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Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 2 weeks ago
There is only this swarm of...

There is only this swarm of dying creatures stricken with longevity, all the more hateful in that they are so good at organizing their agony. p. 120, first American edition

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1970
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 3 weeks ago
Whenever the general disposition of the...

Whenever the general disposition of the people is such, that each individual regards those only of his interests which are selfish, and does not dwell on, or concern himself for, his share of the general interest, in such a state of things, good government is impossible.

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Ch. II: The Criterion of a Good Form of Government (p. 167)
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
3 months 6 days ago
Yet God hath not only granted...

Yet God hath not only granted these faculties, by which we may bear every event without being depressed or broken by it, but like a good prince and a true father, hath placed their exercise above restraint, compulsion, or hindrance, and wholly within our own control.

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Book I, ch. 6, 40.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 3 weeks ago
The object of art - like...

The object of art - like every other product - creates a public which is sensitive to art and enjoys beauty.

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Introduction, p. 12.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
The pursuit of knowledge is, I...

The pursuit of knowledge is, I think, mainly actuated by love of power. And so are all advances in scientific technique. In politics, also, a reformer may have just as strong a love of power as a despot. It would be a complete mistake to decry love of power altogether as a motive. Whether you will be led by this motive to actions which are useful, or to actions which are pernicious, depends upon the social system, and upon your capacities.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
2 weeks 3 days ago
To spendthrifts money is so living...

To spendthrifts money is so living and actual-it is such a thin veil between them and their pleasures! There is only one limit to their fortune-that of time; and a spendthrift with only a few crowns is the Emperor of Rome until they are spent. For such a person to lose his money is to suffer the most shocking reverse, and fall from heaven to hell, from all to nothing, in a breath.

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A Lodging for the Night.
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Rorty
Richard Rorty
2 months 1 week ago
To abjure the notion of the...

To abjure the notion of the "truly human" is to abjure the attempt to divinize the self as a replacement for a divinized world.

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Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989), p. 35
Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
Just now
Today, empathetic intelligence entails sharing the...

Today, empathetic intelligence entails sharing the sorrows of other sentient beings. In our posthuman future, will empathy consist entirely in sharing each other's joys?

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"What Is Empathetic Superintelligence?" presentation, 29 Jan. 2011
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 weeks ago
But one no longer wonders when...

But one no longer wonders when one realizes that in the higher classes there is an unerring instinct of what tends to maintain and of what tends to destroy the organization by virtue of which they enjoy their privileges. The fashionable lady had certainly not reasoned out that if there were no capitalists and no army to defend them, her husband would have no fortune, and she could not have her entertainments and her ball-dresses. And the artist certainly does not argue that he needs the capitalists and the troops to defend them, so that they may buy his pictures. But instinct, replacing reason in this instance, guides them unerringly. And it is precisely this instinct which leads all men, with few exceptions, to support all the religious, political, and economic institutions which are to their advantage.

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Chapter XII, Conclusion-Repent Ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 weeks 3 days ago
The world would...
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Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 2 weeks ago
Science does not rest upon solid...

Science does not rest upon solid bedrock. The bold structure of its theories arises, as it were, above a swamp. It is like a building erected on piles. The piles are driven down from above into the swamp, but not down to any natural or 'given' base; and if we stop driving the piles deeper, it is not because we have reached firm ground. We simply stop when we are satisfied that the piles are firm enough to carry the structure, at least for the time being.

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Ch. 5 "The Problem of the Empirical Basis", Section 30: Theory and Experiment, p. 94.
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 2 weeks ago
You have heard that it was...

You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.

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Exodus 20:14, Seventh Commandment Matthew 5:27-30 (NKJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
1 month 3 weeks ago
This method of mental training is,...

This method of mental training is, therefore, the immediate preparation for the moral; it completely destroys the root of immorality by never allowing sensuous enjoyment to become the motive. Formerly, that was the first motive to be stimulated and developed, because it was believed that otherwise the pupil could not be influenced or controlled at all.

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General Nature of New Eduction contiunued p. 31
Philosophical Maxims
Avicenna
Avicenna
3 months 1 week ago
An ignorant doctor is the aide-de-camp...

An ignorant doctor is the aide-de-camp of death.

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Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
2 months 1 week ago
Thou shouldst not become presumptuous through...

