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Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 1 week ago
You have dreamed of setting the...

You have dreamed of setting the world ablaze, and you have not even managed to communicate your fire to words, to light up a single one!

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Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
2 months 1 week ago
The principal aim...

The principal aim of mathematical education is to develop certain faculties of the mind, and among these intuition is not the least precious. It is through it that the mathematical world remains in touch with the real world, and even if pure mathematics could do without it, we should still have to have recourse to it to fill up the gulf that separates the symbol from reality.

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Part II. Ch. 2 : Mathematical Definitions and Education, p. 128
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
5 months 2 weeks ago
As if there could be true...

As if there could be true stories: things happen in one way, and we retell them in the opposite way.

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Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
4 months 1 day ago
Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X,...

Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael, Amiri Baraka and other black male leaders have righteously supported patriarchy. They have all argued that it is absolutely necessary for black men to relegate black women to a subordinate position both in the political sphere and in home life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
3 months ago
Life itself is always pulling you...

Life itself is always pulling you away from the understanding of life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
1 month 4 weeks ago
The restoration of our world-view can...

The restoration of our world-view can come only as a result of inexorably truth-loving and recklessly courageous thought. Such thinking alone is mature enough to learn by experience how the rational, when it thinks itself out to a conclusion, passes necessarily over into the non-rational. World- and life-affirmation and ethics are non-rational. They are not justified by any corresponding knowledge of the nature of the world, but are the disposition in which, through the inner compulsion of our will-to-live, we determine our relation to the world. What the activity of this disposition of ours means in the evolution of the world, we do not know. Nor can we regulate this activity from outside; we must leave entirely to each individual its shaping and its extension. From every point of view, then, world- and life-affirmation and ethics are non-rational, and we must have the courage to admit it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
6 months 2 weeks ago
Great novelists are philosopher-novelists who write...

Great novelists are philosopher-novelists who write in images instead of arguments.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
5 months 2 weeks ago
For I now saw, or thought...

For I now saw, or thought I saw, what I had always before received with incredulity-that the habit of analysis has a tendency to wear away the feelings: as indeed it has, when no other mental habit is cultivated, and the analysing spirit remains without its natural complements and correctives.

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(p. 137)
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 1 week ago
We are all secularised anarchists today.

We are all secularised anarchists today.

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Philosophical Maxims
Proclus
Proclus
5 months 1 day ago
It is told that those who...

It is told that those who first brought out the irrationals from concealment into the open perished in shipwreck, to a man. For the unutterable and the formless must needs be concealed. And those who uncovered and touched this image of life were instantaneously destroyed and shall remain forever exposed to the play of the eternal waves.

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As quoted by Tobias Dantzig, Number: The Language of Science (1930) also see Proclus, scholium to Book X of Euclid's Elements, vol. V.
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
6 months 2 weeks ago
The attempt to separate everything from...

The attempt to separate everything from everything else is not only not in good taste but also shows that a man is utterly uncultivated and unphilosophical. The complete separation of each thing from all is the utterly final obliteration of all discourse. For our power of discourse is derived from the interweaving of the classes or ideas with one another.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 3 weeks ago
The plague of man is boasting...

The plague of man is boasting of his knowledge.

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Ch. 12 (tr. ?)
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
2 months 1 week ago
Is the position tenable, that certain...

Is the position tenable, that certain phenomena, possible in Euclidean space, would be impossible in non-Euclidean space, so that experience, in establishing these phenomena, would directly contradict the non-Euclidean hypothesis? For my part I think no such question can be put. To my mind it is precisely equivalent to the following, whose absurdity is patent to all eyes: are there lengths expressible in meters and centimeters, but which can not be measured in fathoms, feet, and inches, so that experience, in ascertaining the existence of these lengths, would directly contradict the hypothesis that there are fathoms divided into six feet?

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Ch. V: Experiment and Geometry (1905) Tr. George Bruce Halstead
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
4 months ago
The problem is that sex is...

The problem is that sex is the most dangerous way of trying to achieve personal growth, because the life force has mixed it so liberally with a string sense of "magic", which, in the attempt at possession turns out to be an illusion. The attempt to possess a woman through an act of sex is as frustrating as trying to possess the scent of a rose by cooking and eating it.

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p. 250
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
4 months 2 weeks ago
Man has many wishes that he...

Man has many wishes that he does not really wish to fulfil, and it would be a misunderstanding to suppose the contrary. He wants them to remain wishes, they have value only in his imagination; their fulfilment would be a bitter disappointment to him. Such a desire is the desire for eternal life. If it were fulfilled, man would become thoroughly sick of living eternally, and yearn for death. In reality man wishes merely to avoid a premature, violent or gruesome death. Everything has its measure, says a pagan philosopher; in the end we weary of everything, even of life; a time comes when man desires death. Consequently there is nothing frightening about a normal, natural death, the death of a man who has fulfilled himself and lived out his life.

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Lecture XXX, Atheism alone a Positive View
Philosophical Maxims
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
1 month 2 weeks ago
If we demonstrate this moving principle,...

If we demonstrate this moving principle, if we show that matter, far from being as indifferent as it is supposed to be, to movement and to rest, ought to be regarded as an active, as well as a passive substance, what resource can be left to those who have made its essence consist in extension?

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Ch. V Concerning the Moving Force of Matter
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 2 weeks ago
Only in thought is man a...

Only in thought is man a God; in action and desire we are the slaves of circumstance.

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Letter to Lucy Donnely, November 25, 1902
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Mannheim
Karl Mannheim
1 month 2 weeks ago
It has become extremely questionable whether,...

It has become extremely questionable whether, in the flux of life, it is a genuinely worthwhile intellectual problem to seek to discover fixed and immutable ideas or absolutes. It is a more worthy intellectual task perhaps to learn to think dynamically and relationally rather than statically.

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Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
6 months 2 days ago
Were I a nightingale, I would...

Were I a nightingale, I would act the part of a nightingale; were I a swan, the part of a swan.

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Book I, ch. 16, 20.
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
3 months 3 weeks ago
In the process of decision those...

In the process of decision those alternatives are chosen which are considered to be appropriate means of reaching desired ends. Ends themselves, however, are often merely instrumental to more final objectives. We are thus led to the conception of a series, or hierarchy, of ends. Rationality has to do with the construction of means-ends chains of this kind.

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p. 62.
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 month 2 weeks ago
You may break your heart, but...

You may break your heart, but men will still go on as before.

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VIII, 4
Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
5 months 3 weeks ago
I had hoped that out of...

I had hoped that out of so many stories you would at least have produced one or two, which could hardly be questioned, and which would clearly show that ghosts or spectres exist. The case you relate... seems to me laughable. In like manner it would be tedious here to examine all the stories of people, who have written on these trifles. To be brief, I cite the instance of Julius Caesar, who, as Suetonius testifies, laughed at such things and yet was happy. ...And so should all who reflect on the human imagination, and the effects of the emotions, laugh at such notions; whatever Lavater and others, who have gone dreaming with him in the matter, may produce to the contrary.

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Letter to Hugo Boxel (October 1674) The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza (1891) Tr. R. H. M. Elwes, Vol. 2, Letter 58 (54).
Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
1 month 2 weeks ago
It is useless to try to...

It is useless to try to adjudicate a long-standing animosity by asking who started it or who is the most wrong. The only sufficient answer is to give up the animosity and try forgiveness, to try to love our enemies and to talk to them and (if we pray) to pray for them. If we can't do any of that, then we must begin again by trying to imagine our enemies' children who, like our children, are in mortal danger because of enmity that they did not cause.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
6 months 2 weeks ago
Artistic creation is a demand for...

Artistic creation is a demand for unity and a rejection of the world.

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Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
4 months 1 day ago
If one assumes, as I do,...

If one assumes, as I do, that battery is caused by the belief permeating this culture that hierarchical rule and coercive authority are natural, then all our relationships tend to be based on power and domination, and thus all forms of battery are linked.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
5 months 2 weeks ago
Speed, it seems to me, provides...

Speed, it seems to me, provides the one genuinely modern pleasure.

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Wanted, A New Pleasure
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 1 week ago
Undue cultivation of the inward or...

Undue cultivation of the inward or Dynamical province leads to idle, visionary, impracticable courses, and, especially in rude eras, to Superstition and Fanaticism, with their long train of baleful and well-known evils. Undue cultivation of the outward, again, though less immediately prejudicial, and even for the time productive of many palpable benefits, must, in the long-run, by destroying Moral Force, which is the parent of all other Force, prove not less certainly, and perhaps still more hopelessly, pernicious. This, we take it, is the grand characteristic of our age. By our skill in Mechanism, it has come to pass, that in the management of external things we excel all other ages; while in whatever respects the pure moral nature, in true dignity of soul and character, we are perhaps inferior to most civilised ages.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
5 months 2 weeks ago
Then he tried to recall the...

Then he tried to recall the lessons of Mr. Wisdom. "it is I myself, eternal Spirit, who drives this Me, the slave, along that ledge. I ought not to care whether he falls and breaks his neck or not. It is not he that is real, it is I - I - I.

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Pilgrim's Regress 137
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 1 week ago
I find in myself as much...

I find in myself as much evil as in anyone, but detesting action - mother of all vices - I am the cause of no one's suffering.

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Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
3 months 2 weeks ago
Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them....

Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them.

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Maxim 872
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
4 months 3 weeks ago
Wandering in a vast..

Wandering in a vast forest at night, I have only a faint light to guide me. A stranger appears and says to me: "My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly." This stranger is a theologian.

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Number VIII
Philosophical Maxims
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
3 months 1 week ago
We take foreigners to be incomplete...

We take foreigners to be incomplete Americans - convinced that we must help and hasten their evolution.

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" A Second Half Life" (1991), p. 324
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
5 months 2 weeks ago
Such then is the human condition…

Such then is the human condition, that to wish greatness for one's country is to wish harm to one's neighbors.

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"Fatherland", 1764
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 1 week ago
Constitution,-the apex of all its intelligences...

Constitution,-the apex of all its intelligences and mighty instincts and dumb longings: it is I? William Conqueror's big gifts, and Edward's and Elizabeth's; Oliver's lightning soul, noble as Sinai and the thunders of the Lord: these are mine, I begin to perceive,-to a certain extent. These heroisms have I,-though rather shy of exhibiting them. These; and something withal of the huge beaver-faculty of our Arkwrights, Brindleys; touches too of the phoenix-melodies and sunny heroisms of our Shakspeares, of our Singers, Sages and inspired Thinkers all this is in me, I will hope,-though rather shy of exhibiting it on common occasions.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
5 months 3 weeks ago
Tell your master that if there...

Tell your master that if there were as many devils at Worms as tiles on its roofs, I would enter.

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Psalm. Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (translated by Frederic H. Hedge), Reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 months 1 week ago
We are sleeping...
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Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 2 weeks ago
My poor opinion is, that the...

My poor opinion is, that the closest connexion between Great Britain and Ireland, is essential to the well being, I had almost said, to the very being, of the two Kingdoms. ... I think indeed that Great Britain would be ruined by the separation of Ireland; but, as there are degrees even in ruin, it would fall the most heavily on Ireland. By such a separation Ireland would be the most completely undone Country in the world; the most wretched, the most distracted and, in the end, the most desolate part of the habitable Globe.

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Letter to an unknown correspondent (February 1797), quoted in R. B. McDowell (ed.)
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 1 week ago
As long as one believes in...

As long as one believes in philosophy, one is healthy; sickness begins when one starts to think.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
3 months 3 days ago
These examples... show that, in whatever...

These examples... show that, in whatever proportion of its limbs the Gorilla differs from Man, the other Apes depart still more widely from the Gorilla and that, consequently, such differences of proportion can have no ordinal value.

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Ch.2, p. 89
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
4 months 2 weeks ago
Life is a disease of the...

Life is a disease of the spirit; a working incited by Passion. Rest is peculiar to the spirit.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
3 months 6 days ago
Oh! wherefore come ye forth, in...

Oh! wherefore come ye forth, in triumph from the North,With your hands, and your feet, and your raiment all red? And wherefore doth your rout send forth a joyous shout? And whence be the grapes of the wine-press which ye tread?

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The Battle of Naseby (1824), quoted in The Works of Lord Macaulay Complete, Vol. VIII, ed. Lady Trevelyan (1866), p. 551
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 2 weeks ago
Democracy is the process by which...

Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who'll get the blame.

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Attributed to Russell in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists (2007), p. 346
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 2 weeks ago
The two principles on which our...

The two principles on which our conduct towards the Indians should be founded, are justice and fear. After the injuries we have done them, they cannot love us....

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Letter to Benjamin Hawkins (13 August 1786) Lipscomb & Bergh ed. 5:390
Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
5 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.

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Quoted in: Cornel West on Bernie, Trump, and Racism, The Intercept, Mehdi Hasan
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 1 week ago
A man does not kill himself,...

A man does not kill himself, as is commonly supposed, in a fit of madness but rather in a fit of unendurable lucidity, in a paroxysm which may, if so desired, be identified with madness; for an excessive perspicacity, carried to the limit and of which one longs to be rid at all costs, exceeds the context of reason.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
3 months 6 days ago
It will hardly be disputed, I...

It will hardly be disputed, I suppose, that the department of literature in which the Eastern writers stand highest is poetry. And I certainly never met with any orientalist who ventured to maintain that the Arabic and Sanscrit poetry could be compared to that of the great European nations. But when we pass from works of imagination to works in which facts are recorded and general principles investigated, the superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely immeasurable. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanscrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory schools in England. In every branch of physical or moral philosophy, the relative position of the two nations is nearly the same.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
5 months 2 weeks ago
I believe in Christianity as I...

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

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"Is Theology Poetry?", 1945
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
3 months 3 weeks ago
It is certainly not a matter...

It is certainly not a matter of indifference whether I learn something without effort or finally arrive at it myself through my system of thought. In the latter case everything has roots, in the former it is merely superficial.

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F154
Philosophical Maxims
Julius Evola
Julius Evola
1 month 3 weeks ago
One of the commonplaces of modern...

One of the commonplaces of modern historiography is the polemical exaltation of the civilization of the Renaissance over and against medieval civilization. This is not just the expression of a typical misunderstanding, since this mentality is the effect of one among the innumerable deceptions purposely spread in modern culture by the leaders of global subversion. The truth is that after the collapse of the ancient world, if there ever was a civilization that deserves the name of Renaissance, this was the civilization of the Middle Ages. In its objectivity, its virile spirit, its hierarchical structure, its proud antihumanistic simplicity so often permeated by the sense of the sacred, the Middle Ages represented a return to the origins.

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p.309
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
5 months 5 days ago
After the battle in Pharsalia, when...

After the battle in Pharsalia, when Pompey was fled, one Nonius said they had seven eagles left still, and advised to try what they would do. "Your advice," said Cicero, "were good if we were to fight jackdaws."

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Cicero
Philosophical Maxims
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