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3 months 3 weeks ago

I seem to be a brief light that flashes but once in all the aeons of time - a rare, complicated, and all-too-delicate organism on the fringe of biological evolution, where the wave of life bursts into individual, sparkling, and multicolored drops that gleam for a moment... only to vanish forever.

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Inside Information.
7 months 2 weeks ago

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

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Section II, Chap. III.
3 months 1 day ago

By a clock we understand anything characterized by a phenomenon passing periodically through identical phases so that we must assume, by the principle of sufficient reason, that all that happens in a given period is identical with all that happens in an arbitrary period.

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6 months 4 weeks ago

When Philip had news brought him of divers and eminent successes in one day, "O Fortune!" said he, "for all these so great kindnesses do me some small mischief."

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34 Philip
6 months 2 days ago

Avoid melancholy with all your might. It hurts the service of God more than sin. Satan takes less pleasure in sin than in a man's melancholy over having sinned again and so feeling that he is a slave to sin. Thus the Evil One has caught the poor soul in the net of despair.

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Rabbi Jaacob Yitzchak, p. 7
7 months 1 day ago

Making money is not without its value, but nothing is baser than to make it by wrong-doing.

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5 months 1 week ago

Avarice is as destitute of what it has, as what it has not.

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Maxim 927
4 months 3 weeks ago

It is quite true that, to the best of my judgment, the argumentation which applies to brutes holds equally good of men; and, therefore, that all states of consciousness in us, as in them, are immediately caused by molecular changes of the brain-substance. It seems to me that in men, as in brutes, there is no proof that any state of consciousness is the cause of change in the motion of the matter of the organism. If these positions are well based, it follows that our mental conditions are simply the symbols in consciousness of the changes which takes place automatically in the organism; and that, to take an extreme illustration, the feeling we call volition is not the cause of a voluntary act, but the symbol of that state of the brain which is the immediate cause of that act.

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3 months 1 week ago

Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.

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IV, 43
6 months 1 week ago

I considerd a general War against Jacobins and Jacobinism, as the only possible chance of saving Europe, (and England as included in Europe) from a truly frightful revolution. ... It is my Protest against the delusion, by which some have been taught to look upon this Jacobin contest at home as an ordinary party squabble about place or Patronage; and to regard this Jacobin War abroad as a common War about Trade, or Territorial Boundaries, or about a political Balance of power among Rival or jealous States.

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Letter to the Duke of Portland (29 September 1793), quoted in P. J. Marshall and John A. Woods (eds.)
7 months 2 weeks ago

We believe that the very beginning and end of salvation, and the sum of Christianity, consists of faith in Christ, who by His blood alone, and not by any works of ours, has put away sin, and destroyed the power of death.

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p. 224
5 months 1 week ago

The most important person is the one you are with in this moment.

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p. 206
5 months 1 week ago

It is experience, rather than understanding, that influences behaviour.

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7 months 1 week ago

An extra-terrestrial philosopher, who had watched a single youth up to the age of twenty-one and had never come across any other human being, might conclude that it is the nature of human beings to grow continually taller and wiser in an indefinite progress towards perfection; and this generalisation would be just as well founded as the generalisation which evolutionists base upon the previous history of this planet.

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Ch. 6: On the Scientific Method in Philosophy.Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for co-operation with oneself.
4 months 2 days ago

Complete, at the same time, was his confidence in his own judgment when it spoke to him decisively. He was one of those few that could believe and know as well as inquire and be of opinion. When I remember how much he admired intellectual force, how much he had of it himself, and yet how unconsciously and contentedly he gave others credit for superiority, I again see the healthy spirit of the genuine man.

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3 months 1 week ago

Then what should we work for? Only this: proper understanding; unselfish action; truthful speech. A resolve to accept whatever happens as necessary and familiar, flowing like water from that same source and spring.

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(Hays translation) IV, 33
7 months 2 weeks ago

We are no nearer heaven on the top of Mount Cenis than at the bottom of the sea; take the distance with your astrolabe. They debase God even to the carnal knowledge of women, to so many times, and so many generations.

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Ch. 12
5 months 3 weeks ago

With the sense of sight, the idea communicates the emotion, whereas, with sound, the emotion communicates the idea, which is more direct and therefore more powerful.

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Ch. 29, June 10, 1943.
7 months 6 days ago

Harvard now, I think, suffers from a kind of self-idolatry, that it needs to be critical of itself in order to grow. And again, if you can be in contact with the best of its past, then it's got a chance. But if it just remains well adjusted to the status quo, generating careerist and opportunist students rather than critically oriented students who have a heart and soul, concerned about suffering here and around the world - then Harvard has a chance. I'm not giving up on Harvard, but I am making my way to New York.

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Speaking in Too Radical for Harvard? Cornel West on Failed Fight for Tenure, Biden's First 50 Days & More, Democracy Now!
6 months 1 week ago

He who must still exhort himself, and be exhorted, to will the good, has as yet no firm and ever-ready will, but wills a will anew every time he needs it. But he who has such a stable will, wills what he wills for ever, and cannot under any circumstances will otherwise than he always wills. For him freedom of the will is destroyed and swallowed up in necessity.

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General Nature of New Eduction p 21
4 months 2 weeks ago

In ancient Europe, Stoics asserted that a slave could be freer than a master who suffers from self-division. In China, Daoists imagined a type of sage who responded to the flow of events without weighing alternatives. Disciples of monotheistic faiths have believed something similar: freedom, they say, is obeying God's will. What those who follow these traditions want most is not any kind of freedom of choice. Instead, what they long for is freedom from choice.

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The Faith of Puppets: The Freedom of the Marionette (p. 6-7)
7 months 2 weeks ago

For instance, if you have by a lie hindered a man who is even now planning a murder, you are legally responsible for all the consequences. But if you have strictly adhered to the truth, public justice can find no fault with you, be the unforeseen consequence what it may. It is possible that whilst you have honestly answered Yes to the murderer's question, whether his intended victim is in the house, the latter may have gone out unobserved, and so not have come in the way of the murderer, and the deed therefore have not been done; whereas, if you lied and said he was not in the house, and he had really gone out (though unknown to you) so that the murderer met him as he went, and executed his purpose on him, then you might with justice be accused as the cause of his death. For, if you had spoken the truth as well as you knew it, perhaps the murderer while seeking for his enemy in the house might have been caught by neighbours coming up and the deed been prevented.

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5 months 1 week ago

Art is anything you can get away with.

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6 months 3 days ago

Only lies and evil come from letting people off.

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A Severed Head (1961); 1976, p. 61.
1 month 2 weeks ago

Exactly peculiar. I'm not here on earth to "love" genocidal maniacs, racists, rapists, killers....

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5 months 2 days ago

What concerns me most here are the ways in which contemporary voices considered to be leftist have abandoned the philosophical ideas that are central to any left-wing standpoint: a commitment to universalism over tribalism, a firm distinction between justice and power, and a belief in the possibility of progress.

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Polity (2023), p. 5
4 months 3 days ago

It is a course which perhaps would not have been necessary had it been possible to form a state composed of wise men, but as every multitude is fickle, full of lawless desires, unreasoned passion, and violent anger, the multitude must be held in by invisible terrors and suchlike pageantry. For this reason I think, not that the ancients acted rashly and at haphazard in introducing among the people notions concerning the gods and beliefs in the terrors of hell, but that the moderns are most rash and foolish in banishing such beliefs.

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7 months 2 weeks ago

Marriage is encouraged in China, not by the profitableness of children, but by the liberty of destroying them.

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Chapter VIII, p. 87.
7 months 1 week ago

We have nothing to do but to receive, resting absolutely upon the merit, power, and love of our Redeemer.

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Reported in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895) edited by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 225
3 months 1 week ago

The essence of our God is obscure. It ripens continuously; perhaps victory is strenghened with our every valorous deed, but perhaps even all these agonizing struggles toward deliverance and victory are inferior to the nature of divinity. Whatever it might be, we fight on without certainty, and our virtue, uncertain of any rewards, acquires a profound nobility.

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7 months 2 weeks ago

Our stubbornness is right, because we want to preserve the liberty which we have in Christ. Only by preserving our liberty shall we be able to retain the truth of the Gospel inviolate.

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Chapter 2
5 months 3 weeks ago

The most important misunderstanding seems to me to lie in a confusion between the human necessities which I consider part of human nature, and the human necessities as they appear as drives, needs, passions, etc., in any given historical period. This division is not very different from Marx's concept of "human nature in general", to be distinguished from "human nature as modified in each historical period". The same distinction exists in Marx when he distinguishes between "constant" or "fixed" drives and "relative" drives. The constant drives "exist under all circumstances and ... can be changed by social conditions only as far as form and direction are concerned". The relative drives "owe their origin only to a certain type of social organization".

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7 months 1 day ago

To the question what wine he found pleasant to drink, he replied, "That for which other people pay."

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Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 54
6 months 1 week ago

That is a long word: forever!

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Act I.
5 months 3 weeks ago

A man really writes for an audience of about ten persons. Of course if others like it, that is clear gain. But if those ten are satisfied, he is content.

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p. 66
6 months 1 week ago

Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.

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7 months 1 week ago

England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindostan, was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is not the question. The question is, can mankind fulfil its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution.

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"The British Rule in India," New York Daily Tribune, 10 June 1853.
6 months 1 week ago

Not wise does it seem to attempt comprehending and understanding a Human World without full perfected Humanity. No talent must sleep; and if all are not alike active, all must be alert, and not oppressed and enervated. As we see a future Painter in the boy who fills every wall with sketches and variedly adds colour to figure; so we see a future Philosopher in him who restlessly traces and questions all natural things, pays heed to all, brings together whatever is remarkable, and rejoices when he has become master and possessor of a new phenomenon, of a new power and piece of knowledge.

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3 weeks 3 days ago

Yeah...whatever misery you are enduring....it could be worse....

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7 months 3 weeks 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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To him who looks upon the world rationally, the world in its turn presents a rational aspect. The relation is mutual.

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7 months 4 weeks ago

With regard to the abuse of authority, this also may come about in two ways. First, when what is ordered by an authority is opposed to the object for which that authority was constituted (if, for example, some sinful action is commanded or one which is contrary to virtue, when it is precisely for the protection and fostering of virtue that authority is instituted). In such a case, not only is there no obligation to obey the authority, but one is obliged to disobey it, as did the holy martyrs who suffered death rather than obey the impious commands of tyrants. Secondly, when those who bear such authority command things which exceed the competence of such authority; as, for example, when a master demands payment from a servant which the latter is not bound to make, and other similar cases. In this instance the subject is free to obey or disobey.

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in Aquinas: Selected Political Writings (Basil Blackwell: 1974), p. 183
7 months 1 week ago

If you're certain, you're certainly wrong, because nothing deserves certainty.

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Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind (1960), p. 14 (video)
6 months 1 week ago

The power of the people and the power of reason are one.

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Act III.
7 months 1 week ago

If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.

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Act 1
5 months 1 week ago

Electric circuitry profoundly involves men with one another. Information pours upon us, instantaneously and continuously.

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