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Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
2 months 1 week ago
I have therefore found it necessary...

I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 months 4 days ago
Jehovah, Allah, the Trinity, Jesus, Buddha,...

Jehovah, Allah, the Trinity, Jesus, Buddha, are names for a great variety of human virtues, human mystical experiences, human remorses, human compensatory fantasies, human terrors, human cruelties. If all men were alike, all the world would worship the same God.

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"One and Many," p. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 1 week ago
The value of life lies not...

The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.

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Book I, Ch. 20
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
3 weeks 4 days ago
My path was not the normal...

My path was not the normal one of professors of philosophy. I did not intend to become a doctor of philosophy by studying philosophy (I am in fact a doctor of medicine) nor did I by any means, intend originally to qualify for a professorship by a dissertation on philosophy. To decide to become a philosopher seemed as foolish to me as to decide to become a poet. Since my schooldays, however, I was guided by philosophical questions. Philosophy seemed to me the supreme, even the sole, concern of man. Yet a certain awe kept me from making it my profession.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 5 days ago
The first and the simplest emotion...

The first and the simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind is Curiosity.

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Part I Section I
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 days ago
My main theme is the extension...

My main theme is the extension of the nervous system in the electric age, and thus, the complete break with five thousand years of mechanical technology. This I state over and over again. I do not say whether it is a good or bad thing. To do so would be meaningless and arrogant.

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Letter to Robert Fulford, 1964. Letters of Marshall McLuhan (1987), p. 300
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
2 months 1 week ago
Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much...

Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.

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Chapter IX, p. 117.
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
1 month ago
How did this division of the...

How did this division of the nations come about, what was its basis? The division is in accordance with all the previous history of the nationalities in question. It is the beginning of the decision on the life or death of all these nations, large and small. All the earlier history of Austria up to the present day is proof of this and 1848 confirmed it. Among all the large and small nations of Austria, only three standard-bearers of progress took an active part in history, and still retain their vitality - the Germans, the Poles and the Magyars. Hence they are now revolutionary. All the other large and small nationalities and peoples are destined to perish before long in the revolutionary world storm. (Weltsturm). For that reason they are now counter-revolutionary.

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The Magyar Struggle in Neue Rheinische Zeitung (13 January 1849).
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 5 days ago
To those who inquire as to...

To those who inquire as to the purpose of mathematics, the usual answer will be that it facilitates the making of machines, the travelling from place to place, and the victory over foreign nations, whether in war or commerce. ... The reasoning faculty itself is generally conceived, by those who urge its cultivation, as merely a means for the avoidance of pitfalls and a help in the discovery of rules for the guidance of practical life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard
3 weeks 6 days ago
To feel most beautifully alive means...

To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry.

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A Retrospective Glance at the Lifework of a Master of Books
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
2 months 4 days ago
The trail of the human serpent...

The trail of the human serpent is thus over everything.

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Lecture II, What Pragmatism Means
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 5 days ago
My desire and wish is that...

My desire and wish is that the things I start with should be so obvious that you wonder why I spend my time stating them. This is what I aim at because the point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 5 days ago
If it were so, as conceited...

If it were so, as conceited sagacity, proud of not being deceived, thinks, that we should believe nothing that we cannot see with our physical eyes, then we first and foremost ought to give up believing in love. ... We can be deceived by believing what is untrue, but we certainly are also deceived by not believing what is true. ... Which deception is more dangerous?

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 days ago
By surpassing writing, we have regained...

By surpassing writing, we have regained our wholeness, not on a national or cultural but cosmic plane.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month ago
It has been a long time...

It has been a long time since philosophers have read men's souls. It is not their task, we are told. Perhaps. But we must not be surprised if they no longer matter much to us.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 3 days ago
I do not give a damn...

I do not give a damn about the dead. They died for the [Communist] Party and the Party can decide what it wants. I practice a live man's politics, for the living.

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Act 5, sc. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 4 days ago
The book written against fame and...

The book written against fame and learning has the author's name on the title-page.

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1857
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
3 months 1 week ago
We believe that we know something...
We believe that we know something about the things themselves when we speak of trees, colors, snow, and flowers; and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things, metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities.
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Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 weeks 5 days ago
The safest general characterization of the...

The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.

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Pt. II, ch. 1, sec. 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 5 days ago
The reader is nowhere raised into...

