Skip to main content
3 months 4 weeks ago

Wisdom thoroughly learned, will never be forgotten. Science is got by diligence; but Discretion and Wisdom cometh of GOD.

0
0
1 week 6 days ago

Consider all that you've gone through, all that you've survived. And that the story of your life is done, your assignment complete. How many good things have you seen? How much pain and pleasure have you resisted? How many honors have you declined? How many unkind people have you been kind to?

0
0
Source
source
(Hays translation) V, 31
4 months 2 weeks ago

The tendency has always been strong to believe that whatever received a name must be an entity or thing, having an independent existence of its own; and if no real entity answering to the name could be found, men did not for that reason suppose that none existed, but imagined that it was something peculiarly abstruse and mysterious, too high to be an object of sense. The meaning of all general, and especially of all abstract terms, became in this way enveloped in a mystical base...

0
0
Source
source
Note to Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (1829) by James Mill, edited with additional notes by John Stuart Mill, 1869
3 months 1 week ago

The pathfinders of modern thought did not derive what is good from the law. ... Their role in history was not that of adapting their words and actions to the text of old documents or generally accepted doctrines: they themselves created the documents and brought about the acceptance of their doctrines.

0
0
Source
source
p. 33.
4 months 2 weeks ago

It is the duty of every man, so far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error.

0
0
Source
source
The Theophilanthropist: Containing Critical, Moral, Theological and Literary Essays, in Monthly Numbers, p. 387
1 month 1 week ago

The subject of a gestalt demonstration knows that his perception has shifted because he can make it shift back and forth repeatedly while he holds the same book or piece of paper in his hands. Aware that nothing in his environment has changed, he directs his attention increasingly not to the figure (duck or rabbit) but to the lines of the paper he is looking at. Ultimately he may even learn to see those lines without seeing either of the figures, and he may then say (what he could not legitimately have said earlier) that it is these lines that he really sees but that he sees them alternately as a duck and as a rabbit. ...As in all similar psychological experiments, the effectiveness of the demonstration depends upon its being analyzable in this way. Unless there were an external standard with respect to which a switch of vision could be demonstrated, no conclusion about alternate perceptual possibilities could be drawn. 

0
0
Source
source
p. 114 (3rd edn.)
3 weeks 6 days ago

Can a man who's warm understand one who's freezing?

0
0
4 months 2 weeks ago

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.

0
0
Source
source
p. 71, The Marx-Engels Reader
2 months 1 week ago

Death is the dark backing that a mirror needs if we are to see anything.

0
0
Source
source
Humboldt's Gift (1975), p. 265
4 months 2 weeks ago

Every time a man is begotten and born, the clock of human life is wound up anew to repeat once more its same old tune that has already been played innumerable times, movement by movement and measure by measure, with insignificant variations.

0
0
Source
source
Vol. I, Ch. 4, The World As Will: Second Aspect, as translated by Eric F. J. Payne (1958) p. 322
3 months 2 weeks ago

To theology, ... only what it holds sacred is true, whereas to philosophy, only what holds true is sacred.

0
0
Source
source
Lecture II, R. Manheim, trans. (1967), p. 11
2 weeks 2 days ago

On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, & what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct. They are masters too of their own persons, & consequently may govern them as they please. But persons & property make the sum of the objects of government. The constitution and the laws of their predecessors extinguished then in their natural course, with those who gave them being. This could preserve that being till it ceased to be itself, & no longer. Every constitution then, & every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, & not of right. It may be said that the succeeding generation exercising in fact the power of repeal, this leaves them as free as if the constitution or law had been expressly limited to 19 years only.

0
0
Source
source
Letter to James Madison,
1 month 3 weeks ago

Don't judge the future of a person based on his present conditions, because time has the power to change black coal to shiny diamond.

0
0
3 months 1 week ago

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

0
0
Source
source
The Black Prince (1973); 2003, p. 10.
2 months 3 weeks ago

To be content with life - or to live merrily, rather - all that is required is that we bestow on all things only a fleeting, superficial glance; the more thoughtful we become the more earnest we grow.

0
0
Source
source
K 29
4 months 2 weeks ago

Encourage therefore his inquisitiveness all you can, by satisfying his demands, and informing his judgement, as far as it is capable. When his reasons are any way tolerable, let him find the credit and commendation of it, without being laugh'd at for his mistake be gently put into the right; and if he shew a forwardness to be reasoning about things that come in his way, take care, as much as you can, that no body check this inclination in him, or mislead it by captious or fallacious ways of talking with him. For when all is done, this is the highest and most important faculty of our minds, deserves the greatest care and attention in cultivating it: the right improvement, and exercise of our reason being the highest perfection that a man can attain to in his life.

0
0
Source
source
Sec. 122
3 months 1 week ago

What is not heartrending is superfluous, at least in music.

0
0
4 months 1 week ago

What we are destroying is nothing but houses of cards and we are clearing up the ground of language on which they stood.

0
0
Source
source
§ 118
4 months 2 weeks ago

The difference principle, for example, requires that the higher expectations of the more advantaged contribute to the prospects of the least advantaged.

0
0
Source
source
Chapter II, Section 16, pg. 95
4 months 3 weeks ago

It is enough to ask somebody for his weapons without saying 'I want to kill you with them', because when you have his weapons in hand, you can satisfy your desire.

0
0
Source
source
Book 1, Ch 44 (as translated by Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella)
3 months 1 week ago

Each of us is born with a share of purity, predestined to be corrupted by our commerce with mankind, by that sin against solitude.

0
0
2 weeks 2 days ago

No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.

0
0
Source
source
Letter to Judge John Tyler (June 28, 1804); in: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Memorial Edition (ME) (Lipscomb and Bergh, editors), 20 Vols., Washington, D.C., 1903-04, Volume 11, page 33
4 months 2 weeks ago

The rush to California, for instance, and the attitude, not merely of merchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so called, in relation to it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind. That so many are ready to live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others less lucky, without contributing any value to society!

0
0
Source
source
p. 487
5 months 2 weeks ago

A genius and an Apostle are qualitatively different, they are definitions which each belong in their own spheres: the sphere of immanence, and the sphere of transcendence.

0
0
1 month 2 days ago

The characteristic mark of this age of dictators, wars and revolutions is its anti-capitalistic bias. Most governments and political parties are eager to restrict the sphere of private initiative and free enterprise. It is an almost unchallenged dogma that capitalism is done for and that the coming of all-round regimentation of economic activities is both inescapable and highly desirable.

0
0
3 months 3 weeks ago

There are three successive states of morality answering to the three principal stages of human life; the personal, the domestic, and the social stage.

0
0
Source
source
p. 104
3 months 1 week ago

In the fact of being born there is such an absence of necessity that when you think about it a little more than usual, you are left-ignorant how to react-with a foolish grin

0
0
5 months 2 weeks ago

Scientists have pushed back the horizon of time from the biblical 6,000 years to 4,600,000,000 years for the age of Earth a 760,000-fold increase.

0
0
1 month 3 weeks ago

I discovered that what's really important for a creator isn't what we vaguely define as inspiration or even what it is we want to say, recall, regret, or rebel against. No, what's important is the way we say it. Art is all about craftsmanship. Others can interpret craftsmanship as style if they wish. Style is what unites memory or recollection, ideology, sentiment, nostalgia, presentiment, to the way we express all that. It's not what we say but how we say it that matters.

0
0
Source
source
Craftsmanship

But to return to the Jewish question. Other groups and nations cultivate their individual traditions. There is no reason why we should sacrifice ours. Standardization robs life of its spice. To deprive every ethnic group of its special traditions is to convert the world into a huge Ford plant. I believe in standardizing automobiles. I do not believe in standardizing human beings. Standardization is a great peril which threatens American culture.

0
0
3 months 1 week ago

To covet truth is a very distinguished passion.

0
0
Source
source
p. 48
4 months 3 weeks ago

For where God built a church, there the Devil would also build a chapel...Thus is the Devil ever God's ape.

0
0
Source
source
67. Compare "Where God hath a temple, the Devil will have a chapel", Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, part III, section 4, member 1, subsection 1
3 months 1 week ago

The repose of sleep refreshes only the body. It rarely sets the soul at rest. The repose of the night does not belong to us. It is not the possession of our being. Sleep opens within us an inn for phantoms. In the morning we must sweep out the shadows.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. 2, sect. 3
3 months 1 week ago

All living souls welcome whatsoever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny to be possible.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. 3, P. 62
4 months 2 weeks ago

His obedience is real since he really and truly fulfills his mission, since he runs real risks in order to carry out the beloved's orders. But, on the other hand, it is imaginary because he submits only to a creature of his mind.

0
0
Source
source
p. 152
3 months 1 week ago

Once we begin to want, we fall under the jurisdiction of the Devil.

0
0
5 months 2 weeks ago

God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but He does what is still more wonderful: He makes saints out of sinners.

0
0
5 months 6 days ago

We must consider both the ultimate end and all clear sensory evidence, to which we refer our opinions; for otherwise everything will be full of uncertainty and confusion.

0
0
2 weeks 1 day ago

That the state is an entity and in fact the decisive entity rests upon its political character.

0
0
3 weeks 4 days ago

Inasmuch as it is my wish only to compose a hymn of thanksgiving in honour of the god, I have deemed it quite sufficient to discourse to the best of my ability concerning his nature. I do not think I have wasted words to no purpose: the maxim, "Sacrifice to the immortal gods according to thy means," I accept as applying not merely to burnt-offerings, but also to our praises addressed unto the gods. I pray for the third time, in return for this my good intention, the Sun lord of the universe to be propitious to me, and to bestow on me a virtuous life, a more perfect understanding, and a superhuman intellect, and a very easy release from the trammels of life at the time appointed: and after that release, an ascension up to himself, and an abiding place with him, if possible, for all time to come; or if that be too great a recompense for my past life, many and long-continued revolutions around his presence!

0
0
4 months 2 weeks ago

Were a stranger to drop on a sudden into this world, I would show him, as a specimen of its ills, a hospital full of diseases, a prison crowded with malefactors and debtors, a field of battle strewed with carcasses, a fleet foundering in the ocean, a nation languishing under tyranny, famine, or pestilence. To turn the gay side of life to him, and give him a notion of its pleasures; whither should I conduct him? to a ball, to an opera, to court? He might justly think, that I was only showing him a diversity of distress and sorrow.

0
0
Source
source
Demea to Philo, Part X
3 months 3 weeks ago

The severe Schools shall never laugh me out of the Philosophy of Hermes, that this visible world is but a picture of the invisible.

0
0
Source
source
Section 12

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia