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Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
4 months 4 weeks ago
As the analysis of a substantial...

As the analysis of a substantial composite terminates only in a part which is not a whole, that is, in a simple part, so synthesis terminates only in a whole which is not a part, that is, the world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
3 months 2 weeks ago
In most cases, to be reasonable...

In most cases, to be reasonable means not to be obstinate, which in turn points to conformity with reality as it is. The principle of adjustment is taken for granted. When the idea of reason was conceived, it was intended to achieve more than the mere regulation of the relation between means and ends: it was regarded as the instrument for understanding the ends, for determining them.

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p. 10.
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
4 months 4 weeks ago
A sound mind in a sound...

A sound mind in a sound body, is a short but full description of a happy state in this world.

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Sec. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
4 months 4 weeks ago
No fixed capital can yield any...

No fixed capital can yield any revenue but by means of a circulating capital.

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Chapter I, p. 311.
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
4 months 3 weeks ago
I am very fond of truth….

I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.

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Letter to Jean le Rond d'Alembert, 8 February 1776
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
3 months 3 weeks ago
The breath of an aristocrat is...

The breath of an aristocrat is the death rattle of freedom.

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Act I.
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 3 weeks ago
This remark provides the key to...

This remark provides the key to the problem, how much truth there is in solipsism. For what the solipsist means is quite correct; only it cannot be said, but makes itself manifest. The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of that language which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world.

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-5.62
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 1 week ago
I will not say that the...

I will not say that the more or less poetical and unphilosophical doctrines that I am about to set forth are those which make me live; but I will venture to say that it is my longing to live and to live for ever that inspires these doctrines within me. And if by means of them I succeed in strengthening and sustaining this same longing in another, perhaps when it is all but dead, then I shall have performed a man's work, and above all, I shall have lived. In a word, be it with reason or without reason or against reason, I am resolved not to die. And if, when at last I die out, I die altogether, then I shall not have died out of myself - that is, I shall not have yielded myself to death, but my human destiny shall have killed me. Unless I come to lose my head, or rather my heart, I will not abdicate from life - life will be wrested from me.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
4 months 3 weeks ago
And O! how the mind is...

And O! how the mind is here washed clean of all its early ingrafted Jewish superstition ! It is the most profitable and elevating reading which is possible in the world. It has been the solace of my life, and will be the solace of my death.

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About the Upanishads. Arthur Schopenhauer, quoted in Europe Looks At India by Mukherhi, D.P.
Philosophical Maxims
Mencius
Mencius
1 month 2 weeks ago
The virtues are not poured into...

The virtues are not poured into us, they are natural. Seek, and you will find them: neglect, and you will lose them.

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Uses and Sanctions, no. 22
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
4 months 4 weeks ago
In such a chain, too, or...

In such a chain, too, or succession of objects, each part is caused by that which preceded it, and causes that which succeeds it. Where then is the difficulty? But the WHOLE, you say, wants a cause. I answer, that the uniting of these parts into a whole, like the uniting of several distinct countries into one kingdom, or several distinct members into one body, is performed merely by an arbitrary act of the mind, and has no influence on the nature of things. Did I show you the particular causes of each individual in a collection of twenty particles of matter, I should think it very unreasonable, should you afterwards ask me, what was the cause of the whole twenty. This is sufficiently explained in explaining the cause of the parts.

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Cleanthes to Demea, Part IX
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 1 week ago
God the almighty...
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Main Content / General
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 3 weeks ago
I sit astride life like a...

I sit astride life like a bad rider on a horse. I only owe it to the horse's good nature that I am not thrown off at this very moment.

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p. 36e
Philosophical Maxims
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
3 weeks 1 day ago
One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward,...

One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward, written by Lenin, an outstanding member of the Iskra group, is a methodical exposition of the ideas of the ultra-centralist tendency in the Russian movement. The viewpoint presented with incomparable vigor and logic in this book, is that of pitiless centralism.

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Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
4 months 4 weeks ago
Moral Teleology supplies the deficiency in...

Moral Teleology supplies the deficiency in physical Teleology, and first establishes a Theology; because the latter, if it did not borrow from the former without being observed, but were to proceed consistently, could only found a Demonology, which is incapable of any definite concept.

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Immanuel Kant, Kant's Critique of Judgment (1892) Tr. J.H. Bernard
Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
3 months 1 week ago
As a black woman interested in...

As a black woman interested in feminist movement, I am often asked whether being black is more important than being a woman; whether feminist struggle to end sexist oppression is more important than the struggle to racism or vice versa. All such questions are rooted in competitive either/or thinking, the belief that the self is formed in opposition to an other. ... Most people are socialized to think in terms of opposition rather than compatibility. Rather than seeing anti-racist work as totally compatible with working to end sexist oppression, they often see them as two movements competing for first place.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
4 months 3 weeks ago
Even serious students are misled by...