The reader is nowhere raised into and sustained in a bigger, purer or rarer region of thought than in the Bhagavad Gita. The Gita's sanity and sublimity have impressed the minds of even soldiers and merchants.

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A Tribute to Hinduism, 2008
Philosophical Maxims
Protagoras
Protagoras
1 month 2 weeks ago
When it comes to consideration of...

When it comes to consideration of how to do well in running the city, which must proceed entirely through justice and soundness of mind.

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As quoted in Protagoras by Plato
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
1 month 1 week ago
The infinity of All ever bringing...

The infinity of All ever bringing forth anew, and even as infinite space is around us, so is infinite potentiality, capacity, reception, malleability, matter.

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I 1 as translated in Giordano Bruno : His Life and Thought with annotated translation of his work On the Infinite Universe and Worlds (1950) by Dorothea Waley Singer
Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
2 months 3 days ago
Indeed, it is tempting to suppose...

Indeed, it is tempting to suppose that it is self evident that things should be so arranged so as to lead to the most good.

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Chapter I, Section 5, pg. 25
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 5 days ago
The only purpose for which power...

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.

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Ch. 1: Introductory
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
1 month 2 days ago
A person is strong only when...

A person is strong only when he stands upon his own truth, when he speaks and acts from his deepest convictions. Then, whatever the situation he may be in, he always knows what he must say and do. He may fall, but he cannot bring shame upon himself or his cause. If we seek the liberation of the people by means of a lie, we will surely grow confused, go astray, and lose sight of our objective, and if we have any influence at all on the people we will lead them astray as well - in other words, we will be acting in the spirit of reaction and to its benefit.

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"Appendix A"
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
2 weeks 3 days ago
I found Randi likable and plausible;...

I found Randi likable and plausible; the only thing that bothered me was the sweeping and intense nature of his skepticism. He was obviously working from the premise that all paranormal phenomena, without exception, are fakes or delusions. He seemed to take to take it for granted that all of us - there were also two women present - shared his opinions, and he made jovial, disparaging remarks about psychics and other such weirdos. I began to get the uncomfortable feeling of a Jew who has accidentally walked into a Nazi meeting, or a Jehovah's Witness at a convention of militant atheists. As a supposedly scientific psychic investigator, Randi struck me as being oddly fixed in his opinions.

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pp. 39-40
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 weeks 6 days ago
Thou shalt love the Lord thy...

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

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22:37-40 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
2 months 2 weeks ago
What is the first business of...

What is the first business of one who practices philosophy? To get rid of self-conceit. For it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows.

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Book II, ch. 17, 1.
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
2 months 6 days ago
This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power,...

This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power, is so necessary to, and closely joined with a man's preservation, that he cannot part with it, but by what forfeits his preservation and life together: for a man, not having the power of his own life, cannot, by compact, or his own consent, enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the absolute, arbitrary power of another, to take away his life, when he pleases.

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Second Treatise of Civil Government, Ch. IV, sec. 23
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
2 months 6 days ago
When it is a question….

When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.

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Letter to Mme. d'Épinal, Ferney (26 December 1760) from Oeuvres Complètes de Voltaire: Correspondance (Garnier frères, Paris, 1881), vol. IX, letter # 4390 (p. 124)
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 5 days ago
Democracy is the road to socialism....

Democracy is the road to socialism.

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Attributed to Marx in recent years, including in Communism (2007) by Tom Lansford, p. 48
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
2 months 4 days ago
There is no worse lie than...

There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it.

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Lectures XIV and XV, "The Value of Saintliness"
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
1 month 1 week ago
Superstition is more injurious to God...

Superstition is more injurious to God than atheism.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
1 month 1 week ago
They call, in fact, for the...

They call, in fact, for the forfeiture, to a greater or less degree, of human liberty, to the point where, were I to attempt to sum up what socialism is, I would say that it was simply a new system of serfdom.

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Notes for a Speech on Socialism (1848). http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/tocqueville-s-critique-of-socialism-1848
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 weeks 6 days ago
The essential characteristic of the first...

The essential characteristic of the first half of the twentieth century is the growing weakness, and almost the disappearance, of the idea of value.

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"The responsibility of writers," p. 167
Philosophical Maxims
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
6 days ago
There are plenty of good reasons...

There are plenty of good reasons for fighting," I said, "but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It's that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
2 months 4 days ago
Conversion is in its essence a...

Conversion is in its essence a normal adolescent phenomenon, incidental to the passage from the child's small universe to the wider intellectual and spiritual life of maturity.

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Lecture IX, "Conversion"
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 months 6 days ago
Pride is an established conviction of...

Pride is an established conviction of one's own paramount worth in some particular respect, while vanity is the desire of rousing such a conviction in others, and it is generally accompanied by the secret hope of ultimately coming to the same conviction oneself. Pride works from within; it is the direct appreciation of oneself. Vanity is the desire to arrive at this appreciation indirectly, from without.

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Vol. 1, Ch. 4, § 2
Philosophical Maxims
A. J. Ayer
A. J. Ayer
1 month 1 day ago
"I exist" does not follow from...

"I exist" does not follow from "there is a thought now." The fact that a thought occurs at a given moment does not entail that any other thought has occurred at any other moment, still less that there has occurred a series of thoughts sufficient to constitute a single self. As Hume conclusively showed, no one event intrinsically points to any other. We infer the existence of events which we are not actually observing, with the help of general principle. But these principles must be obtained inductively. By mere deduction from what is immediately given we cannot advance a single step beyond. And, consequently, any attempt to base a deductive system on propositions which describe what is immediately given is bound to be a failure.

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p. 47.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 5 days ago
Essentially, this war...is a great race-conflict,...

Essentially, this war...is a great race-conflict, a conflict of Teuton and Slav, in which certain other nations, England, France and Belgium, have been led into cooperation with the Slav. ... The conflict of Germany and Russia has been produced not by this or that diplomatic incident, but by primitive passions expressing themselves in the temper of the two races.

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War: The Offspring of Fear (1914), quoted in Ray Monk, Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude, 1872-1921 (1996), p. 373
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 1 day ago
Of all the schools of patience...

Of all the schools of patience and lucidity, creation is the most effective. It is also the staggering evidence of man's sole dignity: the dogged revolt against his condition, perseverance in an effort considered sterile. It calls for a daily effort, self-mastery, a precise estimate of the limits of truth, measure, and strength. It constitutes an ascesis. All that "for nothing," in order to repeat and mark time. But perhaps the great work of art has less importance in itself than in the ordeal it demands of a man and the opportunity it provides him of overcoming his phantoms and approaching a little closer to his naked reality.

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Philosophical Maxims
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
6 months 1 week ago
Perception is part of the problem

I think that the task of philosophy is not to provide answers, but to show how the way we perceive a problem can be itself part of a problem.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks 2 days ago
It is not proper....
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Main Content / General
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1 month 5 days ago
If there is no…

If there is no immortality, there is no virtue. ... Without God and immortal life? All things are lawful then, they can do what they like?

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Quoted in M. M. Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, trans. R. W. Rotsel (Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis, 1973) p. 70
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
2 months 2 weeks ago
Were I a nightingale, I would...

Were I a nightingale, I would act the part of a nightingale; were I a swan, the part of a swan.

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Book I, ch. 16, 20.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 5 days ago
Communism differs from all previous movements...

Communism differs from all previous movements in that it overturns the basis of all earlier relations of production and intercourse, and for the first time consciously treats all natural premises as the creatures of hitherto existing men, strips them of their natural character and subjugates them to the power of the united individuals. Its organisation is, therefore, essentially economic, the material production of the conditions of this unity; it turns existing conditions into conditions of unity. The reality, which communism is creating, is precisely the true basis for rendering it impossible that anything should exist independently of individuals, insofar as reality is only a product of the preceding intercourse of individuals themselves.

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Vol. I, Part 4.
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 5 days ago
I have worked for this restlessness...

I have worked for this restlessness oriented toward inward deepening. But without authority. Instead of conceitedly making myself out to be a witness for the truth and causing others rashly to want to be the same, I am an unauthorized poet who influences by means of the ideas.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
2 months 1 week ago
...so it is with human reason,...

...so it is with human reason, which strives not against faith, when enlightened, but rather furthers and advances it.

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On Justification CCXCIV
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
1 month 1 week ago
The main business of religions is...

The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality.

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Book One, Chapter V.
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 1 day ago
Manhattan. Sometimes from beyond the skyscrapers,...

Manhattan. Sometimes from beyond the skyscrapers, across of thousands of high walls, the cry of a tugboat finds you in your insomnia in the middle of the night, and you remember that this desert of iron and cement is an island.

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Philosophical Maxims
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