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Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
1 month 1 week ago
It is a fact that Mussolini...

It is a fact that Mussolini entered the scene of world politics as an ally of the democracies, while Lenin entered it as a virtual ally of imperial Germany.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 3 weeks ago
For the Supernatural, entering a human...

For the Supernatural, entering a human soul, opens to it new possibilities both of good and evil. From that point the road branches: one way to sanctity, love, humility, the other to spiritual pride, self-righteousness, persecuting zeal. And no way back to the mere humdrum virtues and vices of the unawakened soul. If the Divine call does not make us better, it will make us very much worse. Of all bad men religious bad men are the worst. Of all created beings the wickedest is one who originally stood in the immediate presence of God.

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Reflections on the Psalms (1958), p. 32
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
There is a further advantage [to...

There is a further advantage [to hydrogen bombs]: the supply of uranium in the planet is very limited, and it might be feared that it would be used up before the human race was exterminated, but now that the practically unlimited supply of hydrogen can be utilized, there is considerable reason to hope that homo sapiens may put an end to himself, to the great advantage of such less ferocious animals as may survive. But it is time to return to less cheerful topics.

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Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948), part I, "The World of Science", chapter 3, "The World of Physics", p. 41
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 3 weeks ago
The nature of the Absolute State...

The nature of the Absolute State consists herein, -that all individual powers be directed towards the Life of the Race,-in place of which Race, the State puts the aggregate of its own Citizens. It therefore becomes necessary, first, that all Individuals, without exception, should be taken into equal consideration by the State; and second, that every Individual, with all his individual powers, without exception or reserve, should be taken into equal consideration. In a State so constituted, where all, as Individuals, are dedicated to the Race, it follows at the same time, that all without exception, with all the Rights which belong to them as component parts of the Race, are dedicated to all the other individual members of the State.

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p. 150-151
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Mannheim
Karl Mannheim
2 weeks 5 days ago
When the empirical investigator glories in...

When the empirical investigator glories in his refusal to go beyond the specialized observation dictated by the traditions of his discipline, be they ever so inclusive, he is making a virtue out of a defense mechanism which insures him against questioning his presuppositions.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
4 months 2 weeks ago
Although objectively greater demands are placed...

Although objectively greater demands are placed on this authority, it operates less as a public opinion giving a rational foundation to the exercise of political and social authority, the more it is generated for the purpose of an abstract vote that amounts to no more than an act of acclamation within a public sphere temporarily manufactured for show or manipulation.

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p. 222
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 weeks 5 days ago
Is any man afraid of change?...

Is any man afraid of change? Why what can take place without change?

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VII, 18
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months 3 weeks ago
I would say to the readers...

I would say to the readers of the Scriptures, if they wish for a good book, read the Bhagavad-Gita...translated by Charles Wilkins. It deserves to be read with reverence even by yankees...Besides the Bhagvat-Geeta, our Shakespeare seems sometimes youthfully green...Ex oriente lux may still be the motto of scholars, for the Western world has not yet derived from the East all the light it is destined to derive thence.

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Quoted in Sushama Londhe, A Tribute to Hinduism (New Delhi: Pragun Publication, 2008) p. 26
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
3 weeks 1 day ago
I never will, by any word...

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance, or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.

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Letter to Edward Dowse
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
5 months 1 week ago
The Superior Man has nothing...

The Superior Man has nothing to compete for. But if he must compete, he does it in an archery match, wherein he ascends to his position, bowing in deference. Descending, he drinks (or has [the winner] drink) the ritual cup. Note: Bowing is a courtesy for the host who invites him as well drinking a cup.

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Philosophical Maxims
Al-Ghazali
Al-Ghazali
3 months 4 weeks ago
For those endowed with insight there...

For those endowed with insight there is in reality no object of love but God, nor does anyone but He deserve love Love, Longing, Intimacy and Contentment.

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Islamic Texts Society. 2011. p. 23. ISBN 978-1-903682-27-2. Translated with an introduction and notes by Eric Ormsby.
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
5 months 3 weeks ago
Since the science of nature is...

Since the science of nature is conversant with magnitudes, motion, and time, each of which must necessarily be either infinite or finite...we should speculate the infinite, and consider whether it is or not; and if it is what it is. ...All those who appear to have touched on a philosophy of this kind... consider it as a certain principle of beings. Some, indeed, as the Pythagoreans and Plato, consider it, per se, not as being an accident to any thing else, but as having an essential subsistence... the Pythagoreans... consider the infinite as subsisting in sensibles; for they do not make number to be separate; and they assert that what is beyond the heavens is infinite; but Plato says that beyond the heavens there is not any body, nor ideas, because these are no where: he affirms, however, that the infinite is both in sensibles, and in ideas. ...Plato establishes two infinities, viz. the great and the small.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 weeks 5 days ago
If thou canst see sharp, look...

If thou canst see sharp, look and judge wisely, says the philosopher.

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VIII, 38
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
3 months 1 week ago
Une âme ... n'est pas faite...

The soul was not made to dwell in a thing; and when forced to it, there is no part of that soul but suffers violence.

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in The Simone Weil Reader, p. 155
Philosophical Maxims
Proclus
Proclus
4 months 6 days ago
Not much younger than these...

Not much younger than these (sc. Hermotimus of Colophon and Philippus of Mende) is Euclid, who put together the Elements, collecting many of Eudoxus' theorems, perfecting many of Theaetetus', and also bringing to irrefragable demonstration the things which were only somewhat loosely proved by his predecessors. This man lived in the time of the first Ptolemy. For Archimedes, who came immediately after the first (Ptolemy), makes mention of Euclid: and, further, they say that Ptolemy once asked him if there was in geometry any shorter way than that of the elements, and he answered that there was no royal road to geometry. He is then younger than pupils of Plato but older than Eratosthenes and Archimedes; for the latter were contemporary with one another, as Eratosthenes somewhere says.

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As quoted by Sir Thomas Little Heath, The Thirteen Books of Euclid's Elements (1908) Vol.1 Introduction and Books I, II p.1, citing Proclus ed. Friedlein, p. 68, 6-20.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
2 months 1 week ago
At last I have attained true...

At last I have attained true glory. As I walked through Fleet Street the day before yesterday, I saw a copy of Hume at a bookseller's window with the following label: "Only 2l. 2s. Hume's History of England in eight volumes, highly valuable as an introduction to Macaulay." I laughed so convulsively that the other people who were staring at the books took me for a poor demented gentleman.

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Alas for poor David! Journal entry (8 March 1849), quoted in George Otto Trevelyan, The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, Volume II (1876), p. 253
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
4 months 3 weeks ago
The guidelines for achieving wisdom consist...

The guidelines for achieving wisdom consist of three leading maxims: 1) Think for yourself; 2) (in communication with other people) Put yourself in the place of the other person; 3) Always think by remaining faithful to your own self.

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Kant, Immanuel (1996), page 95
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 3 weeks ago
Whatever games are played with us,...

Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.

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Illusions
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 months 3 weeks ago
We are not ostriches, and cannot...

We are not ostriches, and cannot believe that if we refuse to look at what we do not wish to see, it will not exist. This is especially the case when what we do not wish to see is what we wish to eat. If it were really indispensable, or, if not indispensable, at least in some way useful! But it is quite unnecessary ... And this is continually being confirmed by the fact that young, kind, undepraved people - especially women and girls - without knowing how it logically follows, feel that virtue is incompatible with beefsteaks, and, as soon as they wish to be good, give up eating flesh.

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Ch. X
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
5 months 3 weeks ago
The venerability, reliability, and utility of...
The venerability, reliability, and utility of truth is something which a person demonstrates for himself from the contrast with the liar, whom no one trusts and everyone excludes. As a "rational" being, he now places his behavior under the control of abstractions. He will no longer tolerate being carried away by sudden impressions, by intuitions.
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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 3 weeks ago
Democracy is the road to socialism....

Democracy is the road to socialism.

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Attributed to Marx in recent years, including in Communism (2007) by Tom Lansford, p. 48
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 3 weeks ago
Every commodity is compelled to chose...

Every commodity is compelled to chose some other commodity for its equivalent.

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Vol. I, Ch. 1, Section 3, pg. 65.
Philosophical Maxims
Henry George
Henry George
3 weeks ago
I propose in this inquiry to...

I propose in this inquiry to take nothing for granted, but to bring even accepted theories to the test of first principles, and should they not stand the test, freshly to interrogate facts in the endeavor to discover their law. I propose to beg no question, to shrink from no conclusion, but to follow truth wherever it may lead. Upon us is the responsibility of seeking the law, for in the very heart of our civilization to-day women faint and little children moan. But what that law may prove to be is not our affair. If the conclusions that we reach run counter to our prejudices, let us not flinch; if they challenge institutions that have long been deemed wise and natural, let us not turn back.

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Introductory : The Problem
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
3 months 2 weeks ago
The Protestant churches generally hold that...

The Protestant churches generally hold that the elements of the sacrament are flesh and blood only in a tropical sense; they nourish our souls as meat and the juice of it would our bodies. But the Catholics maintain that they are literally just that; although they possess all the sensible qualities of wafer-cakes and diluted wine. But we can have no conception of wine except what may enter into a belief, either -

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Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 weeks 5 days ago
Remember this- that there is a...

Remember this- that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.

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IV, 32
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 3 weeks ago
I am not asking anyone to...

I am not asking anyone to accept Christianity if his best reasoning tells him that the weight of the evidence is against it.

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Book III, Chapter 11, "Faith"
Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
4 months 1 week ago
Commit no lustfulness, so that harm...

Commit no lustfulness, so that harm and regret may not reach thee from thine own actions.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 1 week ago
Who is there that can recognize...

Who is there that can recognize real intellect, and do reverence to it; and discriminate it well from sham intellect, which is so much more abundant, and deserves the reverse of reverence? He that himself has it!-One really human Intellect, invested with command, and charged to reform Downing Street for us, would continually attract real intellect to those regions, and with a divine magnetism search it out from the modest corners where it lies hid. And every new accession of intellect to Downing Street would bring to it benefit only, and would increase such divine attraction in it, the parent of all benefit there and elsewhere!

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
1 week 5 days ago
In the temple of science...

In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them thither. Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes. Were an angel of the Lord to come and drive all the people belonging to these two categories out of the temple, the assemblage would be seriously depleted, but there would still be some men, of both present and past times, left inside. Our Planck is one of them, and that is why we love him. I am quite aware that we have just now lightheartedly expelled in imagination many excellent men who are largely, perhaps chiefly, responsible for the buildings of the temple of science; and in many cases, our angel would find it a pretty ticklish job to decide. But of one thing I feel sure: if the types we have just expelled were the only types there were, the temple would never have come to be, any more than a forest can grow which consists of nothing but creepers. For these people any sphere of human activity will do if it comes to a point; whether they become engineers, officers, tradesmen, or scientists depends on circumstances.Now let us have another look at those who have found favor with the angel. Most of them are somewhat odd, uncommunicative, solitary fellows, really less like each other, in spite of these common characteristics, than the hosts of the rejected. What has brought them to the temple? That is a difficult question and no single answer will cover it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
4 months 2 weeks ago
Of course, the aim of a...

Of course, the aim of a constitutional democracy is to safeguard the rights of the minority and avoid the tyranny of the majority. Yet the concrete practice of the US legal system from 1883 to 1964 promoted a tyranny of the white majority much more than a safeguarding of the rights of black Americans.

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(p. 102-3)
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
3 months 3 weeks ago
Is it really not possible to...

Is it really not possible to touch the gaming table without being instantly infected by superstition?

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Philosophical Maxims
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
4 months 2 weeks ago
This investigation aims to analyze the...

This investigation aims to analyze the type "bourgeois public sphere". Its particular approach is required, to begin with, by the difficulties specific to an object whose complexity precludes exclusive reliance on the specialized methods of a single discipline. Rather, the category. "public sphere" must be investigated within the broad field formerly reflected in the perspective of the traditional science of "politics."' When particular social-scientific discipline, this object disintegrates. The problems that result from fusing aspects of sociology and economics, of constitutional law and political science, and of social and intellectual history are obvious: given the present state of differentiation and specialization in the social sciences, scarcely anyone will be able to master several, let alone all, of these disciplines.

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p.xvii
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
4 months 3 weeks ago
You have not that power you...

You have not that power you ought to have over him, till he comes to be more afraid of offending so good a friend than of losing some part of his future expectation.

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Sec. 97
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months ago
How many worthy men have we...

How many worthy men have we seen survive their own reputation!

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Book II, Ch. 16. Of Glory
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
From the cradle to the grave,...

