Skip to main content

Main navigation

☰ ˟
  • Home
  • Articulation
  • Free Books
  • Contact
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 2 weeks ago
Timid men prefer the calm of...

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Letter to his Italian friend, Philip Mazzei
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
5 months 1 week ago
We must plow through the whole...

We must plow through the whole of language.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 7 : Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 131
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
5 months 3 weeks ago
Mother Mary, like us, was born...

Mother Mary, like us, was born in sin of sinful parents, but the Holy Spirit covered her, sanctified and purified her so that this child was born of flesh and blood, but not with sinful flesh and blood. The Holy Spirit permitted the Virgin Mary to remain a true, natural human being of flesh and blood, just as we. However, he warded off sin from her flesh and blood so that she became the mother of a pure child, not poisoned by sin as we are. For in that moment when she conceived, she was a holy mother filled with the Holy Spirit and her fruit is a holy pure fruit, at once God and truly man, in one person.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The Precious and Sacred Writings of Martin Luther (1905) edited by John Nicholas Lenker; republished as Sermons of Martin Luther (1996), p. 291
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
4 months 1 day ago
I prefer to reach the few...

I prefer to reach the few who really want to learn, rather than the many who come to be amused.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
3 months 1 week ago
There is no foreign land; it...

There is no foreign land; it is the traveller only that is foreign, and now and again, by a flash of recollection, lights up the contrasts of the ear.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Pt. II, ch. III.
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
6 months 2 days ago
When you do anything from a...

When you do anything from a clear judgment that it ought to be done, never shun the being seen to do it, even though the world should make a wrong supposition about it; for, if you don't act right, shun the action itself; but, if you do, why are you afraid of those who censure you wrongly?

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
(35).
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
2 months 3 days ago
No easy way…

No easy way leads from the earth to heaven..

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
line 437; (Megara).
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
4 months 1 day ago
No matter how honest scientists think...

No matter how honest scientists think they are, they are still influenced by various unconscious assumptions that prevent them from attaining true objectivity. Expressed in a sentence, Fort's principle goes something like this: People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 125
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 2 weeks ago
In this choice of inheritance we...

In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood, binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties, adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections, keeping inseparable and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
4 months 2 weeks ago
So long as man remains free...

So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship. But man seeks to worship what is established beyond dispute, so that all men would agree at once to worship it. For these pitiful creatures are concerned not only to find what one or the other can worship, but to find community of worship is the chief misery of every man individually and of all humanity from the beginning of time. For the sake of common worship they've slain each other with the sword. They have set up gods and challenged one another, 'Put away your gods and come and worship ours, or we will kill you and your gods!' And so it will be to the end of the world, even when gods disappear from the earth; they will fall down before idols just the same.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
4 months 2 days ago
Plagued by Western habits of either-or,...

Plagued by Western habits of either-or, dualistic thinking, we all may fail to understand that race, class and gender interconnect to sustain a corporate ruling class. In the language of African-American essayist bell hooks, they are interlocking systems of oppression. Neither Latina nor Anglo women should yield to the temptation of making a hierarchy of oppressions where battles are fought over whether racism is "worse" than sexism, or class oppression is "deeper" than racism, etc. Instead of hierarchies we need bridges which, after all, exist to make two ends meet.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Elizabeth Martinez, De Colores Means All of Us
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
4 months 1 day ago
The rather more dubious side of...

The rather more dubious side of Nietzsche's 'evolutionism' is his glorification of the warrior -- particularly when, as an exemplification of the warrior-hero, he chooses an archetypal 'spoilt brat' like Cesare Borgia. Nietzsche's own physical weakness and consequent inability to escape the atmosphere of the study leads him to take a rather unrealistic view of the man of action.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 87
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
5 months 2 weeks ago
You can't get a cup of...

You can't get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in Of This and Other Worlds (1982) by Walter Hooper, Preface, p. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
2 months 3 days ago
This is the worst trait….

This is the worst trait of minds rendered arrogant by prosperity, they hate those whom they have injured.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
De Ira (On Anger): Book 2, cap. 33, line 6
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
2 months 3 days ago
Religion is regarded by the common...

