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Robert Owen
Robert Owen
3 weeks ago
The lowest stage of humanity is...

The lowest stage of humanity is experienced when the individual must labour for a small pittance of wages from others.

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Paper Dedicated to the Governments of Great Britain, Austria, Russia, France, Prussia and the United States of America
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
2 months 3 weeks ago
Sometimes, because my position has not...

Sometimes, because my position has not been made clear enough, people think I'm a sort of radical anarchist who has an absolute hatred of power. No! What I am trying to do is to approach this extremely important and tangled phenomenon in our society, the exercise of power, with the most reflective, and I would say prudent attitude. Prudent in my analysis, in the moral and theoretical postulates I use: I try to figure out what's at stake. But to question the relations of power in the most scrupulous and attentive manner possible, looking into all the domains of its exercise, that's not the same thing as constructing a mythology of power as the beast of the apocalypse.

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"Power, Moral Values, and the Intellectual", interview in History of the Present 4
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1 month 4 weeks ago
Fathers and teachers, I ponder, "What...

Fathers and teachers, I ponder, "What is hell?" I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.

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Book VI, Chapter 3 (trans. Constance Garnett)
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 3 weeks ago
A fate is not a punishment.

A fate is not a punishment.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Schlegel
Friedrich Schlegel
1 month 4 weeks ago
The most important subject, and the...

The most important subject, and the first problem of philosophy, is the restoration in man of the lost image of God; so far as this relates to science.Should this restoration in the internal consciousness be fully understood, and really brought about, the object of pure philosophy is attained.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
4 days ago
With new technologies of surveillance, economies...

With new technologies of surveillance, economies of scale overcome problems of cost. Since all their electronic communications can be accessed, it is no longer necessary to segregate the inmates from one another. As there is no outside world, escape becomes unimaginable. Technological progress has brought into being a system of surveillance more far-reaching than any Bentham could have conceived. Enclosing the entire population in a virtual Panopticon might seem the ultimate invasion of freedom. But universal confinement need not be experienced as a privation. If they know nothing else, most are likely to accept it as normal. If the technology through which surveillance operates also provides continuous entertainment, they may soon find any other way of living intolerable.

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In the Puppet Theatre: A Universal Panopticon (p. 125)
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
1 week 6 days ago
Lamarck, sagacious as many of his...

Lamarck, sagacious as many of his views were, mingled them with so much that was crude and even absurd, as to neutralize the benefit which his originality might have effected had he been a more sober and cautious thinker…

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Ch.2, p. 125
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 3 weeks ago
Reading the Socratic dialogues one has...

Reading the Socratic dialogues one has the feeling: what a frightful waste of time! What's the point of these arguments that prove nothing and clarify nothing?

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p. 14e
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
3 months 1 week ago
For as children….

For as children tremble and fear everything in the blind darkness, so we in the light sometimes fear what is no more to be feared than the things that children in the dark hold in terror and imagine will come true. This terror, therefore, and darkness of mind must be dispelled not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of daylight, but by the aspect and law of nature.

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Book II, lines 55-61 (tr. Rouse)
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 month 2 weeks ago
Whenever a nation is converted to...

Whenever a nation is converted to Christianity, its Christianity, in practice, must be largely converted to paganism.

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p. 35
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
2 months 4 weeks ago
All the entertainment and talk of...

All the entertainment and talk of history is nothing almost but fighting and killing: and the honour and renown that is bestowed on conquerers (who for the most part are but the great butchers of mankind) farther mislead growing youth, who by this means come to think slaughter the laudible business of mankind, and the most heroick of virtues. By these steps unnatural cruelty is planted in us; and what humanity abhors, custom reconciles and recommends to us, by laying it in the way to honour. Thus, by fashioning and opinion, that comes to be a pleasure, which in itself neither is, nor can be any.

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Sec. 116
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
3 weeks 2 days ago
In anything fit to be called...

In anything fit to be called by the name of reading, the process itself should be absorbing and voluptuous; we should gloat over a book, be rapt clean out of ourselves, and rise from the perusal, our mind filled with the busiest, kaleidoscopic dance of images, incapable of sleep or of continuous thought. The words, if the book be eloquent, should run thenceforward in our ears like the noise of breakers, and the story, if it be a story, repeat itself in a thousand coloured pictures to the eye.

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A Gossip on Romance, printed in Longman's Magazine (November 1882).
Philosophical Maxims
Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch
1 month 2 weeks ago
But fantasy kills imagination, pornography is...

But fantasy kills imagination, pornography is death to art.

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The Message to the Planet (1989) p. 43.
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 3 weeks ago
The true discovery of America by...

The true discovery of America by mankind came when those first hunting bands crossed over from Siberia 25,000 years ago. This, however, never seems to count. When people speak of the "discovery of America" they invariably mean its discovery by Europeans.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
3 months 6 days ago
There is a great difference between...

There is a great difference between the Idols of the human mind and the Ideas of the divine. That is to say, between certain empty dogmas, and the true signatures and marks set upon the works of creation as they are found in nature.

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Aphorism 23
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 4 weeks ago
Love is better than hate, because...

Love is better than hate, because it brings harmony instead of conflict into the desires of the persons concerned. Two people between whom there is love succeed or fail together, but when two people hate each other the success of either is the failure of the other.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 4 weeks ago
[My father] impressed upon me from...

[My father] impressed upon me from the first, that the manner in which the world came into existence was a subject on which nothing was known: that the question, "Who made me?" cannot be answered, because we have no experience or authentic information from which to answer it; and that any answer only throws the difficulty a step further back, since the question immediately presents itself, "Who made God?"

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(pp. 42-43)
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
3 months ago
There as here, passions are the...

There as here, passions are the motive of all action, but they are livelier, more ardent, or merely simpler and purer, thereby assuming a totally different character. All the first movements of nature are good and right.

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First Dialogue; translated by Judith R. Bush, Christopher Kelly, Roger D. Masters
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 4 weeks ago
The immediacy of falling in love...

The immediacy of falling in love recognizes but one immediacy that is ebenburtig (of equal standing), and this is a religious immediacy; falling in love is too virginal to recognize any confidant other than God. But the religious is a new immediacy, has reflection in between-otherwise, paganism would actually be religious and Christianity not. That the religious is a new immediacy every person easily understands who is satisfied with following the honest path of ordinary common sense. And although I imagine I have but few readers, I confess nevertheless that I do imagine my readers to be among these, since I am far from wanting to instruct the admired ones, who make systematic discoveries a la Niels Klim, who have left their good skin in order to put on the “real appearance.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 3 weeks ago
If we must absolutely mention this...

If we must absolutely mention this state of affairs, I suggest that we call ourselves "absent", that is more proper.

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Estelle, refusing to use the word "dead", Act 1, sc. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
Life creates itself in delirium and...

Life creates itself in delirium and is undone in ennui.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 month 1 week ago
To do the opposite of something...

To do the opposite of something is also a form of imitation, namely an imitation of its opposite.

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D 96 Variant translation: To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation.
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 3 weeks ago
No matter how various the subject...

No matter how various the subject matter I write on, I was a science-fiction writer first and it is as a science-fiction writer that I want to be identified.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
Every genuine work of art has...

Every genuine work of art has as much reason for being as the earth and the sun.

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Art
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
4 months ago
May I really say it!
May I really say it! All truths are bloody truths to me, take a look at my previous writings.
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Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
1 month 3 weeks ago
The pistol and dagger may as...

The pistol and dagger may as easily be made the auxiliaries of vice, as of virtue.

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Book IV, "Of Tyrannicide"
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 1 day ago
The interest of the dealers, however,...

The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers.

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Chapter XI, Part III, Conclusion of the Chapter, p. 292.
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 month 1 week ago
Every human being is the natural...

Every human being is the natural guardian of his own importance.

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Ch. 9: "Science and Philosophy", p. 195
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
2 months 2 weeks ago
I am a utilitarian. I am...

I am a utilitarian. I am also a vegetarian. I am a vegetarian because I am a utilitarian.

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Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 9(4): 325 (1980).
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
I pride myself on my capacity...

I pride myself on my capacity to perceive the transitory character of everything. An odd gift which has spoiled all my joys; better: all my sensations.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 5 days ago
Habit is a second nature. Book...

Habit is a second nature.

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Book III, Ch. 10
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks 5 days ago
It's a waste of energy...
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Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 3 weeks ago
One always dies too soon...

One always dies too soon - or too late. And yet, life is there, finished: the line is drawn, and it must all be added up. You are nothing other than your life.

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Inès, Act 1, sc. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 weeks 4 days ago
Acoustic space is totally discontinuous, like...

Acoustic space is totally discontinuous, like touch. It is a sphere without centers or margins.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
2 months 4 weeks ago
Aims, principles, &c., have a place...

Aims, principles, &c., have a place in our thoughts, in our subjective design only; but not yet in the sphere of reality. That which exists for itself only, is a possibility, a potentiality; but has not yet emerged into Existence. A second element must be introduced in order to produce actuality - viz. actuation, realization; and whose motive power is the Will - the activity of man in the widest sense.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 3 weeks ago
I appeal to the philosophers of...

I appeal to the philosophers of all countries to unite and never again mention Heidegger or talk to another philosopher who defends Heidegger. This man was a devil. I mean, he behaved like a devil to his beloved teacher, and he has a devilish influence on Germany. ... One has to read Heidegger in the original to see what a swindler he was.

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As quoted in "At 90, and Still Dynamic : Revisiting Sir Karl Popper and Attending His Birthday Party" by Eugene Yue-Ching Ho, in Intellectus 23
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 3 weeks ago
Generals are, as a matter of...

Generals are, as a matter of course, allowed to be far more idiotic than ordinary human beings are permitted to be.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 4 weeks ago
An individual may perceive a way...

An individual may perceive a way of life, or a method of social organisation, by which more of the desires of mankind could be satisfied than under the existing method. If he perceives truly, and can persuade men to adopt his reform, he is justified. Without rebellion, mankind would stagnate, and injustice would be irremediable.

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Ch. 15: Power and moral codes
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
3 months 1 day ago
[...] men are not astonish'd at...

[...] men are not astonish'd at the operations of their own reason, at the same time, that they admire the instinct of animals, and find a difficulty in explaining it, merely because it cannot be reduc'd to the very same principles. [...] reason is nothing but a wonderful and unintelligible instinct in our souls[.]

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Part 3, Section 16
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 3 weeks ago
I entered the [Communist] Party because...

I entered the [Communist] Party because its cause was just and I will leave it when it ceases to be just.

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Hugo to Hoederer, Act 5, sc. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 weeks 6 days ago
As soon as men live entirely...

As soon as men live entirely in accord with the law of love natural to their hearts and now revealed to them, which excludes all resistance by violence, and therefore hold aloof from all participation in violence - as soon as this happens, not only will hundreds be unable to enslave millions, but not even millions will be able to enslave a single individual.

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V
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
2 months 3 weeks ago
Recalling all the erroneous things that...

Recalling all the erroneous things that doctors have been able to say about sex or madness does us a fat lot of good. I think that what is currently politically important is to determine the regime of verediction established at a given moment ... on the basis of which you can now recognize, for example, that doctors in the nineteenth century said so many stupid things about sex. ... It is not so much the history of the true or the history of the false as the history of verediction which has a political significance.

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Lecture 2, January 17, 1979, p. 36
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
1 month 2 weeks ago
If it were not for the...

If it were not for the founder of the school, Charles S. Pierce, who has told us that he 'learned philosophy out of Kant,' one might be tempted to deny any philosophical pedigree to a doctrine that holds not that our expectations are fulfilled and our actions successful because our ideas are true, but rather that our ideas are true because our expectations are fulfilled and our actions successful. describing the pragmatist view,

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p. 42.
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
1 month 1 week ago
The family uses people, not for...

The family uses people, not for what they are, nor for what they are intended to be, but for what it wants them for - its own uses. It thinks of them not as what God has made them, but as the something which it has arranged that they shall be.

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Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
1 month 3 weeks ago
Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by...

Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.

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As quoted in Quote, Unquote‎ (1989) by Jonathan Williams, p. 136
Philosophical Maxims
Anaxagoras
Anaxagoras
2 months 2 weeks ago
Thought is something limitless and independent,...

Thought is something limitless and independent, and has been mixed with no thing but is alone by itself. ... What was mingled with it would have prevented it from having power over anything in the way in which it does. ... For it is the finest of all things and the purest.

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Frag. B12, in Jonathan Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy (1984), p. 190.
Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
3 months 1 day ago
Of all the things that are...

Of all the things that are beyond my power, I value nothing more highly than to be allowed the honor of entering into bonds of friendship with people who sincerely love truth. For, of things beyond our power, I believe there is nothing in the world which we can love with tranquility except such men.

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Spinoza, Correspondence, 146, Letter xix
Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
6 days ago
Many city-dwellers have a romanticized conception...

Many city-dwellers have a romanticized conception of the living world. From another perspective, some "conservation biologists" favour e.g. "Pleistocene rewilding". By contrast, I think any truly compassionate person should be horrified at the terrible suffering of Nature "red in tooth and claw". Why not aim for a cruelty-free world instead?

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"Interview with Pensata Animal", Pensata Animal, 25 Oct. 2009
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
3 months 1 week ago
Bad times, hard times, this is...

Bad times, hard times, this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times.

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80:8
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 2 weeks ago
I am the door: by me...

I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.

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10:9-11
Philosophical Maxims
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