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Horace
Horace
2 months 1 day ago
Ah, Postumus! They fleet away….

Ah, Postumus! they fleet away, our years, nor piety one hour can win from wrinkles and decay, and Death's indomitable power.

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Book II, ode xiv, line 1 (trans. John Conington)
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 3 weeks ago
When the throne...
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Main Content / General
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
2 weeks 1 day ago
I have studied these things -...

I have studied these things - you have not.

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Reported as Newton's response, whenever Edmond Halley would say anything disrespectful of religion, by Sir David Brewster in The Life of Sir Isaac Newton (1831)
Philosophical Maxims
Auguste Comte
Auguste Comte
1 month 2 weeks ago
Every attempt to refer chemical questions...

Every attempt to refer chemical questions to mathematical doctrines must be considered, now and always, profoundly irrational, as being contrary to the nature of the phenomena. . . . but if the employment of mathematical analysis should ever become so preponderant in chemistry (an aberration which is happily almost impossible) it would occasion vast and rapid retrogradation....

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 1 week ago
In my education, as in that...

In my education, as in that of everyone, the moral influences, which are so much more important than all others, are also the most complicated, and the most difficult to specify with any approach to completeness.

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(p. 38)
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
1 month 2 days ago
I have always thought that clarity...

I have always thought that clarity is a form of courtesy that the philosopher owes; moreover, this discipline of ours considers it more truly a matter of honor today than ever before to be open to all minds ... This is different from the individual sciences which increasingly [interpose] between the treasure of their discoveries and the curiosity of the profane the tremendous dragon of their closed terminology.

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p. 19
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
3 months 2 weeks ago
One has attained to mastery when...
One has attained to mastery when one neither goes wrong nor hesitates in the performance.
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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1 month 1 week ago
The second half of a man's...

The second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half.

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As quoted in Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1979) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 299
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
3 weeks 5 days ago
In all philosophic theory there is...

In all philosophic theory there is an ultimate which is actual in virtue of its accidents. It is only then capable of characterization through its accidental embodiments, and apart from these accidents is devoid of actuality. In the philosophy of organism this ultimate is termed creativity; and [[God] is its primordial, non-temporal accident. In monistic philosophies, Spinoza's or absolute idealism, this ultimate is God, who is also equivalently termed The Absolute. In such monistic schemes, the ultimate is illegitimately allowed a final, eminent reality, beyond that ascribed to any of its accidents. In this general position the philosophy of organism seems to approximate more to some strains of Indian, or Chinese, thought, than to western Asiatic, or European, thought. One side makes process ultimate; the other side makes fact ultimate.

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Pt. I, ch. 1, sec. 2.
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
2 months 2 weeks ago
By the law is the knowledge...

By the law is the knowledge of sin [Rom 3:20], so the word of grace comes only to those who are distressed by a sense of sin and tempted to despair.

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p. 168
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 month 4 days ago
The idea of Christ is much...

The idea of Christ is much older than Christianity.

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The Idea of Christ in the Gospels
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 1 week ago
This remark provides the key to...

This remark provides the key to the problem, how much truth there is in solipsism. For what the solipsist means is quite correct; only it cannot be said, but makes itself manifest. The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of that language which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world.

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-5.62
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 month 4 days ago
Religion in its humility restores man...

Religion in its humility restores man to his only dignity, the courage to live by grace.

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Ch. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 1 week ago
I like a church, I like...

I like a church, I like a cowl, I love a prophet of the soul, And on my heart monastic aisles Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles; Yet not for all his faith can see, Would I that cowled churchman be. Why should the vest on him allure, Which I could not on me endure?

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The Problem, st. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 1 week ago
To-day unbind the captive, So only...

To-day unbind the captive, So only are ye unbound; Lift up a people from the dust, Trump of their rescue, sound!

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Boston Hymn, st. 17
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 1 week ago
Hungary conquered and in chains has...

Hungary conquered and in chains has done more for freedom and justice than any people for twenty years. But for this lesson to get through and convince those in the West who shut their eyes and ears, it was necessary, and it can be no comfort to us, for the people of Hungary to shed so much blood which is already drying in our memories. In Europe's isolation today, we have only one way of being true to Hungary, and that is never to betray, among ourselves and everywhere, what the Hungarian heroes died for, never to condone, among ourselves and everywhere, even indirectly, those who killed them. It would indeed be difficult for us to be worthy of such sacrifices.

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Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
1 month 1 week ago
What can a man say about...

