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Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
3 days ago
When the mirror meets with an...

When the mirror meets with an ugly woman, when a rare ink-stone finds a vulgar owner, and when a good sword is in the hands of a common general, there is utterly nothing to be done about it.

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p. 317
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
3 months 3 weeks ago
The universe is the bible of...

The universe is the bible of a true Theophilanthropist. It is there that he reads of God. It is there that the proofs of his existence are to be sought and to be found. As to written or printed books, by whatever name they are called, they are the works of man's hands, and carry no evidence in themselves that God is the author of any of them. It must be in something that man could not make, that we must seek evidence for our belief, and that something is the universe; the true bible; the inimitable word, of God.

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A Discourse, &c. &c.
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 3 days ago
Hath God obliged himself not to...

Hath God obliged himself not to exceed the bounds of our knowledge?

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Book II, Ch. 12
Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
2 months 3 weeks ago
How can a rational being be...

How can a rational being be ennobled by anything that is not obtained by its own exertions?

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Ch. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 3 weeks ago
The heavens are as deep as...

The heavens are as deep as our aspirations are high.

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Quoted in Maturin M. Ballou (ed.) Pearls of Thought (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1881) p. 21
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 months ago
The public, therefore, among a democratic...

The public, therefore, among a democratic people, has a singular power, which aristocratic nations cannot conceive; for it does not persuade others to its beliefs, but it imposes them and makes them permeate the thinking of everyone by a sort of enormous pressure of the mind of all upon the individual intelligence.

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Book One, Chapter II.
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
3 months 3 weeks ago
Monotheistic religions alone furnish the spectacle...

Monotheistic religions alone furnish the spectacle of religious wars, religious persecutions, heretical tribunals, that breaking of idols and destruction of images of the gods, that razing of Indian temples and Egyptian colossi, which had looked on the sun 3,000 years: just because a jealous god had said, 'Thou shalt make no graven image.'

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 4 weeks ago
A Covenant not to defend...
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Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 3 weeks ago
It is love that leniently and...

It is love that leniently and mercifully says: I forgive you everything-if you are forgiven only little, then it is because you love only little. Justice severely sets the boundary and says: No further! This is the limit. For you there is no forgiveness, and there is nothing more to be said.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
Why don't I kill myself? If...

Why don't I kill myself? If I knew exactly what keeps me from doing so, I should have no more questions to ask myself since I should have answered them all.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 3 weeks ago
Most human beings have an almost...

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.

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"Variations on a Philosopher" in Themes and Variations, 1950
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 3 weeks ago
Power, like vanity, is insatiable. Nothing...

Power, like vanity, is insatiable. Nothing short of omnipotence could satisfy it completely. And as it is especially the vice of energetic men, the causal efficacy of love of power is out of all proportion to its frequency. It is, indeed, by far the strongest motive in the lives of important men. Love of power is greatly increased by the experience of power, and this applies to petty power as well as to that of potentates.

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
2 months 3 weeks ago
Education to true religion is the...

Education to true religion is the final task of the new education.

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General Nature of New Eduction p. 38
Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
4 months 3 days ago
In the land of the blind…

In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is lord.

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Act III, scene ix
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
2 months 2 weeks ago
The revolution, Stahl declared, is the...

The revolution, Stahl declared, is the 'world-historic mark of our age.' It would found 'the entire State on the will of man instead of on the commandment and ordinance of God.'

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p. 364
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
2 months 3 weeks ago
All religions, with their gods, their...

All religions, with their gods, their demigods, and their prophets, their messiahs and their saints, were created by the credulous fancy of men who had not attained the full development and full possession of their faculties. Consequently, the religious heaven is nothing but a mirage in which man, exalted by ignorance and faith, discovers his own image, but enlarged and reversed - that is, divinized. The history of religion, of the birth, grandeur, and decline of the gods who have succeeded one another in human belief, is nothing, therefore, but the development of the collective intelligence and conscience of mankind.

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Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
2 months 3 weeks ago
Government was intended to suppress injustice,...

Government was intended to suppress injustice, but its effect has been to embody and perpetuate it.

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"Summary of Principles" 2.7
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 3 weeks ago
It goes without saying that the...

It goes without saying that the normal durability of fixed capital is calculated on the supposition that all the conditions under which it can perform its functions normally during that time are fulfilled, just as we assume, in placing a mans life at 30 years on the average,that he will wash himself.

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Volume II, Ch. VIII, p. 176-177.
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 months 1 week ago
"A man thinks he is dying...

"A man thinks he is dying for his country," said Anatole France, "but he is dying for a few industrialists." But even that is saying too much. What one dies for is not even so substantial and tangible as an industrialist.

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p. 224
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
The most interesting aspect of suffering...

The most interesting aspect of suffering is the sufferer's belief in its absoluteness. He believes he has a monopoly on suffering. I think that I alone suffer, that I alone have the right to suffer, although I also realize that there are modalities of suffering more terrible than mine, pieces of flesh falling from the bones, the body crumbling under one's very eyes, monstrous, criminal , shameful sufferings. One asks oneself, How can this be, and if it be, how can one still speak of finality and other such old wives' tales? Suffering moves me so much that I lose all my courage. I lose heart because I do not understand why there is suffering in the world.

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in essay: the monopoly of suffering
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 3 weeks ago
The title wise is, for the...

The title wise is, for the most part, falsely applied. How can one be a wise man, if he does not know any better how to live than other men? - if he is only more cunning and intellectually subtle?

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p. 487
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
2 months 3 weeks ago
Our whole past experience is continually...

Our whole past experience is continually in our consciousness, though most of it sunk to a great depth of dimness. I think of consciousness as a bottomless lake, whose waters seem transparent, yet into which we can clearly see but a little way.

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Vol. VII, par. 547
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
4 months 1 week ago
O saving Victim, opening wideThe gate...

O saving Victim, opening wideThe gate of heaven to man below,Our foes press on from every side,Thine aid supply, Thy strength bestow.

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Verbum Supernum Prodiens (hymn for Lauds on Corpus Christi), stanza 5 (O Salutaris Hostia)
Philosophical Maxims
Proclus
Proclus
3 months 1 week ago
But Eudoxus the Cnidian, who was...

But Eudoxus the Cnidian, who was somewhat junior to Leon, and the companion of Plato, first of all rendered the multitude of those theorems which are called universals more abundant; and to three proportions added three others; and things relative to a section, which received their commencement from Plato, he diffused into a richer multitude, employing also resolutions in the prosecution of these.

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Ch. IV.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
Having always lived in fear of...

Having always lived in fear of being surprised by the worst, I have tried in every circumstance to get a head start, flinging myself into misfortune long before it occurred.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
3 months 3 weeks ago
Those who promise us paradise on...

Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.

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As quoted in In Passing: Condolences and Complaints on Death, Dying, and Related Disappointments (2005) by Jon Winokur, p. 144
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 3 weeks ago
The governors of the world believe,...

The governors of the world believe, and have always believed, that virtue can only be taught by teaching falsehood, and that any man who knew the truth would be wicked. I disbelieve this, absolutely and entirely. I believe that love of truth is the basis of all real virtue, and that virtues based upon lies can only do harm.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 3 weeks ago
I was brought up in the...

I was brought up in the Christian religion, and although I can scarcely sanction all the improper attempts to gain the emancipation of woman, all paganlike reminiscences also seem foolish to me. My brief and simple opinion is that woman is certainly as good as man-period. Any more discursive elaboration of the difference between the sexes or deliberation on which sex is superior is an idle intellectual occupation for loafers and bachelors.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 3 days ago
A little folly is desirable in...

A little folly is desirable in him that will not be guilty of stupidity.

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Book III, Ch. 9. Of Vanity
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 3 weeks ago
Above all do not forget your...

Above all do not forget your duty to love yourself; do not permit the fact that you have been set apart from life in a way, been prevented from participating actively in it, and that you are superflous in the obtruse eyes of a busy world, above all, do not permit this to deprive you of your idea of yourself, as if your life, if lived in inwardness, did not have just as much meaning and worth as that of any human being in the eyes of all-wise Governance, and considerably more than the busy, busiest haste of busy-ness - busy with wasting life and losing itself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
2 months 1 week ago
If a person loves only one...

If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to all others, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
1 month 4 days ago
In future, nerve cell responsiveness to...

