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Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
I live only because it is...

I live only because it is in my power to die when I choose to: without the idea of suicide, I'd have killed myself right away.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 3 weeks ago
Custom reconciles us to every thing....

Custom reconciles us to every thing.

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Part IV Section XVIII
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
4 months 2 days ago
For I find that even those...

For I find that even those that have sought knowledge for itself and not for benefit, or ostentation, or any practical enablement in the course of their life, have nevertheless propounded to themselves a wrong mark, namely, satisfaction, which men call truth, and not operation. For as in the courts and services of princes and states, it is a much easier matter to give satisfaction than to do the business; so in the inquiring of causes and reasons it is much easier to find out such causes as will satisfy the mind of man, and quiet objections, than such causes as will direct him and give him light to new experiences and inventions.

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Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature (ca. 1603), in Works, Vol. 1; The Works of Francis Bacon (1857), Vol. 3, p. 232
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
2 months 5 days ago
A young delicate tree, that is...

A young delicate tree, that is being clipped and cut by the gardener in order to give it an artificial form, will never reach the majestic height and the beauty as when allowed to grow in nature and freedom.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 3 weeks ago
You, your families, your friends and...

You, your families, your friends and your countries are to be exterminated by the common decision of a few brutal but powerful men. To please these men, all the private affections, all the public hopes, all that has been achieved in art, and knowledge and thought and all that might be achieved hereafter is to be wiped out forever. Our ruined lifeless planet will continue for countless ages to circle aimlessly round the sun unredeemed by the joys and loves, the occasional wisdom and the power to create beauty which have given value to human life.

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Leaflet issued while Russell was in Brixton Prison, 1961
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
2 weeks 4 days ago
The liberal world order that emerged,...

The liberal world order that emerged, that... has these pragmatic and... moral dimensions has been severely challenged in the last few years, and the sources of this challenge are numerous. One is the rise of overtly authoritarian states like China and Russia. They have consolidated their rule. They seem to be stable internally, and they are increasingly seeking to project their power and influence, their model... across international borders.

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19:23
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
4 months 3 weeks ago
Every tradition grows ever more venerable
Every tradition grows ever more venerable — the more remote its origin, the more confused that origin is. The reverence due to it increases from generation to generation. The tradition finally becomes holy and inspires awe.
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Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 months 1 week ago
There is nothing in the real...

There is nothing in the real world which is merely an inert fact. Every reality is there for feeling: it promotes feeling; and it is felt.

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Chapter IV, p. 310.
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 3 weeks ago
... in such a matter he...

... in such a matter he would never have been guided by his first thoughts (which would probably have been right) nor even by his twenty-first (which would have at least been explicable). Beyond doubt he would have prolonged deliberation till his hundred-and-first; and they would be infallibly and invincibly wrong. This is what always happens to the deliberations of a simple man who thinks he is a subtle one.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
1 month 1 week ago
In a well worn metaphor, a...

In a well worn metaphor, a parallel is drawn between the life of man and the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into the butterfly; but the comparison may be more just as well as more novel, if for its former term we take the mental progress of the race. History shows that the human mind, fed by constant accessions of knowledge, periodically grows too large for its theoretical coverings, and bursts them asunder to appear in new habiliments, as the feeding and growing grub, at intervals, casts its too narrow skin and assumes another, itself but temporary. Truly the imago state of Man seems to be terribly distant, but every moult is a step gained, and of such there have been many.

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Ch.2, p. 72
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
4 months 3 weeks ago
The natural way of doing this...

The natural way of doing this [seeking scientific knowledge or explanation of fact] is to start from the things which are more knowable and obvious to us and proceed towards those which are clearer and more knowable by nature; for the same things are not 'knowable relatively to us' and 'knowable' without qualification. So in the present inquiry we must follow this method and advance from what is more obscure by nature, but clearer to us, towards what is more clear and more knowable by nature. Now what is to us plain and obvious at first is rather confused masses, the elements and principles of which became known to us by later analysis...

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
4 months 1 week ago
When the apostle James was talking...

When the apostle James was talking about faith and works against those who thought their faith was enough, and didn't want to have good works, he said, You believe God is one; you do well; the demons also believe, and tremble.

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(Jas 2:19) 183:13:2
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 months 4 days ago
Without Justice, no realm may prosper.

Without Justice, no realm may prosper.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
2 months 2 weeks ago
"And seeing every man is presumed...

And seeing every man is presumed to do all things in order to his own benefit, no man is a fit Arbitrator in his own cause.

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The First Part, Chapter 15, p. 78
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 weeks ago
I esteem the modern error, That...

