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John Locke
John Locke
5 months 2 weeks ago
A young man before he leaves...

A young man before he leaves the shelter of his father's house, and the guard of a tutor, should be fortify'd with resolution, and made acquainted with men, to secure his virtues, lest he should be led into some ruinous course, or fatal precipice, before he is sufficiently acquainted with the dangers of conversation, and his steadiness enough not to yield to every temptation.

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Sec. 70
Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
2 months 3 weeks ago
[H]ere we come to the nub...

[H]ere we come to the nub of the issue: the alleged moral force of the term "natural". If any creature, by its very nature, causes terrible suffering, albeit unwittingly, is it morally wrong to change that nature? If a civilised human were to come to believe s/he had been committing acts that caused grievous pain for no good reason, then s/he would stop - and want other moral agents to prevent the recurrence of such behaviour. May we assume that the same would be true of a lion, if the lion were morally and cognitively "uplifted" so as to understand the ramifications of what (s)he was doing? Or a house cat tormenting a mouse? Or indeed a human sociopath?

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"Reprogramming Predators", BLTC Research, 2009
Philosophical Maxims
G. E. Moore
G. E. Moore
4 months 1 week ago
By far the most valuable things,...

By far the most valuable things, which we know or can imagine, are certain states of consciousness, which may roughly be described as the pleasures of human intercourse and the enjoyment of beautiful objects. No one, probably, who has asked himself the question, has ever doubted that personal affection and the appreciation of what is beautiful in Art or Nature, are good in themselves; nor, if we consider strictly what things are worth having purely for their own sakes, does it appear probable that any one will think that anything else has nearly so much value as the things which are included under these two heads.

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Principia Ethica (1903; revised edition, Cambridge University Press, 1993).
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
4 months 2 weeks ago
No one, of a surety, wanders...

No one, of a surety, wanders farther from the mark than he who fancies to himself that he already understands this marvellous Kingdom, and can, in few words, fathom its constitution, and everywhere find the right path. To no one, who has broken off, and made himself an Island, will insight rise of itself, nor even without toilsome effort. Only to children, or childlike men, who know not what they do, can this happen. Long, unwearied intercourse, free and wise Contemplation, attention to faint tokens and indications; an inward poet-life, practised senses, a simple and devout spirit: these are the essential requisites of a true Friend of Nature; without these no one can attain his wish.

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Philosophical Maxims
Richard Rorty
Richard Rorty
5 months 1 week ago
Truthfulness under oath is, by now,...

Truthfulness under oath is, by now, a matter of our civic religion, our relation to our fellow citizens rather than our relation to a nonhuman power.

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"John Searle on Realism and Relativism." Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers, Volume 3 (1998).
Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
5 months 1 week ago
Harvard now, I think, suffers from...

Harvard now, I think, suffers from a kind of self-idolatry, that it needs to be critical of itself in order to grow. And again, if you can be in contact with the best of its past, then it's got a chance. But if it just remains well adjusted to the status quo, generating careerist and opportunist students rather than critically oriented students who have a heart and soul, concerned about suffering here and around the world - then Harvard has a chance. I'm not giving up on Harvard, but I am making my way to New York.

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Speaking in Too Radical for Harvard? Cornel West on Failed Fight for Tenure, Biden's First 50 Days & More, Democracy Now!
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
6 months 1 week ago
Of all people, girls and...

Of all people, girls and servants are the most difficult to behave to. If you are familiar with them, they lose their humility. If you maintain a reserve towards them, they are discontented.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
6 months 2 weeks ago
This opinion... appears to be ancient......

This opinion... appears to be ancient... that the one, excess and defect, are the principles of things... It is not... probable that there are more than three principles... Essence is one certain genus of being: so that principles will differ from each other in prior and posterior alone, but not in genus, for in one genus there is always one contrariety, and all contrarieties appear to be referred to one. That there is neither one element, therefore, nor more than two or three, is evident.

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Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
5 months 5 days ago
Socrates thought that if all our...

Socrates thought that if all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, whence every one must take an equal portion, most persons would be contented to take their own and depart.

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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
2 months 2 days ago
Our minds must have relaxation: rested,...

Our minds must have relaxation: rested, they will rise up better and keener. Just as we must not force fertile fields (for uninterrupted production will quickly exhaust them), so continual labor will break the power of our minds. They will recover their strength, however, after they have had a little freedom and relaxation.

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Philosophical Maxims
Gottlob frege
Gottlob frege
4 months 1 week ago
Is it always permissible to speak...

Is it always permissible to speak of the extension of a concept, of a class? And if not, how do we recognize the exceptional cases? Can we always infer from the extension of one concept's coinciding with that of a second, that every object which falls under the first concept also falls under the second?

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Vol. 2, p. 127. Replying to Bertrand Russell's letter about Russell's Paradox; quoted in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 2 weeks ago
Timid men prefer the calm of...

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

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Letter to his Italian friend, Philip Mazzei
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
6 months 2 weeks ago
He believes in that mummery a...

