Skip to main content
6 days ago

The cravings of love and sex are met with absolute ignorance by the majority of parents, who consider it as something indecent and improper, something disgraceful, almost criminal, to be suppressed and fought like some terrible disease. The love and tender feelings in the young plant are turned into vulgarity and coarseness through the stupidity of those surrounding it, so that everything fine and beautiful is either crushed altogether or hidden in the innermost depths, as a great sin, that dares not face the light.

0
0
1 month 3 weeks ago

If a man own land, the land owns him.

0
0
Source
source
Wealth
1 month 2 weeks ago

We do not have to make self- sacrifice a necessary element of altruism. We can regard people as altruists because of the kind of interests they have rather than because they are sacrificing their interests.

0
0
Source
source
Chapter 9: Altruism and Happiness (p. 103)
1 month 2 weeks ago

The will to the "true world" in the sense of Plato and Christianity ... is in truth a no-saying to our present world, precisely the one in which art is at home.

0
0
Source
source
p. 74

In contrast to festivals, events do not create community.

0
0

Moral activity? There is scarcely such a thing possible! Everything is sketchy. The world does nothing but sketch.

0
0
2 months 1 day ago

I have gathered a posy of other men's flowers, and nothing but the thread that binds them is mine own.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. 12: Of Physiognomy
2 months 1 day ago

The mariner of old said to Neptune in a great tempest, "O God! thou mayest save me if thou wilt, and if thou wilt thou mayest destroy me; but whether or no, I will steer my rudder true."

0
0
Source
source
Book II, Ch. 16. Of Glory
1 month 5 days ago

Despise all those things which when liberated from the body you will not want; invoke the Gods to become your helpers.

0
0
Source
source
Pythagorean Ethical Sentences From Stobæus
2 months 1 week ago

Materials are indifferent, but the use which we make of them is not a matter of indifference.

0
0
Source
source
Book II, ch. 5, 1
3 weeks 2 days ago

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...

0
0
Source
source
p. 105
2 weeks 2 days ago

The subconscious is ceaselessly murmuring, and it is by listening to these murmurs that one hears the truth.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. 2, sect. 2
2 months 6 days ago

Rules for Demonstrations. I. Not to undertake to demonstrate any thing that is so evident of itself that nothing can be given that is clearer to prove it. II. To prove all propositions at all obscure, and to employ in their proof only very evident maxims or propositions already admitted or demonstrated. III. To always mentally substitute definitions in the place of things defined, in order not to be misled by the ambiguity of terms which have been restricted by definitions.

0
0
2 weeks 5 days ago

I anticipated witnessing in my lifetime the disappearance of our species. But the Gods have been against me.

0
0
2 months 2 days ago

Nothing is terrible except fear itself.

0
0
Source
source
De Augmentis Scientiarum, Book II, "Fortitudo"
3 weeks 3 days ago

If there is no immortality, there is no virtue. ... Without God and immortal life? All things are lawful then, they can do what they like?

0
0
Source
source
Quoted in M. M. Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, trans. R. W. Rotsel (Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis, 1973) p. 70
2 months 3 weeks ago

Consciousness presupposes itself, and asking about its origin is an idle and just as sophistical a question as that old one, "What came first, the fruit-tree or the stone? Wasn't there a stone out of which came the first fruit-tree? Wasn't there a fruit-tree from which came the first stone?

0
0
2 months 3 weeks ago

I shall have to test the theory of my father Parmenides, and contend forcibly that after a fashion not-being is and on the other hand in a sense being is not. For unless these statements are either disproved or accepted, no one who speaks about false words, or false opinion whether images or likenesses or imitations or appearances about the arts which have to do with them, can ever help being forced to contradict himself and make himself ridiculous.

0
0
1 week 3 days ago

In a free nation, it matters not whether individuals reason well or ill; it is sufficient that they do reason. Truth arises from the collision and from hence springs liberty, which is a security from the effects of reasoning.

0
0
Source
source
Quoted by Thomas Erskine in the trial of Thomas Paine, 1792
4 weeks ago

It lays down, as is generally known, that our speculations upon all subjects whatsoever, pass necessarily through three successive stages: a Theological stage, in which free play is given to spontaneous fictions admitting of no proof; the Metaphysical stage, characterized by the prevalence of personified abstractions or entities; lastly, the Positive stage, based upon an exact view of the real facts of the case.

0
0
Source
source
p. 36
1 month 3 weeks ago

A third illusion haunts us, that a long duration, as a year, a decade, a century, is valuable. But an old French sentence says, "God works in moments," - "En peu d'heure Dieu labeure." We ask for long life, but 't is deep life, or grand moments, that signify. Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical. Life is unnecessarily long. Moments of insight, of fine personal relation, a smile, a glance, - what ample borrowers of eternity they are! Life culminates and concentrates; and Homer said, "The Gods ever give to mortals their appointed share of reason only on one day."

0
0
Source
source
Works and Days
2 months 1 week ago

It is only the individual possessed of the most entire sincerity that can exist under Heaven, who can adjust the great invariable relations of mankind, establish the great fundamental virtues of humanity, and know the transforming and nurturing operations of Heaven and Earth; shall this individual have any being or anything beyond himself on which he depends? Call him man in his ideal, how earnest is he! Call him an abyss, how deep is he! Call him Heaven, how vast is he! Who can know him, but he who is indeed quick in apprehension, clear in discernment, of far-reaching intelligence, and all-embracing knowledge, possessing all Heavenly virtue?

0
0
2 weeks 5 days ago

First then, we find that when we regard ideas from a nominalistic, individualistic, sensualistic way, the simplest facts of mind become utterly meaningless. That one idea should resemble another or influence another, or that one state of mind should so much as be thought of in another is, from that standpoint, sheer nonsense.

0
0
1 week 2 days ago

The soul was not made to dwell in a thing; and when forced to it, there is no part of that soul but suffers violence.

0
0
Source
source
in The Simone Weil Reader, p. 155

We cannot stem linguistic change, but we can drag our feet. If each of us were to defy Alexander Pope and be the last to lay the old aside, it might not be a better world, but it would be a lovelier language.

0
0
Source
source
Quiddities: An Intermittently Philosophical Dictionary (1987), p. 231
1 month 3 weeks ago

I believe that the early success and reputation of Carlyle's French Revolution, were considerably accelerated by what I wrote about it in the Review. Immediately on its publication, and before the commonplace critics, all whose rules and modes of judgment it set at defiance, had time to preoccupy the public with their disapproval of it, I wrote and published a review of the book, hailing it as one of those productions of genius which are above all rules, and are a law to themselves.

0
0
Source
source
(p. 217)
1 month 3 weeks ago

The word liberty in the mouth of Mr. Webster sounds like the word love in the mouth of a courtesan.

0
0
Source
source
February 12, 1851; cf. the remark of John Wilkes about Samuel Johnson, "Liberty is as ridiculous in his mouth as Religion in mine" (20 March 1778), quoted in Boswell's Life of Johnson, 1791
2 months 3 weeks ago

The science which has to do with nature clearly concerns itself for the most part with bodies and magnitudes and their properties and movements, but also with the principles of this sort of substance, as many as they may be.

0
0
2 weeks 6 days ago

There is philosophy, which is about conceptual analysis - about the meaning of what we say - and there is all of this ... all of life.

0
0
Source
source
Emphasizing his views on philosophy as something abstract and separate from normal life to Isaiah Berlin, in the early 1930s, as quoted in A.J. Ayer: A Life (1999) by Ben Rogers, p. 2.
1 month 3 weeks ago

A genuine first-hand religious experience like this is bound to be a heterodoxy to its witnesses, the prophet appearing as a mere lonely madman. If his doctrine prove contagious enough to spread to any others, it becomes a definite and labeled heresy. But if it then still prove contagious enough to triumph over persecution, it becomes itself an orthodoxy; and when a religion has become an orthodoxy, its day of inwardness is over: the spring is dry; the faithful live at second hand exclusively and stone the prophets in their turn. The new church, in spite of whatever human goodness it may foster, can be henceforth counted on as a staunch ally in every attempt to stifle the spontaneous religious spirit, and to stop all later bubblings of the fountain from which in purer days it drew its own supply of inspiration.

0
0
Source
source
Lectures XIV and XV, "The Value of Saintliness"
1 month 3 weeks ago

The great end of all human industry, is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, sciences cultivated, laws ordained, and societies modelled, by the most profound wisdom of patriots and legislators.

0
0
Source
source
Part I, Essay 16: The Stoic
2 months 3 weeks ago

Man is a goal-seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for goals.

0
0
2 months 1 week ago

The superior man governs men, according to their nature, with what is proper to them, and as soon as they change what is wrong, he stops.

0
0

Perchance you who pronounce my sentence are in greater fear than I who receive it.

0
0
Source
source
His famous response to his judges upon his conviction as a heretic, prior to his transfer to the civil authorities for execution. (16 February 1600); as quoted by Gaspar Schopp of Breslau in a letter to Conrad Rittershausen
1 month 2 weeks ago

For a large class of cases - though not for all - in which we employ the word meaning it can be explained thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.

0
0
Source
source
§ 43, this has often been quoted as simply: The meaning of a word is its use in the language.
1 month 1 week ago

Men have fashioned an image of Chance as an excuse for their own stupidity. For Chance rarely conflicts with intelligence, and most things in life can be set in order by an intelligent sharpsightedness.

0
0
Source
source
Freeman (1948), p. 155
1 month 3 weeks ago

Let me suggest a theme for you: to state to yourself precisely and completely what that walk over the mountains amounted to for you, - returning to this essay again and again, until you are satisfied that all that was important in your experience is in it. Give this good reason to yourself for having gone over the mountains, for mankind is ever going over a mountain. Don't suppose that you can tell it precisely the first dozen times you try, but at 'em again, especially when, after a sufficient pause, you suspect that you are touching the heart or summit of the matter, reiterate your blows there, and account for the mountain to yourself. Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.

0
0
Source
source
Letter to Harrison Blake, November 16, 1857
1 month 3 weeks ago

It is time to be old, To take in sail: - The god of bounds, Who sets to seas a shore, Came to me in his fatal rounds, And said: 'No more!

0
0
Source
source
Terminus
1 week 2 days ago

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
1 month 3 weeks ago

Now, what is 'unrighteousness' in practice? It is in practice behavior of a kind disliked by the herd. By calling it unrighteousness, and by arranging an elaborate system of ethics around this conception, the herd justifies itself in wreaking punishment upon the objects of its own dislike, while at the same time, since the herd is righteous by definition, it enhances its own self-esteem at the very moment when it lets loose its impulse to cruelty. This is the psychology of lynching, and of the other ways in which criminals are punished. The essence of the conception of righteousness, therefore, is to afford an outlet for sadism by cloaking cruelty as justice.

0
0
Source
source
"The Idea of Righteousness"
2 months 1 week ago

The necessary connexion of movement and time is real and time is something the soul constructs in movement.

0
0
3 weeks 2 days ago

I have always taken as the standard of the mode of teaching and writing, not the abstract, particular, professional philosopher, but universal man, that I have regarded man as the criterion of truth, and not this or that founder of a system, and have from the first placed the highest excellence of the philosopher in this, that he abstains, both as a man and as an author, from the ostentation of philosophy, i.e., that he is a philosopher only in reality, not formally, that he is a quiet philosopher, not a loud and still less a brawling one.

0
0
Source
source
Preface to Second Edition
3 weeks 3 days ago

A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood.

0
0
Source
source
Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (3 April 1777); as published in The Works of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke (1899), vol. 2, p. 206
1 month 3 weeks ago

The activity of to-day and the assurance of to-morrow.

0
0
Source
source
p. 215
3 weeks 3 days ago

The Whigs of this day have before them, in this Appeal, their constitutional ancestors: They have the doctors of the modern school. They will choose for themselves. The author of the Reflections has chosen for himself. If a new order is coming on, and all the political opinions must pass away as dreams, which our ancestors have worshipped as revelations, I say for him, that he would rather be the last (as certainly he is the least) of that race of men, than the first and greatest of those who have coined to themselves Whig principles from a French die, unknown to the impress of our fathers in the constitution.

0
0
Source
source
p. 476

Systems, scientific and philosophic, come and go. Each method of limited understanding is at length exhausted. In its prime each system is a triumphant success: in its decay it is an obstructive nuisance.

0
0
Source
source
p. 203.
2 weeks 5 days ago

True, the law is sacred to the bourgeois, for it is his own composition, enacted with his consent, and for his benefit and protection. He knows that, even if an individual law should injure him, the whole fabric protects his interests; and more than all, the sanctity of the law, the sacredness of order as established by the active will of one part of society, and the passive acceptance of the other, is the strongest support of his social position. Because the English bourgeois finds himself reproduced in his law, as he does in his God, the policeman's truncheon which, in a certain measure, is his own club, has for him a wonderfully soothing power. But for the working-man quite otherwise! The working-man knows too well, has learned from too oft-repeated experience, that the law is a rod which the bourgeois has prepared for him; and when he is not compelled to do so, he never appeals to the law.

0
0
1 month 3 weeks ago

As a rule, begin my lectures on Scientific Method by telling my students that scientific method does not exist. ...having been ...the one and only professor of this non-existent subject within the British Commonwealth.

0
0
1 month 3 weeks ago

Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion. Goodness is either the great safety or the great danger-according to the way you react to it.

0
0
Source
source
Book I, Chapter 5, "We Have Cause to Be Uneasy"
1 month 3 weeks ago

There are two kinds of truths: those of reasoning and those of fact. The truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible; the truths of fact are contingent and their opposites are possible.

0
0
Source
source
La monadologie (33).

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia