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Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
1 month 2 weeks ago
Freed from the sublimated form which...

Freed from the sublimated form which was the very token of its irreconcilable dreams-a form which is the style, the language in which the story is told-sexuality turns into a vehicle for the bestsellers of oppression. ... This society turns everything it touches into a potential source of progress and of exploitation, of drudgery and satisfaction, of freedom and of oppression. Sexuality is no exception.

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pp. 77-78
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
2 months 1 week ago
Remind yourself that all men assert...

Remind yourself that all men assert that wisdom is the greatest good, but that there are few who strenuously seek out that greatest good.

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Pythagorean Ethical Sentences From Stobæus
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
3 months 6 days ago
The very elements themselves, though repugnant...

The very elements themselves, though repugnant in their nature, yet, by a happy equilibrium, preserve eternal peace; and amid the discordancy of their constituent principles, cherish, by a friendly intercourse and coalition, an uninterrupted concord.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
1 month 5 days ago
Before we can establish any immutable...

Before we can establish any immutable 'principles' of administration, we must be able to describe, in words, exactly how an administrative organization looks and exactly how it works.

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p. xiv.
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 weeks 3 days ago
War is never anything less than...

War is never anything less than accelerated technological change.

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(p. 102)
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1 month 3 weeks ago
Inventors and geniuses have almost always...

Inventors and geniuses have almost always been looked on as no better than fools at the beginning of their career, and very frequently at the end of it also.

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Part 3, Chapter 1
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
I saw men go up and...

I saw men go up and down, In the country and the town, With this tablet on their neck,- 'Judgement and a judge we seek.' Not to monarchs they repair, Nor to learned jurist's chair; But they hurry to their peers, To their kinsfolk and their dears; Louder than with speech they pray,- 'What am I? companion, say.'

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Astræa
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 3 weeks ago
I was your luxury. For nineteen...

I was your luxury. For nineteen years I have been put in your man's world and was forbidden to touch anything and you made me think that all was going very well and that I did not have to worry about anything but putting flowers in vases. Why did you lie to me? Why did you keep me ignorant, if it was to admit to me one day that this world is cracking and that you are all powerless and to make me choose between a suicide and a murder?

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Jessica to Hugo, Act 5, sc. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
2 months 2 weeks ago
Even if I could by gradual...

Even if I could by gradual degrees be transformed into a bat, nothing in my present constitution enables me to imagine what the experiences of such a future stage of myself thus metamorphosed would be like. The best evidence would come from the experience of bats, if we only knew what they were like.

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p. 169.
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 months 1 day ago
Gaiety - a quality of ordinary...

Gaiety - a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.

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"Diseases"
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 weeks 3 days ago
When new technologies impose themselves on...

When new technologies impose themselves on societies long habituated to older technologies, anxieties of all kinds result.

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Location, Volume 1 Issues 1-2, 1963, p. 44
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 1 week ago
All men are stuck in a...

All men are stuck in a kind of fog. They're surrounded by a wall of fog. They think this is perfectly normal, but it's not. It means that since they can't see much beyond their own little situation, they tend to vegetate. They need some immediate stimulus to keep them alert.

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p. 20
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
2 months 1 day ago
Consider any individual at any period...

Consider any individual at any period of his life, and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort.

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Book Three, Chapter XXI.
Philosophical Maxims
Montesquieu
Montesquieu
1 month 1 week ago
Useless laws weaken the necessary laws....

Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.

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Book XXIX: Of the Manner of Composing Laws, Chapter 16: Things to be Observed in the Composing of Laws
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
3 days ago
Progress in civilization seems possible only...

Progress in civilization seems possible only in interludes when history is idling.

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An Old Chaos: The Emperor's Tomb (p. 35)
Philosophical Maxims
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
2 weeks 5 days ago
One naturally regrets not being an...

One naturally regrets not being an expert or one of those insiders who thoroughly understand. It's hell to be an amateur. A little reflection calms your sorrow, however. The experts in their own little speedboat, the rest of us floating with the rest of mankind in a great barge - that is the picture.

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The Day They Signed the Treaty (1979), p. 224
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
3 months 1 week ago
For as children….

For as children tremble and fear everything in the blind darkness, so we in the light sometimes fear what is no more to be feared than the things that children in the dark hold in terror and imagine will come true. This terror, therefore, and darkness of mind must be dispelled not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of daylight, but by the aspect and law of nature.

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Book II, lines 55-61 (tr. Rouse)
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
People are said to believe in...

People are said to believe in God, or to disbelieve in Adam and Eve. But in such cases what is believed or disbelieved is that there is an entity answering a certain description. This, which can be believed or disbelieved is quite different from the actual entity (if any) which does answer the description. Thus the matter of belief is, in all cases, different in kind from the matter of sensation or presentation, and error is in no way analogous to hallucination. A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.

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On the Nature of Acquaintance: Neutral Monism, 1914
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
'Tis the good reader that makes...

Tis the good reader that makes the good book; in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakenly meant for his ear.

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Success
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 2 weeks ago
Yea; have ye never read, Out...

Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?

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21:16 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 1 week ago
The mystical impulse in men is...

The mystical impulse in men is somehow a desire to possess the universe. In women, it's a desire to be possessed.

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p. 108
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 3 weeks ago
Nobody realizes that some people expend...

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
1 month 2 weeks ago
And Beasts that have Deliberation, must...

And Beasts that have Deliberation, must necessarily also have Will.

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The First Part, Chapter 6, p. 28
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
All that is Life in me...

All that is Life in me urges me to give up God.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
God may forgive sins, he said,...

God may forgive sins, he said, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth.

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Society and Solitude
Philosophical Maxims
Boethius
Boethius
3 months 2 weeks ago
Music is associated not only with...

Music is associated not only with speculation but with morality. When rhythms and modes reach an intellect through the ear, they doubtless affect and reshape that mind according to their particular character.

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Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
1 month 1 week ago
The reason that people take selfies...

The reason that people take selfies is not narcissism. Rather, it is inner emptiness. There is no meaning to stabilize the ego. Faced with its inner emptiness, the ego constantly produces itself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
3 weeks 1 day ago
There is a sort of dead-alive,...

There is a sort of dead-alive, hackneyed people about, who are scarcely conscious of living except in the exercise of some conventional occupation. ... They have no curiosity; they cannot give themselves over to random provocations; they do not take pleasure in the exercise of their faculties for its own sake; and unless necessity lays about them with a stick, they will even stand still. It is no good speaking to such folk: they cannot be idle, their nature is not generous enough; and they pass those hours in a sort of coma, which are not dedicated to furious moiling in the gold-mill.

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An Apology for Idlers.
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
1 month 1 week ago
The key to a Christian conception...

The key to a Christian conception of studies is the realization that prayer consists of attention. It is the orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable toward God. The quality of the attention counts for much in the quality of the prayer. Warmth of heart cannot make up for it.

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"Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God"
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 months 3 weeks ago
Unlike the masses, intellectuals have a...

Unlike the masses, intellectuals have a taste for rationality and an interest in facts.

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Chapter 5 (p. 43)
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
1 month 1 week ago
Some will ask, what about weak...

Some will ask, what about weak natures, must they not be protected? Yes, but to be able to do that, it will be necessary to realize that education of children is not synonymous with herdlike drilling and training. If education should really mean anything at all, it must insist upon the free growth and development of the innate forces and tendencies of the child. In this way alone can we hope for the free individual and eventually also for a free community, which shall make interference and coercion of human growth impossible.

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Philosophical Maxims
Averroes
Averroes
3 months 2 weeks ago
The world is divided into men...

The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 5 days ago
All they that take....
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Main Content / General
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
United States! the ages plead, -...

United States! the ages plead, - Present and Past in under-song, - Go put your creed into your deed, Nor speak with double tongue.

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Ode, st. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
Hast thou named all the birds...

Hast thou named all the birds without a gun; Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk.

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Forbearance
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
God offers to every mind its...

God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose.

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Intellect
Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
1 month 1 week ago
The moment we choose to love...

The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others.

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
2 months 4 weeks ago
Superstition sets the whole world….

Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them.

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Dictionnaire philosophique (1822), "Superstition"
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 3 weeks ago
Aeschylus had a clear eye for...

Aeschylus had a clear eye for the commonest things. His genius was only an enlarged common sense. He adverts with chaste severity to all natural facts. His sublimity is Greek sincerity and simpleness, naked wonder which mythology had not helped to explain... Whatever the common eye sees at all and expresses as best it may, he sees uncommonly and describes with rare completeness. The multitude that thronged the theatre could no doubt go along with him to the end... The social condition of genius is the same in all ages. Aeschylus was undoubtedly alone and without sympathy in his simple reverence for the mystery of the universe.

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January 29, 1840
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
1 month 1 week ago
I also am other than what...

I also am other than what I imagine myself to be. To know this is forgiveness.

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p. 200
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
1 month 1 week ago
The period of the actual revolution,...

The period of the actual revolution, the so-called transitory stage, must be the introduction, the prelude to the new social conditions. It is the threshold to the NEW LIFE, the new HOUSE OF MAN AND HUMANITY. As such it must be of the spirit of the new life, harmonious with the construction of the new edifice.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
1 month 2 weeks ago
All journeys have secret destinations of...

All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.

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The Legend of the Baal-Shem (1955),1995 edition, p. 36
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
By all evidence we are in...

By all evidence we are in the world to do nothing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
4 weeks 1 day ago
Boredom is like a pitiless zooming...

Boredom is like a pitiless zooming in on the epidermis of time. Every instant is dilated and magnified like the pores of the face.

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Chapter 3
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
3 months 1 week ago
Yes, you see the Trinity if...

Yes, you see the Trinity if you see charity.

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De Trinitate VIII 8,12.
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 3 weeks ago
To speak impartially, the best men...

To speak impartially, the best men that I know are not serene, a world in themselves. For the most part, they dwell in forms, and flatter and study effect only more finely than the rest. We select granite for the underpinning of our houses and barns; we build fences of stone; but we do not ourselves rest on an underpinning of granitic truth, the lowest primitive rock. Our sills are rotten.

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p. 490
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 3 weeks ago
An entire mythology is stored within...

An entire mythology is stored within our language.

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Ch. 7 : Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 133
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
2 months 1 day ago
Pour recueillir les biens inestimables qu'assure...

Pour recueillir les biens inestimables qu'assure la liberté de la presse, il faut savoir se soumettre aux maux inévitables qu'elle fait naître. Translation: In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils it creates.

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Chapter XI.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
When the intensity of emotional conviction...

When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief which he finds in himself.

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Ch. 1: Mysticism and Logic
Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
1 month 3 weeks ago
You rejoice in having made a...

You rejoice in having made a convert to Atheism. I think there is something unnatural in a zeal of proselytism in an Atheist. I do not believe in an intellectual God, a God made after the image of man. In the vulgar acceptation of the word, therefore, I think a man is right who does not believe in God, but I am also persuaded that a man is wrong who is without religion.

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Letter to H. B. Rosser (7 March 1820), quoted in C. Kegan Paul, William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries, Vol. II (1876), p. 263
Philosophical Maxims
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