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in What Great Men Think About Religion (1945) by Ira D. Cardiff, p. 342.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 2 weeks ago
Written words differ from spoken words...

Written words differ from spoken words in being material structures. A spoken word is a process in the physical world, having an essential time-order; a written word is a series of pieces of matter, having an essential space-order.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
An Outline of Philosophy Ch.4 Language, 1927
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 2 weeks ago
The more one is obsessed with...

The more one is obsessed with God, the less one is innocent. Nobody bothered about him in paradise. The fall brought about this divine torture. It's not possible to be conscious of divinity without guilt. Thus God is rarely to be found in an innocent soul.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
4 months 1 day ago
Normally man's mind is composed only...

Normally man's mind is composed only of a consciousness of his immediate needs, which is to say that this consciousness at any moment can be defined as ''his awareness of his own power to satisfy those needs.'' He thinks in terms of what he intends to do in half an hour's time, a day's time, a month's time an no more. He never asks himself: what are the ''limits'' of my powers? In a sense, he is like a man who has a fortune is the bank, who never asks himself, How much money have I got, but only, Have I enough for a pound of cheese, a new tie, etc.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter Six, The Question of Identity
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
3 months 2 weeks ago
Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable...

Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses to the Holocaust. It is the plain truth that we are cousins of chimpanzees, somewhat more distant cousins of monkeys, more distant cousins still of aardvarks and manatees, yet more distant cousins of bananas and turnips... continue the list as long as desired.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (2009) (p. 8)
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 1 week ago
I am fast becoming a patriot...

I am fast becoming a patriot of the most decided stamp. Scornfully as I used to speak and think of Scotland in my hours of bitterness and irritation, I never fail to stand up manfully in defence of it thro' thick and thin, whenever a renegade Scot takes upon him to abuse it.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Letter to Thomas Murray (24 August 1824), quoted in Fred Kaplan, Thomas Carlyle: A Biography (1983), p. 100
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
4 months 1 day ago
If life can no longer be...

If life can no longer be narrated, wisdom deteriorates, and its place is taken by problem-solving.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
5 months 2 weeks ago
I believe that the advance of...

I believe that the advance of science depends upon the free competition of thought, and thus upon freedom, and that it must come to an end if freedom is destroyed (though it may well continue for some time in some fields, especially in technology).

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 10 "Corroboration, or How a Theory Stands up to Tests", section 85: The Path of Science, p. 279, note 2.
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
3 months 3 weeks ago
It seems to me, that if...

It seems to me, that if the matter of our sun and planets and all the matter of the universe, were evenly scattered throughout all the heavens, and every particle had an innate gravity towards all the rest, and the whole of space throughout which this matter was scattered was but finite, the matter on [toward] the outside of this space would, by its gravity, tend towards all the matter on the inside, and, by consequence, fall down into the middle of the whole space, and there compose one great spherical mass. But if the matter was evenly disposed throughout an infinite space it could never convene into one mass; but some of it would convene into one mass and some into another, so as to make an infinite number of great masses, scattered at great distances from one another throughout all that infinite space.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Four Letters to Bentley (1692) first letter
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 2 weeks ago
Heroes abound at the dawn of...

Heroes abound at the dawn of civilizations, during pre-Homeric and Gothic epochs, when people, not having yet experienced spiritual torture, satisfy their thirst for renunciation through a derivative: heroism.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Henry George
Henry George
1 month 2 weeks ago
I care nothing for creeds. I...

I care nothing for creeds. I am not concerned with any one's religious belief. But I would have men think for themselves. If we do not, we can only abandon one superstition to take up another, and it may be a worse one. It is as bad for a man to think that he can know nothing as to think he knows all. There are things which it is given to all possessing reason to know, if they will but use that reason. And some things it may be there are, that - as was said by one whom the learning of the time sneered at, and the high priests persecuted, and polite society, speaking through the voice of those who knew not what they did, crucified - are hidden from the wise and prudent and revealed unto babes.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Conclusion : The Moral of this Examination
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 months 2 weeks ago
Almost anything...
0
⚖0
Main Content / General
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
4 months 3 weeks ago
Men that look upon my outside,...

Men that look upon my outside, perusing only my condition, and fortunes, do err in my altitude; for I am above Atlas his shoulders.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Section 11
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
2 months 1 week ago
The more progress that has been...

The more progress that has been made toward eradicating social injustices, the more intolerable the remaining injustices seem, and thus the moral imperative to mobilizing to correct them.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
4 months 1 week ago
I often asked myself the following...

I often asked myself the following question. There is no doubt that at all times for many men one of the greatest tortures of their lives has been the contact, the collision with the folly of their neighbours. And yet how is it that there has never been attempted - I think this is so - a study on this matter, an Essay on Folly? For the pages of Erasmus do not treat of this aspect of the matter.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chap. VIII: The Masses Intervene In Everything, And Why Their Intervention Is Solely By Violence
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
5 months 3 weeks ago
A Christian has no need of...

A Christian has no need of any law in order to be saved, since through faith we are free from every law. Thus all the acts of a Christian are done spontaneously, out of a sense of pure liberty. As Christians we do not seek our own advantage or salvation because we are already fully satisfied and saved by God's grace through faith. Now our only motive is to do that which is pleasing to God.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
pp. 75-76
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
3 months 6 days ago
We hold that the most wonderful...

We hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized age.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 2 weeks ago
Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is...

Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Culture
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Fourier
Charles Fourier
2 months 2 weeks ago
There is a class of writers...

There is a class of writers who are ever boasting of the progress of civilization and of the human mind in modern times. If we were to credit their pretensions, we should be led to believe that the science of society had reached its highest degree of perfection, because old metaphysical and economic theories have been somewhat refined upon.In answer to their boasts of social progress, it is not sufficient to refer to the deeply-rooted social evils which exist, and which prey upon our boasted civilized social order. We will mention but a single one, the frightful increase of national debts and of taxation.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The Theory of Social Organization. Harmonian Man: Selected Writings of Charles Fourier
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
5 months 1 week ago
Strength and beauty are the blessings...

Strength and beauty are the blessings of youth; temperance, however, is the flower of old age.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Fragment quoted in H. Diels and W. Kranz (eds.) Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Vol. II (1952), no. 294
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
3 months 2 weeks ago
Whenever a system of communication evolves,...

Whenever a system of communication evolves, there is always the danger that some will exploit the system for their own ends.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 4. The Gene machine
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 1 week ago
And yet I will venture to...

And yet I will venture to believe that in no time, since the beginnings of Society, was the lot of those same dumb millions of toilers so entirely unbearable as it is even in the days now passing over us. It is not to die, or even to die of hunger, that makes a man wretched; many men have died; all men must die,-the last exit of us all is in a Fire-Chariot of Pain. But it is to live miserable we know not why; to work sore and yet gain nothing; to be heart-worn, weary, yet isolated, unrelated, girt in with a cold universal Laissez-faire: it is to die slowly all our life long, imprisoned in a deaf, dead, Infinite Injustice, as in the accursed iron belly of a Phalaris' Bull! This is and remains forever intolerable to all men whom God has made. Do we wonder at French Revolutions, Chartisms, Revolts of Three Days? The times, if we will consider them, are really unexampled.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 2 weeks ago
Self-conscious rejection of the absolute is...

Self-conscious rejection of the absolute is the best way to resist God; thus illusion, the substance of life, is saved.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 2 weeks ago
A diversity of opinion upon almost...

A diversity of opinion upon almost every principle of politics, had indeed drawn a strong line of separation between them and some others. However, they were desirous not to extend the misfortune by unnecessary bitterness; they wished to prevent a difference of opinion on the commonwealth from festering into rancorous and incurable hostility. Accordingly they endeavoured that all past controversies should be forgotten; and that enough for the day should be the evil thereof. There is however a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. Men may tolerate injuries, whilst they are only personal to themselves. But it is not the first of virtues to bear with moderation the indignities that are offered to our country.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Describing the Government's position at a previous time of deep division in British politics in fact over policy on America, Observations on a Late Publication on the Present State of the Nation (1769), page 2
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 2 weeks ago
In our university of Virginia you...

In our university of Virginia you know there is no Professorship of Divinity. A handle has been made of this, to disseminate an idea that this is an institution, not merely of no religion, but against all religion. Occasion was taken at the last meeting of the Visitors, to bring forward an idea that might silence this calumny, which weighed on the minds of some honest friends to the institution.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Letter to Thomas Cooper (3 November 1822), published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 12, p. 272
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
4 months 2 weeks ago
The ordinary logic has a great...

The ordinary logic has a great deal to say about genera and species, or in our nineteeth century dialect, about classes. Now a class is a set of objects comprising all that stand to one another in a special relation of similarity. But where ordinary logic talks of classes the logic of relatives talks of systems. A system is a set of objects comprising all that stands to one another in a group of connected relations. Induction according to ordinary logic rises from the contemplation of a sample of a class to that of a whole class; but according to the logic of relatives it rises from the comtemplation of a fragment of a system to the envisagement of the complete system.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Vol. IV, par. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam
3 months 3 weeks ago
Truth and falsity are the most...

Truth and falsity are the most fundamental terms of rational criticism, and any adequate philosophy must give some account of these, or failing that, show that they can be dispensed with.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"Introduction: Philosophy of language and the rest of philosophy"
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
2 months 1 week ago
We have not a direct intuition...

We have not a direct intuition of simultaneity, nor of the equality of two durations. If we think we have this intuition, this is an illusion. We replace it by the aid of certain rules which we apply almost always without taking count of them....We ...choose these rules, not because they are true, but because they are the most convenient, and we may recapitulate them as follows: "The simultaneity of two events, or the order of their succession, the equality of two durations, are to be so defined that the enunciation of the natural laws may be as simple as possible. In other words, all these rules, all these definitions, are only the fruit of an unconscious opportunism."

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
5 months 3 weeks ago
A mind of slow apprehension is...

A mind of slow apprehension is therefore not necessarily a weak mind. The one who is alert with abstractions is not always profound, he is more often very superficial.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Kant, Immanuel (1996), page 99
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
3 months 3 weeks ago
The need to speak, even if...

The need to speak, even if one has nothing to say, becomes more pressing when one has nothing to say, just as the will to live becomes more urgent when life has lost its meaning.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
(p. 30)
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
5 months 3 weeks ago
What peculiar privilege has this little...

What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call thought, that we must thus make it the model of the whole universe? Our partiality in our own favour does indeed present it on all occasions; but sound philosophy ought carefully to guard against so natural an illusion.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Philo to Cleanthes, Part II
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 2 weeks ago
Marriage is for women the commonest...

Marriage is for women the commonest mode of livelihood, and the total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Henry George
Henry George
1 month 2 weeks ago
To prevent government from becoming corrupt...

To prevent government from becoming corrupt and tyrannous, its organization and methods should be as simple as possible, its functions be restricted to those necessary to the common welfare, and in all its parts it should be kept as close to the people and as directly within their control as may be.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 17 : The Functions of Government
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
4 months 4 days ago
The most important part of education...

The most important part of education - to teach the meaning of to know (in the scientific sense). The last statement in her notebook

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 3 weeks ago
It is more of a job...

It is more of a job to interpret the interpretations than to interpret the things, and there are more books about books than about any other subject: we do nothing but write glosses about each other.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 13
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
5 months 2 weeks ago
Setting the mind to remember... involves...

Setting the mind to remember... involves a continual minimal irradiation of excitement into paths which lead thereto... the continued presence of the thing in the 'fringe' of our consciousness. Letting the thing go involves withdrawal of the irradiation, unconsciousness of the thing, and... obliteration of the paths.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 16
Philosophical Maxims
  • Load More

User login

  • Create new account
  • Reset your password

Social

☰ ˟
  • Main Feed
  • Philosophical Maxims

Civic

☰ ˟
  • Propositions
  • Issue / Solution

Users

☰ ˟
  • All users
  • Historical Figures

Who's new

  • Enzo Soltani
  • Søren Kierkegaard
  • Jesus
  • Friedrich Nietzsche
  • VeXed

Who's online

There are currently 0 users online.

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia