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Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 1 week ago
In the past, there was a...

In the past, there was a small leisure class and a larger working class. The leisure class enjoyed advantages for which there was no basis in social justice; this necessarily made it oppressive, limited its sympathies, and caused it to invent theories by which to justify its privileges.

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Ch. 1: In Praise of Idleness, p. 13
Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
3 months 1 week ago
The even larger difference between rich...

The even larger difference between rich and poor makes the latter even worse off, and this violates the principle of mutual advantage.

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Chapter II, Section 13, pg. 79
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
3 months 1 week ago
Thus, because Christian morals leave animals...

Thus, because Christian morals leave animals out of consideration ... therefore in philosophical morals they are of course at once outlawed; they are merely "things," simply means to ends of any sort; and so they are good for vivisection, for deer-stalking, bull-fights, horse-races, etc., and they may be whipped to death as they struggle along with heavy quarry carts. Shame on such a morality ... which fails to recognize the Eternal Reality immanent in everything that has life, and shining forth with inscrutable significance from all eyes that see the sun!

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Part II, Ch. VI, pp. 94-95
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 1 week ago
Suppose that I wish to deserve...

Suppose that I wish to deserve the title of "robber of remorse" and that I place in myself all [the townspeople's] repentence?

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Orestes to Electra, Act 2
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick
2 weeks ago
There is no social entity with...

There is no social entity with a good that undergoes some sacrifice for its own good. There are only individual people, different individual people, with their own individual lives. Using one of these people for the benefit of others, uses him and benefits the others. Nothing more.

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Ch. 3 : Moral Constraints and the State; Why Side Constraints?, p. 32
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 1 week ago
When I come to my own...

When I come to my own beliefs, I find myself quite unable to discern any purpose in the universe, and still more unable to wish to discern one.

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"Is There a God?", 1952
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 1 week ago
There is not love of life...

There is not love of life without despair about life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 3 days ago
Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto...

Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.

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11:21-24 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 1 week ago
Righteousness cannot be born until self-righteousness...

Righteousness cannot be born until self-righteousness is dead.

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Justice in War-Time (1916), p. 192
Philosophical Maxims
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
1 month 3 days ago
There is only one way to...

There is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniably good book.

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Quoted by Granville Hicks in The Living Novel: A Symposium (Macmillan, 1957; digitized version in 2006), p. ix
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 2 weeks ago
It is unjust that the whole...

It is unjust that the whole of society should contribute towards an expence of which the benefit is confined to a part of the society.

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Chapter I, Part IV, Conclusion, p. 881.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 1 week ago
There are two motives for reading...

There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 day 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
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
3 months 1 week ago
I did not know the way...

I did not know the way in which, among the ordinary English, the absence of interest in things of an unselfish kind, except occasionally in a special thing here and there, and the habit of not speaking to others, nor much even to themselves, about the things in which they do feel interest, causes both their feelings and their intellectual faculties to remain undeveloped, or to develope themselves only in some single and very limited direction; reducing them, considered as spiritual beings, to a kind of negative existence.

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(p. 59)
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 1 week ago
The most advanced nations are always...

The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most.

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Civilization
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 1 week ago
Let me give two cautions....

Let me give two cautions. 1) The one is, that you keep them to the practice of what you would have grow into a habit with them, by kind words, and gentle admonitions, rather as minding them of what they forget, than by harsh rebukes and chiding, as if they were wilfully guilty. 2) Another thing you are to take care of, is, not to endeavour to settle too many habits at once, lest by variety you confound them, and so perfect none. When constant custom has made any one thing easy and natural to 'em, and they practice it without reflection, you may then go on to another.

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Sec. 66
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 3 weeks ago
The progress of human knowledge depends...

The progress of human knowledge depends on maintaining that touch of scepticism even about the most "unquestionable" truths. A century ago, Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection was regarded as scientifically unshakeable; today, most biologists have their reservations about it. Fifty years ago, Freud's sexual theory of neurosis was accepted by most psychiatrists; today, it is widely recognized that his methods were highly questionable. At the turn of this century, a scientist who questioned Newton's theory of gravity would have been regarded as insane; twenty years later, it had been supplanted by Einstein's theory, although, significantly, few people actually understood it. It seems perfectly conceivable that our descendants of the twenty-second century will wonder how any of us could have been stupid enough to have been taken in by Darwin, Freud or Einstein.

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p. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard
2 months 3 days ago
The repose of sleep refreshes only...

The repose of sleep refreshes only the body. It rarely sets the soul at rest. The repose of the night does not belong to us. It is not the possession of our being. Sleep opens within us an inn for phantoms. In the morning we must sweep out the shadows.

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Ch. 2, sect. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
2 months 1 week ago
Humanity may endure the loss of...

Humanity may endure the loss of everything: all its possessions may be torn away without infringing its true dignity; - all but the possibility of improvement.