In future, nerve cell responsiveness to naturally occurring endogenous opioids can be increased via receptor enrichment in the brain too. In principle, we can modulate their lifelong "overexpression", intermittently heightened (or gently diminished) by whatever kinds of personal and environmental contingencies we judge fit. Both functionally and anatomically, our reward pathways can be made "bigger and better". But intelligent emotional self-mastery will involve re-engineering the mind-brain so we derive the most intense rewards from activities we deem most lastingly worthwhile: i.e. prioritising our higher-order desires over legacy first-order appetites. Natural selection has "encephalised" our emotions to benefit our genes. Rational agents can "re-encephalise" our emotions to benefit us.

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Utopian Neuroscience, BLTC Research, 2019
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months 5 days ago
To err is human also in...

To err is human also in so far as animals seldom or never err, or at least only the cleverest of them do so.

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G 30
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
Suicide is a sudden accomplishment, a...

Suicide is a sudden accomplishment, a lightning-like deliverance: it is nirvana by violence.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 months ago
In America the majority raises formidable...

In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.

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Chapter XV, in a section titled Tryanny of the Majority.
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
3 months 2 days ago
Those wise men knew God to...

Those wise men knew God to be in things, and Divinity to be latent in Nature, working and glowing differently in different subjects and succeeding through diverse physical forms, in certain arrangements, in making them participants in her, I say, in her being, in her life and intellect.

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As translated by Arthur Imerti
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
3 months 3 weeks ago
For a work to become immortal...

For a work to become immortal it must possess so many excellences that it will not be easy to find a man who understands and values them all; so that there will be in all ages men who recognise and appreciate some of these excellences; by this means the credit of the work will be retained throughout the long course of centuries and ever-changing interests, for, as it is appreciated first in this sense, then in that, the interest is never exhausted.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
2 months 2 weeks ago
The soul contains few secrets and...

The soul contains few secrets and longings which cannot be sensibly discussed, analyzed, and polled. Solitude, the very condition which sustained the individual against and beyond his society, has become technically impossible. Logical and linguistic analysis demonstrate that the old metaphysical problems are illusory problems; the quest for the "meaning" of things can be reformulated as the quest for the meaning of words, and the established universe of discourse and behavior can provide perfectly adequate criteria for the answer.

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p. 71
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
They ask you for facts, proofs,...

They ask you for facts, proofs, works, and all you can show them are transformed tears.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 3 days ago
The laws of conscience, which we...

The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom.

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Ch. 22. Of Custom, tr. Cotton, rev. W. Hazlitt, 1842
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 3 weeks ago
A proud man is always looking...

A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.

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Book III, Chapter 8, "The Great Sin"
Philosophical Maxims
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
3 weeks 1 day ago
Unless our ideas are questioned, they...

Unless our ideas are questioned, they become part of the furniture of eternity.

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Ch. IV: "The Line of Least Resistance", p. 51
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 months 1 week ago
Eat not the heart…

Eat not the heart.

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Symbol 30
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 3 weeks ago
A gifted humanity can only produce...

A gifted humanity can only produce skeptics, never saints.

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Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
3 months 2 weeks ago
If evolution is a struggle for...

If evolution is a struggle for survival, why hasn't it ruthlessly eliminated altruists, who seem to increase another's prospects of survival at the cost of their own?

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Chapter 1, The Origins Of Altruism, p. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months 5 days ago
Man is always partial and is...

Man is always partial and is quite right to be. Even impartiality is partial.

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F 78
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
4 months 4 weeks ago
These people who have fled inward...
These people who have fled inward for their freedom also have to live outwardly, become visible, let themselves be seen; they are united with mankind through countless ties of blood, residence, education, fatherland, chance, the importunity of others; they are likewise presupposed to harbour countless opinions simply because these are the ruling opinions of the time; every gesture which is not clearly a denial counts as agreement.
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Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 months 1 week ago
Step not beyond the beam of...

Step not beyond the beam of the balance.

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Symbol 14
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 3 weeks ago
For Genet, Beauty will be the...

For Genet, Beauty will be the offensive weapon that will enable him to beat the just on their own ground: that of value.

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p. 405
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
2 months 3 weeks ago
In allem Chaos ist Kosmos und...

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.

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p. 32 (1981 edition) Originally presented at an Eranos conference.
Philosophical Maxims
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