Skip to main content

Main navigation

☰ ˟
  • Home
  • Articulation
  • Contact
  • Shop
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva
4 weeks ago
Nuclear power started in weaponry. It...

Nuclear power started in weaponry. It was designed for war. And any instrument that has its origins in war always has the potential for war. First because the material you need to make bombs, you're multiplying it though nuclear power, you're taking uranium and turn it into plutonium. Second by equipping governments and private companies with this potential, in society you spread this potential, that here is a weapon of mass destruction available. This is exactly what happened with fertilizers. Chemical fertilizers came from explosive factories are increasingly used in terrorist attacks.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
On nuclear power, as quoted in "Koodankulam Must Be Stopped: Vandana Shiva", DiaNuke
Philosophical Maxims
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
3 months 4 days ago
He was breakfasting in the marketplace,...

He was breakfasting in the marketplace, and the bystanders gathered round him with cries of "dog." "It is you who are dogs," cried he, "when you stand round and watch me at my breakfast."

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 61
Philosophical Maxims
Max Stirner
Max Stirner
Just now
If a concept lacks an essence,...

If a concept lacks an essence, nothing will ever be found that completely fits that concept. If you are lacking in the concept of human being, it will immediately expose that you are something individual, something that cannot be expressed by the term human being, thus, in every instance, an individual human being.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Landstreicher, p. 16
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
3 months 2 weeks ago
The concrete man has but one...

The concrete man has but one interest - to be right. That to him is the art of all arts, and all means are fair which help him to it.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
2 months 2 weeks ago
Among other men Reason awakes in...

Among other men Reason awakes in another form-as the impulse towards Personal Freedom, which, although it never opposes the mild rule of the inward Instinct which it loves, yet rises in rebellion against the pressure of a stranger Instinct which has usurped its rights; and in this awakening it breaks the chains,-not of Reason as Instinct itself, but of the Instinct of foreign natures clothed in the garb of external power.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 8
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
3 months 3 weeks ago
If, being duke and peer, you...

If, being duke and peer, you would not be contented with my standing uncovered before you, but should also wish that I should esteem you, I should ask you to show me the qualities that merit my esteem. If you did this, you would gain it, and I could not refuse it to you with justice; but if you did not do it, you would be unjust to demand it of me; and assuredly you would not succeed, were you the greatest prince in the world.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 1 week ago
Literacy, in translating man out of...

Literacy, in translating man out of the closed world of tribal depth and resonance, gave man an eye for an ear and ushered him into a visual open world of specialized and divided consciousness.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
2 months 3 weeks ago
The best and greatest winning is...

The best and greatest winning is a true friend; and the greatest loss is the loss of time.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
1 week 4 days ago
Ours is a problem in which...

Ours is a problem in which deception has become organized and strong; where truth is poisoned at its source; one in which the skill of the shrewdest brains is devoted to misleading a bewildered people.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. IV: "The Golden Rule and After", p. 105.
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
2 months 1 day ago
Our longing to save consciousness, to...

Our longing to save consciousness, to give personal and human finality to the Universe and to existence, is such that even in the midst of a supreme, an agonizing and lacerating sacrifice, we should still hear the voice that assured us that if our consciousness disappears, it is that the infinite and eternal Consciousness may be enriched thereby, that our souls may serve as a nutriment to the Universal soul.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 month 1 week ago
The attitude that living things are...

The attitude that living things are placed here for our benefit still dominates our culture, even where its underpinnings have disappeared. We now need, for purposes of scientific understanding, to find a less human-centered view of the natural world.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter 8, "Pollen Grains and Magic Bullets" (p. 258)
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
2 months 1 day ago
To believe in God is to...

To believe in God is to yearn for His existence and, furthermore, it is to act as if He did exist.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
3 months 4 weeks ago
Those of our pleasures which come...

Those of our pleasures which come most rarely give the greatest delight.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Fragment 33 (Oldfather translation)
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 month 1 week 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
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
3 months 3 weeks ago
All who say the same things...

All who say the same things do not possess them in the same manner; and hence the incomparable author of the Art of Conversation pauses with so much care to make it understood that we must not judge of the capacity of a man by the excellence of a happy remark that we heard him make. ...let us penetrate, says he, the mind from which it proceeds... it will oftenest be seen that he will be made to disavow it on the spot, and will be drawn very far from this better thought in which he does not believe, to plunge himself into another, quite base and ridiculous.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Montaigne, Essais, liv. III, chap. viii.-Faugère
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 1 week ago
Impossible to accede to truth by...

Impossible to accede to truth by opinions, for each opinion is only a mad perspective of reality.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 1 week ago
Without the faculty of forgetting, our...

