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Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 week 5 days ago
...the more a subject is understood,...

...the more a subject is understood, the more briefly it may be explained.

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
3 months 1 week ago
All is in a man's hands...

All is in a man's hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that's an axiom. It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most. Variant translation: "Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most."

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 1 week ago
Some of your hurts you have...

Some of your hurts you have cured, And the sharpest you still have survived, But what torments of grief you endured From evils which never arrived!

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Borrowing From the French
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
4 months 1 week ago
It strikes everyone in beginning to...

It strikes everyone in beginning to form an acquaintance with the treasures of Indian literature, that a land so rich in intellectual products and those of the profoundest order of thought..."

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quoted in De Riencourt, Amaury The Soul of India Harper & Brothers Publishers New York 1960 p. 301
Philosophical Maxims
Chrysippus
Chrysippus
4 months 2 days ago
If I knew that it was...

If I knew that it was fated for me to be sick, I would even wish for it; for the foot also, if it had intelligence, would volunteer to get muddy.

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As quoted by Epictetus, Discourses, ii. 6. 10.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 1 week ago
Most people would sooner die than...

Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 5 days ago
If you know these things, happy...

If you know these things, happy you are if you do them.

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13:17, New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 2 weeks ago
All that is under heaven, says...

All that is under heaven, says the sage, runs one law and one fortune.

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Ch. 12, tr. Cotton, rev. W. Carew Hazlitt, 1877
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
4 months 1 week ago
We can pool information about experiences....

We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes.

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Page 159
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 1 week ago
I decline the election. - It...

I decline the election. - It has ever been my rule through life, to observe a proportion between my efforts and my objects. I have never been remarkable for a bold, active, and sanguine pursuit of advantages that are personal to myself.

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Speech at Bristol on declining the poll (9 September 1780), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II (1855), p. 170
Philosophical Maxims
Joseph de Maistre
Joseph de Maistre
1 week 3 days ago
The eighteenth century, which distrusted itself...

The eighteenth century, which distrusted itself in nothing, as a matter of course, hesitated in nothing.

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VIII
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
5 months ago
It is on account neither of...

It is on account neither of God's weakness nor ignorance that evil comes into the world, but rather it is due to the order of his wisdom and the greatness of his goodness that diverse grades of goodness occur in things, many of which would be lacking if no evil were permitted. Indeed, the good of patience would not exist without the evil of persecution; nor the good of preservation of life in a lion if not for the evil of the destruction of the animals on which it lives.

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q. 3, art. 6, ad 4
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
4 months 2 weeks ago
Percepts and phenomena which precedes the...

Percepts and phenomena which precedes the logical use of the intellect is called appearance, while the reflex knowledge originating from several appearances compared by the intellect is called experience.

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Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
5 months 1 week ago
The many do not know...

Zeno: The many do not know that except by this devious passage through all things the mind cannot attain to the truth. Zeno: Most people are not aware that this roundabout progress through all things is the only way in which the mind can attain truth and wisdom.

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 1 week ago
I believe it to be this;...

I believe it to be this; that my will, absolutely of itself, and without the intervention of any instrument that might weaken its effect, shall act in a sphere perfectly congenial - reason upon reason, spirit upon spirit; in a sphere to which it does not give the laws of life, of activity, of progress, but which has them in itself, therefore, upon self-active reason. But spontaneous, self-active reason is will. The law of the transcendental world must, therefore, be a Will.

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Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p.110
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
4 months 3 weeks ago
These two states which it is...

These two states which it is necessary to know together in order to see the whole truth, being known separately, lead necessarily to one of these two vices, pride or indolence, in which all men are invariably led before grace, since if they do not remain in their disorders through laxity, they forsake them through vanity, so true is that which you have just repeated to me from St. Augustine, and which I find to a great extent; for in fact homage is rendered to them in many ways.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months 1 week ago
I hear beyond the range of...

I hear beyond the range of sound, I see beyond the range of sight,New earths and skies and seas around, And in my day the sun doth pale his light.

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"Inspiration", in An American Anthology, 1900
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 1 week ago
Our responsibility is much greater than...

Our responsibility is much greater than we might have supposed, because it involves all mankind.

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Existentialism and Human Emotions
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 1 week ago
I am no longer sure of...