From the cradle to the grave, each individual pays for the sin of not being God. That's why life is an uninterrupted religious crisis, superficial for believers, shattering for doubters.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
5 months 2 weeks ago
Everything considered, a determined soul will...

Everything considered, a determined soul will always manage.

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Philosophical Maxims
Avicenna
Avicenna
5 months 1 week ago
Religious law makes it illegal for...

Religious law makes it illegal for the ignorant to drink wine, but intelligence makes it legal for the intellectual.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 months 5 days ago
Since every effort in our educational...

Since every effort in our educational life seems to be directed toward making of the child a being foreign to itself, it must of necessity produce individuals foreign to one another, and in everlasting antagonism with each other.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
5 months 1 day ago
For the inquisition of Final Causes...

For the inquisition of Final Causes is barren, and like a virgin consecrated to God produces nothing.

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Book III, viii
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 2 weeks ago
When I am furious about something,...

When I am furious about something, I sometimes beat the ground or a tree with my walking stick. But I certainly do not believe that the ground is to blame or that my beating can help anything... And all rites are of this kind.

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Ch. 7 : Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 131
Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
5 months ago
The end of the republic is...

The end of the republic is to enervate and to weaken all other bodies so as to increase its own body.

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Book 2, Ch. 3 (translation by Mansfield and Tarcov)
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
3 weeks 2 days ago
The heart unites whatever the mind...

The heart unites whatever the mind separates, pushes on beyond the arena of necessity and transmutes the struggle into love.

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Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
5 months ago
That which is good…

That which is good for the enemy harms you, and that which is good for you harms the enemy.

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Rule 1 from Machiavelli's Lord Fabrizio Colonna: libro settimo (Book 7) (Modern Italian uses nemico instead of nimico.)
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
4 months 4 days ago
Above and before all things, worship...

Above and before all things, worship GOD!

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As quoted in The Sayings of the Wise: Or, Food for Thought: A Book of Moral Wisdom, Gathered from the Ancient Philosophers (1555) by William Baldwin [1908 edition]
Philosophical Maxims
Auguste Comte
Auguste Comte
3 months 3 weeks ago
Language forms a kind of wealth,...

Language forms a kind of wealth, which all can make use of at once without causing any diminution of the store, and which thus admits a complete community of enjoyment; for all, freely participating in the general treasure, unconsciously aid in its preservation.

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Volume II, p. 213
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks ago
All greatness is....
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Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 weeks 5 days ago
"Those who have forgotten where the...

"Those who have forgotten where the road leads." "They are at odds with what is all around them"-the all-directing logos. And "they find alien what they meet with every day."

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(Hays translation) IV, 46
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
4 months 3 weeks ago
It is not to be supposed...

It is not to be supposed that she was, or that any one, at the age at which I first saw her, could be, all that she afterwards became. Least of all could this be true of her, with whom self-improvement, progress in the highest and in all senses, was a law of her nature; a necessity equally from the ardour with which she sought it, and from the spontaneous tendency of faculties which could not receive an impression or an experience without making it the source or the occasion of an accession of wisdom. Up to the time when I first saw her, her rich and powerful nature had chiefly unfolded itself according to the received type of feminine genius. To her outer circle she was a beauty and a wit, with an air of natural distinction, felt by all who approached her: to the inner, a woman of deep and strong feeling, of penetrating and intuitive intelligence, and of an eminently meditative and poetic nature.

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(p. 185)
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
4 months 3 weeks ago
And why should man, added he,...

And why should man, added he, pretend to an exemption from the lot of all other animals? The whole earth, believe me, PHILO, is cursed and polluted. A perpetual war is kindled amongst all living creatures. Necessity, hunger, want, stimulate the strong and courageous: Fear, anxiety, terror, agitate the weak and infirm. The first entrance into life gives anguish to the new-born infant and to its wretched parent: Weakness, impotence, distress, attend each stage of that life: and it is at last finished in agony and horror.

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Demea to Philo, Part X
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
3 months 4 days ago
I believe that none can "save"...

I believe that none can "save" his fellow man by making a choice for him. To help him, he can indicate the possible alternatives, with sincerity and love, without being sentimental and without illusion. The knowledge and awareness of the freeing alternatives can reawaken in an individual all his hidden energies and put him on the path to choosing respect for "life" instead of for "death."

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Philosophical Maxims
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