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Aristotle
Aristotle
5 months 2 weeks ago
Nature does not do anything in...

Nature does not do anything in vain.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 2 weeks ago
The sins of the flesh are...

The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronising and spoiling sport, and back-biting; the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither.

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Book III, Chapter 5, "Sexual Morality"
Philosophical Maxims
Max Scheler
Max Scheler
3 months 1 week ago
Ressentiment is always to some degree...

Ressentiment is always to some degree a determinant of the romantic type of mind. At least this is so when the romantic nostalgia for some past era (Hellas, the Middle Ages, etc.) is not primarily based on the values of that period, but on the wish to escape from the present. Then all praise of the "past" has the implied purpose of downgrading present-day reality.

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L. Coser, trans. (1973), p. 68
Philosophical Maxims
Alan Watts
Alan Watts
1 month 1 day ago
Over the years it has become...

Over the years it has become my firm opinion that sexual activity (even if only through masturbation) is "requisite and necessary, as well for the body as for the soul"; for men and women alike. It stimulates your glands, exercises your pelvis, thrills your nerves, brings mind and body together as one, and culminates in an ecstasy in which there is neither past nor future nor separation between self and other. We need that as we need vitamins, proteins, water, and air.

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p. 122
Philosophical Maxims
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
4 weeks ago
If life is all subjective, why...

If life is all subjective, why not be subjectively happy rather than subjectively sad?

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On the Wisdom of America (1950), p. 155
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 2 weeks ago
The true Christian knows no Covenant...

The true Christian knows no Covenant or Mediation with God, but only the Old, Eternal, and Unchangeable Relation, that in Him we live, and move, and have our being; and he asks not who has said this, but only what has been said;-even the book wherein this may be written is nothing to him as a proof, but only as a means of culture; he bears the proof in his own breast. This is my view of the matter...

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p. 105
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
2 months 3 weeks ago
I do not define time, space,...

I do not define time, space, place, and motion, as being well known to all. Only I must observe, that the common people conceive those quantities under no other notions but from the relation they bear to sensible objects. And thence arise certain prejudices, for the removing of which it will be convenient to distinguish them into absolute and relative, true and apparent, mathematical and common.

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Definitions - Scholium
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
1 month 2 weeks ago
Yet when we speak of time......

Yet when we speak of time... do we not unconsciously adopt this hypothesis... and put ourselves in the place of this imperfect god... Do not even the atheists put themselves in the place where god would be..?

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 1 week ago
The latest Gospel in this world...

The latest Gospel in this world is, Know thy work and do it. 'Know thyself:' long enough has that poor 'self' of thine tormented thee; thou wilt never get to 'know' it, I believe! Think it not thy business, this of knowing thyself; thou art an unknowable individual: know what thou canst work at; and work at it, like a Hercules! That will be thy better plan.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
Good nature is, of all moral...

Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for the others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish for ever.

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Ch. 1: In Praise of Idleness
Philosophical Maxims
Empedocles
Empedocles
4 months 1 week ago
Fortunate is he who…

Fortunate is he who has acquired a wealth of divine understanding, but wretched the one whose interest lies in shadowy conjectures about divinities.

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fr. 132
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
3 months 3 weeks ago
To attempt the destruction of our...

To attempt the destruction of our passions is the height of folly. What a noble aim is that of the zealot who tortures himself like a madman in order to desire nothing, love nothing, feel nothing, and who, if he succeeded, would end up a complete monster!

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Ch. 5, as quoted in Selected Writings (1966) edited by Lester G. Crocker
Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
3 months 4 days ago
As we search as a nation...

As we search as a nation for constructive ways to challenge racism and white supremacy, it is absolutely essential that progressive female voices gain a hearing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
5 months 2 weeks ago
It is not necessary to ask...

It is not necessary to ask whether soul and body are one, just as it is not necessary to ask whether the wax and its shape are one, nor generally whether the matter of each thing and that of which it is the matter are one. For even if one and being are spoken of in several ways, what is properly so spoken of is the actuality.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
4 months 2 weeks ago
We may become the makers of...

We may become the makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.

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Introduction
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
4 months 2 weeks ago
The propagandist's purpose is to make...

The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.

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"Words and Behaviour", The Olive Tree, 1936
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 2 weeks ago
What we do is to bring...

What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.

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§ 116
Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
3 months 4 days ago
My own book Women, Race and...

My own book Women, Race and Class was one of many that were published during that era, including, to name only a few, This Bridge Called My Back, edited by Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherrie Moraga, the work of bell hooks and Michelle Wallace, and the anthology All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies. So behind this concept of intersectionality is a rich history of struggle. A history of conversations among activists within movement formations, and with and among academics as well.

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Angela Davis Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement (2015) p 19
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
Americans need rest, but do not...

Americans need rest, but do not know it. I believe this to be a large part of the explanation of the crime wave in the United States.

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Ch. 13: Freedom in Society.
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 1 week ago
There will be a time....

There will be a time when those trying to turn the world into a Colosseum for their own amusement will be raw meat thrown to the wolves themselves, and the rest of us will watch, as justice is served, with a clean conscience.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
Read day and night, devour books...

Read day and night, devour books - these sleeping pills - not to know but to forget! Through books you can retrace your way back to the origins of spleen, discarding history and its illusions.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
1 month 4 weeks ago
The reason for sketching what's technically...

The reason for sketching what's technically feasible with the tools of synthetic biology is that only after human complicity in the persistence of suffering in the biosphere is acknowledged can we hope to have an informed socio-political debate on the morality of its perpetuation. No serious ethical discussion of free-living animal suffering can begin in the absence of recognition of human responsibility for nonhuman well-being.

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Compassionate Biology: How CRISPR-based gene drives" could cheaply, rapidly and sustainably reduce suffering throughout the living world", BLTC Research, 2016
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 weeks 3 days ago
Depart then satisfied, for he also...

Depart then satisfied, for he also who releases thee is satisfied.

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XII, 36
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
5 months 2 weeks ago
Self-preservation has frequently knuckled under to...

Self-preservation has frequently knuckled under to that tremendous yearning to get even.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
1 week 3 days ago
Life is like riding a...

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
5 months 3 weeks ago
Being silent is something one completely...
Being silent is something one completely unlearns if, like him, one has been for so long a solitary mole.
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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months 2 weeks ago
If you would convince a man...

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see.

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Let them see. Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 222
Philosophical Maxims
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
2 weeks 2 days ago
But what has been the experience...

But what has been the experience of the Russian socialist movement up to now? The most important and fruitful changes in its tactical policy during the last ten years have not been the inventions of several leaders and even less so of any central organizational organs. They have always been the spontaneous product of the movement in ferment.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 2 weeks ago
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon As...

Earth proudly wears the Parthenon As the best gem upon her zone.

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The Problem, st. 3
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
1 month 3 weeks ago
If we are to put interrogators...

If we are to put interrogators to work in defence of liberal values, their role in the community must receive proper recognition. They will require intensive counselling to overcome the inevitable traumas that this difficult work involves. They must be enabled to see themselves as dedicated workers in the cause of progress. Psychotherapy must be available to help them avoid the negative self-image from which some torturers have suffered in the past.

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Philosophical Maxims
Sydney Smith
Sydney Smith
1 month 4 days ago
A great deal of talent is...

A great deal of talent is lost to the world for the want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves a number of obscure men who have only remained obscure because their timidity has prevented them from making a first effort.

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Lecture IX : On the Conduct of the Understanding
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
5 months 4 days ago
If what the philosophers say be...

If what the philosophers say be true,—that all men's actions proceed from one source; that as they assent from a persuasion that a thing is so, and dissent from a persuasion that it is not, and suspend their judgment from a persuasion that it is uncertain, so likewise they seek a thing from a persuasion that it is for their advantage.

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Book I, ch. 18, 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Joseph de Maistre
Joseph de Maistre
2 weeks 4 days ago
Frenchmen, it was to the noise...

Frenchmen, it was to the noise of hellish songs, the blasphemy of atheism, the cries of death, and the prolonged moans of slaughtered innocence, it was by the light of flames, on the debris of throne and altar, watered by the blood of the best of kings and an innumerable host of other victims, it was by the contempt of morality and the established faith, it was in the midst of every crime that your seducers and your tyrants founded what they call your liberty.

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Chapter X, p. 84
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
4 months 2 weeks ago
Kant was also quite aware that...

Kant was also quite aware that "the urgent need" of reason is both different from and "more than mere quest and desire for knowledge." Hence, the distinguishing of the two faculties, reason and intellect, coincides with a distinction between two altogether different mental activities, thinking and knowing.

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p. 14
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
5 months 2 weeks ago
People who want to do so...

People who want to do so can lose weight most safely and permanently if they realize that above all they must be patient. ... It is better to eat a little less at each meal than impulse would suggest and to do that constantly. Add to this a little more exercise or activity than impulse suggests and keep that up constantly too. A few less calories taken in each day and a few more used up will decrease weight, slowly, to be sure, but without undue misery. And with better long-range results too.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
2 months 2 weeks ago
People trifle with love. Now, I...

People trifle with love. Now, I deny that love is a strong passion. Fear is the strong passion; it is with fear that you must trifle, if you wish to taste the intensest joys of living.

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The Suicide Club, Story of the Young Man with the Cream Tarts.
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
4 months 3 weeks ago
I have in this treatise followed...

I have in this treatise followed the mathematical method, if not with all strictness, at least imitatively, not in order, by a display of profundity, to procure a better reception for it, but because I believe such a system to be quite capable of it, and that perfection may in time be obtained by a cleverer hand, if stimulated by this sketch, mathematical investigators of nature should find it not unimportant to treat the metaphysical portion, which anyway cannot be got rid of, as a special fundamental department of general physics, and to bring it into unison with the mathematical doctrine of motion.

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Preface, Tr. Bax, 1883
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 4 weeks ago
Advancing bourgeois society...
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Epicurus
Epicurus
5 months 1 week ago
Of our desires some are natural...

Of our desires some are natural and necessary, others are natural but not necessary; and others are neither natural nor necessary, but are due to groundless opinion.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
3 months 1 week ago
When we rise out of the...

When we rise out of the night into the new life and there begin to receive the signs, what can we know of that which - of him who gives them to us? Only what we experience from time to time from the signs themselves. If we name the speaker of this speech God, then it is always the God of a moment, a moment God.

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p. 15
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 2 weeks ago
The cup of life is not...

The cup of life is not so shallow

That we have drained the best 

That all the wine at once we swallow 

And lees make all the rest.

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1827
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
4 months 2 weeks ago
Nobody knows what is going to...

Nobody knows what is going to happen because so much depends on an enormous number of variables, on simple hazard. On the other hand if you look at history retrospectively, then, even though it was contingent, you can tell a story that makes sense.... Jewish history, for example, in fact had its ups and downs, its, enmities and its friendships, as every history of all people has. The notion that there is one unilinear history is of course false. But if you look at it after the experience of Auschwitz it looks as though all of history-or at least history since the Middle Ages - had no other aim than Auschwitz.... This, is the real problem of every philosophy of history how is it possible that in retrospect it always looks as though it couldn't have happened otherwise?

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
4 months 2 weeks ago
All this is merely saying that...

All this is merely saying that he, in a degree once common, but now very unusual, threw his feelings into his opinions; which truly it is difficult to understand how any one who possesses much of both, can fail to do. None but those who do not care about opinions, will confound it with intolerance. Those, who having opinions which they hold to be immensely important, and their contraries to be prodigiously hurtful, have any deep regard for the general good, will necessarily dislike, as a class and in the abstract, those who think wrong what they think right, and right what they think wrong: though they need not therefore be, nor was my father, insensible to good qualities in an opponent, nor governed in their estimation of individuals by one general presumption, instead of by the whole of their character.

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(pp. 50-51)
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
Man is essentially a dreamer, wakened...

Man is essentially a dreamer, wakened sometimes for a moment by some peculiarly obtrusive element in the outer world, but lapsing again quickly into the happy somnolence of imagination. Freud has shown how largely our dreams at night are the pictured fulfilment of our wishes; he has, with an equal measure of truth, said the same of day-dreams; and he might have included the day-dreams which we call beliefs.

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Ch. 2: Dreams and Facts
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 weeks 3 days 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
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
5 months 5 days ago
I have read in Plato and...

I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are very wise and very beautiful; but I never read in either of them, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden."

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p. 62
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
5 months 1 week ago
Be loyal and trustworthy. Do...

Be loyal and trustworthy. Do not befriend anyone who is lower than yourself in this regard. When making a mistake, do not be afraid to correct it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson
3 months 1 week ago
Religion is to mysticism what popularization...

Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science. What the mystic finds waiting for him, then, is a humanity which has been prepared to listen to his message by other mystics invisible and present in the religion which is actually taught. Indeed his mysticism itself is imbued with this religion, for such was its starting point. His theology will generally conform to that of the theologians. His intelligence and his imagination will use the teachings of the theologians to express in words what he experiences, and in material images what he sees spiritually. And this he can do easily, since theology has tapped that very current whose source is the mystical. Thus his mysticism is served by religion, against the day when religion becomes enriched by his mysticism. This explains the primary mission which he feels to be entrusted to him, that of an intensifier of religious faith.

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Chapter III : Dynamic Religion
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
Once man loses his faculty of...

Once man loses his faculty of indifference he becomes a potential murderer; once he transforms his idea into a god the consequences are incalculable. We kill only in the name of a god or of his counterfeits: the excesses provoked by the goddess Reason, by the concept of nation, class, or race are akin to those of the Inquisition or of the Reformation.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
I do wish I believed in...

I do wish I believed in the life eternal, for it makes me quite miserable to think man is merely a kind of machine endowed, unhappily for himself, with consciousness.

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Greek Exercises (1888); at the age of fifteen, Russell used to write down his reflections in this book, for fear that his people should find out what he was thinking.
Philosophical Maxims
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