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Karl Popper
Karl Popper
3 months 2 weeks ago
I believe that the advance of...

I believe that the advance of science depends upon the free competition of thought, and thus upon freedom, and that it must come to an end if freedom is destroyed (though it may well continue for some time in some fields, especially in technology).

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Ch. 10 "Corroboration, or How a Theory Stands up to Tests", section 85: The Path of Science, p. 279, note 2.
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
3 months 2 weeks ago
Setting the mind to remember... involves...

Setting the mind to remember... involves a continual minimal irradiation of excitement into paths which lead thereto... the continued presence of the thing in the 'fringe' of our consciousness. Letting the thing go involves withdrawal of the irradiation, unconsciousness of the thing, and... obliteration of the paths.

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Ch. 16
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
3 months 2 weeks ago
If I had been by nature...

If I had been by nature extremely quick of apprehension, or had possessed a very accurate and retentive memory or were of a remarkably active and energetic character, the trial would not be conclusive; but in all these natural gifts I am rather below than above par; what I could do, could assuredly be done by any boy or girl of average capacity and healthy physical constitution: and if I have accomplished anything, I owe it, among other fortunate circumstances, to the fact that through the early training bestowed on me by my father, I started, I may fairly say, with an advantage of a quarter of a century over my contemporaries.

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(pp. 30-31)
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
3 months 3 weeks ago
Natural science is throughout either a...

Natural science is throughout either a pure or an applied doctrine of motion.

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Preface, Tr. Bax, 1883
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 2 weeks ago
The Value of myth is that...

The Value of myth is that it takes all the things you know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by the veil of familiarity.

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p. 90
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 2 weeks ago
This I think is sufficiently evident,...

This I think is sufficiently evident, that children generally hate to be idle. All the care then is, that their busy humour should be constantly employ'd in something of use to them; which, if you will attain, you must make what you would have them do a recreation to them, and not a business.

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Sec. 129
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 2 weeks ago
My first advice (on how not...

My first advice (on how not to grow old) would be to choose you ancestors carefully. Although both my parents died young, I have done well in this respect as regards my other ancestors. My maternal grandfather, it is true, was cut off in the flower of his youth, at the age of sixty-seven, but my other three grandparents all lived to be over eighty. Of remoter ancestors I can only discover one who did not live to a great age, and he died of a disease which is now rare, namely, having his head cut off.

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p. 50
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 3 weeks ago
When the profits of trade happen...

When the profits of trade happen to be greater than ordinary, over-trading becomes a general error both among great and small dealers.

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Chapter I, p. 469.
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
1 month 3 weeks ago
Distinctive signs, full signs, never seduce...

Distinctive signs, full signs, never seduce us.

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(p. 59)
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
2 months 1 week ago
To call war the soil of...

To call war the soil of courage and virtue is like calling debauchery the soil of love.

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Ch. III: Industry, Government, the peasants
Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
2 months 4 days ago
The thesis of the identity of...

The thesis of the identity of concept and thing is in general the vital nerve of idealist thought, and indeed traditional thought in general. ... Negative dialectics as critique means above all criticism of precisely this claim to identity.

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p. 20
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 2 weeks ago
Is a democracy, such as we...

Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at least which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.

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Final lines
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
3 days ago
Drunkenness is nothing….

Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness.

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Line 18.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
2 months 1 week ago
Today war seems to have undergone...

Today war seems to have undergone a change of meaning, insofar as it is not a war of religion but a war of interests, not a war of conflicting cultures or civilizations but a war of national areas, not a war of human beings but a technical struggle of machines one against another and all against the non-combatant population.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
2 months 2 weeks ago
Hegel determines and presents only the...

Hegel determines and presents only the most striking differences of various religions, philosophies, time and peoples, and in a progressive series of stages, but he ignores all that is common and identical in all of them. ... His system knows only subordination and succession; coordination and coexistence are unknown to it.

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Z. Hanfi, trans., in The Fiery Brook (1972), p. 54
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
2 months 1 week ago
All living souls welcome whatsoever they...

All living souls welcome whatsoever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny to be possible.

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Ch. 3, P. 62
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
3 months 3 weeks ago
But men must know that in...

But men must know that in this theater of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.

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Book II, xx, 8
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 2 weeks ago
The three great things that govern...

The three great things that govern mankind are reason, passion and superstition. The first governs a few, the two last share the bulk of mankind and possess them in their turns. But superstition most powerfully produces the greatest mischief.

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Journal entry (16 May 1681), quoted in Maurice Cranston, John Locke: A Biography (1957; 1985), p. 200
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1 week 4 days ago
In art the best…

In art the best is good enough.

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Italian Journey
Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
2 months 4 days ago
Hegel ... destroyed the illusion of...

Hegel ... destroyed the illusion of the subject's being-in-itself and showed that the subject is itself an aspect of social objectivity. ... However, ... we must ask this question: is this objectivity which we have shown to be a necessary condition and which subsumes abstract subjectivity in fact the higher factor? Does it not rather remain precisely what Hegel reproached it with being in his youth, namely pure externality, the coercive collective? Does not the retreat to this supposedly higher authority signify the regression of the subject, which had earlier won its freedom only with the greatest efforts, with infinite pains?

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p. 16
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
1 month 2 weeks ago
Sight-seeing is the art of disappointment....

Sight-seeing is the art of disappointment.

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Pt. I, ch. II.
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
4 months 3 days ago
Show me someone who is ill...

Show me someone who is ill and yet happy, in danger and yet happy, dying and yet happy, exiled and yet happy. Show me such a person; by the gods, how greatly I long to see a Stoic!

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Book II, ch. 19, 24.
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 2 weeks ago
They should always be heard, and...

They should always be heard, and fairly and kindly answer'd, when they ask after any thing they would know, and desire to be informed about. Curiosity should be as carefully cherish'd in children, as other appetites suppress'd.

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Sec. 108
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 month 4 weeks ago
If an angel were ever to...

If an angel were ever to tell us anything of his philosophy I believe many propositions would sound like 2 times 2 equals 13.

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B 44
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 week 2 days ago
Misery which, through long ages, had...

Misery which, through long ages, had no spokesman, no helper, will now be its own helper and speak for itself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
Isn't history ultimately the result of...

Isn't history ultimately the result of our fear of boredom?

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 week 2 days ago
Descend where you will into the...

Descend where you will into the lower class, in Town or Country, by what avenue you will, by Factory Inquiries, Agricultural Inquiries, by Revenue Returns, by Mining-Labourer Committees, by opening your own eyes and looking, the same sorrowful result discloses itself: you have to admit that the working body of this rich English Nation has sunk or is fast sinking into a state, to which, all sides of it considered, there was literally never any parallel.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
3 months 1 week ago
All of us, I believe, are...

All of us, I believe, are fortunate to have been born.

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"Death" (1970), p. 7.
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 2 weeks ago
If there is equality, it is...

If there is equality, it is in His love, not in us.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
3 months 2 weeks ago
The object of this Essay is...

The object of this Essay is to explain as clearly as I am able grounds of an opinion which I have held from the very earliest period when I had formed any opinions at all on social political matters, and which, instead of being weakened or modified, has been constantly growing stronger by the progress reflection and the experience of life. That the principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes - the legal subordination of one sex to the other - is wrong itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.

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Ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
1 month 4 days ago
In an ideal University, as I...

In an ideal University, as I conceive it, a man should be able to obtain instruction in all forms of knowledge, and discipline in the use of all the methods by which knowledge is obtained. In such a University, the force of living example should fire the student with a noble ambition to emulate the learning of learned men, and to follow in the footsteps of the explorers of new fields of knowledge. And the very air he breathes should be charged with that enthusiasm for truth, that fanaticism of veracity, which is a greater possession than much learning; a nobler gift than the power of increasing knowledge; by so much greater and nobler than these, as the moral nature of man is greater than the intellectual; for veracity is the heart of morality.

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Universities, Actual and Ideal
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
4 months 1 week ago
To rank the effort above the...

To rank the effort above the prize may be called love.

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Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 months 3 weeks ago
Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that...

Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 1 week ago
It is love....
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Main Content / General
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 3 weeks ago
In the long-run the workman may...

In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate.

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Chapter VIII, p. 80.
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
2 months 1 day ago
We are now living in an...

We are now living in an age of literary exhaustion; we get used to the bleak landscape. Cyril Connolly said that the writer's business is to produce masterpieces; but what masterpieces have been produced in the past fifty years?

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p. 11
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 2 weeks ago
Technology discloses the active relation of...

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".
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
2 months 2 weeks ago
It is only natural that I...

It is only natural that I should constantly have revolved in my mind the question of the relationship of the symbolism of the unconscious to Christianity as well as to other religions. Not only do I leave the door open for the Christian message, but I consider it of central importance for Western man. It needs, however, to be seen in a new light, in accordance with the changes wrought by the contemporary spirit.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 2 weeks ago
Fascism is not defined by the...

Fascism is not defined by the number of its victims, but by the way it kills them.

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On the Execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Libération
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 months 2 weeks ago
All became so jealous of the...

All became so jealous of the rights of their own personality that they did their very utmost to curtail and destroy them in others, and made that the chief thing in their lives. Slavery followed, even voluntary slavery; the weak eagerly submitted to the strong, on condition that the latter aided them to subdue the still weaker. Then there were saints who came to these people, weeping, and talked to them of their pride, of their loss of harmony and due proportion, of their loss of shame. They were laughed at or pelted with stones.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
3 weeks 6 days ago
The reason for sketching what's technically...

The reason for sketching what's technically feasible with the tools of synthetic biology is that only after human complicity in the persistence of suffering in the biosphere is acknowledged can we hope to have an informed socio-political debate on the morality of its perpetuation. No serious ethical discussion of free-living animal suffering can begin in the absence of recognition of human responsibility for nonhuman well-being.

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Compassionate Biology: How CRISPR-based gene drives" could cheaply, rapidly and sustainably reduce suffering throughout the living world", BLTC Research, 2016
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
2 months 1 week ago
This fighting-shy of every obligation partly...

This fighting-shy of every obligation partly explains the phenomenon, half ridiculous, half disgraceful, Of the setting-up in our days of the platform of "youth" as youth. ... In comic fashion people call themselves "young," because they have heard that youth has more rights than obligations, since it can put off the fulfilment of these latter to the Greek Kalends of maturity. ...[T]he astounding thing at present is that these take it as an effective right precisely in order to claim for themselves all those other rights which only belong to the man who has already done something.

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Chapter XV: We Arrive At The Real Question
Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
2 months 2 weeks ago
Should it be proved that woman...

Should it be proved that woman is naturally weaker than man, from whence does it follow that it is natural for her to labour to become still weaker than nature intended her to be? Arguments of this cast are an insult to common sense, and savour of passion. The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is to be hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger, and though conviction may not silence many boisterous disputants, yet, when any prevailing prejudice is attacked, the wise will consider, and leave the narrow-minded to rail with thoughtless vehemence at innovation.

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Ch. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
3 months 2 weeks ago
There is only one inborn erroneous...

There is only one inborn erroneous notion ... that we exist in order to be happy ... So long as we persist in this inborn error ... the world seems to us full of contradictions. For at every step, in great things and small, we are bound to experience that the world and life are certainly not arranged for the purpose of maintaining a happy existence ... hence the countenances of almost all elderly persons wear the expression of ... disappointment.

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Vol II "On the Road to Salvation"
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 1 week ago
My kingdom is not of this...

My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.

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18: 36, (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
2 months 1 day ago
In his Experiment in Autobiography (1934),...

In his Experiment in Autobiography (1934), H.G. Wells pointed out that ever since the beginning of life, most creatures have been 'up against it'. Their lives are a drama of struggle against the forces of nature. Yet nowadays you can say to a man: Yes, you earn a living, you support a family, you love and hate, but -- what do you do? His real interest may be in something else -- art, science, literature, philosophy. The bird is a creature of the air, the fish is a creature of the water, and man is a creature of the mind.

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pp. 346-347
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
4 months 2 weeks ago
But voice is a certain sound...

But voice is a certain sound of that which is animated; for nothing inanimate emits a voice; but they are said to emit a voice from similitude, as a pipe, and a lyre, and such other inanimate things, have extension, modulation, and dialect; for thus it appears, because voice, also, has these.

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Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
2 months 2 weeks ago
It depends only on the weakness...

It depends only on the weakness of our organs and of our self-excitement (Selbstberuhrung), that we do not see ourselves in a Fairy-world. All Fabulous Tales (Mahrchen) are merely dreams of that home world, which is everywhere and nowhere. The higher powers in us, which one day as Genies, shall fulfil our will, are, for the present, Muses, which refresh us on our toilsome course with sweet remembrances.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 2 weeks ago
And having looked to Government for...

And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 months 3 days ago
Our minds are finite, and yet...

Our minds are finite, and yet even in these circumstances of finitude we are surrounded by possibilities that are infinite, and the purpose of human life is to grasp as much as we can out of the infinitude.

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Ch. 21, June 28, 1941.
Philosophical Maxims
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