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Epicurus
Epicurus
5 months 1 day ago
Against the diseases of the mind,...

Against the diseases of the mind, philosophy provides sufficient antidotes. The instruments which it employs for this purpose are the virtues; the root of which, whence all the rest proceed, is prudence. This virtue comprehends the whole art of living discreetly, justly, and honorably, and is, in fact, the same thing with wisdom. It instructs men to free their understandings from the clouds of prejudice; to exercise temperance and fortitude in the government of themselves: and to practice justice towards others. Although pleasure, or happiness, which is the end of living, be superior to virtue, which is only the means, it is every one's interest to practice all the virtues; for in a happy life, pleasure can never be separated from virtue.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
5 months 1 week ago
Titles are an important part of...

Titles are an important part of a story and I take considerable care in choosing one. In fact, I cannot start a story until I have chosen a title.

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Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
4 months 2 days ago
He who upholds Truth with all...

He who upholds Truth with all the might of his power, He who upholds Truth the utmost in his word and deed,He, indeed, is Thy most valued helper, O Mazda Ahura!

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Ahunuvaiti Gatha; Yasna 31, 22.
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
4 months 1 day ago
Now drown care in wine….

Now drown care in wine.

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Book I, ode vii, line 32
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
2 months 4 weeks ago
The most authentic Catholic ethic, monastic...

The most authentic Catholic ethic, monastic asceticism, is an ethic of eschatology, directed to the salvation of the individual soul rather than to the maintenance of society. And in the cult of virginity may there not perhaps be a certain obscure idea that to perpetuate ourselves in others hinders our own personal perpetuation?

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Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
2 months 3 weeks ago
There will be no mass-based feminist...

There will be no mass-based feminist movement as long as feminist ideas are understood only by a well-educated few.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
3 months 2 weeks ago
Who will not commend the wit...

Who will not commend the wit of astrology? Venus, born out of the sea, hath her exaltation in Pisces.

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Commonplace notebooks, Part I
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick
1 month 2 weeks ago
From each as they choose, to...

From each as they choose, to each as they are chosen.

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Ch. 7 : Distributive Justice, Section I, Patterning, p. 160
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
3 months 3 days ago
Classical science was based upon the...

Classical science was based upon the belief that it is possible to formulate both the position and velocity at one time of any given particle. It followed that knowledge of the position and velocity of a given number of particles would enable the future behavior of the whole collection to be accurately predicted. The principle of Heisenberg is that given the determination of position, its velocity can be stated only as of a certain order of probability, while if its velocity is determined the correlative factor of position can be stated only as of a certain order of probability. Both cannot be determined at once, from which it follows necessarily that the future of the whole collection cannot possibly be foretold except in terms of some order of probability.

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Philosophical Maxims
Al-Ghazali
Al-Ghazali
3 months 2 weeks ago
The man who makes his religion...

The man who makes his religion a means to the gaining of this world, will lose both worlds alike; whereas the man who gives up this world for the sake of religion, will get both worlds alike.

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The Faith and Practice of Al-Ghazali, Allen & Unwin (1963), p. 152.
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
5 months 1 week ago
If I were to imagine a...

If I were to imagine a girl deeply in love and some man who wanted to use all his reasoning powers and knowledge to ridicule her passion, well, there's surely no question of the enamoured girl having to choose between keeping her wealth and being ridiculed. No, but if some extremely cool and calculating man calmly told the young girl, "I will explain to you what love is," and the girl admitted that everything he told her was quite correct, I wonder if she wouldn't choose his miserable common sense rather than her wealth?

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
1 month 3 weeks ago
I can assure you that there...

I can assure you that there is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life. You learn that which is of inestimable importance - that there are a great many people in the world who are just as clever as you are. You learn to put your trust, by and by, in an economy and frugality of the exercise of your powers, both moral and intellectual; and you very soon find out, if you have not found it out before, that patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.

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On Medical Education
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 3 days ago
Europe has made much; great cities,...

Europe has made much; great cities, great empires, encyclopaedias, creeds, bodies of opinion and practice: but it has made little of the class of Dante's Thought.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
4 months 2 weeks ago
This disposition to admire, and almost...

This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and powerful, and to despise or, at least, neglect persons of poor and mean conditions, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.

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Section III, Chap. III.
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 1 week ago
The French bourgeois doesn't dislike shit,...

The French bourgeois doesn't dislike shit, provided it is served up to him at the right time.

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Book 2, "To Succeed in Being All, Strive to be Nothing in Anything"
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
2 months 3 weeks ago
When power is separated from any...

When power is separated from any communicative context, it becomes naked violence.

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Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
1 week 5 days ago
We Americans are not usually thought...

We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are. Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed? Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers? Why else would we all - by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians - be participating in its destruction? Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and we reward them for it. We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cistern are wealthier than the rest of us. How do we submit? By not being radical enough. Or by not being thorough enough, which is the same thing.