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"The Vocation of the Scholar" (1794), as translated by William Smith, in The Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889), Vol. I, Lecture IV, p. 188.
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 1 week ago
There never, gentlemen, was a period...

There never, gentlemen, was a period in which the steadfastness of some men has been nut to so sore a trial. It is not very difficult for well-formed minds to abandon their interest; but the separation of fame and virtue is an harsh divorce. Liberty is in danger of being made unpopular to Englishmen. Contending for an imaginary power, we begin to acquire the spirit of domination, and to lose the relish of honest equality.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
2 months 2 days ago
No work of art can be...

No work of art can be instantaneously perceived because there is the no opportunity for conservation and increase in tension, and hence none for that release and unfolding which gives volume to a work of art.

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p. 189
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 month 3 weeks ago
Philosophy finds religion, and modifies it;...

Philosophy finds religion, and modifies it; and conversely religion is among the data of experience which philosophy must weave into its own scheme. Religion is an ultimate craving to infuse into the insistent particularity of emotion that non-temporal generality which primarily belongs to conceptual thought alone. In the higher organisms the differences of tempo between the mere emotions and the conceptual experiences produce a life-tedium, unless this supreme fusion has been effected. The two sides of the organism require a reconciliation in which emotional experiences illustrate a conceptual justification, and conceptual experiences find an emotional illustration.

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Pt. I, ch. 1, sec. 6.
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
2 months 6 days ago
People think they have taken quite...

People think they have taken quite an extraordinarily bold step forward when they have rid themselves of belief in hereditary monarchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy.

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Introduction to 1891 edition of Karl Marx's, The Civil War in France
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
3 months 1 week ago
It is the nature and intention...

It is the nature and intention of a constitution to prevent governing by party, by establishing a common principle that shall limit and control the power and impulse of party, and that says to all parties, thus far shalt thou go and no further. But in the absence of a constitution, men look entirely to party; and instead of principle governing party, party governs principle.

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Philosophical Maxims
Antisthenes
Antisthenes
3 months ago
Once, when he was applauded by...

Once, when he was applauded by rascals, he remarked, "I am horribly afraid I have done something wrong."

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§ 5
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
2 months 2 days ago
The other conclusion is that art...

The other conclusion is that art is the complement of science. Science as I have said is concerned wholly with relations, not with individuals. Art, on the other hand, is not only the disclosure of the individuality of the artist but also a manifestation of individuality as creative of the future, in an unprecedented response to conditions as they were in the past. Some artists in their vision of what might be, but is not, have been conscious rebels. But conscious protest and revolt is not the form which the labor of the artist in creation of the future must necessarily take. Discontent with things as they are is normally the expression of the vision of what may be and is not, art in being the manifestation of individuality is this prophetic vision.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Schlegel
Friedrich Schlegel
2 months 1 week ago
Wit is the appearance, the external...

Wit is the appearance, the external flash of imagination. Thus its divinity, and the witty character of mysticism.

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Aphorism 26, as translated in Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms (1968)
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
2 months 3 weeks ago
Holding fast to these things, you...

Holding fast to these things, you will know the worlds of gods and mortals which permeates and governs everything. And you will know, as is right, nature similar in all respects, so that you will neither entertain unreasonable hopes nor be neglectful of anything.

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As quoted in Divine Harmony: The Life and Teachings of Pythagoras by John Strohmeier and Peter Westbrook.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 day ago
This worthy man, whose nephew is...

This worthy man, whose nephew is still minister of Eskdalemuir (and author of a book on the Jews), proved the greatest blessing to that household. My father would, in any case, have saved himself. Of the other brothers, it may be doubted whether William Brown was not the primary preserver. They all learned to he masons from him, or from one another; instead of miscellaneous laborers and hunters, became regular tradesmen, the best in all their district, the skilfullest and faithfullest, and the best-rewarded every way. Except my father, none of them attained a decisive religiousness. But they all had prudence and earnestness, love of truth, industry, and the blessings it brings.

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Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
4 months ago
When you serve your mother...

When you serve your mother and father it is okay to try to correct them once in a while. But if you see that they are not going to listen to you, keep your respect for them and don't distance yourself from them. Work without complaining.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
3 months 5 days ago
The bourgeois public sphere may be...

The bourgeois public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of private people come together as a public; they soon claimed the public sphere regulated from above against the public authorities themselves, to engage them in a debate over the general rules governing relations in the basically privatized but publicly relevant sphere of commodity exchange and social labor.

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p. 27
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 months 6 days ago
So we do sometimes think because...

So we do sometimes think because it has been found to pay.

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§ 470
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
3 months 3 weeks ago
No man is free who is...

No man is free who is not master of himself.

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Fragment 35 (Oldfather translation)
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
2 months 1 week ago
We wish, in a word, equality...

We wish, in a word, equality - equality in fact as a corollary, or rather, as primordial condition of liberty. From each according to his faculties, to each according to his needs; that is what we wish sincerely and energetically.

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As quoted in The Old Order and the New (1890) by J. Morris Davidson
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 1 week ago
The zealous never fail to draw...

The zealous never fail to draw political inferences from religious tenets, by which they interest the magistrate in the dispute; and then to the heat of a religious fervour is added the fury of a party zeal. All intercourse is cut off between the parties. They lose all knowledge of each other, tho' countrymen and neighbours, and are therefore easily imposed upon with the most absurd stories concerning each other's opinions and practices. They judge of the hatred of the adverse side by their own. Then fear is added to their hatred; and preventive injuries arise from their fear. The remembrance of the past, the dread of the future, the present ill, will join together to urge them forward to the most violent courses.Such is the manner of proceeding of religious parties towards each other.

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Volume II, p. 147
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
2 weeks 3 days ago
Human beings act, certainly. But none...

Human beings act, certainly. But none of them knows why they act as they do. There is a scattering of facts, which can be known and reported. Beyond these facts are the stories that are told. Human beings may behave like puppets, but no one is pulling the strings.

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In The Puppet Theatre: Puppetry, Conspiracy and Ouija Boards (p. 136)
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 1 week ago
I don't think that there are...

I don't think that there are any sinister persons deliberately trying to rob people of their freedom but I do think, first of all, that there are a number of impersonal forces which are pushing in the direction of less and less freedom. And I also thing there are a number of technological devices which anybody who wishes to use, can use, to accelerate this process of going away from freedom, of imposing control.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
3 months 1 week ago
A country cannot subsist well without...

A country cannot subsist well without liberty, nor liberty without virtue.

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As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tryon Edwards, p. 301.
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
3 months 1 week ago
The only purpose for which power...

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.

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Ch. 1: Introductory
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
3 months 1 week ago
Collectively, the more civilized men are,...

Collectively, the more civilized men are, the more they are actors. They assume the appearance of attachment, of esteem for others, of modesty, and of disinterestedness, without ever deceiving anyone, because everyone understands that nothing sincere is meant. Persons are familiar with this, and it is even a good thing that this is so in this world, for when men play these roles, virtues are gradually established, whose appearance had up until now only been affected. These virtues ultimately will become part of the actor's disposition. To deceive the deceiver in ourselves, or the tendency to deceive, is a fresh return to obedience.

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Kant, Immanuel (1996), page 37
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
5 months 1 week ago
Using the scoundrels...
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Main Content / General
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 1 week ago
If you think that your belief...

If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument, rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on faith, you will realize that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting and distorting the minds of the young in what is called "education". This last is particularly dastardly, since it takes advantage of the defencelessness of immature minds. Unfortunately it is practiced in greater or less degree in the schools of every civilised country.

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p. 220
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
1 month 3 weeks ago
The kind of relatedness to the...

The kind of relatedness to the world may be noble or trivial, but even being related to the basest kind of pattern is immensely preferable to being alone.

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Ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 1 week ago
Science, ever since the time of...

Science, ever since the time of the Arabs, has had two functions: (1) to enable us to know things, and (2) to enable us to do things.

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Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
2 months 3 weeks ago
By the air which I breathe,...

By the air which I breathe, and by the water which I drink, I will not endure to be blamed on account of this discourse.

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As reported by Heraclides Ponticus (c. 360 BC), and Diogenes Laërtius, in Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, "Pythagoras", Sect. 6, in the translation of C. D. Yonge
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 1 week ago
A man who for a long...

A man who for a long time has gone around hiding a secret becomes mentally deranged. At this point one would imagine that his secret would have to come out, but despite his derangement his soul still sticks to its hideout, and those around him become even more convinced that the false story he told to deceive them is the truth. He is healed of his insanity, knows everything that has gone on, and thereby perceives that nothing has been betrayed. Was this gratifying to him or not; he might wish to have disposed of his secret in his madness; it seems as if there were a fate which forced him to remain in his secret and would not let him go away from it. Or was it for the best, was there a guardian spirit who helped him keep his secret.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 month 2 weeks ago
Many things about our bodies would...

Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.

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D 6
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
2 months 2 days ago
"Relation" in its idiomatic usage denotes...

"Relation" in its idiomatic usage denotes something direct and active, something dynamic and energetic. It fixes attention upon the way things bear upon one another, their clashings and unitings, the way they fulfill and frustrate, promote and retard, excite and inhibit one another. Intellectual relations subsist in propositions; they state the connection of terms with one another. In art, as in nature and in life, relations are modes of interaction.

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p. 139
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
2 months 1 day ago
The man with the clear head...

The man with the clear head is the man who frees himself from those fantastic "ideas" and looks life in the face, realises that everything in it is problematic, and feels himself lost. As this is the simple truth - that to live is to feel oneself lost - he who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look round for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life.

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Chapter XIV: Who Rules The World?
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
2 months 6 days ago
It is ...easy to be certain....

It is ...easy to be certain. One has only to be sufficiently vague.

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Vol. IV, par. 237
Philosophical Maxims
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