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Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
We die in proportion to the...

We die in proportion to the words we fling around us.

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Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
4 months 2 weeks ago
I will now tell you who...

I will now tell you who are assembled here the wise sayings of Mazda, the praises of Ahura and the hymns of the Good Spirit, the sublime truth which I see rising out of these flames. You shall therefore harken to the Soul of Nature. Contemplate the beams of fire with a most pious mind. Every one, both men and women, ought to-day to choose his creed. Ye offspring of renowned ancestors, awake to agree with us. So preached Zoroaster, the proph of the Parsis, in one of his earliest sermons nearly 3,500 years ago.

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p. 15 (Introduction), S. A. Kapadia
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
3 months 3 weeks ago
To say, therefore, that thought cannot...

To say, therefore, that thought cannot happen in an instant, but requires a time, is but another way of saying that every thought must be interpreted in another, or that all thought is in signs.

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Vol. V, par. 254
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Kuhn
Thomas Kuhn
1 month 2 weeks ago
We must now ask how changes...

We must now ask how changes of this sort can come about, considering first discoveries, or novelties of fact, and then inventions, or novelties of theory. That distinction between discovery and invention or between fact and theory will, however, immediately prove to be exceedingly artificial.

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p. 52
Philosophical Maxims
Polybius
Polybius
1 month 3 weeks ago
There is no witness so dreadful,...

There is no witness so dreadful, no accuser so terrible as the conscience that dwells in the heart of every man.

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Histories, XVIII, 43 (Bartlett's Familiar Quotations)
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
6 months ago
Magister Adler was deeply moved by...

Magister Adler was deeply moved by something higher, but now when he wants to express his thoughts in words, wants to communicate, he confuses the subjective with the objective, his altered subjective state with an external event, the dawning of a light upon him with the coming into existence of something new outside him, the falling of the veil from his eyes with his having had a revelation. Subjectively his emotion is carried to the extreme; he wants to select the most powerful expression to describe it and by means of a mental deception grasps the objective qualification: having had a revelation.

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Philosophical Maxims
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
1 month 3 weeks ago
Looking back we can see how...

Looking back we can see how indirectly we know the environment in which nevertheless we live. We can see that the news of it comes to us now fast, now slowly; but that whatever we believe to be a true picture, we treat as if it were the environment itself.

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Ch. I: "The World Outside and the Pictures in Our Heads", p. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
4 months 5 days ago
I could be content that we...

I could be content that we might procreate like trees, without conjunction, or that there were any way to perpetuate the world without this trivial and vulgar act of coition; It is the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life, nor is there anything that will more deject his cooled imagination, when he shall consider what an odd and unworthy piece of folly he hath committed.

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Section 9
Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
4 months 4 weeks ago
Properly understood, then, the desire to...

Properly understood, then, the desire to act justly derives in part from the desire to express most fully what we are or can be, namely free and equal rational beings with the liberty to choose.

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Chapter IV, Section 40, p. 256
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
Woe to the book you can...

Woe to the book you can read without constantly wondering about the author!

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Philosophical Maxims
Carl Schmitt
Carl Schmitt
4 weeks ago
The concept of humanity is an...

The concept of humanity is an especially useful ideological instrument of imperialist expansion, and in its ethical-humanitarian form it is a specific vehicle of economic imperialism.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alan Watts
Alan Watts
1 month 1 week ago
Zen does not confuse spirituality with...

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes. Paraphrase of original text which reads "It does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

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The Way of Zen, Pt. 2, Ch. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
4 months 3 weeks ago
In... "The Education of Children"... Plutarch...

In... "The Education of Children"... Plutarch gives an anecdote of Theocritus, a sophist, as an example of athuroglossos... he is... "a giant in impudence"... strong not because of his reason, or his rhetorical ability... or his ability to pronounce the truth, but only because he is arrogant. ...His fourth trait is... "putting his confidence in bluster." He is confident in thorubos... the noise made by a strong voice, by a scream, a clamor, or uproar. ...The final characteristic ...his confidence in ..."ignorant outspokenness..." ... it lacks mathesis ...-learning or wisdom.

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Ref: Plutarch, "The Education of Children", Moralia (1927) Vol. 1, Tr. Frank Cole Babbit, p. 4, The Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press.
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 4 weeks ago
If you want to influence him...

If you want to influence him at all, you must do more than merely talk to him ; you must fashion him, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than you wish him to will.

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Addresses to the German Nation (1807), Second Address : "The General Nature of the New Education". Chicago and London, The Open Court Publishing Company, 1922, p. 21
Philosophical Maxims
Henry George
Henry George
4 weeks ago
But there is another form of...

But there is another form of monopoly, far more general and far more insidious. The accumulation of large amounts of capital under consolidated control creates a new kind of power-essentially different from the power of increase. Increase is constructive in its nature. Power from accumulation is destructive. It is often exercised with reckless disregard, not only to industry but to the personal rights of individuals. A railroad approaches a small town as a highwayman approaches his victim. "Agree to our terms or we will bypass your town" is as effective a threat as "your money or your life." As robbers unite to plunder and divide the spoils, the trunk lines of railroads unite to raise rates and pool their earnings. The public is then forced to pay the cost of the whole maneuver, as the vanquished are forced to pay the cost of their own enslavement by a conquering army.

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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 2 weeks ago
He who does not wish to...

He who does not wish to die cannot have wished to live.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
4 months 4 weeks ago
Subject matters in general do not...

Subject matters in general do not exist. There are no subject matters; no branches of learning-or, rather, of inquiry: there are only problems, and the urge to solve them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
4 weeks 1 day ago
Delay is preferable to error. Letter...

Delay is preferable to error.

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Letter to George Washington
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
3 months 3 weeks ago
A pair of statements may be...

A pair of statements may be taken conjunctively or disjunctively; for example, "It lightens and it thunders," is conjunctive, "It lightens or it thunders" is disjunctive. Each such individual act of connecting a pair of statements is a new monad for the mathematician.

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p. 268
Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
4 months 4 weeks ago
Justice is happiness according to virtue....

Justice is happiness according to virtue.

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Chapter V, Section 48, p. 310
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
6 months ago
Someone in despair despairs over something....

Someone in despair despairs over something. So, for a moment, it seems, but only for a moment. That same instant the true despair shows itself, or despair in its true guise. In despairing over something he was really despairing over himself, and he wants now to be rid of himself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 2 weeks ago
Like monarchy, monotheism had a martial...

Like monarchy, monotheism had a martial origin. "It is only on the march and it time of war," says Robertson Smith in The Prophets of Israel, "that a nomad people feels any urgent need of a central authority, and so it came about that in the first beginnings of national organization, centering in the sanctuary of the ark, Israel was thought of mainly as a host of Jehovah. the very name of Israel is martial, and means 'God (El) fighteth,' and Jehovah in the Old Testament is Iahwé Cebāôth - the Jehovah of the armies of Israel. It was on the battlefield that Jehovah's presence was most clearly realized; but in primitive nations the leader in time of war is also the natural judge in time of peace."

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Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
3 months 3 weeks ago
Prosperity, both for individuals and for...

Prosperity, both for individuals and for states, means possessions; and possessions mean burdens and harness and slavery; and slavery for the mind, too, because it is not only the rich man's time that is pre-empted, but his affections, his judgement, and the range of his thoughts.

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"The Irony of Liberalism"
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months ago
In the revolt against idealism, the...

In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word "experience" have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word. It is to be feared, however, that if the word is avoided the confusions of thought with which it has been associated may persist.

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On the Nature of Acquaintance: Neutral Monism, 1914
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months ago
A man full of warm, speculative...

A man full of warm, speculative benevolence may wish his society otherwise constituted than he finds it, but a good patriot and a true politician always considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his country. A disposition to preserve and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the conception, perilous in the execution.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 4 weeks ago
The history of all hitherto existing...

The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles.

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As quoted in The Communist Manifesto (1848), p.2
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
5 months ago
The great writers to whom the...

The great writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it possesses, have mostly asserted freedom of conscience as an indefeasible right, and denied absolutely that a human being is accountable to others for his religious belief.

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Ch. 1: Introductory
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
3 months 1 week ago
A book which, above all others...

A book which, above all others in the world, should be forbidden, is a catalogue of forbidden books.

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As quoted in A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1991) edited by Alan Lindsay Mackay, p. 153
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 4 weeks ago
But then again of course I...

But then again of course I know perfectly well that He can't be used as a road. If you're approaching Him not as the goal but as a road, not as the end but as a means, you're not really approaching Him at all.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
6 months ago
All things as subsist from nature...

All things as subsist from nature appear to contain in themselves a principle of motion and permanency; some according to place, others according to increase and diminuation; and others according to change in quality. 

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Book II, Ch. I, p. 88.
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
1 month ago
God cries to my heart: "Save...

God cries to my heart: "Save me!" God cries to men, to animals, to plants, to matter: "Save me!" Listen to your heart and follow him. Shatter your body and awake: We are all one. Love man because you are he. Love animals and plants because you were they, and now they follow you like faithful co-workers and slaves. Love your body; only with it may you fight on this earth and turn matter into spirit. Love matter. God clings to it tooth and nail, and fights. Fight with him. Die every day. Be born every day. Deny everything you have every day. The superior virtue is not to be free but to fight for freedom. Do not condescend to ask: "Shall we conquer? Shall we be conquered?" Fight on!

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
3 months 2 weeks ago
School children and students who love...

School children and students who love God should never say: "For my part I like mathematics"; "I like French"; "I like Greek." They should learn to like all these subjects, because all of them develop that faculty of attention which, directed toward God, is the very substance of prayer.

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Philosophical Maxims
Sydney Smith
Sydney Smith
1 month 2 weeks ago
The fox, when caught, is worth...

The fox, when caught, is worth nothing: he is followed for the pleasure of following.

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Vol. I, ch. 6, "Of Occupation", p. 177
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
5 months 1 day ago
If there were only one religion...

If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two they would cut each other's throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness.

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Letters on England, letter 6, "On the Presbyterians" Trans. Leonard Tancock (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1980): p. 41, published first in English in 1733.
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
2 months 3 weeks ago
The world is a great place...

The world is a great place and stocked with wealth and beauty, and there is no limit to the rewards that may be offered. Such an one who would refuse a million of money may sell his honour for an empire or the love of a woman.

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The Rajah's Diamond, The Adventure of Prince Florizel and a Detective.
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
5 months 1 week ago
The two ways of contemplation are...

The two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients: the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contemplation: If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.

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Book I, v, 8
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
3 months 1 week ago
What makes our poetry so contemptible...

What makes our poetry so contemptible nowadays is its paucity of ideas. If you want to be read, invent. Who the Devil wouldn't like to read something new?

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D 62
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
5 months ago
For the purpose of acquiring gain,...

For the purpose of acquiring gain, everything else is pushed aside or thrown overboard, for example, as is philosophy by the professors of philosophy.

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E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 347
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
Once we reject lyricism, to blacken...

Once we reject lyricism, to blacken a page becomes an ordeal: what's the use of writing in order to say exactly what we had to say?

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 4 weeks ago
The wise through excess of wisdom...

The wise through excess of wisdom is made a fool.

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Experience
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months ago
First of all: what is work?...

First of all: what is work? Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.

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Ch. 1: In Praise of Idleness
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
4 months 1 week ago
He who thinks....
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Main Content / General
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
9 months 5 days ago
Love the Muslims

In the electoral campaign, President Bush named as the most important person in his life Jesus. Now he has a unique chance to prove that he meant it seriously: for him, as for all Americans today, "Love thy neighbor!" means "Love the Muslims!" OR IT MEANS NOTHING AT ALL.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Kuhn
Thomas Kuhn
1 month 2 weeks ago
Men whose research is based on...

Men whose research is based on shared paradigms are committed to the same rules and standards for scientific practice. That commitment and the apparent consensus it produces are prerequisites for normal science, i.e., for the genesis and continuation of a particular research tradition.

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p. 11
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
1 month 3 weeks ago
What is objective must be common...

What is objective must be common to many minds and consequently transmissible from one to the other, and as this transmission can only come about by... discourse... we are even forced to conclude: no discourse no objectivity.

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Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
3 months 3 weeks ago
Privilege is a regulation rendering a...

Privilege is a regulation rendering a few men, and those only, by the accident of their birth, eligible to certain situations. It kills all liberal ambition in the rest of mankind, by opposing to it an apparently insurmountable bar. It diminishes it in the favored class itself, by showing them the principal qualification as indefeasibly theirs. Privilege entitles a favored few to engross to themselves gratifications which the system of the universe left at large to all her sons; it puts into the hands of those few the means of oppression against the rest of their species; it fill them witth vain-glory, and affords them every incitement to insolence and a lofty disregard to the feeling and interests of others.

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Book V, Chapter 11, "Moral Effects of Aristocracy"
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
Eternity is absence.

Eternity is absence.

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Philosophical Maxims
Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
2 months 3 weeks ago
Hayek's theory of evolutionary rationality shows...

Hayek's theory of evolutionary rationality shows how traditions and customs (those surrounding sexual relations, for example) might be reasonable solutions to complex social problems, even when, and especially when, no clear rational grounds can be provided to the individual for obeying them. These customs have been selected by the ''invisible hand'' of social reproduction, and societies that reject them will soon enter the condition of ''maladaptation,'' which is the normal prelude to extinction.

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Hayek and conservatism, in Edward Feser (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hayek
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
5 months 2 weeks ago
They who know the truth...

They who know the truth are not equal to those who love it, and they who love it are not equal to those who delight in it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months ago
...out of the tomb of the...

...out of the tomb of the murdered Monarchy in France, has arisen a vast, tremendous, unformed spectre, in a far more terrific guise than any which ever yet have overpowered the imagination and subdued the fortitude of man.

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p. 7
Philosophical Maxims
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