He believes in that mummery a good deal less than I do, and I don't believe in it at all.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 2 weeks ago
...You could take up the line...

...You could take up the line that some of the gnostics took up - a line which I often thought was a very plausible one - that as a matter of fact this world that we know was made by the devil at a moment when God was not looking. There is a good deal to be said for that, and I am not concerned to refute it.

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"The Moral Arguments for Deity"
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 month 2 weeks ago
Disturbance comes only from within-from our...

Disturbance comes only from within-from our own perceptions.

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(Hays translation) IV, 4
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
4 months ago
Violence and freedom are the two...

Violence and freedom are the two endpoints on the scale of power.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
5 months 1 week ago
No text in the tradition seems...

No text in the tradition seems as lucid concerning the way in which the political is becoming worldwide. concerning the irreducibility of the technical and the media in the current of the most thinking thought-and this goes beyond the railroad and the newspapers of the time whose powers were analyzed in such an incomparable way in the Manifesto. And few texts have shed so much light on law. international law. and nationalism.

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Injunctions of Marx
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
4 months 1 week ago
I have compassion on the multitude,...

I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way.

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15:32 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
3 months 3 weeks ago
It seems to me, that if...

It seems to me, that if the matter of our sun and planets and all the matter of the universe, were evenly scattered throughout all the heavens, and every particle had an innate gravity towards all the rest, and the whole of space throughout which this matter was scattered was but finite, the matter on [toward] the outside of this space would, by its gravity, tend towards all the matter on the inside, and, by consequence, fall down into the middle of the whole space, and there compose one great spherical mass. But if the matter was evenly disposed throughout an infinite space it could never convene into one mass; but some of it would convene into one mass and some into another, so as to make an infinite number of great masses, scattered at great distances from one another throughout all that infinite space.

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Four Letters to Bentley (1692) first letter
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 months 2 weeks ago
Giving alms is only a virtuous...

Giving alms is only a virtuous deed when you give money that you yourself worked to get.

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p. 83
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
5 months 1 week ago
Tomorrow we will….

Tomorrow we will be back on the vast ocean.

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The Routledge Dictionary of Latin Quotations: The Illiterati's Guide to Latin Maxims, Mottoes, Proverbs and Sayings
Philosophical Maxims
Judith Butler
Judith Butler
3 months 2 weeks ago
When the world presents as a...

When the world presents as a force field of violence, the task of nonviolence is to find ways of living and acting in that world such that violence is checked or ameliorated, or its direction turned, precisely at moments when it seems to saturate that world and offer no way out.

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p. 10
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
4 months 4 days ago
The greatest height of heroism to...

The greatest height of heroism to which an individual, like a people, can attain is to know how to face ridicule; better still, to know how to make oneself ridiculous and not to shrink from the ridicule.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
5 months 3 weeks ago
The tolls for the maintenance of...

The tolls for the maintenance of a high road, cannot with any safety be made the property of private persons.

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Chapter I, Part III, Article I, p. 786 (See also.. Public-private partnerships).
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
5 months 2 weeks ago
I have received, sir, your new...

I have received, sir, your new book against the human species, and I thank you for it. You will please people by your manner of telling them the truth about themselves, but you will not alter them. The horrors of that human society-from which in our feebleness and ignorance we expect so many consolations-have never been painted in more striking colours: no one has ever been so witty as you are in trying to turn us into brutes: to read your book makes one long to go on all fours. Since, however, it is now some sixty years since I gave up the practice, I feel that it is unfortunately impossible for me to resume it: I leave this natural habit to those more fit for it than are you and I.

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Letter to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, August 30, 1755 referring to Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality.
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
5 months 3 weeks ago
An armed insurrection ... would hinder...

An armed insurrection ... would hinder and bring into disrepute this spiritual insurrection.

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p. 68
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
5 months 2 weeks ago
He [the child] does not despise...

He [the child] does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted.

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"On Three Ways of Writing for Children", 1952
Philosophical Maxims
B. F. Skinner
B. F. Skinner
2 months 1 week ago
The real question is not whether...

The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.

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Contingencies of Reinforcement: A Theoretical Analysis
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
5 months 2 weeks ago
The doctrine that there is as...

The doctrine that there is as much science in a subject as... mathematics in it, or as much... measurement or 'precision' in it, rests upon... misunderstanding.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
1 month 4 weeks ago
I believe that world literature has...

I believe that world literature has it in its power to help mankind, in these its troubled hours, to see itself as it really is, notwithstanding the indoctrinations of prejudiced people and parties. World literature has it in its power to convey condensed experience from one land to another so that we might cease to be split and dazzled, that the different scales of values might be made to agree, and one nation learn correctly and concisely the true history of another with such strength of recognition and painful awareness as it had itself experienced the same, and thus might it be spared from repeating the same cruel mistakes.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
6 months 2 weeks ago
The contradiction is this: man rejects...

The contradiction is this: man rejects the world as it is, without accepting the necessity of escaping it. In fact, men cling to the world and by far the majority do not want to abandon it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
1 month 4 weeks ago
What really matters is that we...

What really matters is that we should all of us realize that we are guilty of inhumanity. The horror of this realization should shake us out of our lethargy so that we can direct our hopes and our intentions to the coming of an era in which war will have no place.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
5 months 3 weeks ago
If thou shalt aspire after the...

If thou shalt aspire after the glorious acts of men, thy working shall be accompanied with compunction and strife, and thy remembrance followed with distaste and upbraidings; and justly doth it come to pass towards thee, O man, that since thou, which art God's work, doest him no reason in yielding him well-pleasing service, even thine own works also should reward thee with the like fruit of bitterness.

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Of The Works Of God and Man
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 2 weeks ago
Political ideals must be based upon...

Political ideals must be based upon ideals for the individual life. The aim of politics should be to make the lives of individuals as good as possible.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
6 months 2 weeks ago
The two guides call out to...

The two guides call out to a man early and late. And yet, no, for when remorse calls to a man it is always late. The call to find the way again by seeking out God in the confession of sins is always at the eleventh hour. Whether you are young or old, whether you have sinned much or little, whether you have offended much or neglected much, the guilt makes this call come at the eleventh hour. The inner agitation of the heart understands what remorse insists upon, that the eleventh hour has come. For in the sense of time, the old man's age is the eleventh hour; and the instant of death, the final moment in the eleventh hour. The indolent youth speaks of a long life that lies before him. The indolent old man hopes that his death is still a long way off. But repentance and remorse belong to the eternal in a man.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 3 weeks ago
God might grant us riches, honours,...

God might grant us riches, honours, life, and even health, to our own hurt; for every thing that is pleasing to us is not always good for us. If he sends us death, or an increase of sickness, instead of a cure, Vvrga tua et baculus, tuus ipsa me consolata sunt. "Thy rod and thy staff have comforted me," he does it by the rule of his providence, which better and more certainly discerns what is proper for us than we can do; and we ought to take it in good part, as coming from a wise and most friendly hand.

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Ch. 12
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
4 months 1 week ago
In all ranges of experience, externality...

In all ranges of experience, externality of means defines the mechanical.

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p. 206
Philosophical Maxims
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
2 months 2 weeks ago
The self-evident truth which makes men...

The self-evident truth which makes men invincible is that inalienably they are inviolate persons.

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Ch. XVII: "On This Rock", §2, p. 375
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 1 week ago
We don't need....
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Main Content / General
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
5 months 3 weeks ago
By the law is the knowledge...

By the law is the knowledge of sin [Rom 3:20], so the word of grace comes only to those who are distressed by a sense of sin and tempted to despair.

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p. 168
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 2 weeks ago
The arrogance of age must submit...

The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.

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Letter to Frances Burney
Philosophical Maxims
Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch
4 months 1 week ago
Writing is like getting married. One...

Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.

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The Black Prince (1973); 2003, p. 10.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 2 weeks ago
Real life is, to most men,...

Real life is, to most men, a long second-best, a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible; but the world of pure reason knows no compromise, no practical limitations, no barrier to the creative activity embodying in splendid edifices the passionate aspiration after the perfect from which all great work springs. Remote from human passions, remote even from the pitiful facts of nature, the generations have gradually created an ordered cosmos, where pure thought can dwell as in its natural home, and where one, at least, of our nobler impulses can escape from the dreary exile of the actual world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alan Watts
Alan Watts
1 month 4 weeks ago
The pity of all this is,...

The pity of all this is, you know, a man like that [Sri Ramakrishna] has to have disciples, or no one would ever hear about him. But somehow, as the generations pass, the flame dies out. And eventually the disciples kill him.I wish that there was a way of putting a time-bomb into scriptures and records - not a time-bomb, but some kind of invisible ink, so that all scriptures would un-print themselves about fifty years after the master's death. And just dissolve.

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Audio lecture Ramakrishna, Ramana, and Krishnamurti
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 2 weeks ago
Whensoever hostile aggressions...require a resort to...

Whensoever hostile aggressions...require a resort to war, we must meet our duty and convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies.

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Letter to Andrew Jackson
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 2 weeks ago
There never was a bad man...

There never was a bad man that had ability for good service.

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Speech in opening the impeachment of Warren Hastings (18 February 1788), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Volume the Tenth (1899), p. 59
Philosophical Maxims
George Berkeley
George Berkeley
4 months 3 weeks ago
Abstract terms...

Abstract terms (however useful they may be in argument) should be discarded in meditation, and the mind should be fixed on the particular and the concrete, that is, on the things themselves.

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Paragraph 4
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 1 week ago
In our fear, we are victims...

In our fear, we are victims of an aggression of the Future.

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Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
1 month 2 weeks ago
If you know even as little...

If you know even as little history as I do, it is hard not to doubt the efficacy of modern war as a solution to any problem except that of retribution - the "justice" of exchanging one damage for another.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
5 months 3 weeks ago
Nothing but the most exemplary morals...

Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune.

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Chapter I, Part III, Article III, p. 874.
Philosophical Maxims
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