I esteem the modern error, That all goes by self-interest and the checking and balancing of greedy knaveries, and that in short, there is nothing divine whatever in the association of men, a still more despicable error, natural as it is to an unbelieving century, than that of a "divine right" in people called Kings. I say, Find me the true Konning, King, or Able-man, and he has a divine right over me.

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Philosophical Maxims
Heraclitus
Heraclitus
4 months 1 week ago
Time is a game played beautifully...

Time is a game played beautifully by children.

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Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 months 4 days ago
Assist a man in raising a...

Assist a man in raising a burden; but do not assist him in laying it down.

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Symbol 11
Philosophical Maxims
Alan Watts
Alan Watts
4 days ago
This mysterious something has been called...

This mysterious something has been called God, the Absolute, Nature, Substance, Energy, Space, Ether, Mind, Being, the Void, the Infinite-names and ideas which shift in popularity and respectabilitywith the winds of intellectual fashion, of considering the universe intelligent or stupid, superhuman or subhuman, specific or vague. All of them might be dismissed as nonsense-noises if the notion of an underlying Ground of Being were no more than a product of intellectual speculation. But these names are often used to designate the content of a vivid and almost sensorily concrete experience-the "unitive" experience of the mystic, which, with secondary variations, is found in almost all cultures at all times. This experience is the transformed sense of self which I was discussing in the previous chapter, though in "naturalistic" terms, purified of all hocus-pocus about mind, soul, spirit, and other intellectually gaseous words.

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p. 104-105
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 3 weeks ago
None believeth in the soul of...

None believeth in the soul of man, but only in some man or person old and departed.

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p. 25
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
2 weeks 1 day ago
In art the best…

In art the best is good enough.

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Italian Journey
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 4 weeks ago
Truth never turns...
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Main Content / General
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
3 months 3 weeks ago
The point, as Marx saw it,...

The point, as Marx saw it, is that dreams never come true.

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"On Violence"
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months ago
In true education, anything that comes...

In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page-boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk- they are all part of the curriculum.

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The Autobiography of Michel de Montaigne, Chapter III, pg. 24 (Translated by Marvin Lowenthal
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
3 months 3 weeks ago
It was mathematics, the non-empirical science...

It was mathematics, the non-empirical science par excellence, wherein the mind appears to play only with itself, that turned out to be the science of sciences, delivering the key to those laws of nature and the universe that are concealed by appearances.

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p. 7
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Simmel
Georg Simmel
3 days ago
When one says, for example, that...

When one says, for example, that superiority and inferiority is a formation to be found in every human association, though the proposition certainly involves very profound insight into the essence of human nature and human relationship, yet the assertion is so general that it affords little knowledge of particular societary formations. In order to reach such particular knowledge we must study separate types of superiority and inferiority, and we must master the special features of their formation, which in proportion to their definiteness of course lose generality of application.

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p. 169
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
3 months 3 weeks ago
Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially...

Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion, necessary to the working of the representative government, cannot exist.

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Ch. XVI: Of Nationality, As Connected with Representative Government (p. 382)
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 week 1 day ago
Very often the things that cost...

Very often the things that cost nothing cost us the most heavily; I can show you many objects the quest and acquisition of which have wrested freedom from our hands.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
4 months 2 days ago
Cosmus, Duke of Florence, was wont...

Cosmus, Duke of Florence, was wont to say of perfidious friends, that "We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends."

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No. 206
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
2 months 6 days ago
Eros conquers depression.

Eros conquers depression.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 2 weeks ago
Are not five sparrows sold for...

Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.

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12:6-7
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
4 months 1 week ago
Heaven, in the production of things,...

Heaven, in the production of things, is sure to be bountiful to them, according to their qualities. Hence the tree that is flourishing, it nourishes, while that which is ready to fall, it overthrows.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 3 weeks ago
A white spot is on the...

A white spot is on the horizon. There it is. A terrible storm is brewing. But no one sees the white spot or has any inkling of what it might mean. But no (this would not be the most terrible situation either), no, there is one person who sees it and knows what it means-but he is a passenger. He has no authority on the ship, can take no action. ... The fact that in Christendom there is visible on the horizon a white speck which means that a storm is threatening-this I knew; but, alas, I was an am only a passenger.

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Philosophical Maxims
Chrysippus
Chrysippus
3 months 1 week ago
We should infer in the case...

We should infer in the case of a beautiful dwelling-place that it was built for its owners and not for mice; we ought, therefore, in the same way to regard the universe as the dwelling-place of the gods.

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As quoted in De Natura Deorum by Cicero, iii. 10.
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
2 months 5 days ago
Poetry and imagination begin life. A...

Poetry and imagination begin life. A child will fall on its knees on the gravel walk at the sight of a pink hawthorn in full flower, when it is by itself, to praise God for it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
1 month 2 weeks ago
The culture of a civilization is...

The culture of a civilization is the art and literature through which it rises to consciousness of itself and defines its vision of the world.

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"What is Culture?" (p. 2)
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 3 weeks ago
The message of radio is one...

The message of radio is one of violent, unified implosion and resonance.

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(p. 263)
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
2 months 2 weeks ago
Big industry, competition and generally the...

Big industry, competition and generally the individualistic organization of production have become a fetter which it must and will shatter.

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Philosophical Maxims
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
3 months 1 week ago
Being asked where in Greece he...

Being asked where in Greece he saw good men, he replied, "Good men nowhere, but good boys at Sparta."

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Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 27
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
3 months 3 weeks ago
Persecution of powerless or power-losing groups...

Persecution of powerless or power-losing groups may not be a very pleasant spectacle, but it does not spring from human meanness alone. What makes men obey or tolerate real power and, on the other hand, hate people who have wealth without power, is the rational instinct that power has a certain function and is of some general use. Even exploitation and oppression still make society work and establish some kind of order. Only wealth without power or aloofness without a policy are felt to be parasitical, useless, revolting, because such conditions cut all the threads which tie men together. Wealth which does not exploit lacks even the relationship which exists between exploiter and exploited; aloofness without policy does not imply even the minimum concern of the oppressor for the oppressed.

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Part 1, Ch. 1, § 1
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 3 weeks ago
As the chosen people bore in...

As the chosen people bore in their features the sign manual of Jehovah, so the division of labour brands the manufacturing workman as the property of capital.

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Vol. I, Ch. 14, Section 5, pg. 396.
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
4 months 2 weeks ago
It seems to be almost an...

It seems to be almost an invariable rule that as real power declines, the symbols of power multiply and intensify in compensation.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
2 months 3 weeks ago
I know of no country, indeed,...

I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken stronger hold on the affections of men, and where the profounder contempt is expressed for the theory of the permanent equality of property.

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Chapter III, Part I.
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
3 months 3 weeks ago
The supreme enjoyment is in satisfaction...

The supreme enjoyment is in satisfaction with oneself ; it is in order to deserve this satisfaction that we are placed on earth and endowed with freedom.

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As quoted in Dreamer of Democracy by James Miller and Jim Miller, p. 194.
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 3 weeks ago
The music that can deepest reach,...

The music that can deepest reach, And cure all ill, is cordial speech.

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Merlin's Song, II
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
1 month 3 weeks ago
Once animals had a more sacred,...

Once animals had a more sacred, more divine character than men. There is not even a reign of the "human" in primitive societies, and for a long time the animal order has been the order of reference. Only the animal is worth being sacrificed, as a god, the sacrifice of man only comes afterward, according to a degraded order. Men qualify only by their affiliation to the animal: the Bororos "are" macaws. "

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The Animals: Territory and Metamorphoses," p. 133
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
4 months 3 weeks ago
So far no one had had...
So far no one had had enough courage and intelligence to reveal me to my dear Germans. My problems are new, my psychological horizon frighteningly comprehensive, my language bold and clear; there may well be no books written in German which are richer in ideas and more independent than mine.
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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
2 months 6 days ago
Sadism is plainly connected with the...

Sadism is plainly connected with the need for self-assertion. At the same time it cannot be separated from the idea of defeat. A sadist is a man, who, in some sense, has his back to the wall. Nothing is further from sadism, for example, than the cheerful, optimistic mentality of a Shaw or Wells.

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p. 158
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
3 months 1 week ago
He will through life….

He will through life be master of himself and a happy man who from day to day can have said, "I have lived: tomorrow the Father may fill the sky with black clouds or with cloudless sunshine."

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Book III, ode xxix, line 41
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
4 months 1 week ago
It is difficulties that show what...

It is difficulties that show what men are.

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Book I, ch. 24, 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 month 2 weeks ago
Like computer viruses, successful mind viruses...

Like computer viruses, successful mind viruses will tend to be hard for their victims to detect. If you are the victim of one, the chances are that you won't know it, and may even vigorously deny it. Accepting that a virus might be difficult to detect in your own mind, what tell-tale signs might you look out for? I shall answer by imaging how a medical textbook might describe the typical symptoms of a sufferer (arbitrarily assumed to be male).

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Philosophical Maxims
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