ago
They hate not to make use...

They hate not to make use of their abilities... they do not necessarily work for their own self-interest.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
1 month 2 days ago
The man is making preparations for...

The man is making preparations for a year, and does not know that he will die before evening. And I remembered God's second saying, "Learn what is not given to man." 'What dwells in man" I already knew. Now I learnt what is not given him. It is not given to man to know his own needs.

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Ch. XI
Philosophical Maxims
Avicenna
Avicenna
3 months 2 weeks ago
Medicine considers the human body as...

Medicine considers the human body as to the means by which it is cured and by which it is driven away from health.

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Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
2 months 1 week ago
Do not even think of doing...

Do not even think of doing what ought not to be done.

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Pythagorean Ethical Sentences From Stobæus
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 3 weeks ago
What we do is to bring...

What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.

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§ 116
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 3 days ago
I was brought up in the...

I was brought up in the Christian religion, and although I can scarcely sanction all the improper attempts to gain the emancipation of woman, all paganlike reminiscences also seem foolish to me. My brief and simple opinion is that woman is certainly as good as man-period. Any more discursive elaboration of the difference between the sexes or deliberation on which sex is superior is an idle intellectual occupation for loafers and bachelors.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 4 weeks ago
I am displeased with everything. If...

I am displeased with everything. If they made me God, I would immediately resign.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 4 weeks ago
Only it takes....

Only it takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a long patience.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Searle
John Searle
1 month 4 days ago
There is probably no more abused...

There is probably no more abused a term in the history of philosophy than "representation," and my use of this term differs both from its use in traditional philosophy and from its use in contemporary cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence.... The sense of "representation" in question is meant to be entirely exhausted by the analogy with speech acts: the sense of "represent" in which a belief represents its conditions of satisfaction is the same sense in which a statement represents its conditions of satisfaction. To say that a belief is a representation is simply to say that it has a propositional content and a psychological mode.

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P. 12.
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 1 week ago
Physicians have this advantage: the sun...

Physicians have this advantage: the sun lights their success and the earth covers their failures.

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Ch. 37
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 week 4 days ago
Universal Humanism...

Universal Humanism:

1) Preserve Life (end)

Precludes those who think they get to decide who lives and who dies.

2) Avoid and limit suffering (means)

Precludes those who use absurd exceptions to turn their backs on functional rules.

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Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
1 month 3 weeks ago
Torn in this way from its...

Torn in this way from its normal connection with contemplation, with being within one's self, pure action permits and produces only a chain of stupidities which we might better call "stupidity unchained." So we see today that an absurd attitude justifies the appearance of an opposing attitude no more reasonable; at least, reasonable enough, and so on indefinitely. Such is the extreme to which political affairs in the West have come!

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p. 34
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
3 months 3 weeks ago
To those whose talents are...

To those whose talents are above mediocrity, the highest subjects may be announced. To those who are below mediocrity, the highest subjects may not be announced.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 2 days ago
We cannot overstate our debt to...

We cannot overstate our debt to the Past, but the moment has the supreme claim. The Past is for us; but the sole terms on which it can become ours are its subordination to the Present. Only an inventor knows how to borrow, and every man is or should be an inventor. We must not tamper with the organic motion of the soul.

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Quotation and Originality
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
4 weeks ago
Age may have one side, but...

Age may have one side, but assuredly Youth has the other. There is nothing more certain than that both are right, except perhaps that both are wrong. Let them agree to differ; for who knows but what agreeing to differ may not be a form of agreement rather than a form of difference?

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Crabbed Age and Youth.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 2 days ago
For as soon as the distribution...

For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a shepherd, or a critical critic and must remain so if he does not wish to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, to fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.

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Vol. 1, Part 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 2 weeks 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
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 6 days ago
For a very small expence the...

For a very small expence the public can facilitate, can encourage, and can even impose upon almost the whole body of the people, the necessity of acquiring those most essential parts of education.

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Chapter I, Part III, Article II, p. 847.
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 1 day ago
He is dead, and my hatred...

He is dead, and my hatred has died with him.

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Electra, before the dead Aegistheus, Act 2
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 month 2 weeks ago
Nature gets credit which should in...

Nature gets credit which should in truth be reserved for ourselves: the rose for its scent: the nightingale for his song: and the sun for his radiance. The poets are entirely mistaken. They should address their lyrics to themselves, and should turn them into odes of self-congratulation on the excellency of the human mind.

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Ch. 3: "The Century of Genius", p. 77
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 2 days ago
The law of the table is...

The law of the table is beauty, a respect to the common soul of the guests. Everything is unreasonable which is private to two or three, or any portion of the company. Tact never violates for a moment this law; never intrudes the orders of the house, the vices of the absent, or a tariff of expenses, or professional privacies; as we say, we never "talk shop" before company. Lovers abstain from caresses, and haters from insults, while they sit in one parlor with common friends.

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Social Aims
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 3 days ago
Magister Adler was deeply moved by...

Magister Adler was deeply moved by something higher, but now when he wants to express his thoughts in words, wants to communicate, he confuses the subjective with the objective, his altered subjective state with an external event, the dawning of a light upon him with the coming into existence of something new outside him, the falling of the veil from his eyes with his having had a revelation. Subjectively his emotion is carried to the extreme; he wants to select the most powerful expression to describe it and by means of a mental deception grasps the objective qualification: having had a revelation.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edward Said
Edward Said
1 month 2 weeks ago
An elaborated culture has a density,...

An elaborated culture has a density, complexity, and historical-semantic value that is so strong as to make politics possible... Gramsci's insight is to have recognised that subordination, fracturing, diffusion, reproducing, as much as producing, creating, forcing, guiding, are necessary aspects of elaboration.

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Quoted in Richard Middleton, Studying Popular Music (Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-335-15275-9), p. 248
Philosophical Maxims
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