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Compromise, Hell! Orion magazine
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 1 week ago
Privacy invasion is now one of...

Privacy invasion is now one of biggest knowledge industries.

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(p. 24)
Philosophical Maxims
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
2 months 2 weeks ago
The big advantage of being a...

The big advantage of being a chemistry major was the freedom to be tasteless.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
1 month 6 days ago
We should like to represent... the......

We should like to represent... the... universe, and... feel... we understood it. We... never can attain this representation: our weakness is too great. But... we desire... to conceive an infinite intelligence... which should see all, and... classify all in its time, as we classify, in our time, the little we see. ...This supreme intelligence would be only a demigod; infinite in one sense... limited in another, since it would have... imperfect recollection of the past... otherwise all recollections would be equally present... and for it there would be no time.

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Philosophical Maxims
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva
1 month 3 weeks ago
Economic reforms based on the idea...

Economic reforms based on the idea of limitless growth in a limited world, can only be maintained by the powerful grabbing the resources of the vulnerable. The resource grab that is essential for "growth" creates a culture of rape-the rape of the earth, of local self-reliant economies, and of women.

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On economic reforms in India and rape in India, from "Vandana Shiva: Our Violent Economy is Hurting Women " article in Yes Magazine
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
2 months ago
It seems that the creative faculty,...

It seems that the creative faculty, and the critical faculty, cannot exist together in their highest perfection.

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p. 186
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 1 week ago
Democracy is the process by which...

Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who'll get the blame.

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Attributed to Russell in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists (2007), p. 346
Philosophical Maxims
David Wood
David Wood
1 month 3 weeks ago
The point is that philosophy is...

The point is that philosophy is seen to have come full circle, and to have exhausted itself.

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Chapter 5, Nietzsche's Styles, p. 95
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
4 months 6 days ago
In the old system, the body...

In the old system, the body of the condemned man became the king's property, on which the sovereign left his mark and brought down the effects of his power. Now he will be rather the property of society, the object of a collective and useful appropriation.

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Chapter Three, The Gentle Way in Punishment
Philosophical Maxims
Thales of Miletus
Thales of Miletus
3 months 3 weeks ago
Placing your stick at the end...

Placing your stick at the end of the shadow of the pyramid, you made by the sun's rays two triangles, and so proved that the pyramid [height] was to the stick [height] as the shadow of the pyramid to the shadow of the stick.

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W. W. Rouse Ball, A Short Account of the History of Mathematics
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
1 month 2 weeks ago
No doubt markets transmit information in...

No doubt markets transmit information in the way that Hayek claimed. But what reason is there to believe that - unlike any other social institution - they have a built-in capacity to correct their mistakes? History hardly supports the supposition. Moods of irrational exuberance and panic can, and often do, swamp the price-discovery functions of markets.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 1 week ago
The reason that I call my...

The reason that I call my doctrine logical atomism is because the atoms that I wish to arrive at as the sort of last residue in analysis are logical atoms and not physical atoms. Some of them will be what I call "particulars" - such things as little patches of color or sounds, momentary things - and some of them will be predicates or relations and so on.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Wood
David Wood
1 month 3 weeks ago
To say that all philosophy is...

To say that all philosophy is writing is, minimally, to say that it is never the transparent expression of thought.

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Chapter 3, Deconstruction and Criticism, p. 46
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 week 2 days ago
Of things that are external, happen...

Of things that are external, happen what will to that which can suffer by external accidents. Those things that suffer let them complain themselves, if they will; as for me, as long as I conceive no such thing, that that which is happened is evil, I have no hurt; and it is in my power not to conceive any such thing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
5 months 2 weeks ago
The worst readers are those who...
The worst readers are those who behave like plundering troops: they take away a few things they can use, dirty and confound the remainder, and revile the whole.
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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
2 months ago
What a singular destiny has been...

What a singular destiny has been that of this remarkable man! To be regarded in his own age as a classic, and in ours as a companion! To receive from his contemporaries that full homage which men of genius have in general received only from posterity! To be more intimately known to posterity than other men are known to their contemporaries!

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'Samuel Johnson', The Edinburgh Review (September 1831), quoted in T. B. Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to The Edinburgh Review, Vol. I (1843), p. 407
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 5 days ago
I do not think discursively.....
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Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 week 2 days ago
It's silly to try to escape...

It's silly to try to escape other people's faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own.

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(Hays translation) VII, 71
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 week 5 days ago
You will next read the new...

You will next read the new testament. It is the history of a personage called Jesus. Keep in your eye the opposite pretensions 1. of those who say he was begotten by God, born of a virgin, suspended & reversed the laws of nature at will, & ascended bodily into heaven: and 2. of those who say he was a man of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions to divinity, ended in believing them, & was Punished capitally for sedition by being gibbeted according to the Roman law which punished the first commission of that offence by whipping, & the second by exile or death in furcâ.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
4 months 1 week ago
A genuine first-hand religious experience like...

A genuine first-hand religious experience like this is bound to be a heterodoxy to its witnesses, the prophet appearing as a mere lonely madman. If his doctrine prove contagious enough to spread to any others, it becomes a definite and labeled heresy. But if it then still prove contagious enough to triumph over persecution, it becomes itself an orthodoxy; and when a religion has become an orthodoxy, its day of inwardness is over: the spring is dry; the faithful live at second hand exclusively and stone the prophets in their turn. The new church, in spite of whatever human goodness it may foster, can be henceforth counted on as a staunch ally in every attempt to stifle the spontaneous religious spirit, and to stop all later bubblings of the fountain from which in purer days it drew its own supply of inspiration.

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Lectures XIV and XV, "The Value of Saintliness"
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 1 week ago
Art is anything you can get...

Art is anything you can get away with.

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Philosophical Maxims
Gottlob frege
Gottlob frege
3 months 4 days ago
If the task of philosophy is...

If the task of philosophy is to break the domination of words over the human mind, then my concept notation, being developed for these purposes, can be a useful instrument for philosophers. I believe the cause of logic has been advanced already by the invention of this concept notation.

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Begriffsschrift (1879) Preface to the Begriffsschrift
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
4 months 2 weeks ago
Wherever there is great property, there...

Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.

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Chapter I, Part II, p. 770.
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
4 months 1 week ago
..Whenever it ceases to be true...

..Whenever it ceases to be true that mankind, as a rule, prefer themselves to others, and those nearest to them to those more remote, from that moment Communism is not only practicable, but the only defensible form of society...

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
4 months 2 weeks ago
"...faith and repentance, i. e. believing...

"...faith and repentance, i. e. believing Jesus to be the Messiah, and a good life, are the indispensable conditions of the new covenant, to be performed by all those who would obtain eternal life. (The reasonableness, or rather necessity of which, that we may the better comprehend, we must a little look back to what was said in the beginning"

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§ 106
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
4 months 2 weeks ago
It is said that…

It is said that God is always on the side of the big battalions.

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Letter to François-Louis-Henri Leriche (6 February 1770) Note: In his Notebooks (c.1735-c.1750)
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
2 months 3 weeks ago
I believe government, organized authority, or...

I believe government, organized authority, or the State is necessary only to maintain or protect property and monopoly. It has proven efficient in that function only. As a promoter of individual liberty, human well-being and social harmony, which alone constitute real order, government stands condemned by all the great men of the world...I believe - indeed, I know - that whatever is fine and beautiful in the human expresses and asserts itself in spite of government, and not because of it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
2 days ago
Whereas materialistic historians and philosophers...

Whereas materialistic historians and philosophers neglect psychic realities, Freud is inclined to overstress their importance. I am not a psychologist, but it seems to me fairly evident that physiological factors, especially our endocrines, control our destiny ... I am not able to venture a judgment on so important a phase of modern thought. However, it seems to me that psychoanalysis is not always salutary. It may not always be helpful to delve into the subconscious. The machinery of our legs is controlled by a hundred different muscles. Do you think it would help us to walk if we analyzed our legs and knew exactly which one of the little muscles must be employed in locomotion and the order in which they work? ... I am not prepared to accept all his [Freud's] conclusions, but I consider his work an immensely valuable contribution to the science of human behavior. I think he is even greater as a writer than as a psychologist. Freud's brilliant style is unsurpassed by anyone since Schopenhauer.

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Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
3 months 2 days ago
The complexity of the connection between...

The complexity of the connection between the world of perception and the world of physics does not preclude that such a connection can be shown to exist at any time.

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p. 133.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
3 months 4 days ago
For such is the nature of...

For such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; Yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves: For they see their own wit at hand, and other men's at a distance.

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The First Part, Chapter 13, p. 61
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 1 week ago
The new media are not bridges...

The new media are not bridges between man and nature - they are nature...The new media are not ways of relating us to the old world; they are the real world and they reshape what remains of the old world at will.

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Media as the New Nature, 1969, p. 14
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 2 weeks ago
I want to be seen…

I want to be seen here in my simple, natural, ordinary fashion, without straining or artifice; for it is myself that I portray...I am myself the matter of my book. To the Reader

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tr. Donald M. Frame, 1957
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
4 months 3 weeks ago
Men are eager…

Men are eager to tread underfoot what they have once too much feared.

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Book V, line 1140 (tr. Rouse)
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
5 months 1 week ago
The reason I cannot really say...

The reason I cannot really say that I positively enjoy nature is that I do not quite realize what it is that I enjoy. A work of art, on the other hand, I can grasp. I can - if I may put it this way - find that Archimedian point, and as soon as I have found it, everything is readily clear for me. Then I am able to pursue this one main idea and see how all the details serve to illuminate it.

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Philosophical Maxims
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