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Judith Butler
Judith Butler
1 week 5 days ago
Guilt has to be understood not...

Guilt has to be understood not only as a way of checking one's own destructiveness, but as a mechanism for safeguarding the life of the other, one that emerges from our own need and dependency, from a sense that this life is not a life without another life. Indeed, when it turns into a safeguarding action, I am not sure it should still be called "guilt." If we do still use that term, we could conclude that "guilt" is strangely generative or that its productive form is reparation.

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p. 93
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Hölderlin
Friedrich Hölderlin
1 month 1 week ago
The earth with yellow pears And...

The earth with yellow pears And overgrown with roses wild Upon the pond is bent, And swans divine, With kisses drunk You drop your heads In the sublimely sobering water. But where, with winter come, am I To find, alas, the floweres, and where The sunshine And the shadow of the world? Cold the walls stand And the wordless, in the wind The weathercocks are rattling.

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"Halves of Life"
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 1 week ago
I hate tyranny, at least I...

I hate tyranny, at least I think I do; but I hate it most of all where most are concerned in it. The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny. If, as society is constituted in these large countries of France and England, full of unequal property, I must make my choice (which God avert!) between the despotism of a single person, or of the many, my election is made. As much injustice and tyranny has been practised in a few months by a French democracy, as in all the arbitrary monarchies in Europe in the forty years of my observation.

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Letter to Captain Thomas Mercer (26 February 1790), quoted in Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VI: July 1789-December 1791 (1967), p. 96
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 months 1 week ago
A belief in hell and the...

A belief in hell and the knowledge that every ambition is doomed to frustration at the hands of a skeleton have never prevented the majority of human beings from behaving as though death were no more than an unfounded rumour, and survival a thing beyond the bounds of possibility.

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Themes and Variations, 1950
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 1 week ago
Philosophy seems to me on the...

Philosophy seems to me on the whole a rather hopeless business.

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Letter to Gilbert Murray, December 28, 1902
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
1 month 1 week ago
A subject interests me and holds...

A subject interests me and holds my attention only so long as it presents me with difficulties, only so long as I am at odds with it and have, as it were, to struggle with it; but once I have mastered it I hurry on to something else, to a new subject; for my interest is not confined to any particular field or subject; it extends to everything human. This does not mean that I am an intellectual miser or egoist, who amasses knowledge for himself alone; by no means! What I do and think for myself, I must also think and do for others. But I feel the need of instructing others in a subject only so long as, while instructing others, I am also instructing myself.

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Lecture I, , R. Manheim, trans. (1967), p. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam
2 weeks 4 days ago
To sum up: we have seen...

To sum up: we have seen that of the three notions of 'partial interpretation' discussed, each is either unsuitable for Carnap's purposes (starting with observation terms), or incompatible with a rather minimal scientific realism; and, in addition, the second notion depends upon gross and misleading changes in our use of language. Thus in none of these senses is 'a partially interpreted calculus in which only the observation terms are directly interpreted' an acceptable model for a scientific theory.

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"What theories are not"
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
1 month 1 day ago
No one is guiltless...But no one...

No one is guiltless...But no one is beyond the pale of human existence, provided he pays for his guilt.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 months 1 week ago
We can pool information about experiences....

We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes.

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Page 159
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
1 week 6 days ago
Once animals had a more sacred,...

Once animals had a more sacred, more divine character than men. There is not even a reign of the "human" in primitive societies, and for a long time the animal order has been the order of reference. Only the animal is worth being sacrificed, as a god, the sacrifice of man only comes afterward, according to a degraded order. Men qualify only by their affiliation to the animal: the Bororos "are" macaws. "

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The Animals: Territory and Metamorphoses," p. 133
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Hölderlin
Friedrich Hölderlin
1 month 1 week ago
What has always made the state...

What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it heaven.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 weeks 2 days ago
And the central assertion of his...

And the central assertion of his philosophy is that this inner realm is the 'spiritual world' and that once man has learned to enter this realm, he realizes that it is not a mere imaginative reflection of the external world, but a world that possesses its own independent reality.

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p. 161
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
3 months 1 week ago
We often contradict an opinion for...
We often contradict an opinion for no other reason than that we do not like the tone in which it is expressed.
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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 weeks 2 days ago
Christianity was an epidemic rather than...

Christianity was an epidemic rather than a religion. It appealed to fear, hysteria and ignorance. It spread across the Western world, not because it was true, but because humans are gullible and superstitious.

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p. 212
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson
1 month 3 days ago
A philosopher worthy...

A philosopher worthy of the name has never said more than a single thing: and even then it is something he has tried to say, rather than actually said. And he has said only one thing because he has seen only one point: and at that it was not so much a vision as a contact...

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"L'intuition philosophique (Philosophical Intuition)" (10 April 1911); translated by Mabelle L. Andison in: Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics, Courier Dover Publications, 2012, p. 91
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 1 week ago
Every age has its own poetry;...

Every age has its own poetry; in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry.

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"Orphée Noir (Black Orpheus)"
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
2 months 3 weeks ago
When the apostle James was talking...

When the apostle James was talking about faith and works against those who thought their faith was enough, and didn't want to have good works, he said, You believe God is one; you do well; the demons also believe, and tremble.

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(Jas 2:19) 183:13:2
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 1 week ago
Life continues, and some mornings, weary...

Life continues, and some mornings, weary of the noise, discouraged by the prospect of the interminable work to keep after, sickened also by the madness of the world that leaps at you from the newspaper, finally convinced that I will not be equal to it and that I will disappoint everyone, all I want to do is sit down and wait for evening. This is what I feel like, and sometimes I yield to it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
2 months 1 day ago
We do not have to make...

We do not have to make self- sacrifice a necessary element of altruism. We can regard people as altruists because of the kind of interests they have rather than because they are sacrificing their interests.

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Chapter 9: Altruism and Happiness (p. 103)
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
3 weeks 4 days ago
For successful education there must always...

For successful education there must always be a certain freshness in the knowledge dealt with. It must be either new in itself or invested with some novelty of application to the new world of new times. Knowledge does not keep any better than fish. You may be dealing with knowledge of the old species, with some old truth; but somehow it must come to the students, as it were, just drawn out of the sea and with the freshness of its immediate importance.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 1 week ago
A trade begun with savage war,...

A trade begun with savage war, prosecuted with unheard of cruelty, continued during the mid passage with the most loathsome imprisonment, and ending in perpetual exile and unremitting slavery, was a trade so horrid in all its circumstances, that it was impossible a single argument could be adduced in its favour. On the score of prudence nothing could be said in defence of it, nor could it be justified by necessity, and no case of inhumanity could be justified, but upon necessity; but no such necessity could be made out strong enough to bear out such a traffick. It was the duty of that House, therefore, to put an end to it. If it were said, that the interest of individuals required that it should continue, that argument ought not to be listened to.

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Speech in the House of Commons against the slave trade (12 May 1789), quoted in The Parliamentary History of England, From the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, Vol. XXVIII (1816), columns 68-69
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 6 days ago
I am enraptured by Hindu philosophy,...

I am enraptured by Hindu philosophy, whose essential endeavor is to surmount the self; and everything I do, everything I think is only myself and the selfs humiliations.

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Philosophical Maxims
Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
3 days ago
When truth cannot make itself known...

When truth cannot make itself known in words, it will make itself known in deeds.

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Should he have spoken?, The New Criterion (September 2006), p. 22; also in The Roger Scruton Reader (2009) edited by Mark Dooley
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 1 week ago
It is likely that America will...

It is likely that America will be more important during the next century or two, but after that it may well be the turn of China.

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Letter to Rachel Gleason Brooks, May 5, 1930
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
3 weeks 1 day ago
Society triumphs over many. They wish...

Society triumphs over many. They wish to regenerate the world with their institutions, with their moral philosophy, with their love. Then they sink to living from breakfast till dinner, from dinner till tea, with a little worsted work, and to looking forward to nothing but bed. When shall we see a life full of steady enthusiasm, walking straight to its aim, flying home, as that bird is now, against the wind - with the calmness and the confidence of one who knows the laws of God and can apply them?

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
1 month 1 week ago
...for stones, plants, and animals there...

...for stones, plants, and animals there is no God, but only for man.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 6 days ago
I foresee the day when we...

I foresee the day when we shall read nothing but telegrams and prayers.

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
2 months 1 week ago
The man, who in a fit….

The man, who in a fit of melancholy, kills himself today, would have wished to live had he waited a week.

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"Cato", 1764
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 1 week ago
Talents differ; all is well and...

Talents differ; all is well and wisely put; If I cannot carry forests on my back, Neither can you crack a nut.

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Fable
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
3 weeks 1 day ago
No man, not even a doctor,...

No man, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than this - "devoted and obedient." This definition would do just as well for a porter. It might even do for a horse. It would not do for a policeman.

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Notes on Nursing
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
1 month 1 week ago
We wish, in a word, equality...

We wish, in a word, equality - equality in fact as a corollary, or rather, as primordial condition of liberty. From each according to his faculties, to each according to his needs; that is what we wish sincerely and energetically.

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As quoted in The Old Order and the New (1890) by J. Morris Davidson
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 1 week ago
How close men, despite all their...

How close men, despite all their knowledge, usually live to madness? What is truth but to live for an idea? When all is said and done, everything is based on a postulate; but not until it no longer stands on the outside, not until one lives in it, does it cease to be a postulate.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 week 4 days ago
Choose your parents....
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Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1 month 1 week ago
Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind...

Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute.

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Book II, ch. 4 (trans. Constance Garnett) The Elder Zossima, speaking to Mrs. Khoklakov
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
2 months 3 weeks ago
Several particular maxims... are as powerful,...

Several particular maxims... are as powerful, although false, in carrying away belief, as those the most true.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 6 days ago
If, at the limit, you can...

If, at the limit, you can rule without crime, you cannot do so without injustices.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 6 days ago
Frazer's account of the magical and...

Frazer's account of the magical and religious views of mankind is unsatisfactory; it makes these views look like errors.

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Ch. 7 : Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 119
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 1 week ago
I simply don't think it is...

I simply don't think it is reasonable to use IQ tests to produce results of questionable value, which may then serve to justify racists in their own minds and to help bring about the kinds of tragedies we have already witnessed earlier in this century.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
2 months 2 weeks ago
A great stock, though with small...

A great stock, though with small profits, generally increases faster than a small stock with great profits. Money, says the proverb, makes money. When you have a little, it is often easier to get more. The great difficulty is to get that little.

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Chapter IX, p. 111.
Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
3 weeks 3 days ago
Feminism is the struggle to end...

Feminism is the struggle to end sexist oppression. Therefore, it is necessarily a struggle to eradicate the ideology of domination that permeates Western culture on various levels, as well as a commitment to reorganizing society so that the self-development of people can take precedence over imperialism, economic expansion, and material desires.

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Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
2 months 2 weeks ago
No Man is wise at all...

No Man is wise at all Times, or is without his blind Side.

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The Alchymyst, in Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I.
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 1 week ago
Ha! to forget. How childish! I...

Ha! to forget. How childish! I feel you in my bones. Your silence screams in my ears. You may nail your mouth shut, you may cut out your tongue, can you keep yourself from existing? Will you stop your thoughts.

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Inès reiterating to Garcin that they cannot ignore one another, Act 1, sc. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
2 months 1 week ago
There are Plebes in all classes....

There are Plebes in all classes.

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As quoted by Julien Coupat in Interview with Julien Coupat, 2009
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Owen
Robert Owen
4 days ago
The advantage of pure, and the...

The advantage of pure, and the disadvantage of impure air are experienced each time we breathe, and all who understand the causes of disease know that an impure atmosphere is most unfavourable to the enjoyment of health, and an efficient cause to shorten human existence within the natural life of man. It is therefore most desirable that decisive measures should be devised and generally adopted to ensure to all a pure atmosphere, in which to live during their lives.

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3rd Part
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 1 week ago
The worker becomes all the poorer...

The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and range. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates. With the increasing value of the world of things proceeds in direct proportion the devaluation of the world of men. Labour produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity - and does so in the proportion in which it produces commodities generally.

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p. 71, The Marx-Engels Reader
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
2 months 1 week ago
Life has a value only when...

Life has a value only when it has something valuable as its object.

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Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
1 month 6 days ago
Fourth, this supreme law, which is...

Fourth, this supreme law, which is celestial and living harmony, does not so much as demand that the special ideas shall surrender their peculiar arbitrariness and caprice entirely; for that would be self-destructive. It only requires that they influence and be influenced by one another.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 1 week ago
The sublime is excited in me...

The sublime is excited in me by the great stoical doctrine, Obey thyself.

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p. 14
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
1 month 1 week ago
The conscious mind allows itself to...

The conscious mind allows itself to be trained like a parrot, but the unconscious does not - which is why St. Augustine thanked God for not making him responsible for his dreams.

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par. 51 p.46
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
2 months 1 day ago
Neither our distance from a preventable...

Neither our distance from a preventable evil nor the number of other people who, in respect to that evil, are in the same situation as we are, lessens our obligation to mitigate or prevent that evil.

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Philosophical Maxims
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