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Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
1 month 4 days ago
It seems to me that the...

It seems to me that the god that is commonly worshipped in civilized countries is not at all divine, though he bears a divine name, but is the overwhelming authority and respectability of mankind combined. Men reverence one another, not yet God. If I thought that I could speak with discrimination and impartiality of the nations of Christendom, I should praise them, but it tasks me too much. They seem to be the most civil and humane, but I may be mistaken.

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Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
1 month 2 days ago
The chief reason warfare is still...

The chief reason warfare is still with us is neither a secret death-wish of the human species, nor an irrepressible instinct of aggression, nor, finally and more plausibly, the serious economic and social dangers inherent in disarmament, but the simple fact that no substitute for this final arbiter in international affairs has yet appeared on the political scene.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 days ago
Men who undertake considerable things, even...

Men who undertake considerable things, even in a regular way, ought to give us ground to presume ability.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 days ago
...my extreme anxiety about the Object...

...my extreme anxiety about the Object of our common sollicitude and my clear and decided conviction, that there is one part of the War, which instead of being postponed and considered in a secondary light, ought to have priority over every other, and requires our most early and our most careful attention; I mean La Vendée. ... This is a War directly against Jacobinism and its principles. It strikes at the Enemy in his weakest and most vulnerable part. At La Vendée with infinitely less Charge, we may make an impression likely to be decisive. This goes to the heart of the Business.

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Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
1 month 3 weeks ago
The superior man thinks of...

The superior man thinks of virtue; the small man thinks of comfort. The superior man thinks of the sanctions of law; the small man thinks of favors which he may receive.

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Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
1 month 2 weeks ago
It is not your strength and...

It is not your strength and your natural power that subjects all these people to you. Do not pretend then to rule them by force or to treat them with harshness. Satisfy their reasonable desires; alleviate their necessities; let your pleasure consist in being beneficent; advance them as much as you can, and you will act like the true king of desire.

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Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
1 month 3 weeks ago
He who is not satisfied with...

He who is not satisfied with a little, is satisfied with nothing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
1 month 1 week ago
The commodities of Europe were almost...

The commodities of Europe were almost all new to America, and many of those of America were new to Europe. A new set of exchanges, therefore, began..and which should naturally have proved as advantageous to the new, as it certainly did to the old continent. The savage injustice of the Europeans rendered an event, which ought to have been beneficial to all, ruinous and destructive to several of those unfortunate countries.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
2 months 6 days ago
Every word instantly becomes a concept...
Every word instantly becomes a concept precisely insofar as it is not supposed to serve as a reminder of the unique and entirely individual original experience to which it owes its origin; but rather, a word becomes a concept insofar as it simultaneously has to fit countless more or less similar cases which means, purely and simply, cases which are never equal and thus altogether unequal. Every concept arises from the equation of unequal things. Just as it is certain that one leaf is never totally the same as another, so it is certain that the concept "leaf" is formed by arbitrarily discarding these individual differences and by forgetting the distinguishing aspects.
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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
3 weeks 3 days ago
With regard to the rather common...

With regard to the rather common general distinction between good and bad sex ..., bad sex is generally better than none at all. This should not be controversial: it seems to hold for other important matters, like food, music, literature, and society. In the end, one must choose from among the available alternatives, whether their availability depends on the environment or on one's own constitution. And the alternatives have to be fairly grim before it becomes rational to opt for nothing.

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
1 month 2 weeks ago
It is no advantage to be...

It is no advantage to be near the light if the eyes are closed.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 4 days ago
In the name of national security,...

In the name of national security, the Commission's hearings were held in secret, thereby continuing the policy which has marked the entire course of the case. This prompts my second question: If, as we are told, Oswald was the lone assassin, where is the issue of national security? Indeed, precisely the same question must be put here as was posed in France during the Dreyfus case: If the Government is so certain of its case, why has it conducted all its inquiries in the strictest secrecy? "

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Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
1 month 3 weeks ago
Where without any change in circumstances...

Where without any change in circumstances the things held to be just by law are seen not to correspond with the concept of justice in actual practice, such laws are not really just; but wherever the laws have ceased to be advantageous because of a change in circumstances, in that case the laws were for that time just when they were advantageous for the mutual dealings of the citizens, and subsequently ceased to be just when they were no longer advantageous.

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
4 days ago
And what is it in us...

And what is it in us that is mellowed by civilization? All it does, I'd say, is to develop in man a capacity to feel a greater variety of sensations. And nothing, absolutely nothing else. And through this development, man will yet learn how to enjoy bloodshed. Why, it has already happened....Civilization has made man, if not always more bloodthirsty, at least more viciously, more horribly bloodthirsty.

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
1 month 2 weeks ago
In order to understand the Scriptures,...

In order to understand the Scriptures, it is absolutely necessary to know the whole, complete Christ, that is, Head and members. For sometimes Christ speaks in the name of the Head alone, sometimes in the name of His body, which is the holy Church spread over the entire earth. And we are in His body, and we hear ourselves speaking in it, for the Apostle tells us: We are members of His body (Eph. 5:30). In many places does the Apostle tell us this.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
1 month 3 weeks ago
Charity, by which God and neighbor...

Charity, by which God and neighbor are loved, is the most perfect friendship.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
2 months 4 days ago
After these matters we ought perhaps...

After these matters we ought perhaps next to discuss pleasure. For it is thought to be most intimately connected with our human nature, which is the reason why in educating the young we steer them by the rudders of pleasure and pain; it is thought, too, that to enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on virtue of character. For these things extend right through life, with a weight and power of their own in respect both to virtue and to the happy life, since men choose what is pleasant and avoid what is painful; and such things, it will be thought, we should least of all omit to discuss, especially since they admit of much dispute.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 4 days ago
What's sauce for the gander is...

What's sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 6 days ago
In all the nations, the good...

In all the nations, the good news has to be preached first. 

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Philosophical Maxims
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5
5 days ago
Rent-Seeking Economy

Companies increasingly profit not from creating value but from controlling access to necessities. Patents on life-saving medicine, copyrights extending decades, monopolies on infrastructure - rent-seeking extracts wealth through ownership rather than production. Parasitic capitalism where controllers profit while producers struggle.

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Philosophical Maxims
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5
5 days ago
Disability Benefits Cruelty

Disability benefits require proving you're too disabled to work while navigating systems designed to frustrate. Payments below poverty line, constant re-evaluation, bureaucratic sadism. The cruelty is intentional: discourage applications, push people into labor force, punish those who can't work.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
3 days ago
A subject interests me and holds...

A subject interests me and holds my attention only so long as it presents me with difficulties, only so long as I am at odds with it and have, as it were, to struggle with it; but once I have mastered it I hurry on to something else, to a new subject; for my interest is not confined to any particular field or subject; it extends to everything human. This does not mean that I am an intellectual miser or egoist, who amasses knowledge for himself alone; by no means! What I do and think for myself, I must also think and do for others. But I feel the need of instructing others in a subject only so long as, while instructing others, I am also instructing myself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
1 month 2 days ago
As a rule, begin my lectures...

As a rule, begin my lectures on Scientific Method by telling my students that scientific method does not exist. ...having been ...the one and only professor of this non-existent subject within the British Commonwealth.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 days ago
I should not be surprized at...

I should not be surprized at seeing a French Army conveyed by a British Navy to an attack upon this Kingdom.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
2 months 4 days ago
It is simplicity that makes the...

It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
1 month 2 days ago
A just system must generate its...

A just system must generate its own support.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 4 days ago
The immediate aim of the Communists...

The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all the other proletarian parties: Formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.

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Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
3 weeks 2 days ago
He who postpones the hour of living…

He who postpones the hour of living rightly is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 week 5 days ago
Men are at variance...
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Main Content / General
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
4 weeks ago
All affected can accept the consequences...

All affected can accept the consequences and the side effects that [the norm's] general observance can be anticipated to have for the satisfaction of everyone's interests, and the consequences are preferred to those of known alternative possibilities for regulation.

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Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
1 month 2 days ago
[N]o matter how abstract our theories...

[N]o matter how abstract our theories may sound or how consistent our arguments may appear, there are incidents and stories behind them which, at least for ourselves, contain as in a nutshell the full meaning of whatever we have to say.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
1 month 4 days ago
Disobedience is the true foundation of...

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

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
1 month 2 days ago
It is often asserted that discussion...

It is often asserted that discussion is only possible between people who have a common language and accept common basic assumptions. I think that this is a mistake. All that is needed is a readiness to learn from one's partner in the discussion, which includes a genuine wish to understand what he intends to say. If this readiness is there, the discussion will be the more fruitful the more the partner's backgrounds differ.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 4 days ago
Of all the animals kept by...

Of all the animals kept by the farmer, the labourer, the instrumentum vocale, was,thenceforth, the most oppressed, the worst nourished, the most brutally treated.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
1 month 4 days ago
How can great minds be produced...

How can great minds be produced in a country where the test of a great mind is agreeing in the opinions of small minds?

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Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
1 day ago
The world must be romanticized. In...

The world must be romanticized. In this way the originary meaning may be found again. As

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
2 months 6 days ago
In Germany there is much complaining...
In Germany there is much complaining about my "eccentricities." But since it is not known where my center is, it won't be easy to find out where or when I have thus far been "eccentric." That I was a philologist, for example, meant that I was outside my center (which fortunately does not mean that I was a poor philologist). Likewise, I now regard my having been a Wagnerian as eccentric. It was a highly dangerous experiment; now that I know it did not ruin me, I also know what significance it had for me — it was the most severe test of my character.
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Philosophical Maxims
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham
1 month 6 days ago
Figure to yourself the mixture of...

Figure to yourself the mixture of surprise and delight which has this instant been poured into my mind by the sound of my name, as uttered by you, in the speech just read to me out of the Morning Herald... By one and the same man, not only Parliamentary Reform, but Law Reform advocated. Advocated? and by what man? By one who, in the vulgar sense of profit and loss, has nothing to gain by it... Yes, only from Ireland could such self-sacrifice come; nowhere else: least of all in England, cold, selfish, priest-ridden, lawyer-ridden, lord-ridden, squire-ridden, soldier-ridden England, could any approach to it be found.

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 days ago
The "I" who speaks in this...

The "I" who speaks in this book is by no means the author. Rather, the author wishes that the reader may come to see himself in this "I": that the reader may not simply relate to what is said here as he would to history, but rather that while reading he will actually converse with himself, deliberate back and forth, deduce conclusions, make decisions like his representative in the book, and through his own work and reflection, purely out of his own resources, develop and build within himself the philosophical disposition that is presented to him in this book merely as a picture.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
1 month 3 days ago
The impulse to take life strivingly...

The impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
1 month 4 days ago
Merely to come into the world...

Merely to come into the world the heir of a fortune is not to be born, but to be still-born, rather. To be supported by the charity of friends, or a government-pension, - provided you continue to breathe, - by whatever fine synonymes you describe these relations, is to go into the almshouse.

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Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
1 week 1 day ago
We are all instruments endowed with...

We are all instruments endowed with feeling and memory. Our senses are so many strings that are struck by surrounding objects and that also frequently strike themselves.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
1 month 3 days ago
There can be no difference anywhere...

There can be no difference anywhere that doesn't make a difference elsewhere - no difference in abstract truth that doesn't express itself in a difference in concrete fact and in conduct consequent upon that fact, imposed on somebody, somehow, somewhere and somewhen.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham
1 month 6 days ago
Create all the happiness you are...

Create all the happiness you are able to create: remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you to add something to the pleasure of others, or to diminish something of their pains. And for every grain of enjoyment you sow in the bosom of another, you shall find a harvest in your own bosom; while every sorrow which you pluck out from the thoughts and feelings of a fellow creature shall be replaced by beautiful peace and joy in the sanctuary of your soul.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
2 months 6 days ago
Good prose is written only face...
Good prose is written only face to face with poetry.
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Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
1 month 1 week ago
It is easier for the prince...

It is easier for the prince to make friends of those men who were contented under the former government, and are therefore his enemies, than of those who, being discontented with it, were favourable to him and encouraged him to seize it. 

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
4 days ago
In most cases, people, even the...

In most cases, people, even the most vicious, are much more naive and simple-minded than we assume them to be. And this is true of ourselves too.

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Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
1 month 6 days ago
The deceiver is really the fool....

The deceiver is really the fool.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 4 days ago
Acquisitiveness - the wish to possess...

Acquisitiveness - the wish to possess as much as possible of goods, or the title to goods - is a motive which, I suppose, has its origin in a combination of fear with the desire for necessaries.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 2 days ago
But your crime will be there,...

But your crime will be there, one hundred times denied, always there, dragging itself behind you. Then you will finally know that you have committed your life with one throw of the die, once and for all, and there is nothing you can do but tug our crime along until your death. Such is the law, just and unjust, of repentance. Then we will see what will become of your young pride.

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Philosophical Maxims
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