I am no longer sure of anything. If I satiate my desires, I sin but I deliver myself from them; if I refuse to satisfy them, they infect the whole soul.

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Act 10, sc. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 week 2 days ago
On the occasion of every act...

On the occasion of every act ask thyself, How is this with respect to me? Shall I repent of it? A little time and I am dead, and all is gone.

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VIII, 2
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 1 week ago
A nation never falls but by...

A nation never falls but by suicide.

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1861
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 1 week ago
A religious creed differs from a...

A religious creed differs from a scientific theory in claiming to embody eternal and absolutely certain truth, whereas science is always tentative, expecting that modification in its present theories will sooner or later be found necessary, and aware that its method is one which is logically incapable of arriving at a complete and final demonstration.

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Religion and Science (1935), Ch. I: Ground of Conflict
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months 1 week ago
It takes two to speak the...

It takes two to speak the truth, - one to speak, and another to hear.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 1 week ago
The worst of misfortunes is still...

The worst of misfortunes is still a stroke of luck, since one feels oneself living when one experiences it.

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p. 275
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 1 week ago
The philosophy of Plotinus has the...

The philosophy of Plotinus has the defect of encouraging men to look within rather than to look without: when we look within we see nous, which is divine, while when we look without we see the imperfections of the sensible world. This kind of subjectivity was a gradual growth; it is to be found in the doctrines of Protagoras, Socrates, and Plato, as well as in the Stoics and Epicureans. But at first it was only doctrinal, not temperamental; for a long time it failed to kill scientific curiosity. [...] Plotinus is both an end and a beginning-an end as regards the Greeks, a beginning as regards Christendom.

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Russell, Bertrand (2008). History of Western Philosophy. Simon and Schuster. pp. 296-297. ISBN 978-1-4165-9915-9.
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
4 months 2 weeks ago
It is the privilege…

It is the privilege of true genius, and certainly of the genius that opens a new road, to make without punishment great mistakes.

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"Siècle de Louis XIV," ch. 32 (1751), qtd. in Arthur Schopenhauer, "The World as Will and Representation," Criticism of the Kantian philosophy, 1818
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
4 months 2 weeks ago
By the removal of the unnecessary...

By the removal of the unnecessary mouths, and by extracting from the farmer the full value of the farm, a greater surplus, or what is the same thing, the price of a greater surplus, was obtained for the proprietor...

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Chapter IV, p. 450 (On Highland Clearances).
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 2 weeks ago
Who does not in some sort...

Who does not in some sort live to others, does not live much to himself.

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Book III, Ch. 10
Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
4 months 1 week ago
I have assumed throughout that the...

I have assumed throughout that the persons in the original position are rational.

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Chapter III, Section 25, pg. 142
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
3 months 2 weeks ago
Impenetrable in their dissimulation, cruel in...

Impenetrable in their dissimulation, cruel in their vengeance, tenacious in their purposes, unscrupulous as to their methods, animated by profound and hidden hatred for the tyranny of man - it is as though there exists among them an ever-present conspiracy toward domination, a sort of alliance like that subsisting among the priests of every country.

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"On Women" (1772), as translated in Selected Writings (1966) edited by Lester G. Crocker
Philosophical Maxims
Paracelsus
Paracelsus
3 weeks 6 days ago
Consider that we shouldn't call our...

Consider that we shouldn't call our brother a fool, since we don't know ourselves what we are.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 week 5 days ago
I regret that I am now...

I regret that I am now to die in the belief, that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self- government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be, that I live not to weep over it. If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away, against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by union than by scission, they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves, and of treason against the hopes of the world. To yourself, as the faithful advocate of the Union, I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect.

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Letter to John Holmes
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 1 week ago
England, it is true, in causing...

England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindostan, was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is not the question. The question is, can mankind fulfil its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution.

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"The British Rule in India," New York Daily Tribune, 10 June 1853.
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 week 2 days ago
For thus it is, men of...

For thus it is, men of Athens, in truth: wherever a man has placed himself thinking it is the best place for him, or has been placed by a commander, there in my opinion he ought to stay and to abide the hazard, taking nothing into the reckoning, either death or anything else, before the baseness of deserting his post.

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VII, 45
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 months 3 weeks ago
There is geometry in the humming...

There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres.

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As quoted in The Mystery of Matter‎ (1965) edited by Louise B. Young, p. 113
Philosophical Maxims
A. J. Ayer
A. J. Ayer
3 months 1 week ago
I suddenly stopped and looked out...

I suddenly stopped and looked out at the sea and thought, my God, how beautiful this is ... for 26 years I had never really looked at it before.

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On his greater appreciation of the scenery of the world, after his near-death experience, as quoted in "Did atheist philosopher see God when he 'died'?" by William Cash, in National Post (3 March 2001).
Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
1 week 5 days ago
As soon as the generals and...

As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it. Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail, the way you didn't go. Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection.

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"Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" in Farming: A Hand Book
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
4 weeks 1 day ago
A good symbol....
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Main Content / General
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
1 week 2 days ago
We know in bodies only matter,...

We know in bodies only matter, and we observe the faculty of feeling only in bodies: on what foundation then can we erect an ideal being, disowned by all our knowledge?

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Ch. VI Concerning the Sensitive Faculty of Matter
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
4 months 3 days ago
One common strategy on which we...

One common strategy on which we should all be able to agree is to take steps to reduce the risk of human extinction when those steps are also highly effective in benefiting existing sentient beings. For example, eliminating or decreasing the consumption of animal products will benefit animals, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and lessen the chances of a pandemic resulting from a virus evolving among the animals crowded into today's factory farms, which are an ideal breeding ground for viruses. That therefore looks like a high-priority strategy.

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Chapter 15: Preventing Human Extinction (p. 177)
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 1 week ago
Anyone who speaks in the name...

Anyone who speaks in the name of others is always an impostor.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 1 week ago
The mind advances only when it...

The mind advances only when it has the patience to go in circles, in other words, to deepen.

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Philosophical Maxims
Antisthenes
Antisthenes
4 months 2 days ago
Count all wickedness….

Count all wickedness foreign and alien.

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§ 5
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
4 months 2 weeks ago
The thirst after happiness is never...

The thirst after happiness is never extinguished in the heart of man.

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IX
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
4 months 1 week ago
These considerations did not make us...

These considerations did not make us overlook the folly of premature attempts to dispense with the inducements of private interest in social affairs, while no substitute for them has been or can be provided: but we regarded all existing institutions and social arrangements as being (in a phrase I once heard from Austin) "merely provisional," and we welcomed with the greatest pleasure and interest all socialistic experiments by select individuals (such as the Co-operative Societies), which, whether they succeeded or failed, could not but operate as a most useful education of those who took part in them, by cultivating their capacity of acting upon motives pointing directly to the general good, or making them aware of the defects which render them and others incapable of doing so.

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(pp. 233-234)
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 months 1 week ago
The inherent contradiction of human life...

The inherent contradiction of human life has now reached an extreme degree of tension: on the one side there is the consciousness of the beneficence of the law of love, and on the other the existing order of life which has for centuries occasioned an empty, anxious, restless, and troubled mode of life, conflicting as it does with the law of love and built on the use of violence. This contradiction must be faced, and the solution will evidently not be favourable to the outlived law of violence, but to the truth which has dwelt in the hearts of men from remote antiquity: the truth that the law of love is in accord with the nature of man. But men can only recognize this truth to its full extent when they have completely freed themselves from all religious and scientific superstitions and from all the consequent misrepresentations and sophistical distortions by which its recognition has been hindered for centuries.

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VI
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 1 week ago
Anyone can escape into sleep, we...

Anyone can escape into sleep, we are all geniuses when we dream, the butcher's the poet's equal there.

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Philosophical Maxims
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam
2 months 2 weeks ago
These papers are all written from...

These papers are all written from what is called a realist perspective. The statements of science are in my view either true or false (although it is often the case that we don't know which) and their truth or falsity does not consist in their being highly derived ways of describing regularities in human experience. Reality is not a part of the human mind; rather the human mind is a part - and a small part at that - of reality.

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"Introduction: Science as approximation to truth"
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 1 week ago
So long as the product is...

So long as the product is sold, everything is taking its regular course from the standpoint of the capitalist producer.

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Vol. II, Ch. II, p. 78.
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 1 week ago
All the great speakers were bad...

All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.

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Power
Philosophical Maxims
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