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Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 month 1 week ago
Neither is the longing for immortality...

Neither is the longing for immortality saved, but rather dissolved and submerged, by agnosticism, or the doctrine of the unknowable. ...The unknowable, if it is something more than the merely hitherto unknown, is but a purely negative concept, a concept of limitation. And upon this foundation no human feeling can be built up.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
Whatever we know without inference is...

Whatever we know without inference is mental.

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Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948), p. 224
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 2 weeks ago
A house may be large or...

A house may be large or small; as long as the neighboring houses are likewise small, it satisfies all social requirement for a residence. But let there arise next to the little house a palace, and the little house shrinks to a hut. The little house now makes it clear that its inmate has no social position at all to maintain, or but a very insignificant one; and however high it may shoot up in the course of civilization, if the neighboring palace rises in equal or even in greater measure, the occupant of the relatively little house will always find himself more uncomfortable, more dissatisfied, more cramped within his four walls.

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Wage Labour and Capital (December 1847), in Marx Engels Selected Works, Volume I, p. 163.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
Some part of life - perhaps...

Some part of life - perhaps the most important part - must be left to the spontaneous action of individual impulse, for where all is system there will be mental and spiritual death.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ian Hacking
Ian Hacking
4 weeks ago
Many modern philosophers claim that probability...

Many modern philosophers claim that probability is relation between an hypothesis and the evidence for it.

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Chapter 4, Evidence, p. 31.
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 weeks 4 days ago
All media work us over completely....

All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. The medium is the massage. Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments. All media are extensions of some human faculty - psychic or physical.

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(p. 26)
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 month ago
It is almost impossible to bear...

It is almost impossible to bear the torch of truth through a crowd without singeing somebody's beard. G 4 Variant translations: It is almost impossible to carry the torch of wisdom through a crowd without singeing someone's beard. It is virtually impossible to carry the torch of truth through a crowd, without singeing someone's beard

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 months 2 weeks ago
All war propaganda consists, in the...

All war propaganda consists, in the last resort, in substituting diabolical abstractions for human beings. Similarly, those who defend war have invented a pleasant sounding vocabulary of abstractions in which to describe the process of mass murder.

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"Pacifism and Philosophy", 1936
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 3 weeks ago
Between God and man there is...

Between God and man there is and remains an eternal, essential, qualitative difference. The paradoxical relationship (which, quite rightly, cannot be thought, but only believed) appears when God appoints a particular man to divine authority, in relation, be it carefully noted, to that which has entrusted to him.

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
1 month 2 weeks ago
The Doctrine of Knowledge, apart from...

The Doctrine of Knowledge, apart from all special and definite knowing, proceeds immediately upon Knowledge itself, in the essential unity in which it recognises Knowledge as existing; and it raises this question in the first place - How this Knowledge can come into being, and what it is in its inward and essential Nature? The following must be apparent: - There is but One who is absolutely by and through himself, - namely, God; and God is not the mere dead conception to which we have thus given utterance, but he is in himself pure Life. He can neither change nor determine himself in aught within himself, nor become any other Being; for his Being contains within it all his Being and all possible Being, and neither within him nor out of him can any new Being arise.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson
1 month 1 week ago
Men do not sufficiently realise that...

Men do not sufficiently realise that their future is in their own hands. Theirs is the task of determining first of all whether they want to go on living or not. Theirs is the responsibility, then, for deciding if they want merely to live, or intend to make just the extra effort required for fulfilling, even on their refractory planet, the essential function of the universe, which is a machine for the making of gods.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ptahhotep
Ptahhotep
2 months 1 week ago
Do not be arrogant because of...

Do not be arrogant because of your knowledge, but confer with the ignorant man as with the learned. For knowledge has no limits, and none has yet achieved perfection in it. Good speech is more hidden than malachite, yet it is found in the possession of women slaves at the millstones.

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Maxim no. 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 3 weeks ago
The march of the human mind...

The march of the human mind is slow.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emmanuel Levinas
Emmanuel Levinas
1 month 2 weeks ago
If every pure character in the...

If every pure character in the Old Testament announces the Messiah, if every unworthy person is his torturer and every woman his Mother, does not the Book of Books lose all life with this obsessive theme? On the doctrine of prefiguration.

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Persons or Figures
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
1 month 2 weeks ago
Peace to the shacks! War on...

Peace to the shacks! War on the palaces!

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 2 weeks ago
Never to have occasion to take...

Never to have occasion to take a position, to make up one's mind, or to define oneself - there is no wish I make more often.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
2 months 4 weeks ago
I know God only as he...

I know God only as he became human, so shall I have him in no other way.

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Das Marburger religionsgesprach 1529: Versuch einer Rekonstruction (Leipzig, 1929), p. 27; also LW 38, 3-90
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 2 weeks ago
The only subversive mind is the...

The only subversive mind is the one that questions the obligation to exist; all the others, the anarchist at the top of the list, compromise with the established order.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
2 months 4 weeks ago
The obliteration of the evil hath...

The obliteration of the evil hath been practised by two means, some kind of redemption or expiation of that which is past, and an inception or account de novo for the time to come. But this part seemeth sacred and religious, and justly; for all good moral philosophy (as was said) is but a handmaid to religion.

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Book II, xxii, 14
Philosophical Maxims
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
6 months 3 weeks ago
Take the risk and have a position

I believe in clear-cut positions. I think that the most arrogant position is this apparent, multidisciplinary modesty of "what I am saying now is not unconditional, it is just a hypothesis," and so on. It really is a most arrogant position. I think that the only way to be honest and expose yourself to criticism is to state clearly and dogmatically where you are. You must take the risk and have a position.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Schlegel
Friedrich Schlegel
1 month 2 weeks ago
Whether directly or indirectly all nations...

Whether directly or indirectly all nations are originally nothing but Indian colonies... the oriental antiquity could, if we consented to deepen it, bring us back more safely towards the divine....

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Friedrich Schlegel, Essay on the Language and Wisdom of the Indians, quoted by Roger-Pol Droit in L'Oubli de I'Inde, Paris Presses Universitaires de France, 1989, p. 129.
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 month 1 week ago
The mind celebrates a little triumph...

The mind celebrates a little triumph whenever it can formulate a truth, however unwelcome to the flesh, or discover an actual force, however unfavourable to given interests.

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Ch. IV.: Music
Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
2 months 3 weeks ago
But love for an object…

But love for an object eternal and infinite feeds the mind with joy alone, and a joy which is free from all sorrow. This is something greatly to be desired and to be sought with all our strength.

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I, 10; translation by W. Hale White (Revised by Amelia Hutchison Stirling)
Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
3 months 1 week ago
Since, of desires some are natural...

Since, of desires some are natural and necessary; others natural, but not necessary; and others neither natural nor necessary, but the offspring of false judgment; it must be the office of temperance to gratify the first class, as far as nature requires: to restrain the second within the bounds of moderation; and, as to the third, resolutely to oppose, and, if possible, entirely repress them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 3 weeks ago
Politics is, as it were, the...

Politics is, as it were, the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its two opposite halves, - sometimes split into quarters, it may be, which grind on each other. Not only individuals, but States, have thus a confirmed dyspepsia, which expresses itself, you can imagine by what sort of eloquence. Thus our life is not altogether a forgetting, but also, alas! to a great extent, a remembering of that which we should never have been conscious of, certainly not in our waking hours. Why should we not meet, not always as dyspeptics, to tell our bad dreams, but sometimes as eupeptics, to congratulate each other on the ever glorious morning? I do not make an exorbitant demand, surely.

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p. 495
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 month 4 days ago
A clash of doctrines is not...

A clash of doctrines is not a disaster - it is an opportunity.

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Ch. 12: "Religion and Science", p. 259
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
2 months 3 weeks ago
Popery so threatens and so nearly...

Popery so threatens and so nearly surrounds us...every sober man would think it seasonable at this time that all dissenting Protestants should be brought to a good understanding and compliance one with another...I think all Protestants ought now by all ways to be stirred up against them [Catholics] as People that have declared themselves ready by blood, violence, and destruction to ruine our Religion and Government...[they] are nothing but either Enemys in our bowells or spies among us, whilst their General commanders whom they blindly obey declare warr, and an unalterable designe to destroy us.

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Critical Notes Upon Edward Stillingfleet's Mischief and Unreasonableness of Separation' (c. May 1681), quoted in John Marshall, John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 110
Philosophical Maxims
Montesquieu
Montesquieu
1 month 1 week ago
I write to thee on this...

I write to thee on this subject, friend, because I am angry at a book which I have just left, which is so large, that it seems to contain universal science, but it hath almost split my head, without teaching me anything.

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No. 66.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
The fact that a belief has...

The fact that a belief has a good moral effect upon a man is no evidence whatsoever in favor of its truth.

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BBC Radio Debate on the Existence of God, Russell vs. Copleston, 1948
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 2 weeks ago
Life is not so short but...

Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.

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Social Aims
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
2 weeks 2 days ago
You contain a trillion copies of...

You contain a trillion copies of a large, textual document written in a highly accurate, digital code, each copy as voluminous as a substantial book. I'm talking, of course, of the DNA in your cells.

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1 month 2 weeks ago
All became so jealous of the...

All became so jealous of the rights of their own personality that they did their very utmost to curtail and destroy them in others, and made that the chief thing in their lives. Slavery followed, even voluntary slavery; the weak eagerly submitted to the strong, on condition that the latter aided them to subdue the still weaker. Then there were saints who came to these people, weeping, and talked to them of their pride, of their loss of harmony and due proportion, of their loss of shame. They were laughed at or pelted with stones.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
2 months 4 weeks ago
For the inquisition of Final Causes...

For the inquisition of Final Causes is barren, and like a virgin consecrated to God produces nothing.

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Book III, viii
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
2 months 3 weeks ago
The necessities of the time have...

The necessities of the time have accorded to the petty interests of every day life such overwhelming attention : the deep interests of actuality and the strife respecting these have engrossed all the powers and the forces of the mind - as also the necessary means - to so great an extent, that no place has been left to the higher inward life, the intellectual operations of a purer sort; and the better natures have thus been stunted in their growth, and in great measure sacrificed.

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p. x Inaugural Address, delivered at Heidelberg on the 28th October(1816), Lectures on the history of philosophy, translated from German by E. S. Haldane in Three Volumes (1892-96) full text.
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
4 days ago
Though I certainly....
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Main Content / General
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
1 month 3 weeks ago
As one digs deeper into the...

As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?

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Letter to Ernest de Chabrol, 9 June 1831 Selected Letters, ed. Roger Boesche, UofC Press 1985, p. 39.
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 weeks 4 days ago
Native societies did not think of...

Native societies did not think of themselves as being in the world as occupants but considered that their rituals created the world and keep it operational.

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College and University Journal, Volumes 6-7, American College Public Relations Association, 1967, p. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
6 days ago
Within the last fifty years, the...

Within the last fifty years, the extraordinary growth of every department of physical science has spread among us mental food of so nutritious and stimulating a character that a new ecdysis seems imminent.

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Ch.2, p. 73
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
1 month 1 week ago
[T]he mass-man sees in the State...

The mass-man sees in the State an anonymous power, and feeling himself, like it, anonymous, he believes that the State is something of his own. Suppose that in the public life of a country some difficulty, conflict, or problem presents itself, the mass-man will tend to demand that the State intervene immediately and undertake a solution directly with its immense and unassailable resources. This is the gravest danger that to-day threatens civilisation: State intervention; the absorption of all spontaneous social effort by the State.

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Chapter XIII: The Greatest Danger, The State
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
1 month 3 days ago
Money, as a matter of principle,...

Money, as a matter of principle, makes everything the same.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 weeks 4 days ago
Radio comes to us ostensibly with...

Radio comes to us ostensibly with person to person directness that is private and intimate, while in more urgent fact, it is really a subliminal echo chamber of magic power to touch remote and forgotten chords.

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(p. 302).
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 month 1 week ago
Passion is like suffering, and like...

Passion is like suffering, and like suffering it creates its object. It is easier for the fire to find something to burn than for something combustible to find the fire.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
Political ideals must be based upon...

Political ideals must be based upon ideals for the individual life. The aim of politics should be to make the lives of individuals as good as possible.

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Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
1 month 3 weeks ago
The pit of a theatre is...

The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
1 week 2 days ago
At last I have attained true...

At last I have attained true glory. As I walked through Fleet Street the day before yesterday, I saw a copy of Hume at a bookseller's window with the following label: "Only 2l. 2s. Hume's History of England in eight volumes, highly valuable as an introduction to Macaulay." I laughed so convulsively that the other people who were staring at the books took me for a poor demented gentleman.

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Alas for poor David! Journal entry (8 March 1849), quoted in George Otto Trevelyan, The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, Volume II (1876), p. 253
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
1 month 1 week ago
The general fellowship of our human...

The general fellowship of our human situation has been rendered even more dubious than before, inasmuch as, though the old ties of caste have been loosened, a new restriction of the individual to some prescribed status in society is manifest. Less than ever, perhaps, is it possible for a man to transcend the limitations imposed by his social origins.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 3 weeks ago
There must have been many who...

There must have been many who had a relationship to Jesus similar to that of Barabbas (his name was Jesus Barrabas). The Danish "Barrabas" is about the same as "N.N." [Mr. X or John Doe], filius patris, his father's son. - It is too bad, however, that we do not know anything more about Barrabas; it seems to me that in many ways he could have become a counterpart to the Wandering Jew. The rest of his life must have taken a singular turn. God knows whether or not he became a Christian. - It would be a poetic motif to have him, gripped by Christ's divine power, step forward and witness for him.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 2 weeks ago
Truths begin by a conflict with...

Truths begin by a conflict with the police - and end by calling them in.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 weeks 4 days ago
Poetry and the arts can't exist...

Poetry and the arts can't exist in America. Mere exposure to the arts does nothing for a mentality which is incorrigibly dialectical. The vital tensions and nutritive action of ideogram remain inaccessible to this state of mind.

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Letter to Ezra Pound
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
2 months 2 weeks ago
If in Nietzsche's thinking the prior...

If in Nietzsche's thinking the prior tradition of Western thought is gathered and completed in a decisive respect, then the confrontation with Nietzsche becomes one with all Western thought hitherto.

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Philosophical Maxims
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