Skip to main content

Main navigation

☰ ˟
  • Home
  • Articulation
  • Contact
  • Shop
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 1 week ago
Though love repine, and reason chafe,...

Though love repine, and reason chafe, There came a voice without reply, - "'T is man's perdition to be safe When for the truth he ought to die."

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Sacrifice
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
1 month 3 weeks ago
Nothing can be produced….

Nothing can be produced from nothing.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book I, lines 156-157 (tr. Munro) Variant translations: Nothing can be created from nothing. Nothing can be created out of nothing.
Philosophical Maxims
Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard
4 days ago
The words of the world want...

The words of the world want to make sentences.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 5, sect. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
1 month 1 week ago
Propaganda in favor of action that...

Propaganda in favor of action that is consonant with enlightened self-interest appeals to reason by means of logical arguments based upon the best available evidence fully and honestly set forth. Propaganda in favor of action dictated by the impulses that are below self-interest offers false, garbled or incomplete evidence, avoids logical argument and seeks to influence its victims by the mere repetition of catchwords, by the furious denunciation of foreign or domestic scapegoats, and by cunningly associating the lower passions with the highest ideals, so that atrocities come to be perpetrated in the name of God and the most cynical kind of Realpolitik is treated as a matter of religious principle and patriotic duty.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter 4 (p. 33)
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
2 months 1 week ago
Of things said without any combination,...

Of things said without any combination, each signifies either substance or quantity or qualification or a relative or where or when or being-in-a-position or having or doing or being affected. To give a rough idea, examples of substance are man, horse; of quantity: four-foot, five-foot; of qualification: white, grammatical; of a relative: double, half, larger; of where: in the Lyceum, in the market-place; of when: yesterday, last-year; of being-in-a-position: is-lying, is sitting; of having: has-shoes-on, has-armour-on; of doing: cutting, burning; of being-affected: being-cut, being-burned.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 week 1 day ago
Without its assiduity to the ridiculous,...

Without its assiduity to the ridiculous, would the human race have lasted more than a single generation?

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
2 months 2 days ago
The Master said, "Hard is...

The Master said, "Hard is it to deal with him, who will stuff himself with food the whole day, without applying his mind to anything good! Are there not gamesters and chess players? To be one of these would still be better than doing nothing at all.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
1 month 2 weeks ago
The public weal requires that men...

The public weal requires that men should betray and lie and massacre.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book III, Ch. 1. Of Profit and Honesty
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
1 month 2 weeks ago
The question of the principle of...

The question of the principle of the form of the intelligible world turns, therefore, upon making apparent in what manner it is possible for several substances to be in mutual commerce, and for this reason to pertain to the same whole, which is called world. We do not here consider the world, let it be understood, as to matter, that is, as to the nature of the substances of which it consists, whether they be material or immaterial, but as to form, that is to say, how among several things taken separately a connection, and among them all, totality can have place.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
1 month 3 weeks ago
Mahomet established a religion…

Mahomet established a religion by putting his enemies to death; Jesus Christ, by commanding his followers to lay down their own lives.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Thoughts on Religion and Philosophy (W. Collins, 1838), Ch. XVI, p. 202
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 1 week ago
I trust a good deal to...

I trust a good deal to common fame, as we all must. If a man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
February 1855
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 weeks 2 days ago
Friends are as companions on a...

Friends are as companions on a journey, who ought to aid each other to persevere in the road to a happier life.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in Gems of Thought: Being a Collection of More Than a Thousand Choice Selections
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 1 week ago
If I could put my hand...

If I could put my hand on the north star, would it be as beautiful? The sea is lovely, but when we bathe in it, the beauty forsakes all the near water. For the imagination and senses cannot be gratified at the same time.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Beauty
Philosophical Maxims
Zeno of Citium
Zeno of Citium
3 weeks 2 days ago
(The end is) life in agreement...

(The end is) life in agreement with nature.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted by Diogenes Laërtius, in Lives of Eminent Philosophers: 'Zeno', 7.87
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
2 months 1 week ago
In order to cease being a...

In order to cease being a doubtful case, one has to cease being, that's all.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
1 month 6 days ago
The problem is not to discover...

The problem is not to discover in oneself the truth of one's sex, but, rather, to use one's sexuality henceforth to arrive at a multiplicity of relationships. And, no doubt, homosexuality is not a form of desire but something desirable. Therefore, we have to work at becoming homosexuals.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"Friendship as a Way of Life," interview in Gai pied, April 1981, as translated in Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth (1994), pp. 135-136
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
1 month 1 week ago
There is no history of mankind,...

There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world. But this, I hold, is an offence against every decent conception of mankind. It is hardly better than to treat the history of embezzlement or of robbery or of poisoning as the history of mankind. For the history of power politics is nothing but the history of international crime and mass murder (including it is true, some of the attempts to suppress them). This history is taught in schools, and some of the greatest criminals are extolled as heroes. 

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Vol 2, Ch. 25 "Has History any Meaning?" Variant: There is no history of mankind, there are only many histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world.
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
1 month 2 weeks ago
Thus parents, by humouring and cockering...

Thus parents, by humouring and cockering them when little, corrupt the principles of nature in their children, and wonder afterwards to taste the bitter waters, when they themselves have poison'd the fountain.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Sec. 35
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
2 months 1 week ago
By such reflections and by the...

By such reflections and by the continuance in them of a divine nature, the qualities which we have described grew and increased among them; but when the divine portion began to fade away, and became diluted too often and too much with the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune, behaved unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see grew visibly debased, for they were losing the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were full of avarice and unrighteous power.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
1 month 2 days ago
Hearken with your ears to these...

Hearken with your ears to these best counsels,Reflect upon them with illumined judgment.Let each one choose his creed with that freedom of choice each must have at great events.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ahunuvaiti Gatha; Yasna 30, 2.
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
1 week 5 days ago
The power of thought is the...

The power of thought is the light of knowledge, the power of will is the energy of character, the power of heart is love. Reason, love and power of will are perfections of man.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Introduction, Z. Hanfi, trans., in The Fiery Brook (1972), p. 99
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
2 months 1 week ago
People are entirely too disbelieving of...

People are entirely too disbelieving of coincidence. They are far too ready to dismiss it and to build arcane structures of extremely rickety substance in order to avoid it. I, on the other hand, see coincidence everywhere as an inevitable consequence of the laws of probability, according to which having no unusual coincidence is far more unusual than any coincidence could possibly be.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 weeks ago
Let's put a limit...
0
⚖0
Main Content / General
Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
1 week 5 days ago
We are always on stage, even...

We are always on stage, even when we are stabbed in earnest at the end.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Act II.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 week 1 day ago
For you who no longer possess...

For you who no longer possess it, freedom is everything, for us who do, it is merely an illusion.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
1 month 3 weeks ago
Never trust her at any time….

Never trust her at any time, when the calm sea shows her false alluring smile.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book II, lines 557-559 (tr. Rouse)
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 1 week ago
If people did not sometimes do...

If people did not sometimes do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 50e
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
1 month 1 week ago
Men and boys are learning all...

Men and boys are learning all kinds of trades but how to make men of themselves. They learn to make houses; but they are not so well housed, they are not so contented in their houses, as the woodchucks in their holes. What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on? - If you cannot tolerate the planet that it is on? Grade the ground first. If a man believes and expects great things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you show him ... he will be surrounded by grandeur. He is in the condition of a healthy and hungry man, who says to himself, - How sweet this crust is!

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Letter to Harrison Blake (20 May 1860); published in Familiar Letters, 1865
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
1 month 1 week ago
I think so badly of philosophy...

I think so badly of philosophy that I don't like to talk about it. ... I do not want to say anything bad about my dear colleagues, but the profession of teacher of philosophy is a ridiculous one. We don't need a thousand of trained, and badly trained, philosophers - it is very silly. Actually most of them have nothing to say.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in "At 90, and Still Dynamic : Revisiting Sir Karl Popper and Attending His Birthday Party" by Eugene Yue-Ching Ho, in Intellectus 23
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 1 week ago
When I say that children should...

When I say that children should be told about sex, I do not mean that they should be told only the bare physiological facts; they should be told whatever they wish to know. There should be no attempt to represent adults as more virtuous than they are, or sex as occurring only in marriage. There is no excuse for deceiving children. And when, as must happen in conventional families, they find that their parents have lied, they lose confidence in them, and feel justified in lying to them.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Our Sexual Ethics, 1936
Philosophical Maxims
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
5 months 2 weeks ago
Human rights

It is also crucial to bear in mind the interconnection between the Decalogue... and its modern obverse, the celebrated 'human Rights'. As the experience of our post-political liberal-permissive society amply demonstrates, human Rights are ultimately, at their core, simply Rights to violate the Ten Commandments. 'The right to privacy' — the right to adultery, in secret, where no one sees me or has the right to probe my life. 'The right to pursue happiness and to possess private property' -- the right to steal (to exploit others). 'Freedom of the press and of the expression of opinion' -- the right to lie. 'The right of free citizens to possess weapons' -- the right to kill. And, ultimately, 'freedom of religious belief' — the right to worship false gods.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
2 months 1 week ago
If the very essence of knowledge...

If the very essence of knowledge changes, at the moment of the change to another essence of knowledge there would be no knowledge, and if it is always changing, there will always be no knowledge, and by this reasoning there will be neither anyone to know nor anything to be known. But if there is always that which knows and that which is known if the beautiful, the good, and all the other verities exist I do not see how there is any likeness between these conditions of which I am now speaking and flux or motion.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Empedocles
Empedocles
1 month 2 days ago
What needs saying…

What needs saying is worth saying twice.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
fr. 25
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 1 week ago
Every man, wherever he goes, is...

Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 2: Dreams and Facts
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 1 week ago
The philosophy of Plotinus has the...

The philosophy of Plotinus has the defect of encouraging men to look within rather than to look without: when we look within we see nous, which is divine, while when we look without we see the imperfections of the sensible world. This kind of subjectivity was a gradual growth; it is to be found in the doctrines of Protagoras, Socrates, and Plato, as well as in the Stoics and Epicureans. But at first it was only doctrinal, not temperamental; for a long time it failed to kill scientific curiosity. [...] Plotinus is both an end and a beginning-an end as regards the Greeks, a beginning as regards Christendom.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Russell, Bertrand (2008). History of Western Philosophy. Simon and Schuster. pp. 296-297. ISBN 978-1-4165-9915-9.
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
1 month 2 weeks ago
But the Jews are so hardened...

But the Jews are so hardened that they listen to nothing; though overcome by testimonies they yield not an inch. It is a pernicious race, oppressing all men by their usury and rapine. If they give a prince or magistrate a thousand florins, they extort twenty thousand from the subjects in payment. We must ever keep on guard against them.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
863
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 1 week ago
Suppose that I wish to deserve...

Suppose that I wish to deserve the title of "robber of remorse" and that I place in myself all [the townspeople's] repentence?

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Orestes to Electra, Act 2
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
1 month 3 weeks ago
I dare affirm in knowledge of...

I dare affirm in knowledge of nature, that a little natural philosophy, and the first entrance into it, doth dispose the opinion to atheism; but on the other side, much natural philosophy and wading deep into it, will bring about men's minds to religion; wherefore atheism every way seems to be combined with folly and ignorance, seeing nothing can can be more justly allotted to be the saying of fools than this, "There is no God" Of Atheism

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 1 week ago
As for large landed property, its...

As for large landed property, its defenders have always, sophistically, identified the economic advantages offered by large-scale agriculture with large-scale landed property, as if it were not precisely as a result of the abolition of property that this advantage, for one thing, would receive its greatest possible extension, and, for another, only then would be of social benefit.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Rent of Land, p. 66.
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 weeks 2 days ago
Gaiety - a quality of ordinary...

Gaiety - a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"Diseases"
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
1 week 5 days 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
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
2 months 2 weeks ago
Woe to the thinker who is...
Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow in him!
0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
1 month 2 days ago
The hopes of the right-minded may...

The hopes of the right-minded may be realized, those of fools are impossible.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
2 days ago
Whoever desires to live among men...

Whoever desires to live among men has to obey their laws-this is what the secular morality of Western civilization comes down to. ... Rationality in the form of such obedience swallows up everything, even the freedom to think.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 29.
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
2 months 2 weeks ago
What does man actually know about...
What does man actually know about himself? Is he, indeed, ever able to perceive himself completely, as if laid out in a lighted display case? Does nature not conceal most things from him even concerning his own body in order to confine and lock him within a proud, deceptive consciousness, aloof from the coils of the bowels, the rapid flow of the blood stream, and the intricate quivering of the fibers! She threw away the key.
0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
2 months 2 weeks ago
Art furnishes us with eyes and...
Art furnishes us with eyes and hands and above all the good conscience to be able to turn ourselves into such a phenomenon.
0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
4 days ago
..;and where men build on...

... and where men build on false grounds, the more they build, the greater is the ruine.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The Second Part, Chapter 26, p. 140
Philosophical Maxims
Heraclitus
Heraclitus
2 months 1 day ago
War is the father and king...

War is the father and king of all: some he has made gods, and some men; some slaves and some free. War is the father and king of all, and has produced some as gods and some as men, and has made some slaves and some free.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
1 month 2 days ago
Self-taught poverty is a help toward...

Self-taught poverty is a help toward philosophy, for the things which philosophy attempts to teach by reasoning, poverty forces us to practice.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Stobaeus, iv. 32a. 11
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
1 month 3 weeks ago
Whence we see spiders, flies, or...

Whence we see spiders, flies, or ants entombed and preserved forever in amber, a more than royal tomb.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Historia Vitæ et Mortis; Sylva Sylvarum, Cent. i. Exper. 100, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed.
Philosophical Maxims
  • Load More

User login

  • Create new account
  • Reset your password

Social

☰ ˟
  • Main Content
  • 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