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Plato
Plato
2 months 2 weeks ago
Doing what is for the good...

Doing what is for the good of the people, this must be the truest criterion of right government, in accordance with which the wise and good man will govern the affairs of his subjects. Just as the captain of a ship keeps watch for what is at any moment for the good of the vessel and the sailors, not by writing rules, but by making his science his law, and thus preserves his fellow voyagers, so may not a right government be established in the same way by men who could rule by this principle, making science more powerful than the laws? And whatever the wise rulers do, they can commit no error, so long as they maintain one great principle and by always dispensing absolute justice to them with wisdom and science are able to preserve the citizens and make them better than they were, so far as that is possible.

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Philosophical Maxims
Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri
2 months 5 days ago
Behold a God…

Behold a God more powerful than I who comes to rule over me.

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Chapter I (tr. Barbara Reynolds); of love.
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
1 month 3 weeks ago
Granted that any practice causes more...

Granted that any practice causes more pain to animals than it gives pleasure to man; is that practice moral or immoral? And if, exactly in proportion as human beings raise their heads out of the slough of selfishness, they do not with one voice answer 'immoral,' let the morality of the principle of utility be for ever condemned.

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Dr. Whewell on Moral Philosophy (1852), in Dissertations and Discussions: Political, Philosophical, and Historical, vol. 2, London: John W. Parker and son, 1859, p. 485
Philosophical Maxims
Cato the Younger
Cato the Younger
1 month 1 week ago
Bear in mind, that if through...

Bear in mind, that if through toil you accomplish a good deed, that toil will quickly pass from you, the good deed will not leave you so long as you live; but if through pleasure you do anything dishonourable, the pleasure will quickly pass away, that dishonourable act will remain with you for ever.

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In the speech which he delivered ('At Numantia to the Knights'); quoted by Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, XVI, i, 4 John C. Rolfe, ed. The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, Vol. 3, LCL 212 (1928), p. 131
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 3 weeks ago
I should say that the universe...

I should say that the universe is just there, and that is all.

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BBC Radio Debate on the Existence of God, Bertrand Russell v. Frederick Copleston, 1948
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 3 weeks ago
The homosexual never thinks of himself...

The homosexual never thinks of himself when someone is branded in his presence with the name homosexual. ...His sexual tastes will doubtless lead him to enter into relationships with this suspect category, but he would like to make use of them without being likened to them. Here, too, the ban that is cast on certain men by society has destroyed all possibility of reciprocity among them. Shame isolates.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 weeks 3 days ago
Do not hire...
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Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 3 weeks ago
...You could take up the line...

...You could take up the line that some of the gnostics took up - a line which I often thought was a very plausible one - that as a matter of fact this world that we know was made by the devil at a moment when God was not looking. There is a good deal to be said for that, and I am not concerned to refute it.

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"The Moral Arguments for Deity"
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 3 weeks ago
As for me, I am mean:...

As for me, I am mean: that means that I need the suffering of others to exist. A flame. A flame in their hearts. When I am all alone, I am extinguished.

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Inès, describing her path to Hell, Act 1, sc. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
1 month 1 week ago
Life grants nothing…

Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work.

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Book I, satire ix, line 59
Philosophical Maxims
Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Berdyaev
1 week 1 day ago
Fate and freedom alike play a...

Fate and freedom alike play a part in history; and there are times, as in wars and revolutions, when fate is the stronger of the two. Freedom - the freedom of man and of nations - could never have been the origin of two world wars. These latter were brought about by fate, which exercises its power owing to the weakness and decline of freedom and of the creative spirit of man. Almost all contemporary political ideologies, with their characteristic tendency to state-idolatry, are likewise largely a product of two world wars, begotten as they are of the inexorability's of fate.

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p. 32
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 3 weeks ago
Abjection is a methodological conversion, like...

Abjection is a methodological conversion, like Cartesian doubt and Husserlian epoche: it establishes the world as a closed system which consciousness regards from without, in the manner of divine understanding.

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p. 141
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
1 week 6 days ago
We are sorely deficient in talking...

We are sorely deficient in talking with each other and listening to each other. We lack mobility, criticism and self-criticism. We incline to doctrinism. What makes it worse is that so many people do not really want to think. They want only slogans and obedience. They ask no questions and they give no answers, except by repeating drilled-in phrases. They can only assert and obey, neither probe nor apprehend. Thus they cannot be convinced, either. How shall we talk with people who will not go where others probe and think, where men seek independence in insight and conviction?

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Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
1 month 1 week ago
And when the physician said, "Sir,...

And when the physician said, "Sir, you are an old man," "That happens," replied Pausanias, "because you never were my doctor."

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Of Pausanias the Son of Phistoanax
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
1 week 1 day ago
La force qui tue est une...

The might which kills outright is an elementary and coarse form of might. How much more varied in its devices; how much more astonishing in its effects is that other which does not kill; or which delays killing.

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in The Simone Weil Reader, p. 155
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months ago
Death, they say, acquits us of...

Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations.

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Book I, Ch. 7
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
3 weeks 1 day ago
Thus poetry, regarded as a vehicle...

Thus poetry, regarded as a vehicle of thought, is especially impressive partly because it obeys all the laws of effective speech, and partly because in so doing it imitates the natural utterances of excitement.

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Pt. I, sec. 6, "The Effect of Poetry Explained"
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
2 weeks 4 days ago
The law of habit exhibits a...

The law of habit exhibits a striking contrast to all physical laws in the character of its commands. A physical law is absolute. What it requires is an exact relation. Thus, a physical force introduces into a motion a component motion to be combined with the rest by the parallelogram of forces; but the component motion must actually take place exactly as required by the law of force. On the other hand, no exact conformity is required by the mental law. Nay, exact conformity would be in downright conflict with the law ; since it would instantly crystallise thought and prevent all further formation of habit. The law of mind only makes a given feeling more likely to arise. It thus resembles the "non-conservative" forces of physics, such as viscosity and the like, which are due to statistical uniformities in the chance encounters of trillions of molecules.

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Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
2 months 1 week ago
When I walk along with...

When I walk along with two others, they may serve me as my teachers. I will select their good qualities and follow them, their bad qualities and avoid them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 3 weeks ago
There was once a millionaire who...

There was once a millionaire who bought an infinite number of pairs of shoes and, whenever he bought a pair of shoes, he also bought a pair of socks. We can make a selection choosing one out of each pair of shoes, because we can choose always the right shoe or always the left shoe. Thus, so far as the shoes are concerned, selections exist. But, as regards the socks, where there is no distinction of right and left, we cannot use this rule of selection.

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pp. 93-93
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
2 months 5 days ago
What would you say of that...

What would you say of that man who was made king by the error of the people, if he had so far forgotten his natural condition as to imagine that this kingdom was due to him, that he deserved it, and that it belonged to him of right? You would marvel at his stupidity and folly. But is there less in the people of rank who live in so strange a forgetfulness of their natural condition?

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Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
2 weeks 5 days ago
One of the most difficult tasks...

One of the most difficult tasks men can perform, however much others may despise it, is the invention of good games and it cannot be done by men out of touch with their instinctive selves.

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Jung and the Story of Our Time, Laurens van der Post
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 weeks 1 day ago
Adam came from great power and...

Adam came from great power and great wealth, but he was not worthy of you. For had he been worthy, [he would] not [have tasted] death.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 3 weeks ago
[W]e only become what we are...

[W]e only become what we are by the radical and deep-seated refusal of that which others have made of us.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
2 months 1 day ago
Lastly, there are Idols which have...

Lastly, there are Idols which have immigrated into men's minds from the various dogmas of philosophies, and also from wrong laws of demonstration. These I call Idols of the Theater, because in my judgment all the received systems are but so many stage plays, representing worlds of their own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion.

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Aphorism 44
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 month 4 days ago
Use examples; that such as thou...

Use examples; that such as thou teachest may understand thee the better!

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Philosophical Maxims
Gottlob frege
Gottlob frege
2 weeks 1 day ago
'Facts, facts, facts,' cries the scientist...

Facts, facts, facts,' cries the scientist if he wants to emphasize the necessity of a firm foundation for science. What is a fact? A fact is a thought that is true. But the scientist will surely not recognize something which depends on men's varying states of mind to be the firm foundation of science.

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Gottlob Frege (1956). "The thought: A logical inquiry" in: Peter Ludlow (1997) Readings in the Philosophy of Language. p. 27
Philosophical Maxims
Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard
2 weeks 1 day ago
Ideas are invented only as correctives...

Ideas are invented only as correctives to the past. Through repeated rectifications of this kind one may hope to disengage an idea that is valid.

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A Retrospective Glance at the Lifework of a Master of Books
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1 month 2 weeks ago
At the core of all...

At the core of all well-founded belief, lies belief that is unfounded.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
1 month 3 weeks ago
The war against war is going...

The war against war is going to be no holiday excursion or camping party. The military feelings are too deeply grounded to abdicate their place among our ideals until better substitutes are offered than the glory and shame that come to nations as well as to individuals from the ups and downs of politics and the vicissitudes of trade.

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Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
1 month 1 week ago
Struggling to be brief…

Struggling to be brief I become obscure.

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Line 25
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 3 weeks ago
The opinions that are held with...

The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder's lack of rational conviction.

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Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately. Introduction to 1961 edition of Sceptical Essays, 1961
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 3 weeks ago
The weapon of criticism obviously cannot...

The weapon of criticism obviously cannot replace the criticism of weapons. Material force can only be overthrown by material force, but theory itself becomes a material force when it has gripped the masses. Theory is capable of gripping the masses when it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem, when it becomes radical. To be radical is to grasp things by the root, but for man the root is man himself. The clear proof of the radicalism of German theory, and hence of its political energy, is that it proceeds from the decisive positive abolition of religion.