Without the faculty of forgetting, our past would weigh so heavily on our present that we should not have the strength to confront another moment, still less to live through it. Life would be bearable only to frivolous natures, those in fact who do not remember.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
1 month 3 weeks ago
Our whole civilization, our entire culture...

Our whole civilization, our entire culture is concentrated in the mad demand for the most perfected weapons of slaughter. Ammunition! Ammunition! O, Lord, thou who rulest heaven and earth, thou God of love, of mercy and of justice, provide us with enough ammunition to destroy our enemy. Such is the prayer which is ascending daily to the Christian heaven.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
3 months 1 week ago
In a head-on clash between violence...

In a head-on clash between violence and power, the outcome is hardly in doubt. Nowhere is the self-defeating factor in the victory of violence over power more evident than in the use of terror to maintain domination, about whose weird successes and eventual failures we know perhaps more than any generation before us. Violence can destroy power; it is utterly incapable of creating it.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
On Violence
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
4 months 2 weeks ago
What is the essence of life?...

What is the essence of life? To serve others and to do good. Often given as a saying of Aristotle with no reference.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 2 weeks ago
There is no one at the...

There is no one at the Communion table who retains against you even the least of your sins, no one, unless you yourself do it. So cast them away from yourself, and the recollection of them, lest in it your retain them; and cast the recollection of your having cast your sins away, lest in it you retain them.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 month 4 weeks ago
The ancient world takes its stand...

The ancient world takes its stand upon the drama of the Universe, the modern world upon the inward drama of the Soul.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 9: "Science and Philosophy", p. 196
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
4 months ago
You can live, provided you live;...

You can live, provided you live; that is, you can live for ever, provided you live a good life.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
229H:3:2
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
3 months 1 week ago
The emotions I feel are no...

The emotions I feel are no more meant to be shown in their unadulterated state than the inner organs by which we live.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
pp. 31-32
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
4 months ago
Christ's whole body groans in pain....

Christ's whole body groans in pain. Until the end of the world, when pain will pass away, this man groans and cries to God. And each one of us has part in the cry of that whole body. Thou didst cry out in thy day, and thy days have passed away; another took thy place and cried out in his day. Thou here, he there, and another there. The body of Christ ceases not to cry out all the day, one member replacing the other whose voice is hushed. Thus there is but one man who reaches unto the end of time, and those that cry are always His members.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p.423
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 months ago
If a young girl is being...

If a young girl is being forced into a brothel she will not talk about her rights. In such a situation the word would sound ludicrously inadequate.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 63
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
2 months 2 weeks ago
Every man is free to do...

Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 6, The Formula of Justice
Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
3 months 3 weeks ago
No proceeding is better than that...

No proceeding is better than that which you have concealed from the enemy until the time you have executed it. To know how to recognize an opportunity in war, and take it, benefits you more than anything else. Nature creates few men brave, industry and training makes many. Discipline in war counts more than fury.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book 7
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 2 weeks ago
No man can have society upon...

No man can have society upon his own terms. If he seeks it, he must serve it too.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
1833
Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
3 months 1 week ago
Bernie Sanders is...an anti-racist in his...

Bernie Sanders is...an anti-racist in his heart. Two, he's old-school. He's like me. He doesn't know the buzzwords. He doesn't endorse reparations, one moment in the last 30 years, silent on it. He has the consistency over the years decade after decade and therefore it's true in his language, in his rhetoric. There are times in which he doesn't... use the same kind of buzzwords. But when it comes to his fight against racism, going to jail in Chicago as a younger brother and he would go to jail again. He and I would go to jail together again in terms of fighting against police brutality. So in that sense, I would just tell my brothers and sisters, but especially my chocolate ones that they shouldn't be blinded by certain kinds of words they're looking for, that in the end, he is a long distance runner in the struggle against white supremacy.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Quoted in: Cornel West on Bernie, Trump, and Racism, The Intercept, Mehdi Hasan
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
5 days ago
For love is ever the beginning...

For love is ever the beginning of Knowledge, as fire is of light.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Carlyle, Essays, Death of Goethe. Quote reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 419-23.
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 2 weeks ago
In forming a store...
0
⚖0
Main Content / General
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 1 week ago
Great ages of innovation are the...

Great ages of innovation are the ages in which entire cultures are junked or scrapped.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
(p. 309)
Philosophical Maxims
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
1 month 1 week ago
As a scholar [Allan Bloom] intends...

As a scholar [Allan Bloom] intends to enlighten us, and as a writer he has learned from Aristophanes and other models that enlightenment should also be enjoyable. To me, this is not the book of a professor, but that of a thinker who is willing to take the risks more frequently taken by writers. It is risky in a book of ideas to speak in one's own voice, but it reminds us that the sources of the truest truths are inevitably profoundly personal. ... Academics, even those describing themselves as existentialists, very seldom offer themselves publicly and frankly as individuals, as persons.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 12
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
1 month 3 weeks ago
Twenty-first-century society is no longer a...

Twenty-first-century society is no longer a disciplinary society, but rather an achievement society.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 1 week ago
Existentialism is nothing else but an...

Existentialism is nothing else but an attempt to draw the full conclusions from a consistently atheistic position. Its intention is not in the least that of plunging men into despair. And if by despair one means as the Christians do - any attitude of unbelief, the despair of the existentialists is something different. Existentialism is not atheist in the sense that it would exhaust itself in demonstrations of the non-existence of God. It declares, rather, that even if God existed that would make no difference from its point of view. Not that we believe God does exist, but we think that the real problem is not that of His existence; what man needs is to find himself again and to understand that nothing can save him from himself, not even a valid proof of the existence of God. In this sense existentialism is optimistic. It is a doctrine of action, and it is only by self-deception, by confining their own despair with ours that Christians can describe us as without hope.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 56
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
3 months 4 days ago
He who postpones the hour of living…

He who postpones the hour of living rightly is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book I, epistle ii, lines 41-42
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 2 weeks ago
The man who comes back through...

The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less cocksure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable Mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Page 191
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 2 weeks ago
Though the Earth, and all inferior...

Though the Earth, and all inferior Creatures be common to all Men, yet every Man has a Property in his own Person. Thus no Body has any Right to but himself.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Second Treatise of Government, Ch. V, sec. 27
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 1 week ago
This morning I thought, hence lost...

This morning I thought, hence lost my bearings, for a good quarter of an hour.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 1 week ago
Literacy remains even now the base...

Literacy remains even now the base and model of all programs of industrial mechanization; but, at the same time, locks the minds and senses of its users in the mechanical and fragmentary matrix that is so necessary to the maintenance of mechanized society.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
4 months 1 week ago
We certainly must contend by every...

We certainly must contend by every argument against him who does away with knowledge or reason or mind and then makes any dogmatic assertion about anything. The philosopher, who pays the highest honor to these things, must necessarily, as it seems, because of them refuse to accept the theory of those who say the universe is at rest, whether as a unity or in many forms, and must also refuse utterly to listen to those who say that being is universal motion; he must say that being and the universe consist of both.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 1 week ago
Commoners are weightless. But he was...

Commoners are weightless. But he was a royal bon vivant who, no matter what, always weighed 125 kilos. I would be very surprised if he didn't have a few pounds left.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
A soldier in Argos, speaking of the dead King Agamemnon, Act 2
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
2 months 2 weeks ago
The first philosophers were astronomers. The...

The first philosophers were astronomers. The heavens remind man ... that he is destined not merely to act, but also to contemplate.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Introduction, Z. Hanfi, trans., in The Fiery Brook (1972), pp. 101-102
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick
2 weeks 4 days ago
You can't satisfy everybody; especially if...

You can't satisfy everybody; especially if there are those who will be dissatisfied unless not everybody is satisfied.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 10 : A Framework for Utopia; The Framework as Utopian Common Ground, p. 320
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
2 months 2 weeks ago
Pour recueillir les biens inestimables qu'assure...

Pour recueillir les biens inestimables qu'assure la liberté de la presse, il faut savoir se soumettre aux maux inévitables qu'elle fait naître. Translation: In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils it creates.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter XI.
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
4 months 1 week ago
I was pleased with you,...

Parmenides: I was pleased with you, Socrates, because you would not discuss the doubtful question in terms of visible objects or in relation to them, but only with reference to what we conceive most entirely by the intellect and may call ideas… But if you wish to get better training, you must do something more than that; you must consider not only what happens if a particular hypothesis is true, but also what happens if it is not true.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 2 weeks ago
Every great study is not only...

Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of mind.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 4: The Study of Mathematics
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 1 week ago
Man in the electronic age has...

Man in the electronic age has no possible environment except the globe and no possible occupation except information-gathering.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 1 week ago
Blast Sputnik for closing terrestrial nature...

Blast Sputnik for closing terrestrial nature in a man-made environment that transfers the evolutionary process from biology to technology.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
(p. 85)
Philosophical Maxims
  • Load More

User login

  • Create new account
  • Reset your password

Social

☰ ˟
  • Main Feed
  • Philosophical Maxims

Civic

☰ ˟
  • Propositions
  • Issue / Solution

Who's new

  • Søren Kierkegaard
  • Jesus
  • Friedrich Nietzsche
  • VeXed
  • Slavoj Žižek

Who's online

There are currently 0 users online.

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia