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Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 1 week ago
Power may be defined as the...

Power may be defined as the production of intended effects.

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Ch. 3: The Forms of Power
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
2 months 1 day ago
This aristocratic thesis is... the demos,...

This aristocratic thesis is... the demos, the people, are the most numerous... also comprised of the most ordinary, and... even the worst, citizens. Therefore... what is best for the demos cannot be what is best for the polis... the city.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 months 1 week ago
Intellect is invisible to the man...

Intellect is invisible to the man who has none.

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Our Relation to Others, § 23
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 2 weeks ago
I have gathered…

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

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Ch. 12: Of Physiognomy
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 2 weeks ago
He who is not sure of...

He who is not sure of his memory, should not undertake the trade of lying. 

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Book I, Ch. 9
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 5 days ago
A great myth is relevant as...

A great myth is relevant as long as the predicament of humanity lasts; as long as humanity lasts. It will always work, on those who can receive it, the same catharsis.

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"Haggard Rides Again", in Time and Tide, Vol. XLI, 9/3/1960
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 2 days ago
It's only by thinking even more...

It's only by thinking even more crazily than philosophers do that you can solve their problems.

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p. 75e
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
4 weeks 1 day ago
His disciples said to Him, "When...

His disciples said to Him, "When will the Kingdom come?" Jesus said, "It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying 'Here it is' or 'There it is.' Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it."

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Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
3 weeks 6 days ago
The State is always, whatever be...

The State is always, whatever be its form - primitive, ancient, medieval, modern - an invitation issued by one group of men to other human groups to carry out some enterprise in common. That enterprise, be its intermediate processes what they may, consists in the long run in the organisation of a certain type of common life. ... [As Renan says,] "To have common glories in the past, a common will in the present; to have done great things together; to wish to do greater; these are the essential conditions which make up a people.... In the past, an inheritance of glories and regrets; in the future, one and the same programme to carry out.... The existence of a nation is a daily plebiscite."

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Chapter XIV: Who Rules The World?
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 1 week ago
A great profusion of things, which...

A great profusion of things, which are splendid or valuable in themselves, is magnificent. The starry heaven, though it occurs so very frequently to our view, never fails to excite an idea of grandeur. This cannot be owing to the stars themselves, separately considered. The number is certainly the cause. The apparent disorder augments the grandeur, for the appearance of care is highly contrary to our idea of magnificence. Besides, the stars lie in such apparent confusion, as makes it impossible on ordinary occasions to reckon them. This gives them the advantage of a sort of infinity.

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Part II Section XIII
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 2 weeks ago
The worst of my actions or...

The worst of my actions or conditions seem not so ugly unto me as I find it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch for them.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 5 days ago
If we cannot "practice the presence...

If we cannot "practice the presence of God," it is something to practice the absence of God, to become increasingly aware of our unawareness till we feel like man who should stand beside a great cataract and hear no noise, or like a man in a story who looks in a mirror and finds no face there, or a man in a dream who stretches his hand to visible objects and gets no sensation of touch. To know that one is dreaming is to no longer be perfectly asleep. Bur for news of the fully waking world you must go to my betters.

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"Charity"
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 weeks 2 days ago
There were honest people long before...

There were honest people long before there were Christians and there are, God be praised, still honest people where there are no Christians. It could therefore easily be possible that people are Christians because true Christianity corresponds to what they would have been even if Christianity did not exist.

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L 16
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 1 week ago
Reason is a harmonising, controlling force...

Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one.

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Ch. 1: Mysticism and Logic
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 4 days ago
There was no denying that he...

There was no denying that he would always be conscious of the fact that an Earthman was an Earthman. He couldn't help that. That was the result of a childhood immersed in an atmosphere of bigotry so complete that it was almost invisible, so entire that you accepted its axioms as second nature. Then you left it and saw it for what it was when you looked back.

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1 month 1 week ago
Pass by us, and forgive us...

Pass by us, and forgive us our happiness.

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Part 4, Chapter 5
Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
2 months 5 days ago
At best the principles that economists...

At best the principles that economists have supposed the choices of rational individuals to satisfy can be presented as guidelines for us to consider when we make our decisions.

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Chapter IX, Section 84, p. 558
Philosophical Maxims
Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Berdyaev
3 weeks 1 day ago
This was once revealed to me...

This was once revealed to me in a dream.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
2 months 1 week ago
Let us maintain inviolably equality in...

Let us maintain inviolably equality in the sacred right of suffrage: public security can never have a basis more solid.

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Author's Inscription: French Edition
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 2 days ago
You are forgiven everything provided you...

You are forgiven everything provided you have a trade, a subtitle to your name, a seal on your nothingness.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 3 days ago
One does not decide the truth...

One does not decide the truth of a thought according to whether it is right-wing or left-wing.

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Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
4 weeks 1 day ago
Skepticism is the chastity of the...

Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer: there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness.

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The Works of George Santayana p. 65
Philosophical Maxims
Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Berdyaev
3 weeks 1 day ago
The life of Berdyaev spans the...

The life of Berdyaev spans the momentous events of the first half of the twentieth century in Europe. He was no ivory tower philosopher but was intimately affected by these events throughout his life and drew his inspirations from them regarding the nature of the human condition. His writings bear the imprint of the catastrophic situations within which he was destined to live.

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Richard Schain, in In Love with Eternity : Philosophical Essays and Fragments (2005), Ch. 7 : Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev - A Champion of the Spirit, p. 43
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 1 week ago
It occurs to me that artists...

It occurs to me that artists go forward by going backward, something which I have nothing against intrinsically when it is a reproduced retreat - as is the case with the better artists. But it does not seem right that they stop with the historical themes already given and, so to speak, think that only these are suitable for poetic treatment, because these particular themes, which intrinsically are no more poetic than others, are now again animated and inspirited by a great poetic nature. In this case the artists advance by marching on the spot. - Why are modern heroes and the like not just as poetic? Is it because there is so much emphasis on clothing the content in order that the formal aspect can be all the more finished?

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 5 days ago
The past is the luxury of...

The past is the luxury of proprietors.

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Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
2 months 3 weeks ago
Sobriety, as opposed to inebriety and...

Sobriety, as opposed to inebriety and gluttony, is of admirable use in teaching men that nature is satisfied with a little, and enabling them to content themselves with simple and frugal fare.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
4 days ago
It's misleading to suppose there's any...

It's misleading to suppose there's any basic difference between education & entertainment. This distinction merely relieves people of the responsibility of looking into the matter.

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(1957) from "Classroom Without Walls", Explorations Vol. 7, 1957; reprinted in Explorations in Communication ed. E. Carpenter & M. McLuhan, (Boston: Beacon, 1960); and again in McLuhan: Hot and Cool ed. G. E. Stearn (NY: Dial, 1967).
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 1 week ago
Politics is, as it were, the...

Politics is, as it were, the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its two opposite halves, - sometimes split into quarters, it may be, which grind on each other. Not only individuals, but States, have thus a confirmed dyspepsia, which expresses itself, you can imagine by what sort of eloquence. Thus our life is not altogether a forgetting, but also, alas! to a great extent, a remembering of that which we should never have been conscious of, certainly not in our waking hours. Why should we not meet, not always as dyspeptics, to tell our bad dreams, but sometimes as eupeptics, to congratulate each other on the ever glorious morning? I do not make an exorbitant demand, surely.

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p. 495
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
1 month 4 days ago
I shall in no time forget...

I shall in no time forget that moment. We felt as if we had had in our souls a clear passing glimpse into this wondrous World.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 5 days ago
To be ignorant of the past...

To be ignorant of the past is to remain a child.

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Cicero
Philosophical Maxims
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
2 months 1 day ago
This book, admirable in so many...

This book, admirable in so many respects, power in its break and style, is even more intimidating for me in that, having formely had the good fortune to study under Michel Foucault, I retain the consciousness of an admiring and grateful disciple. Now, the disciple's consciousness, when he starts, I would not say to dispute, but to engage in dialogue with the master or, better, to articulate the interminable and silent dialogue which made him into a disciple-this disciple's consciousness is an unhappy consciousness.

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Cogito and The History of Madness (Routledge classics edition)
Philosophical Maxims
Ptahhotep
Ptahhotep
1 month 3 weeks ago
One who is serious all day...

One who is serious all day will never have a good time, while one who is frivolous all day will never establish a household.

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Maxim no. 25.
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
6 days ago
Not only does the action of...

Not only does the action of Governments not deter men from crimes; on the contrary, it increases crime by always disturbing and lowering the moral standard of society. Nor can this be otherwise, since always and everywhere a Government, by its very nature, must put in the place of the highest, eternal, religious law (not written in books but in the hearts of men, and binding on every one) its own unjust, man-made laws, the object of which is neither justice nor the common good of all but various considerations of home and foreign expediency.

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The Meaning of the Russian Revolution (1906), a work about the 1905 Russian Revolution.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 1 week ago
The religious world is but the...

The religious world is but the reflex of the real world.

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Vol. I, Ch. 1, Section 4, pg. 91.
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
2 months 1 day ago
This legible lesson, this ritual recording,...

This legible lesson, this ritual recording, must be repeated as often as possible; the punishments must be a school rather than a festival; an ever-open book rather than a ceremony. The duration that makes the punishment effective for the guilty is also useful for the spectators. They must be able to consult at each moment the permanent lexicon of crime and punishment. A secret punishment is a punishment half wasted. Children should be allowed to come to the places where the penalty is being carried out; there they will attend their classes in civics. And grown men will periodically relearn the laws. Let us conceive of places of punishment as a Garden of the Laws that families would visit on Sundays.

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Chapter Three, The Gentle Way in Punishment
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 2 days ago
A person who wakes up after...

A person who wakes up after a night of unbroken sleep has the illusion of beginning something new. When one instead remains awake the whole night long, nothing new begins.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
2 months 6 days ago
If we remembered everything, we should...

If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing. It would take as long for us to recall a space of time as it took the original time to elapse, and we should never get ahead with our thinking. All recollected times undergo, accordingly, what M. Ribot calls foreshortening; and this foreshortening is due to the omission of an enormous number of the facts which filled them.

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Ch. 16
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
1 month 1 week ago
They (the emperors) frequently abused their...

They (the emperors) frequently abused their power arbitrarily to deprive their subjects of property or of life: their tyranny was extremely onerous to the few, but it did not reach the greater number; .. But it would seem that if despotism were to be established amongst the democratic nations of our days it might assume a different character; it would be more extensive and more mild, it would degrade men without tormenting them.

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Book Four, Chapter VI.
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
1 month 3 weeks ago
Some of Singer's critics call him...

Some of Singer's critics call him a Nazi and compare his proposals to Hitler's schemes for eliminating the unwanted, the unfit and the disabled. But...Singer is no Hitler. He doesn't want state-sponsored killings. Rather, he wants the decision to kill to be made by you and me. Instead of government-conducted genocide, Singer favors free-market homicide.

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Dinesh D'Souza, "Atheism and Child Murder," in Townhall (12 May 2008).
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
6 days ago
The man who holds the divine...

The man who holds the divine theory of life recognizes life not in his own individuality, and not in societies of individualities (in the family, the clan, the nation, the tribe, or the government), but in the eternal undying source of life-in God; and to fulfill the will of God he is ready to sacrifice his individual and family and social welfare. The motor power of his life is love. And his religion is the worship in deed and in truth of the principle of the whole-God.

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Chapter IV, Christianity Misunderstood by Men of Science
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
4 weeks 1 day ago
It is the sphere farthest removed...

It is the sphere farthest removed from the concreteness of society which may show most clearly the extent of the conquest of thought by society.

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p. 104
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 month 2 weeks ago
If there be light, then there...

If there be light, then there is darkness; if cold, heat; if height, depth; if solid, fluid; if hard, soft; if rough, smooth; if calm, tempest; if prosperity, adversity; if life, death.

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As quoted in Bibliotheca Sacra and Theological Review by ? Vol. IV, No. 8 (1847) by Dallas Theological Seminary, p. 107
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
2 months 1 week ago
The heart is everywhere, and each...

The heart is everywhere, and each part of the organism is only the specialized force of the heart itself.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
4 weeks ago
Well both original seizure and subsequent...

Well both original seizure and subsequent critical discrimination have equal claims, each to its own complete development and must not be forgotten that direct and unreasoned impression comes first. There is such occasions something of the quality of the wind that bloweth where it listeth. Sometimes it comes and sometimes it does not, even in the presence of the same object. It cannot be forced and when it does not arrive it is not wise to seek to recover by direct action the first fine rapture.

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p. 151
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
1 month 3 weeks ago
Let hopes and sorrows….

Let hopes and sorrows, fears and angers be, and think each day that dawns the last you'll see; For so the hour that greets you unforeseen, will bring with it enjoyment twice as keen.

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Book I, epistle iv, line 12 (translated by John Conington)
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 2 weeks ago
He who thinks....
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Main Content / General
John Rawls
John Rawls
2 months 5 days ago
Intuitionism is not constructive, perfectionism is...

Intuitionism is not constructive, perfectionism is unacceptable.

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Chapter I, Section 9, pg. 52
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 1 week ago
Disobedience is the true foundation of...

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.

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1847
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
4 weeks 1 day ago
Of all Discourse, governed by desire...

Of all Discourse, governed by desire of Knowledge, there is at last an End, either by attaining, or by giving over.

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The First Part, Chapter 7, p. 30
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
1 week 2 days ago
When the real is no longer...

When the real is no longer what it was, nostalgia assumes its full meaning. "The Precession of Simulacra,"

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p. 6
Philosophical Maxims
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