What can a man say about woman, his own opposite? I mean of course something sensible, that is outside the sexual program, free of resentment, illusion, and theory. Where is the man to be found capable of such superiority? Woman always stands just where the man's shadow falls, so that he is only too liable to confuse the two. Then, when he tries to repair this misunderstanding, he overvalues her and believes her the most desirable thing in the world.

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P. 236
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 4 days ago
He also said to them, "You...

He also said to them, "You completely invalidate God's command in order to maintain your tradition! For Moses said: Honor your father and your mother; and, Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must be put to death.

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7:9-10
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
1 month 1 week ago
Nothing is more indispensable to true...

Nothing is more indispensable to true religiosity than a mediator that links us with divinity.

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Fragment No. 74
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
1 week ago
A good conscience is eight parts...

A good conscience is eight parts of courage.

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Catriona, ch. XI (1893).
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 months 1 week ago
To the gross senses the chair...

To the gross senses the chair seems solid and substantial. But the gross senses and be refined by means of instruments. Closer observations are made, as the result of which we are forced to conclude that the chair is "really" a swarm of electric charges whizzing about in empty space. ... While the substantial chair is an abstraction easily made from the memories of innumerable sensations of sight and touch, the electric charge chair is a difficult and far-fetched abstraction from certain visual sensations so excessively rare (they can only come to us in the course of elaborate experiments) that not one man in a million has ever been in the position to make it for himself. The overwhelming majority of us accept the electric-charge chair on authority, as good Catholics accept transubstantiation.

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"One and Many," pp. 8-9
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 week 2 days ago
Whatever you can lose, you should...

Whatever you can lose, you should reckon of no account.

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Maxim 191
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
3 months 1 week ago
Of these not right forms of...

Of these not right forms of government, monarchy, when bound by good written rules, which we call laws, is the best of all the six; but without law it is hard and most oppressive to live with. The government of the few must be considered intermediate, both in good and in evil. The government of the multitude is weak in all respects and able to do nothing great, either good or bad, when compared with the other forms of government, therefore of all these governments when they are lawful, this is the worst, and when they are all lawless it is the best.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 1 week 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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16 Questions on the Assassination" in The Minority of One, ed. M.S. Arnoni (1964-09-06), pp. 6-8
Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
2 months 1 week ago
That persons have opposing interests and...

That persons have opposing interests and seek to advance their own conception of the good is not at all the same thing as their being moved by envy and jealousy.

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Chapter IX, Section 81, p. 540
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 week ago
Eternity is best spent under a...

Eternity is best spent under a general anesthetic - which is what is going to happen.

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Interview with Joe Rogan on The Joe Rogan Experience (2019);
Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
2 months 2 days ago
Unto Thee, O Lord, the Soul...

Unto Thee, O Lord, the Soul of Creation cried: "For whom didst Thou create me, and who so fashioned me? Feuds and fury, violence and the insolence of might have oppressed me; None have I to protect me save Thee; Command for me then the blessings of a settled, peaceful life."

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Ahunuvaiti Gatha; Yasna 29, 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
1 week 4 days ago
Pierre, who from the moment Prince...

Pierre, who from the moment Prince Andrew entered the room had watched him with glad, affectionate eyes, now came up and took his arm. Before he looked round Prince Andrew frowned again, expressing his annoyance with whoever was touching his arm, but when he saw Pierre's beaming face he gave him an unexpectedly kind and pleasant smile. "There now!... So you, too, are in the great world?" said he to Pierre. "I knew you would be here," replied Pierre. "I will come to supper with you. May I?" he added in a low voice so as not to disturb the vicomte who was continuing his story. "No, impossible!" said Prince Andrew, laughing and pressing Pierre's hand to show that there was no need to ask the question. He wished to say something more, but at that moment Prince Vasíli and his daughter got up to go and the two young men rose to let them pass.

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Bk. I, Ch. IV
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
2 weeks 1 day ago
I do not define time, space,...

I do not define time, space, place, and motion, as being well known to all. Only I must observe, that the common people conceive those quantities under no other notions but from the relation they bear to sensible objects. And thence arise certain prejudices, for the removing of which it will be convenient to distinguish them into absolute and relative, true and apparent, mathematical and common.

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Definitions - Scholium
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
2 months 1 week ago
Ancient histories…

Ancient histories, as one of our wits has said, are but fables that have been agreed upon.

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Jeannot et Colin, 1764
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 1 week ago
If any ask me what a...

If any ask me what a free Government is, I answer, that, for any practical purpose, it is what the people think so, - and that they, and not I, are the natural, lawful, and competent judges of this matter.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
2 months 1 week 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
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
2 months 2 weeks ago
The origin of our passions, the...