Even serious students are misled by the myth of the subject.

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Philosophical Maxims
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
2 months 2 weeks ago
I never yet touched a fig...

I never yet touched a fig leaf that didn't turn into a price tag.

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Humboldt's Gift (1975), p. 159
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
4 months 4 weeks ago
The Theophilanthropists believe in the existence...

The Theophilanthropists believe in the existence of God, and the immortality of the soul.

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Introduction
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 3 weeks ago
Our greatest stupidities may be very...

Our greatest stupidities may be very wise.

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p. 39e
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 3 days ago
For a desperate disease a desperate...

For a desperate disease a desperate cure.

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Book II, Ch. 3. The Custom of the Isle of Cea
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 months 1 week ago
The most disheartening tendency common among...

The most disheartening tendency common among readers is to tear out one sentence from a work, as a criterion of the writer's ideas or personality.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 months 1 week ago
Steiner goes further than this --...

Steiner goes further than this -- and this is his own central contribution to modern thought. He states that once we have made a habit of remembering Mozart and the stars, we shall find ourselves developing powers of 'spiritual vision.' We shall never again feel ourselves to be helpless victims of the external world.

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p. 169
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
3 months 2 weeks ago
The realer religion is, so much...

The realer religion is, so much the more it means its own overcoming. It wills to cease to be the special domain "Religion" and wills to become life. It is concerned in the end not with specific religious acts, but with redemption from all that is specific.

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p. 34
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
5 months 2 weeks ago
Reason in man is rather like...

Reason in man is rather like God in the world.

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Opuscule II, De Regno On Kingship, c. 1267
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 months 1 week ago
The great and inspiring aims of...

The great and inspiring aims of the Revolution became so clouded with and obscured by the methods used by the ruling political power that it was hard to distinguish what was temporary means and what final purpose. Psychologically and socially the means necessarily influence and alter the aims. The whole history of man is continuous proof of the maxim that to divest one's methods of ethical concepts means to sink into the depths of utter demoralization. In that lies the real tragedy of the Bolshevik philosophy as applied to the Russian Revolution. May this lesson not be in vain.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
3 weeks 1 day ago
Stir up thy mind, and recall...

Stir up thy mind, and recall thy wits again from thy natural dreams, and visions, and when thou art perfectly awoken, and canst perceive that they were but dreams that troubled thee, as one newly awakened out of another kind of sleep look upon these worldly things with the same mind as thou didst upon those, that thou sawest in thy sleep.

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VI, 29
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 3 weeks ago
They reckon ill who leave me...

They reckon ill who leave me out; When me they fly, I am the wings; I am the doubter and the doubt; And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

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Brahma, st. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 2 weeks ago
Sleep on now, and take your...

Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand that doth betray me.

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26:45-46 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
1 month 4 days ago
To the West, it seems hardly...

To the West, it seems hardly imaginable that the relationship between man and man (which is morality) could be maintained without reference to a Supreme Being, while to the Chinese it is equally amazing that men should not, or could not, behave toward one another as decent beings without thinking of their indirect relationship through a third party.

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p. 106
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 1 week ago
I should prefer to be free...

I should prefer to be free from torture; but if the time comes when it must be endured, I shall desire that I may conduct myself therein with bravery, honour, and courage. Of course I prefer that war should not occur; but if war does occur, I shall desire that I may nobly endure the wounds, the starvation, and all that the exigency of war brings. Nor am I so mad as to crave illness; but if I must suffer illness, I shall desire that I may do nothing which shows lack of restraint, and nothing that is unmanly. The conclusion is, not that hardships are desirable, but that virtue is desirable, which enables us patiently to endure hardships.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
By all evidence we are in...

By all evidence we are in the world to do nothing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 3 weeks ago
If I understand at all the...

If I understand at all the true Spirit of the present contest, We are engaged in a Civil War ... I consider the Royalists of France, or, as they are (perhaps more properly) called, the Aristocrates, as of the party which we have taken in this civil war.

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Letter to Sir Gilbert Elliot (22 September 1793), quoted in P. J. Marshall and John A. Woods (eds.)
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
4 months 4 weeks ago
It is, therefore, a just political...

It is, therefore, a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave: Though at the same time, it appears somewhat strange, that a maxim should be true in politics, which is false in fact. But to satisfy us on this head, we may consider, that men are generally more honest in their private than in their public capacity, and will go greater lengths to serve a party, than when their own private interest is alone concerned. Honour is a great check upon mankind: But where a considerable body of men act together, this check is, in a great measure, removed; since a man is sure to be approved of by his own party, for what promotes the common interest; and he soon learns to despise the clamours of adversaries.

