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Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 weeks 3 days ago
I've always been careful never to...

I've always been careful never to predict anything that had not already happened.

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Interview: Tom Wolfe, TVOntario, August 1970
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
2 months 2 days ago
Darkness and light divide the course...

Darkness and light divide the course of time, and oblivion shares with memory, a great part even of our living beings; we slightly remember our felicities, and the smartest strokes of affliction leave but short smart upon us. Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroy us or themselves. To weep into stones are fables.

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Chapter V
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months ago
Avarice and injustice are always shortsighted,...

Avarice and injustice are always shortsighted, and they did not foresee how much this regulation must obstruct improvement, and thereby hurt in the long-run the real interest of the landlord.

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Chapter II, p. 426-427.
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 2 weeks ago
I thank thee, O Father, Lord...

I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

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11:25-30 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 months 3 weeks ago
Every crusader is apt to go...

Every crusader is apt to go mad. He is haunted by the wickedness which he attributes to his enemies; it becomes in some sort a part of him.

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Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudon Chatto & Windus, London, (1951), ch. 9, p. 274
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
6 days ago
Turning your back...
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Main Content / General
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
2 months 4 weeks ago
Have patience awhile; slanders are not...

Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.

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As quoted in Gems of Thought (1888) edited by Charles Northend
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
3 weeks 3 days ago
Let your life be pleasing to...

Let your life be pleasing to the multitude, and it can not be so to yourself.

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Maxim 1075
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 weeks 3 days ago
The young are really the heirs...

The young are really the heirs to a generation of incompetence.

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Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
2 months 3 weeks ago
Political questions are far too serious...

Political questions are far too serious to be left to the politicians.

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Men in Dark Times
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
2 months 4 weeks ago
The softer you find your child...

The softer you find your child is, the more you are to seek occasions, at fit times, thus to harden him. The great art in this is, to begin with what is but very little painful, and to proceed by insensible degrees, when you are playing, and in good humour with him, and speaking well of him: and when you have once got him to think himself made amends for his suffering by the praise is given him for his courage; when he can take pride in giving such marks of his manliness, and can prefer the reputation of being brave and stout, to the avoiding a little pain, or the shrinking under it; you need nor despair in time and by the assistance of his growing reason, to master his timorousness, and mend the weakness of his constitution.

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Sec. 115
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
1 month 3 weeks ago
The anarchists put the thing upside...

The anarchists put the thing upside down. They declare that the proletarian revolution must begin by doing away with the political organisation of the state. But after its victory the sole organisation which the proletariat finds already in existence is precisely the state. This state may require very considerable alterations before it can fulfil its new functions. But to destroy it at such a moment would be to destroy the only organism by means of which the victorious proletariat can assert its newly-conquered power, hold down its capitalist adversaries and carry out that economic revolution of society without which the whole victory must end in a new defeat and in a mass slaughter of the workers similar to those after the Paris Commune.

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Letter to Philipp Van Patten
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
1 month 2 weeks ago
To-day the Enlightenment ideal has been...

To-day the Enlightenment ideal has been changed into a reality; not only in legislation, which is the mere framework of public life, but in the heart of every individual, whatever his ideas may be, and even if he be a reactionary in his ideas, that is to say, even when he attacks and castigates institutions by which those rights are sanctioned.... The sovereignty of the unqualified individual, of the human being as such, generically, has now passed from being a juridical idea or ideal to be a psychological state inherent in the average man. And note this, that when what was before an ideal becomes a component part of reality, it inevitably ceases to be an ideal. The prestige and the magic that are attributes of the ideal are volatilised.

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Chap.II: The Rise Of The Historic Level
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
1 month 3 weeks ago
Liberty is so great a magician,...

Liberty is so great a magician, endowed with so marvelous a power of productivity, that under the inspiration of this spirit alone, North America was able within less than a century to equal, and even surpass, the civilization of Europe.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 3 weeks ago
One may discover the root of...

One may discover the root of a Hindoo religion in his own private history, when, in the silent intervals of the day or night, he does sometimes inflict on himself like austerities with a stern satisfaction.

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Snakes in the Ganga, 2022
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
2 weeks 1 day ago
In one point I fully agree...

In one point I fully agree with the gentlemen to whose general views I am opposed. I feel with them, that it is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
2 months 4 weeks ago
Go into the London Stock Exchange...

Go into the London Stock Exchange - a more respectable place than many a court - and you will see representatives from all nations gathered together for the utility of men. Here Jew, Mohammedan and Christian deal with each other as though they were all of the same faith, and only apply the word infidel to people who go bankrupt. Here the Presbyterian trusts the Anabaptist and the Anglican accepts a promise from the Quaker.

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Letters on England, letter 6, "On the Presbyterians" as quoted in Trust and Tolerance, Richard H. Dees, Routledge, London and New York, (2004) p. 92, published first in English in 1733.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 3 weeks ago
Luxury is the opposite of the...

Luxury is the opposite of the naturally necessary.

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Notebook V, The Chapter on Capital, p. 448.
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 3 weeks ago
No matter how outrageous a lie...

No matter how outrageous a lie may be, it will be accepted if stated loudly enough and often enough.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
3 weeks 1 day ago
Times are changed with him who...

Times are changed with him who marries; there are no more by-path meadows, where you may innocently linger, but the road lies long and straight and dusty to the grave. Idleness, which is often becoming and even wise in the bachelor, begins to wear a different aspect when you have a wife to support.

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Virginibus Puerisque, Ch. 2.
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
1 month 1 week ago
Nothing can well be imagined more...

Nothing can well be imagined more painful than the present position of woman, unless, on the one hand, she renounces all outward activity and keeps herself within the magic sphere, the bubble of her dreams; or, on the other, surrendering all aspiration, she gives herself to her real life, soul and body. For those to whom it is possible, the latter is best; for out of activity may come thought, out of mere aspiration can come nothing.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 3 weeks ago
No longer enslaved or made dependent...

No longer enslaved or made dependent by force of law, the great majority are so by force of poverty; they are still chained to a place, to an occupation, and to conformity with the will of an employer, and debarred, by the accident of birth both from the enjoyments, and from the mental and moral advantages, which others inherit without exertion and independently of desert. That this is an evil equal to almost any of those against which mankind have hitherto struggled, the poor are not wrong in believing.

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John Stuart Mill, Chapters On Socialism, London, 1879, 'Introductory'
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
3 months ago
Heaven and Hell suppose two distinct...

Heaven and Hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad; but the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue. -- Were one to go round the world with an intention of giving a good supper to the righteous, and a sound drubbing to the wicked, he would frequently be embarrassed in his choice, and would find that the merits and the demerits of most men and women scarcely amount to the value of either.

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Essay on the Immortality of the Soul
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
2 months 2 weeks ago
A soldier told Pelopidas, "We are...

A soldier told Pelopidas, "We are fallen among the enemies." Said he, "How are we fallen among them more than they among us?"

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63 Pelopidas
Philosophical Maxims
Heraclitus
Heraclitus
3 months 2 weeks ago
It pertains to all men to...

It pertains to all men to know themselves and to learn self-control.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 3 weeks ago
I am a rationalist. ...I mean...

I am a rationalist. ...I mean ...[I] wish... to understand the world, and to learn by arguing with others. (...I do not say a rationalist holds the mistaken theory that men are... rational.)

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Philosophical Maxims
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
2 months 2 weeks ago
The noblest people are those despising...

The noblest people are those despising wealth, learning, pleasure and life; esteeming above them poverty, ignorance, hardship and death.

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Stobaeus, iv. 29a. 19
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 3 weeks ago
I would really like to slow...

I would really like to slow down the speed of reading with continual punctuation marks. For I would like to be read slowly. (As I myself read.)

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p. 77e
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
2 months 3 days ago
The wise soul feareth not death;...

The wise soul feareth not death; rather she sometimes striveth for death, she goeth beyond to meet her. Yet eternity maintaineth her substance throughout time, immensity throughout space, universal form throughout motion.

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I 1
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
1 month 1 week ago
Love is not consolation, it is...

Love is not consolation, it is light.

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As quoted in Simone Weil (1954) by Eric Walter Frederick Tomlin, p. 47
Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
2 months 3 weeks ago
The difference principle, for example, requires...

The difference principle, for example, requires that the higher expectations of the more advantaged contribute to the prospects of the least advantaged.

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Chapter II, Section 16, pg. 95
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 4 days ago
I have gathered…

I have gathered a posy of other men's flowers, and nothing but the thread that binds them is mine own.

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Ch. 12: Of Physiognomy
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
I am for the most part...

I am for the most part so convinced that everything is lacking in basis, consequence, justification, that if someone dared to contradict me, even the man I most admire, he would seem to me a charlatan or a fool.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 weeks 5 days ago
The error arises from the learned...

The error arises from the learned jurists deceiving themselves and others, by asserting that government is not what it really is, one set of men banded together to oppress another set of men, but, as shown by science, is the representation of the citizens in their collective capacity.

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Chapter VI, Attitude of Men of the Present Day to War Variant translation: Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
1 month 1 week ago
The pornographic body lacks any symbolism....

The pornographic body lacks any symbolism. The ritualized body, by contrast, is a splendid stage, with secrets and deities written into it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham
2 months 4 weeks ago
Create all the happiness you are...

Create all the happiness you are able to create: remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you to add something to the pleasure of others, or to diminish something of their pains. And for every grain of enjoyment you sow in the bosom of another, you shall find a harvest in your own bosom; while every sorrow which you pluck out from the thoughts and feelings of a fellow creature shall be replaced by beautiful peace and joy in the sanctuary of your soul.

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Advice to a young girl, 22 June 1830
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
When we know what words are...

When we know what words are worth, the amazing thing is that we try to say anything at all, and that we manage to do so. This requires, it is true, a supernatural nerve.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee
1 week 2 days ago
Now who are the individuals who...

Now who are the individuals who are the greatest benefactors of the living generation of mankind? I should say: Confucius and Lao-Tse; the Buddha; the Prophets of Israel and Judah; Zoroaster, Jesus, Muhammad; and Socrates.

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Ch. 8: Civilization on Trial
Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
1 month 3 weeks ago
An ardent affection for the human...

An ardent affection for the human race makes enthusiastic characters eager to produce alteration in laws and governments prematurely. To render them useful and permanent, they must be the growth of each particular soil, and the gradual fruit of the ripening understanding of the nation, matured by time, not forced by an unnatural fermentation.

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Appendix
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
1 month 3 weeks ago
The healthy man does not torture...

The healthy man does not torture others-generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.

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In Du, May 1941
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
1 month 2 weeks ago
The transition from philosophy to the...

The transition from philosophy to the domain of state and society had been an intrinsic part of Hegel's system.

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P. 251
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
4 weeks 1 day ago
Photography and cinema contributed in large...

Photography and cinema contributed in large part to the secularization of history, to fixing it in its visible, "objective" form at the expense of the myths that once traversed it. Today cinema can place all its talent, all its technology in the service of reanimating what it itself contributed to liquidating. It only resurrects ghosts, and it itself is lost therein.

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"History: A Retro Scenario," p. 48
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
1 month 1 week ago
The emptiness of Zen Buddhism... creates...

The emptiness of Zen Buddhism... creates a neighborly nearness between things.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
A marvel that has nothing to...

A marvel that has nothing to offer, democracy is at once a nation's paradise and its tomb.

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Philosophical Maxims
Chrysippus
Chrysippus
2 months 2 weeks ago
If I had followed the multitude,...

If I had followed the multitude, I should not have studied philosophy.

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As quoted by Diogenes Laërtius, vii. 182.
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
1 month 1 week ago
All men are in need of...

All men are in need of help and depend on one another. Human solidarity is the necessary condition for the unfolding of any one individual.

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Ch. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 3 weeks ago
...what the freedom is that I...

...what the freedom is that I love, and that to which I think all men intitled. It is not solitary, unconnected, individual, selfish Liberty. As if every Man was to regulate the whole of his Conduct by his own will. The Liberty I mean is social freedom. It is that state of things in which Liberty is secured by the equality of Restraint; A Constitution of things in which the liberty of no one Man, and no body of Men and no Number of men, can find Means to trespass on the liberty of any Person, or any description of Persons in the Society. This kind of liberty is indeed but another name for Justice, as ascertained by wise Laws, and secured by well-constructed institutions.

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Letter to Charles-Jean-François Depont (November 1789), quoted in Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VI: July 1789-December 1791 (1967), p. 42
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 weeks 3 days ago
The public has yet to see...

The public has yet to see TV as TV. Broadcasters have no awareness of its potential. The movie people are just beginning to get a grasp on film.

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quoted in "Marshall McLuhan, Author, Dies; Declared 'Medium Is the Message'" by Alden Whitman, The New York Times, January 1, 1981
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 4 days ago
My appetite comes to me while...

My appetite comes to me while eating.

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Book III, Ch. 9. Of Vanity
Philosophical Maxims
Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard
1 month 2 weeks ago
Words ... are little houses, each...

Words ... are little houses, each with its cellar and garret. Common sense lives on the ground floor, always ready to engage in 'foreign commerce' on the same level as the others, as the passers-by, who are never dreamers. To go upstairs in the word house is to withdraw step by step; while to go down to the cellar is to dream, it is losing oneself in the distant corridors of an obscure etymology, looking for treasures that cannot be found in words. To mount and descend in the words themselves-this is a poet's life. To mount too high or descend too low is allowed in the case of poets, who bring earth and sky together.

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Ch. 6
Philosophical Maxims
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