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Charles Fourier
Charles Fourier
4 months 2 weeks ago
IF the passions and characters of...

IF the passions and characters of man were not subject, like the material kingdoms, to distribution in series of groups, man would be out of unity with the universe; there would be duplicity of system in creation, and incoherence between the material and the passional worlds. If man would attain to social uniy, he should seek for the means in the serial order, to which God has subject all nature.

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Le nouveau monde amoureux
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
4 months 2 weeks ago
Nothing that was worthy in the...

Nothing that was worthy in the past departs; no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die.

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Philosophical Maxims
Averroes
Averroes
8 months 1 week ago
The Law teaches that the universe...

The Law teaches that the universe was invented and created by God, and that it did not come into being by chance or by itself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
4 months 2 weeks ago
I say, it is the everlasting...

I say, it is the everlasting privilege of the foolish to be governed by the wise; to be guided in the right path by those who know it better than they. This is the first "right of man;" compared with which all other rights are as nothing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
7 months 6 days 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
William James
William James
7 months 3 weeks ago
The moral flabbiness born of the...

The moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That - with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word success - is our national disease.

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To H. G. Wells, 9/11/1906
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
4 months 2 weeks ago
Philosophy complains that Custom has hoodwinked...

Philosophy complains that Custom has hoodwinked us, from the first; that we do everything by Custom, even Believe by it; that our very Axioms, let us boast of Free-thinking as we may, are oftenest simply such Beliefs as we have never heard questioned. Nay, what is Philosophy throughout but a continual battle against Custom; an ever-renewed effort to transcend the sphere of blind Custom, and so become Transcendental?

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Bk. III, ch. 8.
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
6 months 1 week ago
Cézanne's painting is strictly painting, and...

Cézanne's painting is strictly painting, and its value is immense; but Van Gogh's painting has the Outsider's characteristic: it is a laboratory refuse of a man who treated his own life as an experiment in living; it faithfully records moods and developments of vision on the manner of a Bildungsroman.

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p. 103
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
8 months 2 days ago
'T is one and the same...

T is one and the same Nature that rolls on her course, and whoever has sufficiently considered the present state of things might certainly conclude as to both the future and the past.

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Book II, Ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
8 months 1 week ago
You are a little soul carrying...

You are a little soul carrying a corpse around, as Epictetus used to say.

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Fragment 26 (Oldfather translation). This fragment originates from Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, IV. 41.
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
6 months 4 weeks ago
The last thing abandoned by a...

The last thing abandoned by a party is its phraseology, because among political parties, as elsewhere, the vulgar make the language, and the vulgar abandon more easily the ideas that have been instilled into it than the words that it has learnt. France Before The Consulate, Chapter I: "How the Republic was ready to accept a master", in Memoir, Letters, and Remains, Vol I (1862), p. 266 Variant translation: The last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary. This is because, in party politics as in other matters, it is the crowd who dictates the language, and the crowd relinquishes the ideas it has been given more readily than the words it has learned.

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As quoted in The Viking book of Aphorisms : A Personal Selection (1962) by W. H. Auden, and Louis Kronenberger, p. 306. Variant translation: The last thing that a party abandons is its language.
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
5 months 3 weeks ago
Think about the two qualities that...

Think about the two qualities that a virus, or any sort of parasitic replicator, demands of a friendly medium, the two qualities that make cellular machinery so friendly towards parasitic DNA, and that make computers so friendly towards computer viruses. These qualities are, firstly, a readiness to replicate information accurately, perhaps with some mistakes that are subsequently reproduced accurately; and, secondly, a readiness to obey instructions encoded in the information so replicated.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
5 months 4 days ago
Today, empathetic intelligence entails sharing the...

Today, empathetic intelligence entails sharing the sorrows of other sentient beings. In our posthuman future, will empathy consist entirely in sharing each other's joys?

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"What Is Empathetic Superintelligence?" presentation, 29 Jan. 2011
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
8 months 3 weeks ago
Art furnishes us with eyes and...
Art furnishes us with eyes and hands and above all the good conscience to be able to turn ourselves into such a phenomenon.
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Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
7 months 2 weeks ago
A reflective, contented mind is the...

A reflective, contented mind is the best possession.

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Ushtavaiti Gatha; Yasna 43, 15.
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
7 months 4 weeks ago
There is nothing in any object,...

There is nothing in any object, consider'd in itself, which can afford us a reason for drawing a conclusion beyond it; even after the observation of the frequent or constant conjunction of objects, we have no reason to draw any inference concerning any object beyond those of which we have had experience.

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Part 3, Section 12
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
5 months 2 weeks ago
It is better to lose health...

It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a miser. It is better to live and be done with it, than to die daily in the sick-room.

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315
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
8 months 1 week ago
We are all sprung…

We are all sprung from a heavenly seed.

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Book II, line 991 (tr. Munro)
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
7 months 3 weeks ago
The harm that is done by...

The harm that is done by a religion is of two sorts, the one depending on the kind of belief which it is thought ought to be given to it, and the other upon the particular tenets believed. As regards the kind of belief: it is thought virtuous to have faith-that is to say, to have a conviction which cannot be shaken by contrary evidence. Or, if contrary evidence might induce doubt, it is held that contrary evidence must be suppressed.

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preface xxiii
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Schmitt
Carl Schmitt
3 months 3 weeks ago
The political is the most intense...

The political is the most intense and extreme antagonism, and every concrete antagonism becomes that much more political the closer it approaches the most extreme point, that of the friend-enemy grouping.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
7 months 3 weeks ago
I know my heart, and have...

I know my heart, and have studied mankind; I am not made like any one I have been acquainted with, perhaps like no one in existence; if not better, I at least claim originality, and whether Nature did wisely in breaking the mould with which she formed me, can only be determined after having read this work. 

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Variant translations: I may not be better than other people, but at least I am different. If I am not better, at least I am different.
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
7 months 4 weeks ago
This great increase of the quantity...

This great increase of the quantity of work which, in consequence of the division of labour, the same number of people are capable of performing, is owing to three different circumstances; first, to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another; and lastly, to the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many.

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Chapter I
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
6 months 1 week ago
Heaven knows what seeming nonsense may...

Heaven knows what seeming nonsense may not to-morrow be demonstrated truth.

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Ch. 7: "Relativity", p. 161
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
5 months 1 week ago
If it is the moral right...

If it is the moral right we are to look at, I say, that on every principle of moral obligation, I hold that the Jew has a right to political power.

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Speech in the House of Commons (5 April 1830) in favour of Robert Grant's Jewish Disabilities Bill
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
7 months 3 weeks ago
When we hear news

When we hear news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.

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Letter to Charles-Augustin Ferriol, comte d'Argental, 28 August 1760]]
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
8 months 1 week ago
To wisdom belongs the intellectual apprehension...

To wisdom belongs the intellectual apprehension of things eternal; to knowledge, the rational apprehension of things temporal.

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As quoted in The Anchor Book of Latin Quotations: with English translations‎ (1990) by Norbert Guterman, p. 375
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
6 months 3 weeks ago
If the world is a precipitation...

If the world is a precipitation of human nature, so to speak, then the divine world is a sublimation of the same. Both occur in one act. No precipitation without sublimation. What goes lost there in agility, is won here.

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Fragment No. 96
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
6 months 3 weeks ago
Unity is the great goal toward...

Unity is the great goal toward which humanity moves irresistibly. But it becomes fatal, destructive of the intelligence, the dignity, the well-being of individuals and peoples whenever it is formed without regard to liberty, either by violent means or under the authority of any theological, metaphysical, political, or even economic idea. That patriotism which tends toward unity without regard to liberty is an evil patriotism, always disastrous to the popular and real interests of the country it claims to exalt and serve. Often, without wishing to be so, it is a friend of reaction - an enemy of the revolution, i.e., the emancipation of nations and men.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ptahhotep
Ptahhotep
7 months 2 weeks ago
Truth is great and its effectiveness...

Truth is great and its effectiveness endures. 

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Maxim no. 5. Cf. 1 Esdras 4:41
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
8 months 3 weeks ago
Universal is known according to reason,...

Universal is known according to reason, but that which is particular, according to sense...

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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
7 months 4 weeks ago
The sentiments of men often differ...

The sentiments of men often differ with regard to beauty and deformity of all kinds, even while their general discourse is the same ... In all matters of opinion and science, the case is opposite: The difference among men is there oftener found to lie in generals than in particulars; and to be less in reality than in appearance.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ernest Renan
Ernest Renan
4 months 2 weeks ago
Jesus, in some respects, was an...

Jesus, in some respects, was an anarchist, for he had no idea of civil government. That government seems to him purely and simply an abuse.

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Ch. 7.
Philosophical Maxims
Proclus
Proclus
7 months 1 week ago
The mathematician speculates the causes of...

The mathematician speculates the causes of a certain sensible effect, without considering its actual existence; for the contemplation of universals excludes the knowledge of particulars; and he whose intellectual eye is fixed on that which is general and comprehensive, will think but little of that which is sensible and singular.

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A Dissertation on the Doctrine of Ideas, &c.
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
6 months 2 weeks ago
Wherefore I say unto you, All...

Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.

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(Matthew 12:31-32) (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
6 months 1 week ago
It seems that thought itself has...

It seems that thought itself has a power for which it has never been given credit.

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p. 16
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
7 months 3 weeks ago
Alike in the highest regions of...

Alike in the highest regions of speculation and in the smaller practical concerns of daily life, her mind was the same perfect instrument, piercing to the very heart and marrow of the matter; always seizing the essential idea or principle. The same exactness and rapidity of operation, pervading as it did her sensitive as well as her mental faculties, would, with her gifts of feeling and imagination, have fitted her to be a consummate artist, as her fiery and tender soul and her vigorous eloquence would certainly have made her a great orator, and her profound knowledge of human nature and discernment and sagacity in practical life, would, in the times when such a carrière was open to women, have made her eminent among the rulers of mankind. Her intellectual gifts did but minister to a moral character at once the noblest and the best balanced which I have ever met with in life.

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(pp. 186-187)
Philosophical Maxims
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
7 months 2 weeks ago
The interpretation of a case is...

The interpretation of a case is corroborated only by the successful continuation of a self-formative process, that is by the completion of self-reflection, and not in any unmistakable way by what the patient says or how he behaves.

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p. 266
Philosophical Maxims
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
5 months 1 week ago
So dazzling was the spread of...

So dazzling was the spread of constellations that it had the impact of a vision, of some hidden insight. I drove home saying to myself: The dead, too, are like this, blazing within us - invisibly.

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As quoted in No More Words : A Journal of My Mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh (2001) by Reeve Lindbergh, p. 41
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
7 months 2 weeks ago
This legible lesson, this ritual recording,...

This legible lesson, this ritual recording, must be repeated as often as possible; the punishments must be a school rather than a festival; an ever-open book rather than a ceremony. The duration that makes the punishment effective for the guilty is also useful for the spectators. They must be able to consult at each moment the permanent lexicon of crime and punishment. A secret punishment is a punishment half wasted. Children should be allowed to come to the places where the penalty is being carried out; there they will attend their classes in civics. And grown men will periodically relearn the laws. Let us conceive of places of punishment as a Garden of the Laws that families would visit on Sundays.

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Chapter Three, The Gentle Way in Punishment
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson
6 months 2 weeks ago
Intuition is a method of feeling...

Intuition is a method of feeling one's way intellectually into the inner heart of a thing to locate what is unique and inexpressible in it.

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Quoted in Georgia O'Keeffe, 1887-1986 : Flowers in the Desert (2000) by Britta Benke, p. 28
Philosophical Maxims
Paracelsus
Paracelsus
4 months 1 week ago
All is interrelated. Heaven and earth,...

All is interrelated. Heaven and earth, air and water. All are but one thing; not four, not two and not three, but one. Where they are not together, there is only an incomplete piece.

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Paracelsus - Collected Writings Vol. I (1926) edited by Bernhard Aschner, p. 110
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
6 months 2 weeks ago
The metaphor is perhaps one of...

The metaphor is perhaps one of man's most fruitful potentialities. Its efficacy verges on magic, and it seems a tool for creation which God forgot inside one of His creatures when He made him. All our other faculties keep us within the realm of the real, of what is already there. The most we can do is to combine things or to break them up. The metaphor alone furnishes an escape; between the real things, it lets emerge imaginary reefs, a crop of floating islands. A strange thing, indeed, the existence in man of this mental activity which substitutes one thing for another - from an urge not so much to get at the first as to get rid of the second.

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"Taboo and Metaphor"
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
8 months 3 weeks ago
Ten years on the moon could...

Ten years on the moon could tell us more about the universe than a thousand years on the earth might be able to.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
7 months 3 weeks ago
"They have an engine called the...

"They have an engine called the Press whereby the people are deceived."

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Ch. 13 : They Have Pulled Down Deep Heaven on Their Heads
Philosophical Maxims
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
3 months 3 weeks ago
Before Descartes, some of the ancients...

Before Descartes, some of the ancients made the essence of matter consist in solid extension. But this opinion, of which all the Cartesians have made much, has at all times been victoriously combated...

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Ch. III Concerning the Extension of Matter
Philosophical Maxims
chanakya
chanakya
5 months 4 days ago
Our bodies are perishable, wealth is...

Our bodies are perishable, wealth is not at all permanent and death is always nearby. Therefore we must immediately engage in acts of merit.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
8 months 1 week ago
For creation is not a change,...

For creation is not a change, but that dependence of the created existence on the principle from which it is instituted, and thus is of the genus of relation; whence nothing prohibits it being in the created as in the subject. Creation is thus said to be a kind of change, according to the way of understanding, insofar as our intellect accepts one and the same thing as not existing before and afterwards existing.

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II, 18, 2 (see also Summa Theologica I, q. 45, art. 3 ad 2)
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
6 months 3 weeks ago
For it all depends on how...

For it all depends on how we look at things, and not on how they are in themselves. The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.

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p. 67
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 3 weeks ago
Architecture is a way....
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Main Content / General
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
7 months 3 weeks ago
For each new class which puts...

For each new class which puts itself in the place of one ruling before it, is compelled, merely in order to carry through its aim, to represent its interests the common interest of all the members of society, that is, sality, and represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones. The class making a revolution appears from the very start, if only because it is opposed to a class, not as a class but as the representative of the whole of society; it appears as the whole mass of society confronting the one ruling class.

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"Concerning the production of Consciousness"
Philosophical Maxims
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