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Part I, Essay 6: Of The Independency of Parliament; first line often paraphrased as "It is a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave."
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
3 months 2 weeks ago
The blessing that the market does...

The blessing that the market does not ask about birth is paid for in the exchange society by the fact that the possibilities conferred by birth are molded to fit the production of goods that can be bought on the market.

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E. Jephcott, trans., p. 9.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 2 weeks ago
Consider how, even in the meanest...

Consider how, even in the meanest sorts of Labour, the whole soul of a man is composed into a kind of real harmony, the instant he sets himself to work! Doubt, Desire, Sorrow, Remorse, Indignation, Despair itself, all these like helldogs lie beleaguering the soul of the poor dayworker, as of every man: but he bends himself with free valour against his task, and all these are stilled, all these shrink murmuring far off into their caves. The man is now a man. The blessed glow of Labour in him, is it not as purifying fire, wherein all poison is burnt up, and of sour smoke itself there is made bright blessed flame!

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
What an incitation to hilarity, hearing...

What an incitation to hilarity, hearing the word goal while following a funeral procession!

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 3 days ago
Love to his soul gave eyes;...

Love to his soul gave eyes; he knew things are not as they seem. The dream is his real life; the world around him is the dream.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
3 weeks 5 days ago
For the most trifling reasons, and...

For the most trifling reasons, and sometimes for no conceivable reason at all, his majesty has rejected laws of the most salutary tendency. The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state. But previous to the infranchisement of the slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations from Africa. Yet our repeated attempts to effect this by prohibitions, and by imposing duties which might amount to a prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by his majesty's negative: thus preferring the immediate advantages of a few British corsairs to the lasting interests of the American states, and to the rights of human nature deeply wounded by this infamous practice.

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A Summary View of the Rights of British America
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
5 months 3 weeks ago
Consciousness presupposes itself, and asking about...

Consciousness presupposes itself, and asking about its origin is an idle and just as sophistical a question as that old one, "What came first, the fruit-tree or the stone? Wasn't there a stone out of which came the first fruit-tree? Wasn't there a fruit-tree from which came the first stone?

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
The more one has suffered, the...

The more one has suffered, the less one demands. To protest is a sign one has traversed no hell.

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
5 months 1 week ago
Thou hast made us for Thyself,...

Thou hast made us for Thyself, and the heart never resteth till it findeth rest in Thee.

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p. 515
Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
3 months 3 weeks ago
The case of mere titles is...

The case of mere titles is so absurd that it would deserve to be treated only with ridicule were t not for the serious mischief they impose on mankind. The feudal system was a ferocious monster, devouring, where it came, all that the friend of humanity regards with attachment and love. The system of titles appears under a different form. The monster is at length destroyed, and they who followed in his train, and fattened upon the carcasses of those he slew, have stuffed his skin, and, b exhibiting it, hope still to terrify mankind into patient and pusillanimity.

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Book V, Chapter 13
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
3 months 2 weeks ago
And seeing every man is presumed...

And seeing every man is presumed to do all things in order to his own benefit, no man is a fit Arbitrator in his own cause.

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The First Part, Chapter 15, p. 78
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 1 week ago
Science is a cemetery of dead...

Science is a cemetery of dead ideas, even though life may issue from them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 months 1 week ago
My life - I had lived...

My life - I had lived in its heights and its depths, in bitter sorrow and ecstatic joy, in black despair and fervent hope. I had drunk the cup to the last drop. I had lived my life. Would I had the gift to paint the life I had lived!

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chapter 56
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 3 weeks ago
Why you fool, it's the educated...

Why you fool, it's the educated reader who can be gulled. All our difficulty comes with the others. When did you meet a workman who believes the papers? He takes it for granted that they're all propaganda and skips the leading articles. He buys his paper for the football results and the little paragraphs about girls falling out of windows and corpses found in Mayfair flats. He is our problem. We have to recondition him. But the educated public, the people who read the highbrow weeklies, don't need reconditioning. They're all right already. They'll believe anything.

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Ch. 5: Elasticity, section 1 Miss Hardcastle speaking to Mark Studdock
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
3 weeks 1 day ago
Never esteem anything as of advantage...

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

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III, 7
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
3 months 1 week ago
Man's main task in life is...

Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.

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Ch. 4 "Problems of Humanistic Ethics"
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
2 weeks 2 days ago
The state of mind which...

The state of mind which enables a man to do work of this kind is akin to that of the religious worshiper or the lover; the daily effort comes from no deliberate intention or program, but straight from the heart.

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Philosophical Maxims
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