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As quoted from David McLellan, Marx before Marxism, MacMillan, 1980, p. 150.
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
2 months 1 week ago
Know, first, who you are, and...

Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.

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Book III, ch. 1, 25.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 weeks 4 days ago
The desire to die was my...

The desire to die was my one and only concern; to it I have sacrificed everything, even death.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 days ago
We accumulate our opinions at an...

We accumulate our opinions at an age when our understanding is at its weakest.

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H 4
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
1 month 3 weeks ago
What interest, zest, or excitement can...

What interest, zest, or excitement can there be in achieving the right way, unless we are enabled to feel that the wrong way is also a possible and a natural way, - nay, more, a menacing and an imminent way? And what sense can there be in condemning ourselves for taking the wrong way, unless we need have done nothing of the sort, unless the right way was open to us as well? I cannot understand the willingness to act, no matter how we feel, without the belief that acts are really good and bad.

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The Dilemma of Determinism, 1884
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
1 month 3 weeks ago
Nature, therefore, is subject with absolute...

Nature, therefore, is subject with absolute precision to all the precepts of geometry as to all the properties of space there demonstrated, this being the subjective condition, not hypothetically but intuitively given, of every phenomenon in which nature can ever be revealed to the senses.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 3 weeks ago
And striving to be man, the...

And striving to be man, the worm Mounts through all the spires of form.

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May-Day
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 weeks 1 day ago
Not everyone who says to Me,...

Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'

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Matthew 7:21-23 (NKJV) (Also Luke 6:24; 13:26, 27)
Philosophical Maxims
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
5 months 4 weeks ago
Ghandi had balls

One should oppose the fascination with Hitler according to which Hitler was, of course, a bad guy, responsible for the death of millions — but he definitely had balls, he pursued with iron will what he wanted. … This point is not only ethically repulsive, but simply wrong: no, Hitler did not ‘have the balls’ to really change things; he did not really act, all his actions were fundamentally reactions, i.e., he acted so that nothing would really change, he stages a big spectacle of Revolution so that the capitalist order could survive.”
In this precise sense of violence, Gandhi was more violent than Hitler: Gandhi’s movement effectively endeavored to interrupt the basic functioning of the British colonial state.

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Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
2 weeks 4 days ago
Now, let there be an indefinite...

Now, let there be an indefinite succession of these inferential acts of comparative perception; and it is plain that the last moment will contain objectively the whole series. Let there be, not merely an indefinite succession, but a continuous flow of inference through a finite time; and the result will be a mediate objective consciousness of the whole time in the last moment. In this last moment, the whole series will be recognized, or known as known before.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
1 month 2 weeks ago
We are observing ourselves being observed...

We are observing ourselves being observed by the painter, and made visible to his eyes by the same light that enables us to see him. And just as we are about to apprehend ourselves, transcribed by his hand as though in a mirror, we find that we can in fact apprehend nothing of that mirror but its lusterless back. The other side of a psyche.

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Las Menias
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
3 weeks 1 day ago
The breath of an aristocrat is...

The breath of an aristocrat is the death rattle of freedom.

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Act I.
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
1 week 1 day ago
La culture est un instrument manié...

Culture is an instrument wielded by professors to manufacture professors, who, when their turn comes, will manufacture professors.

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The Need for Roots, part 2: Uprootedness, chapter 1: Uprootedness in the Towns
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
2 weeks 1 day ago
The happy consciousness is shaky enough-a...

The happy consciousness is shaky enough-a thin surface over fear, frustration, and disgust.

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p. 76
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
2 months 2 weeks ago
If the very essence of knowledge...

If the very essence of knowledge changes, at the moment of the change to another essence of knowledge there would be no knowledge, and if it is always changing, there will always be no knowledge, and by this reasoning there will be neither anyone to know nor anything to be known. But if there is always that which knows and that which is known if the beautiful, the good, and all the other verities exist I do not see how there is any likeness between these conditions of which I am now speaking and flux or motion.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
1 month 3 weeks ago
The human imagination has seldom had...

The human imagination has seldom had before it an object so sublimely ordered as the medieval cosmos. If it has an aesthetic fault, it is perhaps, for us who have known romanticism, a shade too ordered. For all its vast spaces it might in the end afflict us with a kind of claustrophobia. Is there nowhere any vagueness? No undiscovered by-ways? No twilight? Can we never really get out of doors?

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The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature, 1964
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
2 weeks 6 days ago
The best thing about the sciences...

The best thing about the sciences is their philosophical ingredient, like life for an organic body. If one dephilosophizes the sciences, what remains left? Earth, air, and water.

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Fragment No. 62
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
2 weeks 1 day ago
The real field of knowledge is...

The real field of knowledge is not the given fact about things as they are, but the critical evaluation of them as a prelude to passing beyond their given form. Knowledge deals with appearances in order to get beyond them. .... The concept of reality has thus turned into the concept of possibility. The real is not yet 'actual,' but is at first only the possibility of an actual.

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P. 145
Philosophical Maxims
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