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Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months ago
We tend to believe the premises...

We tend to believe the premises because we can see that their consequences are true, instead of believing the consequences because we know the premises to be true. But the inferring of premises from consequences is the essence of induction; thus the method in investigating the principles of mathematics is really an inductive method, and is substantially the same as the method of discovering general laws in any other science.

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"The Regressive Method of Discovering the Premises of Mathematics" (1907), in Essays in Analysis (1973), pp. 273-274
Philosophical Maxims
Alan Watts
Alan Watts
1 week 3 days ago
Living, loving, being natural or sincere-all...

Living, loving, being natural or sincere-all these are spontaneous forms of behavior: they happen "of themselves" like digesting food or growing hair. As soon as they are forced they acquire that unnatural, contrived, and phony atmosphere which everyone deplores-weak and scentless like forced flowers and tasteless like forced fruit. Life and love generate effort, but effort will not generate them. Faith-in life, in other people, and in oneself-is the attitude of allowing the spontaneous to be spontaneous, in its own way and in its own time.

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p. 56
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
1 month 4 weeks ago
The inherent contradiction of human life...

The inherent contradiction of human life has now reached an extreme degree of tension: on the one side there is the consciousness of the beneficence of the law of love, and on the other the existing order of life which has for centuries occasioned an empty, anxious, restless, and troubled mode of life, conflicting as it does with the law of love and built on the use of violence. This contradiction must be faced, and the solution will evidently not be favourable to the outlived law of violence, but to the truth which has dwelt in the hearts of men from remote antiquity: the truth that the law of love is in accord with the nature of man. But men can only recognize this truth to its full extent when they have completely freed themselves from all religious and scientific superstitions and from all the consequent misrepresentations and sophistical distortions by which its recognition has been hindered for centuries.

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VI
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months 1 week ago
If it is permissible to write...

If it is permissible to write plays that are not intended to be seen, I should like to see who can prevent me from writing a book no one can read.

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F 1
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
2 weeks ago
By Hercules, the state would have...

By Hercules, the state would have sustained a great loss if you had not brought him forth from the oblivion to which his two splendid qualities, eloquence and independence, had consigned him: he is now read, is popular, is received into men's hands and bosoms, and fears no old age: but as for those who butchered him, before long men will cease to speak even of their crimes, the only things by which they are remembered.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
3 months 3 weeks ago
Being is only Being for Dasein...

Being is only Being for Dasein.

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Macquarrie & Robinson translation
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 month 3 weeks ago
No one should be judge in...

No one should be judge in his own cause.

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Maxim 545
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
4 months 1 week ago
The will is not free to...

The will is not free to strive toward whatever is declared good.

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Thesis 10
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
5 months 2 days ago
With all great deceivers there is...
With all great deceivers there is a noteworthy occurrence to which they owe their power. In the actual act of deception... they are overcome by belief in themselves. It is this which then speaks so miraculously and compellingly to those who surround them.
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Philosophical Maxims
Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Berdyaev
2 months 2 weeks ago
In order to be able to...

In order to be able to go on living it is possible that the bankrupt peoples will have to enter on a new path of self-denial, by curbing their covetousness and putting a check on the indefinite expansion of their wants, and by having smaller families.

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p. 94
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 3 weeks ago
A punishment that penalizes without forestalling...

A punishment that penalizes without forestalling is indeed called revenge.

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Philosophical Maxims
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
2 months 1 day ago
I urge you to please notice...

I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is."

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Knowing What's Nice, an essay from In These Times
Philosophical Maxims
Mencius
Mencius
3 weeks ago
Benevolence is the tranquil habitation of...

Benevolence is the tranquil habitation of man, and righteousness is his straight path.

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Justice and Truth, no. 100
Philosophical Maxims
David Wood
David Wood
1 month 1 week 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
Plutarch
Plutarch
3 months 2 weeks ago
Thrasyllus the Cynic begged a drachm...

Thrasyllus the Cynic begged a drachm of Antigonus. "That," said he, "is too little for a king to give." "Why, then," said the other, "give me a talent." "And that," said he, "is too much for a Cynic (or, for a dog) to receive."

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45 Antigonus I
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
1 month 2 weeks ago
The great end of life is...

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.

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"Technical Education"
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
4 months 1 day ago
If you punish him for what...

If you punish him for what he sees you practise yourself, he... will be apt to interpret it the peevishness and arbitrary imperiousness of a father, who, without any ground for it, would deny his son the liberty and pleasure he takes himself.

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Sec. 71
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
4 months 2 weeks ago
Cornered vessel without corners, strange cornered...

Cornered vessel without corners, strange cornered vessel, strange cornered vessel.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
Speech and silence. We feel safer...

Speech and silence. We feel safer with a madman who talks than with one who cannot open his mouth.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 2 weeks ago
Philosophy's error....
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Main Content / General
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
3 months 5 days ago
Not to be content with Life...

Not to be content with Life is the unsatisfactory state of those which destroy themselves; who being afraid to live, run blindly upon their own Death, which no Man fears by Experience.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
2 months 4 weeks ago
The blindness of those who think...

The blindness of those who think it absurd to suppose that complex organic forms may have arisen by successive modifications out of simple ones becomes astonishing when we remember that complex organic forms are daily being thus produced. A tree differs from a seed immeasurably in every respect... Yet is the one changed in the course of a few years into the other: changed so gradually, that at no moment can it be said - Now the seed ceases to be, and the tree exists.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
5 months ago
Man is a synthesis of psyche...

Man is a synthesis of psyche and body, but he is also a synthesis of the temporal and the eternal. In the former, the two factors are psyche and body, and spirit is the third, yet in such a way that one can speak of a synthesis only when the spirit is posited. The latter synthesis has only two factors, the temporal and the eternal. Where is the third factor? And if there is no third factor, there really is no synthesis, for a synthesis that is a contradiction cannot be completed as a synthesis without a third factor, because the fact that the synthesis is a contradiction asserts that it is not. What, then, is the temporal?

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 1 week ago
There is nothing more notable in...

There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.

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Book III, Ch. 13
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
2 months 2 weeks ago
And he arrives at the cogito...

And he arrives at the cogito ergo sum, which St. Augustine had already anticipated... "I think therefore I am," can only mean "I think, therefore I am a thinker"; this being of "I am," which is deduced from "I think," is merely a knowing; this being is a knowledge, but not life. And the primary reality is not that I think, but that I live, for those also live who do not think. Although this living may not be a real living. God! what contradictions when we seek to join in wedlock life and reason!

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Philosophical Maxims
Julius Evola
Julius Evola
1 week ago
Warrior spirit is characterised by direct,...

Warrior spirit is characterised by direct, clear and loyal relations, based on fidelity and honour and a sound instinct for the various dignities, which it can well distinguish: it opposes everything which is impersonal and trivial.

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p. 117
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 months 3 weeks ago
My aim is: to teach you...

My aim is: to teach you to pass from a piece of disguised nonsense to something that is patent nonsense.

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§ 464
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
2 weeks ago
What fools…

What fools these mortals be!

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Philosophical Maxims
Mozi
Mozi
1 week ago
All states in the world, large...

All states in the world, large or small, are cities of Heaven, and all people, young or old, honourable or humble, are its subjects; for they all graze oxen and sheep, feed dogs and pigs, and prepare clean wine and cakes to sacrifice to Heaven. Does this not mean that Heaven claims all and accepts offerings from all? Since Heaven does claim all and accepts offerings from all, what then can make us say that it does not desire men to love and benefit one another? Hence those who love and benefit others Heaven will bless. Those who hate and harm others Heaven will curse, for it is said that he who murders the innocent will be visited by misfortune. How else can we explain the fact that men, murdering each other, will be cursed by Heaven? Thus we are certain that Heaven desires to have men love and benefit one another and abominates to have them hate and harm one another.

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Book 1; On the necessity of standards
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
4 months 2 days ago
A philosophical attempt to work out...

A philosophical attempt to work out a universal history according to a natural plan directed to achieving the civic union of the human race must be regarded as possible and, indeed, as contributing to this end of Nature.

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Ninth Thesis
Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
2 months 3 weeks ago
Situation seems to be the mould...

Situation seems to be the mould in which men's characters are formed.

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Letter 23
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months ago
Considering the optimistic turn taken by...

Considering the optimistic turn taken by world trade AT THIS MOMENT...it is some consolation at least that the revolution has begun in Russia, for I regard the convocation of 'notables' to Petersburg as such a beginning. ... On the Continent revolution is imminent and will, moreover, instantly assume a socialist character.

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Letter to Friedrich Engels (8 October 1858), quoted in The Collected Works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Volume 40. Letters 1856-59 (2010), pp. 346-347
Philosophical Maxims
Emperor Julian
Emperor Julian
1 week 1 day ago
The entire heaven, making its parts...

The entire heaven, making its parts everywhere harmonize with him, is filled with spirits emanating out of the Sun. For this god is ruler of five orbits in the heavens, and whilst traversing three out of these orbits, he produces in three the Graces, themselves three in number, the remaining circles form the Scales to the Balance of supreme Necessity.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
3 months 4 weeks ago
Many conservative writers have contended that...

Many conservative writers have contended that the tendency to equality in modern social movements is the expression of envy. In this way they seek to discredit this trend, attributing it to collectively harmful impulses.

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Chapter IX, Section 82, p. 538
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 4 weeks ago
To aspire to be superhuman is...

To aspire to be superhuman is a most discreditable admission that you lack the guts, the wit, the moderating judgment to be successfully and consummately human.

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Spinoza's Worm," p. 75
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
4 months 2 weeks ago
For on these matters we should...

For on these matters we should not trust the multitude who say that none ought to be educated but the free, but rather to philosophers, who say that the educated alone are free.

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Book II, ch. 1, 22.
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
4 months 3 weeks ago
Just you think first, and don't...

Just you think first, and don't bother to speak afterward, either.

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Philosophical Maxims
Antisthenes
Antisthenes
3 months 2 weeks ago
Count all wickedness….

Count all wickedness foreign and alien.

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§ 5
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
2 months 4 weeks ago
The Life according to Reason consists...

The Life according to Reason consists herein, -that the Individual forget himself in the Race, place his own life in the life of the Race, and dedicate it thereto;-the Life opposed to Reason, on the contrary, consists in this, that the Individual think of nothing but himself, love nothing but himself and in relation to himself, and set his whole existence in his own personal well-being alone: -and since we may briefly call that which is according to Reason good, and that which is opposed to Reason evil, so there is but One Virtue, to forget one's own personality;-and but One Vice,-to make self the object of our thoughts.

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p. 33
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 3 weeks ago
Can the children of the bridechamber...

Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast. No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse. Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.

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9:15-17 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 months 3 weeks ago
When I obey a rule, I...

When I obey a rule, I do not choose. I obey the rule blindly.

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§ 219
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
Just now
We, who are dying, are doing...

We, who are dying, are doing better, than they, who will live. For Crete doesn't need householders, she needs madmen like us. These madmen make Crete immortal.

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Freedom and Death
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
2 months 3 weeks ago
The historical world, in so far...

The historical world, in so far as it is built, organized, and shaped by the conscious activity of thinking subjects, is a realm of mind. But the mind is fully realized and exists in its true form only when it indulges in its proper activity, namely, in art, religion, and philosophy.

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P. 87
Philosophical Maxims
Alan Watts
Alan Watts
1 week 3 days ago
I have always done things in...

I have always done things in my own way, which is at once the way that comes naturally to me, that is honest, sincere, genuine, and unforced; but also perverse, although you must remember that this word means per (through) verse (poetry), out-of-the-way and wayward, which is surely towards the way, and that to be queer-to "follow your own weird"-is wholeheartedly to accept your karma, or fate, or destiny, and thus to be odd in the service of God, "whose service," as the Anglican Book of Common Prayer declares, "is perfect freedom."

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p. xiii
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
4 months 2 days ago
The question here is not, "How...

The question here is not, "How conscience ought to be guided? For Conscience is its own General and Leader; it is therefore enough that each man have one. What we want to know is, how conscience can be her own Ariadne, and disentangle herself from the mazes even of the most raveled and complicated casuistical theology. Here is an ethical proposition that stands in need of no proof: No Action May At Any Time Be Hazarded On The Uncertainty That Perchance It May Not Be Wrong (Quod dubitas, ne feceris! Pliny - which you doubt, then neither do) Hence the Consciousness, that Any Action I am about to perform is Right, is in itself a most immediate and imperative duty. What actions are right, - what wrong - is a matter for the understanding, not for conscience.

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p. 251 Book IV, Part 2, Section 4
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
4 months 3 days ago
When the profits of trade happen...

When the profits of trade happen to be greater than ordinary, over-trading becomes a general error both among great and small dealers.

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Chapter I, p. 469.
Philosophical Maxims
Alan Watts
Alan Watts
1 week 3 days ago
As a human being it is...

As a human being it is just my nature to enjoy and share philosophy. I do this in the same way that some birds are eagles and some doves, some flowers lilies and some roses.

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p. 22
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 months 2 weeks ago
The Reformation was a popular uprising,...

The Reformation was a popular uprising, and for a century and a half drenched Europe in blood. The beginnings of the Scientific movement were confined to a minority among the intellectual elite.... The worst that happened to men of science was that Galileo suffered an honorable detention and a mild reproof, before dying peacefully in his bed. The way in which the persecution of Galileo has been remembered is a tribute to the quiet commencement of the most intimate change in outlook which the human race had yet encountered. Since a babe was born in a manger, it may be doubted whether so great a thing has happened with so little stir.

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Ch. 1: "The Origins of Modern Science", pp. 2-3
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
2 months 1 week ago
I believe that freedom is not...

I believe that freedom is not a constant attribute that "we have" or "we don't have"; perhaps there is only one reality: the act of liberating ourselves in the process of using choices. Every step in life that heightens the maturity of man heightens his ability to choose the freeing alternative. I believe that "freedom of choice" is not always equal for all men at every moment. The man with an exclusively necrophilic orientation; who is narcissistic; or who is symbiotic-incestuous, can only make a regressive choice. The free man, freed from irrational ties, can no longer make a regressive choice.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
4 months 1 day ago
He that uses his words loosely...

He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.

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Book III, Ch. 10, sec. 31
Philosophical Maxims
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