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Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 2 weeks ago
It is true that in the...

It is true that in the confessional it is the pastor who preaches; but the true preacher is still the secret-sharer in your inner being. The pastor can preach only in vague generalities; the preacher in your inner being is just the opposite; he speaks simply and solely about you, to you, and within you.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 3 weeks ago
I had never doubted my own...

I had never doubted my own abilities, but I was quite prepared to believe that "the world" would decline to recognize them.

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p. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
2 months 1 week ago
Opinion is ultimately determined by the...

Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect.

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Pt. IV, Ch. 30 : General Considerations
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 2 weeks ago
That a woman is presented as...

That a woman is presented as a teacher, as a prototype of piety, cannot amaze anyone who knows that piety or godliness is fundamentally womanliness. ... from a woman you learn concern for the one thing needful, from Mary, sister of Lazarus, who sat silent at Christ's feet with her heart's choice: the one thing needful.

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Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
3 months 3 weeks ago
Careful thought about this will reveal...

Careful thought about this will reveal how few there are who are truly converted from evil habits, especially among those who have prolonged their lives of sin right up to the end. The path down to evil is quick, slippery, and easy. But to turn and "to go forth to the upper air . . . this is effort, this is toil." Think of Aesop's goat before you descend and remember that climbing out is not easy.

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p. 147
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 month 1 week ago
We've reached a truly remarkable situation:...

We've reached a truly remarkable situation: a grotesque mismatch between the American intelligentsia and the American electorate. A philosophical opinion about the nature of the universe which is held by the vast majority of top American scientists, and probably the majority of the intelligentsia generally, is so abhorrent to the American electorate that no candidate for popular election dare affirm it in public. If I'm right, this means that high office in the greatest country in the world is barred to the very people best qualified to hold it: the intelligentsia, unless they are prepared to lie about their beliefs. To put it bluntly American political opportunities are heavily loaded against those who are simultaneously intelligent and honest.

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Richard Dawkins on militant atheism,
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
2 months 4 days ago
Meditation on any theme, if positive...

Meditation on any theme, if positive and honest, inevitably separates him who does the meditating from the opinion prevailing around him, from that which ... can be called "public" or "popular" opinion.

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p. 15
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
2 months ago
"God does not think, He creates;...

"God does not think, He creates; He does not exist, He is eternal," wrote Kierkegaard (Afslutende uvidenskabelige Efterskrift); but perhaps it is more exact to say with Mazzini, the mystic of the Italian city, that "God is great because his thought is action" (Ai giovani d'Italila), because with Him to think is to create, and He gives existence to that which exists in His thought by the mere fact of thinking it, and the impossible is unthinkable by God. It is not written in the Scriptures that God creates with His word - that is to say, with His thought - and that by this, by His Word, He made everything that exists? And what God has once made does He ever forget? May it not be that all the thoughts that have ever passed through the Supreme Consciousness still subsist therein? In Him, who is eternal, is not all existence eternalized?

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
1 month 2 days ago
To sum up the whole, we...

To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god. The aim of the Baconian philosophy was to provide man with what he requires while he continues to be man. The aim of the Platonic philosophy was to raise us far above vulgar wants. The aim of the Baconian philosophy was to supply our vulgar wants. The former aim was noble; but the latter was attainable.

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'Lord Bacon', The Edinburgh Review (July 1837), quoted in T. B. Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to The Edinburgh Review, Vol. II (1843), p. 395
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
3 months 3 weeks ago
Nothing is more common than good...

Nothing is more common than good things: the point in question is only to discriminate them; and it is certain that they are all natural and within our reach and even known to all mankind.

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Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
1 month 3 weeks ago
Those who devote themselves to rituals...

Those who devote themselves to rituals must ignore themselves. Rituals produce a distance from the self, a self-transcendence.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 3 weeks ago
It's a thorny undertaking...

It is a thorny undertaking, and more so than it seems, to follow a movement so wandering as that of our mind, to penetrate the opaque depths of its innermost folds, to pick out and immobilize the innumerable flutterings that agitate it.

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Ch. 6. Of Preparation, tr. E. J. Trechmann, 1927
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 1 week ago
Every ideology is contrary to human...

Every ideology is contrary to human psychology.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 2 weeks ago
The trade of insurance gives great...

The trade of insurance gives great security to the fortunes of private people, and by dividing among a great many that loss which would ruin an individual, makes it fall light and easy upon the whole society.

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Chapter I, Part III, p. 821.
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 month 1 week ago
Genes do indirectly control the manufacture...

Genes do indirectly control the manufacture of bodies, and the influence is strictly one way: acquired characteristics are not inherited. No matter how much knowledge and wisdom you acquire during your life, not one jot will be passed on to your children by genetic means. Each new generation starts from scratch.

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Ch. 3. Immortal Coils
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 month 1 week ago
Confession of our faults…

Confession of our faults is the next thing to innocence.

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Maxim 1060
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
4 months 1 week ago
It is my own experience ......

It is my own experience ... that commentators are far more ingenious at finding meaning than authors are at inserting it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
3 months 1 week ago
Man cannot be free if he...

Man cannot be free if he does not know that he is subject to necessity, because his freedom is always won in his never wholly successful attempts to liberate himself from necessity.

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The Human Condition (1958), part 3, chapter 16
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
2 months 6 days ago
For Appetite with an opinion of...

For Appetite with an opinion of attaining, is called HOPE.

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Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
3 months 4 days ago
Truth is best...

Truth is best (of all that is) good. As desired, what is being desired is truth for him who (represents) the best truth.

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Ahunuvaiti Gatha; Yasna 27, 14.
Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
3 months 1 week ago
Social and economic inequalities, for example...

Social and economic inequalities, for example inequalities of wealth and authority, are just only if they result in compensating benefits for everyone, and in particular for the least advantaged members of society.

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p. 14.
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 2 weeks ago
It is the slowest pulsation which...

It is the slowest pulsation which is the most vital. The hero will then know how to wait, as well as to make haste. All good abides with him who waiteth wisely.

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Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 273
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
2 months 3 weeks ago
Know that death comes to everyone,...

Know that death comes to everyone, and that wealth will sometimes be acquired, sometimes lost. Whatever griefs mortals suffer by divine chance, whatever destiny you have, endure it and do not complain. But it is right to improve it as much as you can, and remember this: Fate does not give very many of these griefs to good people.

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As quoted in Divine Harmony: The Life and Teachings of Pythagoras by John Strohmeier and Peter Westbrook.
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
4 months 3 days ago
A scholar who loves comfort is...

A scholar who loves comfort is not worthy of the name.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
2 months ago
I am the center of my...

I am the center of my universe, the center of the universe, and in my supreme anguish I cry with Michelet, "Mon moi, ils m'arrachent mon moi!" What is a man profited if he shall gain the world and lose his own soul? (Matt. xvi. 26).

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Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
4 months 1 week ago
The characters of self-restrained officials are...

The characters of self-restrained officials are exceedingly careful and just and conservative, but they lack keenness and a certain quick and active boldness. The courageous natures, on the other hand, are deficient in justice and caution in comparison with the former, but excel in boldness of action; and unless both these qualities are present it is impossible for a state to be entirely prosperous in public and private matters.

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Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
2 months 1 week ago
Many counterrevolutionary books have been written...

Many counterrevolutionary books have been written in favor of the Revolution. But Burke has written a revolutionary book against the Revolution.

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Fragment No. 104; on Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
3 months 2 weeks ago
[H]e regarded it with the feelings...

[H]e regarded it with the feelings due not to a mere mental delusion, but to a great moral evil. He looked upon it as the greatest enemy of morality: first, by setting up factitious excellencies,-belief in creeds, devotional feelings, and ceremonies, not connected with the good of human kind,-and causing these to be accepted as substitutes for genuine virtues: but above all, by radically vitiating the standard of morals; making it consist in doing the will of a being, on whom it lavishes indeed all the phrases of adulation, but whom in sober truth it depicts as eminently hateful.

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(p. 40)
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 2 weeks ago
A world full of happiness is...

A world full of happiness is not beyond human power to create; the obstacles imposed by inanimate nature are not insuperable. The real obstacles lie in the heart of man, and the cure for these is a firm hope, informed and fortified by thought.

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Ch. VI: International relations, p. 106
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 2 weeks ago
How close men, despite all their...

How close men, despite all their knowledge, usually live to madness? What is truth but to live for an idea? When all is said and done, everything is based on a postulate; but not until it no longer stands on the outside, not until one lives in it, does it cease to be a postulate.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 months 1 week ago
So in the end when one...

So in the end when one is doing philosophy one gets to the point where one would like just to emit an inarticulate sound.

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§ 261
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 1 week ago
We must suffer to the end,...

We must suffer to the end, to the moment when we stop believing in suffering.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 3 weeks ago
Among the celestial...
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Main Content / General
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 1 week ago
But perhaps I lack the gift....

But perhaps I lack the gift. I see I've described her as being like a sword. That's true as far as it goes. But utterly inadequate by itself, and misleading. I ought to have said 'But also like a garden. Like a nest of gardens, wall within wall, hedge within hedge, more secret, more full of fragrant and fertile life, the further you explore.' And then, of her, and every created thing I praise, I should say 'in some way, in its unique way, like Him who made it.' Thus up from the garden to the Gardener, from the sword to the Smith. to the life-giving Life and the Beauty that makes beautiful.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
4 months 1 week ago
There can never be a man...

There can never be a man so lost as one who is lost in the vast and intricate corrdiors of his own lonely mind, where none may reach and none may save. There never was a man so helpless as one who cannot remember.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
4 days ago
We shall either learn to know...

We shall either learn to know a Hero, a true Governor and Captain, somewhat better, when we see him; or else go on to be forever governed by the Unheroic;-had we ballot-boxes clattering at every street-corner, there were no remedy in these.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
3 months 4 days ago
Leading a human life is a...

Leading a human life is a full-time occupation, to which everyone devotes decades of intense concern.

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"The Absurd" (1971), p. 15.
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
3 months 1 week ago
There can be no difference anywhere...

There can be no difference anywhere that doesn't make a difference elsewhere - no difference in abstract truth that doesn't express itself in a difference in concrete fact and in conduct consequent upon that fact, imposed on somebody, somehow, somewhere and somewhen.

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Lecture II, What Pragmatism Means
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 2 weeks ago
"...the church of England, when she...

"...the church of England, when she baptizes any one, makes him not a Christian [...] the church of England is mistaken, and makes none but socinians Christians"

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279
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 1 week ago
If you want to deserve Hell,...

If you want to deserve Hell, you need only stay in bed. The world is iniquity; if you accept it, you are an accomplice, if you change it you are an executioner.

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Act 3, sc. 6
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 1 week ago
How we hate this solemn Ego...

How we hate this solemn Ego that accompanies the learned, like a double, wherever he goes.

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1839
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Fourier
Charles Fourier
1 week 2 days ago
The possibility of associating two or...

The possibility of associating two or three hundred families in agricultural and manufacturing industry depends upon a system so entirely different from what now exists, that it will open to the reader a new social world. He must consequently, in the study which opens before him, follow the guide with confidence, bearing constantly in min the gigantic results which will flow from association. Such results are well worth the sacrifice of a few prejudices. Every sensible reader will be of this opinion, and will concur to follow the advice which I shall constantly give, namely, to neglect the form and style of presentation, and occupy himself solely with the substance of the theory, seeking to determine whether the process of association is really discovered or not.

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The Theory of Social Organization. Harmonian Man: Selected Writings of Charles Fourier, p. 5.
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
3 months 4 weeks ago
We make a ladder of our...

We make a ladder of our vices, if we trample those same vices underfoot.

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3
Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
1 month 3 weeks ago
The moment we choose to love...

The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others.

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Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
3 months 4 days ago
Everyday we act in ways that...

Everyday we act in ways that reflect our ethical judgements.

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Chapter 3, From Evolution To Ethics?, p. 69
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 1 week ago
How many disappointments are conducive to...

How many disappointments are conducive to bitterness? One or a thousand, depending on the subject.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
3 months 1 week ago
A conception of justice cannot be...

A conception of justice cannot be deduced from self evident premises or conditions on principles; instead, its justification is a matter of the mutual support of many considerations, of everything fitted together into one coherent view.

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Chapter I, Section 4, p. 21
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 month 3 weeks ago
Cautiousness in judgment is nowadays to...

Cautiousness in judgment is nowadays to be recommended to each and every one: if we gained only one incontestable truth every ten years from each of our philosophical writers the harvest we reaped would be sufficient. ... To grow wiser means to learn to know better and better the faults to which this instrument with which we feel and judge can be subject.

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A 38
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
4 days ago
Who is there that can recognize...

Who is there that can recognize real intellect, and do reverence to it; and discriminate it well from sham intellect, which is so much more abundant, and deserves the reverse of reverence? He that himself has it!-One really human Intellect, invested with command, and charged to reform Downing Street for us, would continually attract real intellect to those regions, and with a divine magnetism search it out from the modest corners where it lies hid. And every new accession of intellect to Downing Street would bring to it benefit only, and would increase such divine attraction in it, the parent of all benefit there and elsewhere!

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Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
2 months 3 weeks ago
Having departed from your house, turn...

Having departed from your house, turn not back; for the furies will be your attendants.

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Philosophical Maxims
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