The origin of our passions, the root and spring of all the rest, the only one which is born with man, which never leaves him as long as he lives, is self-love; this passion is primitive, instinctive, it precedes all the rest, which are in a sense only modifications of it. In this sense, if you like, they are all natural. But most of these modifications are the result of external influences, without which they would never occur, and such modifications, far from being advantageous to us, are harmful. They change the original purpose and work against its end; then it is that man finds himself outside nature and at strife with himself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
2 months 6 days ago
Discourses are tactical...

Discourses are tactical elements or blocks operating in the field of force relations; there can exist different and even contradictory discourses within the same strategy; they can, on the contrary, circulate without changing their form from one strategy to another, opposing strategy.

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Vol I, pp. 101-102
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 1 week ago
When you have understood that nothing...

When you have understood that nothing is, that things do not even deserve the status of appearances, you no longer need to be saved, you are saved, and miserable forever.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 1 week ago
A marvel that has nothing to...

A marvel that has nothing to offer, democracy is at once a nation's paradise and its tomb.

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
3 weeks 6 days ago
We should have with each person...

We should have with each person the relationship of one conception of the universe to another conception of the universe, and not to a part of the universe.

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p. 129
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 1 week ago
From the cradle to the grave,...

From the cradle to the grave, each individual pays for the sin of not being God. That's why life is an uninterrupted religious crisis, superficial for believers, shattering for doubters.

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Philosophical Maxims
Max Scheler
Max Scheler
1 month 2 days ago
At one time in his life...

At one time in his life the apostate radically changes his political, religious or philosophical convictions by taking up all possible means of argumentation against that which he formerly held to be true, and lives now for the sake of its negation. His new ideas and opinions consist in continuous acts of revenge on his spiritual past.

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Manfred Frings, Max Scheler (1996), p. 60
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 1 week ago
If you read history you will...

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next... It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth "thrown in": aim at earth and you will get neither.

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Book III, Chapter 10, "Hope"
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
3 weeks ago
He was always smoothing and polishing...

He was always smoothing and polishing himself, and in the end he became blunt before he was sharp.

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L 70
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 month 3 weeks ago
Rest satisfied with doing well, and...

Rest satisfied with doing well, and leave others to talk of you as they please.

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As quoted in The World's Laconics: Or, The Best Thoughts of the Best Authors (1853) by Everard Berkeley Variant: Rest satisfied with doing well, and leave others to talk of you as they will.
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 month 4 days ago
When Socrates and his two great...

When Socrates and his two great disciples composed a system of rational ethics they were hardly proposing practical legislation for mankind...They were merely writing an eloquent epitaph for their country.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 1 week ago
To have grazed every form of...

To have grazed every form of failure, including success.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
1 month 2 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
Friedrich Hölderlin
Friedrich Hölderlin
1 month 1 week ago
He who has thought…

He who has thought most deeply loves what is most alive.

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Philosophical Maxims
Antisthenes
Antisthenes
2 months 1 day ago
Being asked what learning is…..

Being asked what learning is the most necessary, he replied, "How to get rid of having anything to unlearn.

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" § 7
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 week 2 days ago
Language does for intelligence what the...

Language does for intelligence what the wheel does for the feet and the body. It enables them to move from thing to thing with greater ease and speed and ever less involvement.

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(p. 113)
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
1 month 1 week ago
Wherever big industries displaced manufacture, the...

Wherever big industries displaced manufacture, the bourgeoisie developed in wealth and power to the utmost and made itself the first class of the country. The result was that wherever this happened, the bourgeoisie took political power into its own hands and displaced the hitherto ruling classes, the aristocracy, the guildmasters, and their representative, the absolute monarchy. The bourgeoisie annihilated the power of the aristocracy, the nobility, by abolishing the entailment of estates - in other words, by making landed property subject to purchase and sale, and by doing away with the special privileges of the nobility. It destroyed the power of the guildmasters by abolishing guilds and handicraft privileges. In their place, it put competition - that is, a state of society in which everyone has the right to enter into any branch of industry, the only obstacle being a lack of the necessary capital.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ptahhotep
Ptahhotep
2 months 2 days ago
The pleasure is only for a...

The pleasure is only for a little moment, and it [passes] like a dream, and a man at the end thereof finds death through knowing it.

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Maxim no. 18. Translated by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, Teaching Of Amenem Apt Son Of Kanekht (London: Martin Hopkinson and Company Ltd, 1924) p. 58
Philosophical Maxims
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