Thou shouldst not become presumptuous through life; for death comes upon thee at last, and the perishable part falls to the ground.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 2 weeks ago
The worst of misfortunes is still...

The worst of misfortunes is still a stroke of luck, since one feels oneself living when one experiences it.

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p. 275
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
1 month 3 weeks ago
As for me, I am deeply...

As for me, I am deeply a democrat; this is why I am in no way a socialist. Democracy and socialism cannot go together. You can't have it both ways.

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Notes for a Speech on Socialism (1848).
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
3 months 1 week ago
Let the superior man never fail...

Let the superior man never fail reverentially to order his own conduct, and let him be respectful to others and observant of propriety: then all within the four seas, all men are brothers. What has the superior man to do with being distressed because he has no brothers?

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 2 weeks ago
I have no faith in precision:...

I have no faith in precision: ...simplicity and clarity are values in themselves, but not... [of] precision or exactness...

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 2 weeks ago
Like great works, deep feelings always...

Like great works, deep feelings always mean more than they are conscious of saying.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 weeks 5 days ago
The present is always invisible because...

The present is always invisible because it's environmental. No environment is perceptible, simply because it saturates the whole field of attention.

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Mademoiselle: the magazine for the smart young woman, Volume 64, 1966, p. 114
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 3 weeks ago
A man fits out a ship...

A man fits out a ship at a great expense and sends it to the West Indies with a crew of men and boys, and after six months or a year, it comes back with a load of pine-apples; now, if no more gets accomplished than the speculator commonly aims at, if it simply turns out what is called a successful venture, I am less interested in this expedition than in some child's first excursions a-huckleberrying, in which it is introduced into a new world, experiences a new development, though it brings home only a gill of berries in its basket.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 2 weeks ago
"I ask myself; Why is it...

I ask myself; Why is it that only some people suffer? Why are only some selected from the ranks of normal people and put on the torture rack? Some religions maintain that God is trying us through suffering, or that we expiate evil and unbelief through it. If such an explanation can satisfy the religious man, it is not sufficient for anyone who notices that suffering is arbitrary and unjust, because the innocent often suffer most. There is no valid justification for suffering. Suffering has no hierarchy of values.

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in essay: the monopoly of suffering
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
2 months 3 weeks ago
History, is a conscious, self-mediating process...

History, is a conscious, self-mediating process - Spirit emptied out into Time; but this externalization, this kenosis, is equally an externalization of itself; the negative is the negative of itself. ... Thus absorbed in itself, it is sunk in the night of its self-consciousness; but in that night its vanished outer existence is perserved, and this transformed existence - the former one, but now reborn of the Spirit's knowledge - is the new existence, a new world and a new shape of Spirit.

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Philosophical Maxims
Auguste Comte
Auguste Comte
1 month 3 weeks ago
And now I have explained the...

And now I have explained the series of social and intellectual conditions by which the discovery of sociological laws, and consequently the foundation of Positivism, was fixed for the precise date at which I began my philosophical career: that is to say, one generation after the progressive dictatorship of the Convention, and almost immediately after the fall of the retrograde tyranny of Bonaparte.

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p. 71
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
2 months 3 weeks ago
The boundaries of the species, whereby...

The boundaries of the species, whereby men sort them, are made by men.

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Book III, Ch. 6, sec. 37
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
That what we seek we shall...

That what we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.

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Fate
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
1 month 1 week ago
The vicious circle of dread of...

The vicious circle of dread of war which leads the nations to arm themselves for self-protection, with the result that bloated armaments ultimately lead to the war which they were intended to avert, can be broken in either of two conceivable ways. There might arise a unique world power, brought into being by the unification of all those now in possession of weapons, and equipped with the capacity to forbid the lesser and unarmed nations to make war. On the other hand, it may arise by the working of a fate to us still inscrutable which, out of ruin, will disclose a way towards the development of a new human being. To will the discovery of this way would be blind impotence, but those who do not wish to deceive themselves will be prepared for the possibility.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
I must confess that I am...

I must confess that I am deeply troubled. I fear that human beings are intent upon acting out a vast deathwish and that it lies with us now to make every effort to promote resistance to the insanity and brutality of policies which encompass the extermination of hundreds of millions of human beings.

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Letter to Rudolf Carnap, June 21, 1962
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 month 1 week ago
There are, in fact, people who...

There are, in fact, people who appear to think only with the brain, or with whatever may be the specific thinking organ; while others think with all the body and all the soul, with the blood, with the marrow of the bones, with the heart, with the lungs, with the belly, with the life. And the people who think only with the brain develop into definition-mongers; they become the professionals of thought.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 2 weeks ago
Our greatest stupidities may be very...

Our greatest stupidities may be very wise.

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p. 39e
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 months 3 weeks ago
There is no more mistaken path...

There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry, high life.

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Our Relation to Others, § 24
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
2 months 3 weeks ago
On the stage on which we...

On the stage on which we are observing it, - Universal History - Spirit displays itself in its most concrete reality.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 2 weeks ago
I do not understand! I understand...

I do not understand! I understand nothing! I cannot understand nor do I want to understand! I want to believe! To Believe!

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Act 1
Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
2 months 1 week ago
In the beginning there were two...

In the beginning there were two primal spirits,Twins spontaneously active,These are the Good and the Evil, in thought, and in word, and in deed.

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Ahunuvaiti Gatha; Yasna 30, 3.
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Rorty
Richard Rorty
2 months 1 week ago
Philosophers get attention only when they...

Philosophers get attention only when they appear to be doing something sinister-corrupting the youth, undermining the foundations of civilization, sneering at all we hold dear. The rest of the time everybody assumes that they are hard at work somewhere down in the sub-basement, keeping those foundations in good repair. Nobody much cares what brand of intellectual duct tape is being used.

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"Philosophical Convictions." The Nation, June 14, 2004.
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
3 months ago
Human knowledge and human power meet...

Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.

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Aphorism 3
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 2 weeks ago
I mistrust illuminations: what we take...

I mistrust illuminations: what we take for a discovery is very often only a familiar thought that we have not recognized.

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p. 439
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
Do not yet see, that, if...

Do not yet see, that, if the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.

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par. 43
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
1 week 3 days ago
We know no spectacle so ridiculous...

We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.

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p. 315
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
3 months 6 days ago
A little river…

A little river seems to him, who has never seen a larger river, a mighty stream; and so with other things-a tree, a man-anything appears greatest to him that never knew a greater.

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Book VI, lines 674-677 (quoted in The Essays of Michel de Montaigne, tr. W. C. Hazlitt)
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 month 1 day ago
He who is enamored of himself...

He who is enamored of himself will at least have the advantage of being inconvenienced by few rivals.

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H 10 Variant translation: He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage - he won't encounter many rivals.
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 3 weeks ago
Magnanimity in politics is not seldom...

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 3 weeks ago
I frequently asked myself, if I...

I frequently asked myself, if I could, or if I was bound to go on living, when life must be passed in this manner. I generally answered to myself, that I did not think I could possibly bear it beyond a year.

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(p. 140)
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 2 weeks ago
No rational argument will have a...

No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.

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Vol. 2, Ch. 24 "Oracular Philosophy and the Revolt against Reason"
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 2 weeks ago
Vague a l'ame - melancholy yearning...

Vague a l'ame - melancholy yearning for the end of the world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 2 weeks ago
What should we gain by a...

What should we gain by a definition, as it can only lead us to other undefined terms?

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p. 26
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
1 month 2 weeks ago
But if it bee well considered,...

But if it bee well considered, The praise of Ancient Authors, proceeds not from the reverence of the Dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the Living.

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Review and Conclusion, p. 395
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1 month 3 weeks ago
Nor is there any embarrassment in...

Nor is there any embarrassment in the fact that we're ridiculous, isn't it true? For it's actually so, we are ridiculous, light-minded, with bad habits, we're bored, we don't know how to look, how to understand, we're all like that, all, you, and I, and they! Now, you're not offended when I tell you to your face that you're ridiculous? And if so, aren't you material? You know, in my opinion it's sometimes even good to be ridiculous, if not better: we can the sooner forgive each other, the sooner humble ourselves; we can't understand everything at once, we can't start right out with perfection! To achieve perfection, one must first begin by not understanding many things! And if we understand too quickly, we may not understand well. This I tell you, you, who have already been able to understand. .. and not understand ... so much. I'm not afraid for you now.

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Part 4, Chapter ?
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 2 weeks ago
Man cannot will unless he has...

Man cannot will unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.

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Philosophical Maxims
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