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Democritus
Democritus
4 months 3 weeks ago
And yet it will be obvious...

And yet it will be obvious that it is difficult to really know of what sort each thing is.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
5 months 5 days ago
For wherever violence is used, and...

For wherever violence is used, and injury done, though by hands appointed to administer Justice, it is still violence and injury, however colour'd with the Name, Pretences, or Forms of Law, the end whereof being to protect and redress the innocent, by an unbiassed application of it, to all who are under it; wherever that is not bona fide done, War is made upon the Sufferers, who having no appeal on Earth to right them, they are left to the only remedy in such Cases, an appeal to Heaven.

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Two Treatises of Government. The Second Treatise. Chapter 3: The State of War, §20 p. 281 books.google
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
3 months 3 weeks ago
Matters of religion should never be...

Matters of religion should never be matters of controversy. We neither argue with a lover about his taste, nor condemn him, if we are just, for knowing so human a passion.

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Ch. VI
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
5 months 3 days ago
We do not live for idle...

We do not live for idle amusement. I would not run round a corner to see the world blow up.

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p. 491
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 3 weeks ago
Behold therefore, this England of the...

Behold therefore, this England of the Year 1200 was no chimerical vacuity or dreamland, peopled with mere vaporous Fantasms, Rymer's Foedera, and Doctrines of the Constitution, but a green solid place, that grew corn and several other things. The Sun shone on it; the vicissitude of seasons and human fortunes. Cloth was woven and worn; ditches were dug, furrowfields ploughed, and houses built. Day by day all men and cattle rose to labour, and night by night returned home weary to their several lairs. In wondrous Dualism, then as now, lived nations of breathing men; alternating, in all ways, between Light and Dark; between joy and sorrow, between rest and toil, between hope, hope reaching high as Heaven, and fear deep as very Hell. Not vapour Fantasms, Rymer's Foedera at all!

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Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
5 months 2 weeks ago
For freedom is not acquired by...

For freedom is not acquired by satisfying yourself with what you desire, but by destroying your desire.

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Book IV, ch. 1, 175.
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
5 months 2 days ago
But then again of course I...

But then again of course I know perfectly well that He can't be used as a road. If you're approaching Him not as the goal but as a road, not as the end but as a means, you're not really approaching Him at all.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
5 months 5 days ago
Certainly one may, with as much...

Certainly one may, with as much reason and decency, plead for murder, robbery, lewdness, and barbarity, as for this practice: They are not more contrary to the natural dictates of Conscience, and feelings of Humanity; nay, they are all comprehended in it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
5 months 4 days ago
To free a man from error...

To free a man from error is to give, not to take away. Knowledge that a thing is false is a truth. Error always does harm; sooner or later it will bring mischief to the man who harbors it. Then give up deceiving people; confess ignorance of what you don't know, and leave everyone to form his own articles of faith for himself. Perhaps they won't turn out so bad, especially as they'll rub one another's corners down, and mutually rectify mistakes. The existence of many views will at any rate lay a foundation of tolerance. Those who possess knowledge and capacity may betake themselves to the study of philosophy, or even in their own persons carry the history of philosophy a step further.

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"Religion: A Dialogue." Variant translation: To free a man from error does not mean to take something from him, but to give him something.
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
3 months 2 weeks ago
A general definition of civilization: a...

A general definition of civilization: a civilized society is exhibiting the five qualities of truth, beauty, adventure, art, peace.

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p. 353.
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 3 days ago
By the rude bridge that arched...

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world.

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Hymn sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
4 months 2 weeks ago
By Silence, the discretion of a...

By Silence, the discretion of a man is known: and a fool, keeping Silence, seemeth to be wise.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 months 2 weeks ago
I could see clearly that this...

I could see clearly that this problem could only be solved on the individual and personal level; political revolt is irrelevant. Both Camus and Sartre had been neatly hog-tied by their earlier radicalism. Camus came to see that rebellion is a political roundabout that revolves back to the same old tyranny; too ashamed to admit that he had outgrown his leftism, he found himself in an intellectual cul-de-sac. Sartre accused Camus of being a reactionary; but he paid for his own refusal to reexamine his political convictions by congealing into a grotesque attitude of permanent indignation, shaking his fist at some abstract Authority. Where politics is concerned, he seemed determined to be guided by his emotions.

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p. 101
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
3 months 3 weeks ago
Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance...

Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the Right, and toleration of movements from the Left.

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An Essay on Liberation Beacon Press, 1969, p. 109
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
4 months 3 days ago
Lack of originality, everywhere, all over...

Lack of originality, everywhere, all over the world, from time immemorial, has always been considered the foremost quality and the recommendation of the active, efficient and practical man...

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Part 3, Chapter ?
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
2 months 4 weeks ago
Alas! in the clothes of the...

Alas! in the clothes of the greatest potentate, what is there but a man?

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The Suicide Club, Story of the Young Man with the Cream Tarts.
Philosophical Maxims
Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
2 months 3 weeks ago
Conservatism is a philosophy of inheritance...

Conservatism is a philosophy of inheritance and stewardship; it does not squander resources but strives to enhance them and pass them on.

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Stand up for the real meaning of freedom, The Spectator
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
5 months 3 days ago
The art of music is good,...

The art of music is good, for the reason, among others, that it produces pleasure; but what proof is it possible to give that pleasure is good? If, then, it is asserted that there is a comprehensive formula, including all things which are in themselves good, and that whatever else is good, is not so as an end, but as a mean, the formula may be accepted or rejected, but is not a subject of what is commonly understood by proof.

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Ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
3 months 3 weeks ago
The tangible source of exploitation disappears...

The tangible source of exploitation disappears behind the façade of objective rationality.

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p. 32
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 month ago
Remember that man lives only in...

Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed. Short, therefore, is man's life, and narrow is the corner of the earth wherein he dwells.

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III, 10
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
5 months 1 week ago
Faith, like light, should ever be...

Faith, like light, should ever be simple and unbending; while love, like warmth, should beam forth on every side, and bend to every necessity of our brethren.

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p. 220
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 4 weeks ago
The human body is the best...

The human body is the best picture of the human soul.

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Pt II, p. 178
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
5 months 2 days ago
Men became scientific because they expected...

Men became scientific because they expected law in Nature; and they expected law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator.

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Ch. 3: "The Cardinal Difficulty of Naturalism"
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 4 weeks ago
What anxiety when one is not...

What anxiety when one is not sure of one's doubts or wonders: are these actually doubts?

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Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
3 months 4 weeks ago
From these two immediate perceptions, we...

From these two immediate perceptions, we gain a mediate, or inferential perception of the relation of all four instants. This mediate perception is objectively, or as to the object being represented, spread over the four instants; but subjectively, or as itself the subject of duration, it is completely embraced in the second moment. (The reader will observe that I use the word instant to mean a point in time, and moment to mean an infinitesimal duration.

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Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
4 months ago
Should it be proved that woman...

Should it be proved that woman is naturally weaker than man, from whence does it follow that it is natural for her to labour to become still weaker than nature intended her to be? Arguments of this cast are an insult to common sense, and savour of passion. The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is to be hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger, and though conviction may not silence many boisterous disputants, yet, when any prevailing prejudice is attacked, the wise will consider, and leave the narrow-minded to rail with thoughtless vehemence at innovation.

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Ch. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 3 weeks ago
But leaving this, let us remark...

But leaving this, let us remark one thing which is very plain: That whatever be the uses and duties, real or supposed, of a Secretary in Parliament, his faculty to accomplish these is a point entirely unconnected with his ability to get elected into Parliament, and has no relation or proportion to it, and no concern with it whatever.

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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 2 weeks ago
Virtue alone…

Virtue alone affords everlasting and peace-giving joy; even if some obstacle arise, it is but like an intervening cloud, which floats beneath the sun but never prevails against it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
3 months 1 week ago
The journalists have constructed for themselves...

The journalists have constructed for themselves a little wooden chapel, which they also call the Temple of Fame, in which they put up and take down portraits all day long and make such a hammering you can't hear yourself speak.

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D 20
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
5 months 3 days ago
Truth never turns to rebuke falsehood;...

Truth never turns to rebuke falsehood; her own straightforwardness is the severest correction.

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Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 264
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
4 months 2 days ago
There is nothing enduring, permanent, either...

There is nothing enduring, permanent, either in me or out of me, nothing but everlasting change. I know of no existence, not even of my own. I know nothing and am nothing. Images - pictures - only are, pictures which wander by without anything existing past which they wander, without any corresponding reality which they might represent, without significance and without aim. I myself am one of these images, or rather a confused image of these images. All reality is transformed into a strange dream, without a world of which the dream might be, or a mind that might dream it. Contemplation is a dream; thought, the source of all existence and of all that I fancied reality, of my own existence, my own capacities, is a dream of that dream.

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Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 60
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
4 months 4 weeks ago
For anyone who at the end...

For anyone who at the end of Western philosophy can and must still question philosophically, the decisive question is no longer merely "What basic character do beings manifest?" or "How may the being of beings be characterized?" but "What is this 'being' itself?" The decisive question is that of "the meaning of being," not merely that of the being of beings.

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p. 18
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
3 months 2 weeks ago
How very little can be done...

How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.

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As quoted in The Book of Positive Quotations (2007) by John Cook, p. 479
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
5 months 2 weeks ago
But tell me this: did you...

But tell me this: did you never love any person... were you never commanded by the person beloved to do something which you did not wish to do? Have you never flattered your little slave? Have you never kissed her feet? And yet if any man compelled you to kiss Caesar's feet, you would think it an insult and excessive tyranny. What else then is slavery?

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Book IV, ch. 1, 17.
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
5 months 2 days ago
The sweetest thing in all my...

The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing - to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from - my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.

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Psyche
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
5 months 3 days ago
As for my own business, even...

As for my own business, even that kind of surveying which I could do with most satisfaction my employers do not want. They would prefer that I should do my work coarsely and not too well, ay, not well enough. When I observe that there are different ways of surveying, my employer commonly asks which will give him the most land, not which is most correct.

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p. 486
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
5 months 3 weeks ago
The superior man loves his soul;...

The superior man loves his soul; the inferior man loves his property.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 3 weeks ago
Alcohol,hashish.....
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Main Content / General
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
1 month ago
Either everything is illusion, nature as...

Either everything is illusion, nature as well as revelation, or experience alone can explain faith.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
3 months 3 weeks ago
So long as a man's power,...

So long as a man's power, that is, his capacity to realize what he has in mind, is bound to the goal, to the work, to the calling, it is, considered in itself, neither good nor evil, it is only a suitable or unsuitable instrument. But as soon as this bond with the goal is broken off or loosened, and the man ceases to think of power as the capacity to do something, but thinks of it as a possession, that is, thinks of power in itself, then his power, being cut off and self-satisfied, is evil; it is power withdrawn from responsibility, power which betrays the spirit, power in itself.

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p. 152
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 4 days ago
The only thing that will redeem...

The only thing that will redeem mankind is co-operation, and the first step towards co-operation lies in the hearts of individuals.

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p. 212
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
3 months 1 week ago
If an angel were ever to...

If an angel were ever to tell us anything of his philosophy I believe many propositions would sound like 2 times 2 equals 13.

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B 44
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 2 weeks ago
No man can have….

No man can have a peaceful life who thinks too much about lengthening it.

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Line 4.
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
4 months 2 weeks ago
"These Macedonians," said he, "are a...

"These Macedonians," said he, "are a rude and clownish people, that call a spade a spade."

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39 Philip
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
3 months 2 weeks ago
Silent listening unites a people and...

Silent listening unites a people and creates community without communication.

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Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
4 months ago
It would be an endless task...

It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meannesses, cares, and sorrows, into which women are plunged by the prevailing opinion that they were created rather to feel than reason, and that all the power they obtain, must be obtained by their charms and weakness.

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Ch. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
5 months 4 days ago
If, while hurrying ostensibly to the...

If, while hurrying ostensibly to the temple of truth, we hand the reins over to our personal interests which look aside at very different guiding stars, for instance at the tastes and foibles of our contemporaries, at the established religion, but in particular at the hints and suggestions of those at the head of affairs, then how shall we ever reach the high, precipitous, bare rock whereon stands the temple of truth?

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E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, pp. 22-23
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
4 months 3 days ago
We too often forget that not...

We too often forget that not only is there "a soul of goodness in things evil," but very generally also, a soul of truth in things erroneous.

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Pt. I, The Unknowable; Ch. I, Religion and Science; quoting from "There is some soul of goodness in things evil / Would men observingly distil it out", William Shakespeare, Henry V, act iv. sc. i
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
3 months 1 week ago
Doubt must be no more than...

Doubt must be no more than vigilance, otherwise it can become dangerous.

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F 53
Philosophical Maxims
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
9 months 1 week ago
Subdue petty bourgeois passions and prejudices

First, [the bourgeoisie] must recognize his own impotence, his incapacity to believe in a sense of history, even if his reason leans towards the truth, the passions and prejudices produced by his class position, prevent him from accepting it. So he should not exert himself with proving the truth of the historical mission of the working class; rather, he should learn to subdue his petty bourgeois passions and prejudices. He should take lessons from those who were once as important as he is now but are ready to risk all for the revolutionary Cause.

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Philosophical Maxims
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