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Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
I have no ideas, only obsessions....

I have no ideas, only obsessions. Anybody can have ideas. Ideas have never caused anybody's downfall.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
3 months 1 week ago
The prophet is appointed to oppose...

The prophet is appointed to oppose the king, and even more: history.

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BBC radio broadcast (1962), as quoted in The Great Thoughts (1984) by George Seldes
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Kuhn
Thomas Kuhn
1 month 1 week ago
Philosophers of science have repeatedly demonstrated...

Philosophers of science have repeatedly demonstrated that more than one theoretical construction can always be placed upon a given collection of data. History of science indicates that, particularly in the early developmental stages of a new paradigm, it is not even very difficult to invent such alternates. But that invention of alternates is just what scientists seldom undertake except during the pre-paradigm stage of their science's development and at very special occasions during its subsequent evolution. So long as the tools a paradigm supplies continue to prove capable of solving the problems it defines, science moves fastest and penetrates most deeply through confident employment of those tools. The reason is clear. As in manufacture so in science-retooling is an extravagance to be reserved for the occasion that demands it. The significance of crises is the indication they provide that an occasion for retooling has arrived.

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p. 76
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 2 weeks ago
I've always been careful never to...

I've always been careful never to predict anything that had not already happened.

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Interview: Tom Wolfe, TVOntario, August 1970
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
3 months 3 weeks ago
People praise virtue, but they hate...

People praise virtue, but they hate it, they run away from it. It freezes you to death, and in this world you've got to keep your feet warm.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 weeks 3 days ago
Give thyself time to learn something...

Give thyself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around.

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II, 7
Philosophical Maxims
Ernst Bloch
Ernst Bloch
2 weeks 5 days ago
We hear only ourselves.

We hear only ourselves.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ernest Renan
Ernest Renan
1 month 2 weeks ago
All agreed in rejecting that blasphemy,...

All agreed in rejecting that blasphemy, that Greece was ever a province of Asia, that the Greek spirit, so free, so objective, so limpid, could contain any element of the vague and obscure spirit of the Orient.

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"Des Religions de l'antiquité et leurs derniers historiens", Mondes, vol. 23, no. 2 (1853) p. 835
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 4 weeks ago
There is no wish more natural...

There is no wish more natural than the wish to know.

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Ch. 13
Philosophical Maxims
Max Stirner
Max Stirner
1 month 6 days ago
The workers have the most enormous...

The workers have the most enormous power in their hands, and if one day they became truly aware of it and used it, then nothing could resist them; they would only have to stop work and look upon the products of work as their own and enjoy them. This is the meaning of the labor unrest that is looming here and there. The state is founded on the-slavery of labor. If labor becomes free, the state is lost.

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Landstreicher 2017, p. 133
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
3 months 3 weeks ago
How it could come to pass...

How it could come to pass I do not know, but I remember it clearly. The dream embraced thousands of years and left in me only a sense of the whole. I only know that I was the cause of their sin and downfall. Like a vile trichina, like a germ of the plague infecting whole kingdoms, so I contaminated all this earth, so happy and sinless before my coming. They learnt to lie, grew fond of lying, and discovered the charm of falsehood.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
4 months 3 weeks ago
There as here, passions are the...

There as here, passions are the motive of all action, but they are livelier, more ardent, or merely simpler and purer, thereby assuming a totally different character. All the first movements of nature are good and right.

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First Dialogue; translated by Judith R. Bush, Christopher Kelly, Roger D. Masters
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
4 months 3 weeks ago
Men are by nature merely indifferent...

Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies.

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Vol. 2 "On Women" as translated in Essays and Aphorisms (1970), as translated by R. J. Hollingdale
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 1 week ago
Our life is a hope which...

Our life is a hope which is continually converting itself into memory and memory in its turn begets hope. Give us leave to live! The eternity that is like an eternal present, without memory and without hope, is death. Thus do ideas exist in the God-Idea, but not thus do men live in the living God, in the God-Man.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 3 weeks ago
Slavery they can have anywhere. It...

Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
True confessions are written with tears...

True confessions are written with tears only. But my tears would drown the world, as my inner fire would reduce it to ashes.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 months 2 weeks ago
The man is making preparations for...

The man is making preparations for a year, and does not know that he will die before evening. And I remembered God's second saying, "Learn what is not given to man." 'What dwells in man" I already knew. Now I learnt what is not given him. It is not given to man to know his own needs.

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Ch. XI
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
3 months 1 week ago
The difference between the artificial and...

The difference between the artificial and the artful in the artistic lies on the surface in the former there is a split between what is overly done and what is intended. The appearance is one of cordiality; the intent is that of gaining favor. Whenever this split between what is done and its purpose exists, there is insincerity, a trick, a simulation of an act that intrinsically has another effect. When the natural and the cultivated blend into one, acts of social intercourse are works of art. The animating impulsion of genial friendship and the deed performed completely coincide without intrusion of ulterior motive. Awkwardness may prevent adequacy of expression.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
There is one very serious defect...

There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ's moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.

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"The Moral Problem"
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 4 weeks ago
I moreover affirm that our wisdom...

I moreover affirm that our wisdom itself, and wisest consultations, for the most part commit themselves to the conduct of chance.

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Book III, Ch. 8. Of the Art of Conversation
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 2 weeks ago
Intellectuals cannot be good revolutionaries; they...

Intellectuals cannot be good revolutionaries; they are just good enough to be assassins.

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Act 5, sc. 3
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
1 month 3 weeks ago
The belief in unity that has...

The belief in unity that has fuelled so many utopian dreams is an effort to reconcile the irreconcilable that ends in repression. Berlin suggests we renounce this venerable faith, and learn how to live with intractable conflict.

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'Isaiah Berlin: The Value of Decency' (p.106-7)
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
3 weeks ago
I strive to discover how to...

I strive to discover how to signal my companions before I die, how to give them a hand, how to spell out for them in time one complete word at least, to tell them what I think this procession is, and toward what we go. And how necessary it is for all of us together to put our steps and hearts in harmony. To say in time a simple word to my companions, a password, like conspirators. Yes, the purpose of Earth is not life, it is not man. Earth has existed without these, and it will live on without them. They are but the ephemeral sparks of its violent whirling. Let us unite, let us hold each other tightly, let us merge our hearts, let us create - so long as the warmth of this earth endures, so long as no earthquakes, cataclysms, icebergs or comets come to destroy us - let us create for Earth a brain and a heart, let us give a human meaning to the superhuman struggle. This anguish is our second duty.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 months 2 weeks ago
And so the arbitrary union of...

And so the arbitrary union of three incommensurate, mutually disconnected concepts became the basis of a bewildering theory... [by which] one of the lowest renderings of art, art for mere pleasure - against which all of the master teachers warned - was idealized as the ultimate in art.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
The church is in its major...

The church is in its major part an opponent still of progress and improvement in all the ways that diminish suffering in the world, because it has chosen to label as morality a certain narrow set of rules of conduct which have nothing to do with human happiness; and when you say that this or that ought to be done because it would make for human happiness, they think that has nothing to do with the matter at all. "What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is not to make people happy."

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"How The Churches Have Retarded Progress"
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 months 3 weeks ago
Nothing seems at first sight less...

Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward form of human actions, yet there is nothing upon which men set more store: they grow used to everything except to living in a society which has not their own manners.

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Book Three, Chapter XIV.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
3 months 1 week ago
So that every Crime is a...

So that every Crime is a sinne; but not every sinne a Crime.

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The Second Part, Chapter 27, p. 151
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
4 months 2 weeks ago
Let any one try, I will...

Let any one try, I will not say to arrest, but to notice or attend to, the present moment of time. One of the most baffling experiences occurs. Where is it, this present? It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming.

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Ch. 15
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
4 months 3 weeks ago
I. The subjects of every state...

I. The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities, that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.

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Chapter II, Part II, p. 892.
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
3 months 3 weeks ago
It is proof of a base...

It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.

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Included as a quotation in The Great Quotations (1977) by George Seldes, p. 35
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 2 weeks ago
The humans live in time but...

The humans live in time but our Enemy (God) destines them for eternity.

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Letter XV
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
2 months 2 weeks ago
It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic...

It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, "mad cow" disease, and many others, but I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.

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Is Science a Religion?, The Humanist
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
4 months 3 weeks ago
Granted that any practice causes more...

Granted that any practice causes more pain to animals than it gives pleasure to man; is that practice moral or immoral? And if, exactly in proportion as human beings raise their heads out of the slough of selfishness, they do not with one voice answer 'immoral,' let the morality of the principle of utility be for ever condemned.

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Dr. Whewell on Moral Philosophy (1852), in Dissertations and Discussions: Political, Philosophical, and Historical, vol. 2, London: John W. Parker and son, 1859, p. 485
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
4 months 2 weeks ago
The moment we no longer have...

The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie - a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days - but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.

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p. 70
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
5 months 5 days ago
If we are not stupid or...

If we are not stupid or insincere when we say that the good or ill of man lies within his own will, and that all beside is nothing to us, why are we still troubled?

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Book I, ch. 25, § 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
3 weeks ago
If we can but prevent the...

If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.

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Letter to Thomas Cooper
Philosophical Maxims
Willard van Orman Quine
Willard van Orman Quine
3 months 6 days ago
No particular experiences are linked with...

No particular experiences are linked with any particular statements in the interior of the field, except indirectly through considerations of equilibrium affecting the field as a whole.

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"Two Dogmas of Empiricism"
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 1 week ago
That, on the whole, if you...

That, on the whole, if you have got the intrinsic qualities, you have got everything, and the preliminaries will prove attainable; but that if you have got only the preliminaries, you have yet got nothing. A man of real dignity will not find it impossible to bear himself in a dignified manner; a man of real understanding and insight will get to know, as the fruit of his very first study, what the laws of his situation are, and will conform to these.

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Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
3 months 2 weeks ago
My interests drew me in different...

My interests drew me in different directions. On the one hand I was powerfully attracted by science, with its truths based on facts; on the other hand I was fascinated by everything to do with comparative religion. [...] In science I missed the factor of meaning; and in religion, that of empiricism.

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p. 72
Philosophical Maxims
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
1 month 1 day ago
I believe that world literature has...

I believe that world literature has it in its power to help mankind, in these its troubled hours, to see itself as it really is, notwithstanding the indoctrinations of prejudiced people and parties. World literature has it in its power to convey condensed experience from one land to another so that we might cease to be split and dazzled, that the different scales of values might be made to agree, and one nation learn correctly and concisely the true history of another with such strength of recognition and painful awareness as it had itself experienced the same, and thus might it be spared from repeating the same cruel mistakes.

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Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
3 months 6 days ago
By abstaining from all definite content,...

By abstaining from all definite content, whether as formal logic and theory of science or as the legend of Being beyond all beings, philosophy declared its bankruptcy regarding concrete social goals.

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p. 6
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
3 weeks ago
Our liberty depends on the freedom...

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.

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Letter to Dr. James Currie (28 January 1786) Lipscomb & Bergh 18:ii
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
5 months 3 weeks ago
Father in heaven, when the thought...

Father in heaven, when the thought of thee awakens in our soul, let it not waken as an agitated bird which flutters confusedly about, but as a child waking from sleep with a celestial smile.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
1 month 3 weeks ago
The evil of totalitarianism is not...

The evil of totalitarianism is not only that it fails to protect specific liberties but that it extinguishes the very possibility of freedom.

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'Isaiah Berlin: The Value of Decency' (p.104)
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 days ago
To get up in the morning....
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Main Content / General
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 4 weeks ago
When I play with my cat,...

When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me?

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Book II, Ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
3 months 2 weeks ago
What will be the influence of...

What will be the influence of communist society on the family? It will transform the relations between the sexes into a purely private matter which concerns only the persons involved and into which society has no occasion to intervene. It can do this since it does away with private property and educates children on a communal basis, and in this way removes the two bases of traditional marriage - the dependence rooted in private property, of the women on the man, and of the children on the parents.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
3 months 1 week ago
As the oil is in the...

As the oil is in the olive, so is the teshuvah, repentance, hidden within sin.

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p. 44
Philosophical Maxims
Avicenna
Avicenna
5 months 1 week ago
An ignorant doctor is the aide-de-camp...

An ignorant doctor is the aide-de-camp of death.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 months 3 weeks ago
"The will of the nation" is...

"The will of the nation" is one of those expressions which have been most profusely abused by the wily and the despotic of every age.

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Chapter IV.
Philosophical Maxims
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