Skip to main content
7 months 2 weeks ago

The need for novelty is the characteristic of an alienated gorilla.

0
0
8 months 4 weeks ago

Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.

0
0
Source
source
Book II, Ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond
7 months 2 weeks ago

Anxiety - or the fanaticism of the worst.

0
0
8 months 3 weeks ago

You ask particularly after my health. I suppose that I have not many months to live; but, of course, I know nothing about it. I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing.

0
0
Source
source
Last letter, to Myron Benton, March 31, 1862
7 months 1 week ago

And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.

0
0
Source
source
10:41-42 (King James Version| KJV)
8 months 2 days ago

Sobriety is the strength of the soul, for it preserves its reason unclouded by passion.

0
0
Source
source
As quoted in The History of Philosophy: From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Present Century (1819) by William Enfield Sobriety is the strength of the mind
5 months 6 days ago

If man puts his honor first in relying upon himself, knowing himself and applying himself, this in self-reliance, self-assertion, and freedom, he then strives to rid himself of the ignorance which makes a strange impenetrable object a barrier and a hindrance to his self-knowledge.

0
0
Source
source
p. 23
8 months 3 weeks ago

Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.

0
0
Source
source
Considerations by the Way
8 months 3 weeks ago

He is great who is what he is from Nature, and who never reminds us of others.

0
0
Source
source
Uses of Great Men
8 months 3 weeks ago

We plant trees, we build stone houses, we redeem the waste, we make prospective laws, we found colleges and hospitals, for remote generations.

0
0
8 months 2 weeks ago

In brief, it is my thesis that human misery is the most urgent problem of a rational public policy and that happiness is not such a problem.

0
0
Source
source
p. 485
7 months 3 weeks ago

My poor opinion is, that the closest connexion between Great Britain and Ireland, is essential to the well being, I had almost said, to the very being, of the two Kingdoms. ... I think indeed that Great Britain would be ruined by the separation of Ireland; but, as there are degrees even in ruin, it would fall the most heavily on Ireland. By such a separation Ireland would be the most completely undone Country in the world; the most wretched, the most distracted and, in the end, the most desolate part of the habitable Globe.

0
0
Source
source
Letter to an unknown correspondent (February 1797), quoted in R. B. McDowell (ed.)
5 months 4 weeks ago

There are not two kinds of human being, savage and civilized. There is only the human animal, forever at war with itself.

0
0
Source
source
An Old Chaos: Frozen Horses and Deserts of Brick (p. 25)
7 months 1 week ago

The human race, in its intellectual life, is organized like the bees: the masculine soul is a worker, sexually atrophied, and essentially dedicated to impersonal and universal arts; the feminine is a queen, infinitely fertile, omnipresent in its brooding industry, but passive and abounding in intuitions without method and passions without justice.

0
0
8 months 2 weeks ago

To choose this or that is to affirm at the same time the value of what we choose, because we can never choose evil. We always choose the good, and nothing can be good for us without being good for all.

0
0
Source
source
Existentialism and Human Emotions
5 months 2 weeks ago

The possibility of democracy on a global scale is emerging today for the very first time.

0
0
Source
source
(xi)
8 months 3 weeks ago

Most men do not feel in themselves the competence required for leading their group to victory, and therefore seek out a captain who appears to possess the courage and sagacity necessary for the achievement of supremacy. Even in religion this impulse appears. Nietzsche accused Christianity of inculcating a slave-morality, but ultimate triumph was always the goal. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."

0
0
Source
source
Ch. 2: Leaders and Followers
8 months 2 weeks ago

The game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one day that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and that they can be regarded as finally verified, retires from the game.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. 2 "On the Problem of a Theory of Scientific Method", Section 11: Methodological Rules as Conventions, p. 32.
8 months 3 weeks ago

The possession and the exercise of political, and among others of electoral, rights, is one of the chief instruments both of moral and of intellectual training for the popular mind; and all governments must be regarded as extremely imperfect, until every one who is required to obey the laws, has a voice, or the prospect of a voice, in their enactment and administration.

0
0
Source
source
Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform (1859), p. 22
7 months 3 weeks ago

There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.

0
0
Source
source
As quoted in Dictionary of Foreign Quotations (1980) by Mary Collison, Robert L. Collison, p. 235
8 months 3 weeks ago

No nation was ever so virtuous as each believes itself, and none was ever so wicked as each believes the other.

0
0
Source
source
Justice in War-Time (1916), p. 70
8 months 4 days ago

This, therefore, is mathematics: she reminds you of the invisible form of the soul; she gives life to her own discoveries; she awakens the mind and purifies the intellect; she brings light to our intrinsic ideas; she abolishes oblivion and ignorance which are ours by birth.

0
0
Source
source
As quoted by Morris Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times
5 months 6 days ago

This is the worst trait of minds rendered arrogant by prosperity, they hate those whom they have injured.

0
0
Source
source
De Ira (On Anger): Book 2, cap. 33, line 6
8 months 3 weeks ago

...it is possible to suppose that, if Russia is allowed to have peace, an amazing industrial development may take place, making Russia a rival of the United States.

0
0
Source
source
Part I, Ch. 5: Communism and the Soviet Constitution
8 months 2 weeks ago

After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

0
0
Source
source
"The Rest is Silence"
9 months 1 week ago

To entire sincerity there belongs ceaselessness. Not ceasing, it continues long. Continuing long, it evidences itself. Evidencing itself, it reaches far. Reaching far, it becomes large and substantial. Large and substantial, it becomes high and brilliant. Large and substantial; this is how it contains all things. High and brilliant; this is how it overspreads all things. Reaching far and continuing long; this is how it perfects all things. So large and substantial, the individual possessing it is the co-equal of Earth. So high and brilliant, it makes him the co-equal of Heaven. So far-reaching and long-continuing, it makes him infinite. Such being its nature, without any display, it becomes manifested; without any movement, it produces changes; and without any effort, it accomplishes its ends.

0
0
8 months 2 weeks ago

Suso has even left a diagrammatic picture of the relations subsisting between Godhead, triune God and creatures. In this very curious and interesting drawing a chain of manifestation connects the mysterious symbol of the Divine Ground with the three Persons of the Trinity, and the Trinity in turn is connected in a descending scale with angels and human beings. These last, as the drawing vividly shows, may make one of two choices. They can either live the life of the outer man, the life of the separative selfhood; in which case they are lost (for, in the words of the Theologia Germanica, "nothing burns in hell but the self"). Or else they can identify themselves with the inner man, in which case it becomes possible for them, as Suso shows, to ascend again, through unitive knowledge, to the Trinity and even, beyond the Trinity, to the ultimate Unity of the Divine Ground.

0
0
5 months 1 week ago

It is all work and forgotten work, this peopled, clothed, articulate-speaking, high-towered, wide-acred World. The hands of forgotten brave men have made it a World for us; they,- honour to them; they, in spite of the idle and the dastard. This English Land, here and now, is the summary of what was found of wise, and noble, and accordant with God's Truth, in all the generations of English Men. Our English Speech is speakable because there were Hero-Poets of our blood and lineage; speakable in proportion to the number of these. This Land of England has its conquerors, possessors, which change from epoch to epoch, from day to day; but its real conquerors, creators, and eternal proprietors are these following, and their representatives if you can find them: All the Heroic Souls that ever were in England, each in their degree; all the men that ever cut a thistle, drained a puddle out of England, contrived a wise scheme in England, did or said a true and valiant thing in England.

0
0
5 months 1 day ago

The rapid development of science... has, as it were, burst its old shell, now become too narrow.

0
0
Source
source
Introduction
9 months 1 week ago

There is the love of knowing without the love of learning; the beclouding here leads to dissipation of mind.

0
0
6 months ago

Negative-utilitarianism is only one particular denomination of a broad church to which the reader may well in any case not subscribe. Fortunately, the program can be defended on grounds that utilitarians of all stripes can agree on. So a defence will be mounted against critics of the theory and application of a utilitarian ethic in general. For in practice the most potent and effective means of curing unpleasantness is to ensure that a defining aspect of future states of mind is their permeation with the molecular chemistry of ecstasy: both genetically precoded and pharmacologically fine-tuned. Orthodox utilitarians will doubtless find the cornucopian abundance of bliss this strategy delivers is itself an extra source of moral value. Future generations of native ecstatics are unlikely to disagree.

0
0
Source
source
2.7 Why Be Negative?
7 months 1 week ago

His disciples said to Him, "When will the Kingdom come?" Jesus said, "It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying 'Here it is' or 'There it is.' Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it."

0
0
7 months 3 weeks ago

The stars are scattered all over the sky like shimmering tears, there must be great pain in the eye from which they trickled.

0
0
Source
source
Act IV.
8 months 4 weeks ago

Why may not a goose say thus: "All the parts of the universe I have an interest in: the earth serves me to walk upon, the sun to light me; the stars have their influence upon me; I have such an advantage by the winds and such by the waters; there is nothing that yon heavenly roof looks upon so favourably as me. I am the darling of Nature! Is it not man that keeps and serves me?"

0
0
Source
source
Book II, Ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond
8 months 3 weeks ago

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

0
0
Source
source
p. 85
8 months 3 weeks ago

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.

0
0
Source
source
preface xxiii
4 months 1 week ago

How can this cosmic religious experience be communicated from man to man, if it cannot lead to a definite conception of God or to a theology? It seems to me that the most important function of art and of science is to arouse and keep alive this feeling in those who are receptive.

0
0
8 months 4 weeks ago

Those that will combat use and custom by the strict rules of grammar do but jest.

0
0
6 months 2 weeks ago

Penitence follows hasty decisions.

0
0
Source
source
Maxim 961
4 months 2 weeks ago

Does anything genuinely beautiful need supplementing? No more than justice does-or truth, or kindness, or humility. Are any of those improved by being praised? Or damaged by contempt? Is an emerald suddenly flawed if no one admires it? Or gold, or ivory, or purple? Lyres? Knives? Flowers? Bushes?

0
0
Source
source
(Hays translation) IV, 20
8 months 3 weeks ago

But these young scholars who invade our hills, Bold as the engineer who fells the wood, And travelling often in the cut he makes, Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not, And all their botany is Latin names.

0
0
Source
source
Blight, st. 2
7 months 1 week ago

The total victimization of the individual that takes place is encouraged for the specific benefit of the industrial and political bureaucracy. It therefore cannot be justified on the ground of the individual's true interest. National Socialist ideology simply states that true human existence consists in unconditional sacrifice, that it is of the essence of the individual's life to abbey and to serve-'service which never comes to an end because service and life coincide.'

0
0
Source
source
P. 416
9 months 3 weeks ago

It's gravity is the cause; and that which is heavy abides in the middle, and the earth is in the middle: in like manner also, the infinite will abide in itself, through some other cause... and will itself support itself. ..The places of the whole and the part are of the same species; as of the whole earth and a clod, the place is downward; and of the whole of fire, and a spark, the place is upward. So that if the place of the infinite is in itself, there will be the same place also of a part of the infinite.

0
0

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia