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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
5 months ago
The inclination to act as the...

The inclination to act as the laws command, a virtue, is a synthesis in which the law ... loses its universality and the subject its particularity; both lose their opposition, while in the Kantian conception of virtue this opposition remains, and the universal becomes the master and the particular the mastered.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
2 months 6 days ago
In Kleist's essay humans are caught...

In Kleist's essay humans are caught between the graceful automatism of the puppet and the conscious freedom of a god. The jerky, stuttering quality of their actions comes from their feeling that they must determine the course of their lives. Other animals live without having to choose their path through life. Whatever uncertainty they may feel sniffing their way through the world is not a permanent condition; once they reach a place of safety, they are at rest. In contrast, human life is spent anxiously deciding how to live.

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The Faith of Puppets: Leopardi and the Souls of Machines (p.25-6)
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 3 weeks ago
You could attach prices to ideas....

You could attach prices to ideas. Some cost a lot some little. ... And how do you pay for ideas? I believe: with courage.

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p. 60e
Philosophical Maxims
Emperor Julian
Emperor Julian
1 month 1 week ago
Inasmuch as it is my wish...

Inasmuch as it is my wish only to compose a hymn of thanksgiving in honour of the god, I have deemed it quite sufficient to discourse to the best of my ability concerning his nature. I do not think I have wasted words to no purpose: the maxim, "Sacrifice to the immortal gods according to thy means," I accept as applying not merely to burnt-offerings, but also to our praises addressed unto the gods. I pray for the third time, in return for this my good intention, the Sun lord of the universe to be propitious to me, and to bestow on me a virtuous life, a more perfect understanding, and a superhuman intellect, and a very easy release from the trammels of life at the time appointed: and after that release, an ascension up to himself, and an abiding place with him, if possible, for all time to come; or if that be too great a recompense for my past life, many and long-continued revolutions around his presence!

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Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
5 months 2 days ago
It is absurd to excite reason...

It is absurd to excite reason against the primary postulates of pure time, as, for example, continuity, etc., since they follow from laws prior and superior to which nothing is found, and since reason herself in the use of the principle of contradiction cannot dispense with the support of this concept, so primitive and original is it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
What to think of other people?...

What to think of other people? I ask myself this question each time I make a new acquaintance. So strange does it seem to me that we exist, and that we consent to exist.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 4 weeks ago
The gods sell anything to everybody...

The gods sell anything to everybody at a fair price.

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Quotation and Originality
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
2 months 3 weeks ago
Sight-seeing is the art of disappointment....

Sight-seeing is the art of disappointment.

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Pt. I, ch. II.
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
5 months 2 days ago
A public can only arrive at...

A public can only arrive at enlightenment slowly. Through revolution, the abandonment of personal despotism may be engendered and the end of profit-seeking and domineering oppression may occur, but never a true reform of the state of mind. Instead, new prejudices, just like the old ones, will serve as the guiding reins of the great, unthinking mass. All that is required for this enlightenment is freedom; and particularly the least harmful of all that may be called freedom, namely, the freedom for man to make public use of his reason in all matters. But I hear people clamor on all sides: Don't argue! The officer says: Don't argue, drill! The tax collector: Don't argue, pay! The pastor: Don't argue, believe!

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Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
4 weeks ago
It is wrong to condemn people...

It is wrong to condemn people for doing a thing and then offer no alternative but failure. A person could get mad about that.

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"The Problem of Tobacco"
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks 1 day ago
What we call...
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Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 4 weeks ago
The career a young man should...

The career a young man should choose should be one that is most consonant with our dignity, one that is based on ideas of whose truth we are wholly convinced, one that offers us largest scope in working for humanity and approaching that general goal towards which each profession offers only one of the means: the goal of perfection ... If he works only for himself he can become a famous scholar, a great sage, an excellent imaginative writer [Dichter], but never a perfected, a truly great man.

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in Karl Marx and World Literature (1976) by S. S. Prawer, p. 2.
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 4 weeks ago
My friend Professor Tolkien asked me...

My friend Professor Tolkien asked me the very simple question, "What class of men would you expect to be most preoccupied with, and most hostile to, the idea of escape?" and gave the obvious answer: jailers.

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"On Science Fiction". Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2002). p. 67.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
3 months 3 weeks ago
Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a...

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.

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The First Part, Chapter 13, p. 62
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
3 months 2 weeks ago
Whatever be the substance which takes...

Whatever be the substance which takes possession of such a soul, it will produce the same result, and will change into a pretext for not conforming to any concrete purpose. If it appears as reactionary or anti-liberal it will be in order to affirm that the salvation of the State gives a right to level down all other standards, and to manhandle one's neighbour, above all if one's neighbour is an outstanding personality. But the same happens if it decides to act the revolutionary; the apparent enthusiasm for the manual worker, for the afflicted and for social justice, serves as a mask to facilitate the refusal of all obligations, such as courtesy, truthfulness and, above all, respect or esteem for superior individuals. ... As regards other kinds of Dictatorship, we have seen only too well how they flatter the mass-man, by trampling on everything that appeared to be above the common level.

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Chapter XV: We Arrive At The Real Question
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
4 months 4 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
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
4 weeks 1 day ago
...the more a subject is understood,...

...the more a subject is understood, the more briefly it may be explained.

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Philosophical Maxims
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
9 months 4 days 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
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months ago
I wanted certainty in the kind...

I wanted certainty in the kind of way in which people want religious faith. I thought that certainty is more likely to be found in mathematics than elsewhere. But I discovered that many mathematical demonstrations, which my teachers expected me to accept, were full of fallacies, and that, if certainty were indeed discoverable in mathematics, it would be in a new field of mathematics, with more solid foundations than those that had hitherto been thought secure. But as the work proceeded, I was continually reminded of the fable about the elephant and the tortoise. having constructed an elephant upon which the mathematical world could rest, I found the elephant tottering, and proceeded to construct a tortoise to keep the elephant from falling. But the tortoise was no more secure than the elephant, and after some twenty years of very arduous toil, I came to the conclusion that there was nothing more that I could do in the way of making mathematical knowledge indubitable.

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p. 53
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months ago
While it is true that science...

While it is true that science cannot decide questions of value, that is because they cannot be intellectually decided at all, and lie outside the realm of truth and falsehood. Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.

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Religion and Science (1935), Ch. IX: Science of Ethics.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
2 months 2 weeks ago
I would not give up the...

I would not give up the keys to the granary, because I know that, by doing so, I should turn scarcity into a famine.

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Sullivan, p. 266
Philosophical Maxims
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
1 month 1 week ago
I strongly suspect that the average...

I strongly suspect that the average reader does not suspect India has as rich a culture, as creative an imagination and wit and humor as any China has to offer, and that India was China's teacher in religion and imaginative literature, and the world's teacher in trigonometry, quadratic equations, grammar, phonetics, Arabian Nights, animal fables, chess, as well as in philosophy, and that she inspired Boccaccio, Goethe, Herder, Schopenhauer, Emerson, and probably also old Aesop.

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The Wisdom Of China And India by ) Lin Yutang
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
5 months 1 week ago
For we have in Latin only...

For we have in Latin only a few small streams and muddy puddles, while they have pure springs and rivers flowing in gold. I see that it is utter madness even to touch with the little finger that branch of theology that deals chiefly with the divine mysteries, unless one is also provided with the equipment of Greek.

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As quoted in Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World (2017) by By Eric Metaxas, p. 85
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 3 weeks ago
Have no fear, little flock, for...

Have no fear, little flock, for your Father has approved of giving you the Kingdom.

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12:32
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
3 months 3 weeks ago
When men and women agree, it...

When men and women agree, it is only in their conclusions; their reasons are always different.

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Ch. VI: Free Society
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
5 months 3 days ago
The man who esteems himself as...

The man who esteems himself as he ought, and no more than he ought, seldom fails to obtain from other people all the esteem that he himself thinks due. He desires no more than is due to him, and he rests upon it with complete satisfaction.

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Section III.
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 months 1 week ago
Truths dead and forgotten long ago,...

Truths dead and forgotten long ago, conceptions of the world and its people, covered with mould, even during the times of our grandmothers, are being hammered into the heads of our young generation.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thales of Miletus
Thales of Miletus
4 months 1 week ago
Avoid doing what you….

Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing.

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As quoted in Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, I, 36 Cf. Golden Rule
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
5 months ago
All religions promise a reward for...

All religions promise a reward for excellences of the will or heart, but none for excellences of the head or understanding.

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E. Payne, trans., vol. 2, p. 230
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 4 weeks ago
Slavery is disheartening; but Nature is...

Slavery is disheartening; but Nature is not so helpless but it can rid itself of every last wrong. But the spasms of nature are centuries and ages and will tax the faith of short-lived men. Slowly, slowly the Avenger comes, but comes surely. The proverbs of the nations affirm these delays, but affirm the arrival. They say, "God may consent, but not forever." The delay of the Divine Justice - this was the meaning and soul of the Greek Tragedy, - this was the soul of their religion.

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The Fugitive Slave Law, a lecture in NYC, March 7, 1854
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
5 months 2 days ago
The supreme enjoyment is in satisfaction...

The supreme enjoyment is in satisfaction with oneself ; it is in order to deserve this satisfaction that we are placed on earth and endowed with freedom.

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As quoted in Dreamer of Democracy by James Miller and Jim Miller, p. 194.
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 3 weeks ago
Once we have surrendered our senses...

Once we have surrendered our senses and nervous systems to the private manipulation of those who would try to benefit from taking a lease on our eyes and ears and nerves, we don't really have any rights left. Leasing our eyes and ears and nerves to commercial interests is like handing over the common speech to a private corporation, or like giving the earth's atmosphere to a company as a monopoly.

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p.73 of the 1966 Signet paperback edition
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
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 2 weeks ago
It is sad not to be...

It is sad not to be loved, but it is much sadder not to be able to love.

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To a Young Writer
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
1 month 2 weeks ago
Permanent mass unemployment destroys the moral...

Permanent mass unemployment destroys the moral foundations of the social order. The young people, who, having finished their training for work, are forced to remain idle, are the ferment out of which the most radical political movements are formed. In their ranks the soldiers of the coming revolutions are recruited.

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Part V : The Economics of a Socialist Community, § V : Destructionism, Ch. 33 : The Motive Powers of Destructionism, p. 440
Philosophical Maxims
Heraclitus
Heraclitus
5 months 2 weeks ago
Speaking with sense we must fortify...

Speaking with sense we must fortify ourselves in the common sense of all, as a city is fortified by its law, and even more forcefully. For all human laws are nourished by the one divine law. For it prevails as far as it will and suffices for all and is superabundant.

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Philosophical Maxims
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
3 weeks 5 days ago
The soul follows the progress of...

The soul follows the progress of the body, as it does the progress of education.

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
5 months 2 weeks ago
Choose to love whomsoever thou wilt:...

Choose to love whomsoever thou wilt: all else will follow. Thou mayest say, "I love only God, God the Father." Wrong! If Thou lovest Him, thou dost not love Him alone; but if thou lovest the Father, thou lovest also the Son. Or thou mayest say, "I love the Father and I love the Son, but these alone; God the Father and God the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ who ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of the Father, the Word by whom all things were made, the Word who was made flesh and dwelt amongst us; only these do I love." Wrong again! If thou lovest the Head, thou lovest also the members; if thou lovest not the members, neither dost thou love the Head.

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p 438
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 3 weeks ago
Environments are invisible. Their groundrules, pervasive...

Environments are invisible. Their groundrules, pervasive structure, and overall patterns elude easy perception.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
2 months 1 week ago
Taking the abolitionist project to the...

Taking the abolitionist project to the rest of the galaxy and beyond sounds crazy today; but it's the application of technology to a very homely moral precept writ large, not the outgrowth of a revolutionary new ethical theory. So long as sentient beings suffer extraordinary unpleasantness - whether on Earth or perhaps elsewhere - there is a presumptive case to eradicate such suffering wherever it is found.

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4. Objections, No 32
Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
2 months 1 week ago
If we already lived in a...

If we already lived in a cruelty-free world, the notion of re-introducing suffering, exploitation and creatures eating each other would seem not so much frightful as unimaginable - no more seriously conceivable than reverting to surgery without anaesthesia today.

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Reprogramming Predators, BLTC Research, 2009
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
4 weeks 1 day ago
God is imperiled. He is not...

God is imperiled. He is not almighty, that we may cross our hands, waiting for certain victory. He is not all-holy, that we may wait trustingly for him to pity and to save us. Within the province of our ephemeral flesh all of God is imperiled. He cannot be saved unless we save him with our own struggles; nor can we be saved unless he is saved. We are one. From the blind worm in the depths of the ocean to the endless arena of the Galaxy, only one person struggles and is imperiled: You. And within your small and earthen breast only one thing struggles and is imperiled: the Universe.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
1 month 1 week ago
The ethic of Reverence for Life...

The ethic of Reverence for Life is the ethic of Love widened into universality.

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Epilogue, p. 235
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
5 months 1 day ago
A company of….

A company of solemn tyrants is impervious to all seductions.

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"Tyranny", 1764
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 3 weeks ago
The role of the artist is...

The role of the artist is to create an Anti-environment as a means of perception and adjustment.

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(p. 31)
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
John Locke
John Locke
5 months 1 day ago
Though the Earth, and all inferior...

Though the Earth, and all inferior Creatures be common to all Men, yet every Man has a Property in his own Person. Thus no Body has any Right to but himself.

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Second Treatise of Government, Ch. V, sec. 27
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 3 weeks ago
All morning, I did nothing but...

All morning, I did nothing but repeat: "Man is an abyss, man is an abyss." - I could not, alas, find anything better.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
1 month 1 week ago
Awakening of Western thought will not...

Awakening of Western thought will not be complete until that thought steps outside itself and comes to an understanding with the search for a world-view as this manifests itself in the thought of mankind as a whole. We have too long been occupied with the developing series of our own philosophical systems, and have taken no notice of the fact that there is a world-philosophy of which our Western philosophy is only a part. If, however, one conceives philosophy as being a struggle to reach a view of the world as a whole, and seeks out the elementary convictions which are to deepen it and give it a sure foundation, one cannot avoid setting our own thought face to face with that of the Hindus, and of the Chinese in the Far East. ... Our Western philosophy, if judged by its own latest pronouncements, is much naiver than we admit to ourselves, and we fail to perceive this only because we have acquired the art of expressing what is simple in a pedantic way.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 6 days ago
'T is so much to be...

T is so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so. The strange lustre that surrounds him conceals and shrouds him from us; our sight is there broken and dissipated, being stopped and filled by the prevailing light.

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Book III, Ch. 7. Of the Inconveniences of Greatness
Philosophical Maxims
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