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George Santayana
George Santayana
3 months 2 weeks ago
In proportion as a man's interests...

In proportion as a man's interests become humane and his efforts rational, he appropriates and expands a common life, which reappears in all individuals who reach the same impersonal level of ideas.

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Ch. VIII: Ideal Society
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 weeks 6 days ago
Look within. Within is the fountain...

Look within. Within is the fountain of the good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

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VII, 59
Philosophical Maxims
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
8 months 4 weeks ago
Subdue petty bourgeois passions and prejudices

First, [the bourgeoisie] must recognize his own impotence, his incapacity to believe in a sense of history, even if his reason leans towards the truth, the passions and prejudices produced by his class position, prevent him from accepting it. So he should not exert himself with proving the truth of the historical mission of the working class; rather, he should learn to subdue his petty bourgeois passions and prejudices. He should take lessons from those who were once as important as he is now but are ready to risk all for the revolutionary Cause.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 months 3 weeks ago
I should have loved freedom, I...

I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.

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Book Four, Chapter VII.
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
1 week 6 days ago
We Jews have been too...

We Jews have been too adaptable. We have been too eager to sacrifice our idiosyncrasies for the sake of social conformity. ... Even in modern civilization, the Jew is most happy if he remains a Jew.

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Philosophical Maxims
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
2 months 2 weeks ago
There is only one way to...

There is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniably good book.

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Quoted by Granville Hicks in The Living Novel: A Symposium (Macmillan, 1957; digitized version in 2006), p. ix
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
2 months 3 weeks ago
It is the real, and not...

It is the real, and not the map, whose vestiges persist here and there in the deserts that are no longer those of the Empire, but ours: The desert of the real itself.

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"The Precession of Simulacra," p. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 months 3 weeks ago
In order that men should embrace...

In order that men should embrace the truth - not in the vague way they did in childhood, nor in the one-sided and perverted way presented to them by their religious and scientific teachers, but embrace it as their highest law the complete liberation of this truth from all and every superstition (both pseudo-religious and pseudo-scientific) by which it is still obscured is essential: not a partial, timid attempt, reckoning with traditions sanctified by age and with the habits of the people - not such as was effected in the religious sphere by Guru Nanak, the founder of the sect of the Sikhs, and in the Christian world by Luther, and by similar reformers in other religions - but a fundamental cleansing of religious consciousness from all ancient religious and modern scientific superstitions.

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VI
Philosophical Maxims
Max Stirner
Max Stirner
1 month 1 week ago
Man with the great M is...

Man with the great M is only an ideal, the species only something thought of.

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Dover 2005, p. 182
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 3 weeks ago
A nation never falls but by...

A nation never falls but by suicide.

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1861
Philosophical Maxims
Henry George
Henry George
3 weeks ago
As man is so constituted that...

As man is so constituted that it is utterly impossible for him to attain happiness save by seeking the happiness of others, so does it seem to be of the nature of things that individuals and classes can obtain their own just rights only by struggling for the rights of others.

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Ch. 21 : Conclusion
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 3 weeks ago
Nor is it the irrationality of...

Nor is it the irrationality of the form which is taken as characteristic. On the contrary, one overlooks the irrational.

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Vol. II, Ch. I, p. 30.
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Hölderlin
Friedrich Hölderlin
3 months 3 weeks ago
What has always made the state...

What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it heaven.

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Philosophical Maxims
Joseph de Maistre
Joseph de Maistre
2 weeks 6 days ago
All grandeur, all power, all subordination...

All grandeur, all power, all subordination to authority rests on the executioner: he is the horror and the bond of human association. Remove this incomprehensible agent from the world and at that very moment order gives way to chaos, thrones topple and society disappears.

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"First Dialogue," p. 20
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 3 weeks ago
Democracy is the process by which...

Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who'll get the blame.

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Attributed to Russell in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists (2007), p. 346
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 months 5 days ago
Like a plague, the mad spirit...

Like a plague, the mad spirit is sweeping the country, infesting the clearest heads and staunchest hearts with the deathly germ of militarism.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 3 weeks ago
One may observe, that men of...

One may observe, that men of all persuasions confine the word persecution, and all the ill ideas of injustice and violence which belong to it, solely to those severities which are exercised upon themselves, or upon the party they are inclined to favour. Whatever is inflicted upon others, is a just punishment upon obstinate impiety, and not a restraint upon conscientious differences.

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Volume II, p. 146
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
5 months 2 weeks ago
Man is the only creature who...

Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 months 6 days ago
Most men have nothing in their...

Most men have nothing in their heads but their physical needs; put them on a desert island with nothing to occupy their minds and they would go insane. They lack real motive. The curse of civilization is boredom.

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Chapter Eight, The Outsider as a Visionary
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
3 months 3 weeks ago
Good music is very close to...

Good music is very close to primitive language.

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"Correspondence of Ideas with the Motion of Organs"
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months ago
He that I am reading seems...

He that I am reading seems always to have the most force.

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Book II, Ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 3 weeks ago
I have distinctly announced the grounds...

I have distinctly announced the grounds upon which I regard the Apostle John as the only teacher of true Christianity:-namely, that the Apostle Paul and his party, as the authors of the opposite system of Christianity, remained half Jews, and left unaltered the fundamental error of Judaism as well as of Heathenism, which we must afterwards notice. For the present the following may be enough: -It is only with John that the philosopher can deal, for he alone has respect for Reason, and appeals to that evidence which alone has weight with the philosopher-the internal. "If any man will do the will of him that sent me, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." But this Will of God, accord ing to John, is, that we should truly believe in God, and in Jesus Christ whom he hath sent. The other promulgators of Christianity, however, rely upon the external evidence of Miracle, which, to us at least, proves nothing.

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P. 96-97
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
4 months 3 weeks ago
The evident justice and utility of...

The evident justice and utility of the foregoing maxims have recommended them more or less to the attention of all nations.

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Chapter II, Part II, p. 894.
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
3 months 5 days ago
The revolutionary and critical thinker is...

The revolutionary and critical thinker is in a certain way always outside of his society while of course he is at the same time also in it. That he is in it is obvious, but why is he outside it? First, because he is not brainwashed by the ruling ideology, that is to say, he has an extraordinary kind of independence of thought and feeling; hence he can have a greater objectivity than the average person has. There are many emotional factors too. And certainly I do not mean to enter here into the complex problem of the revolutionary thinker. But it seems to me essential that in a certain sense he transcends his society. You may say he transcends it because of the new historical developments and possibilities he is aware of, while the majority still think in traditional terms.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
5 months 2 weeks ago
Every revolutionary ends as an oppressor...

Every revolutionary ends as an oppressor or a heretic.

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Philosophical Maxims
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
2 weeks 6 days ago
The ancients, persuaded that there is...

The ancients, persuaded that there is no body without a moving force, regarded the substance of bodies as composed of two primitive attributes. It was held that, through one of these attributes, this substance has the capacity for moving and, through the other, the capacity for being moved.

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Ch. V Concerning the Moving Force of Matter
Philosophical Maxims
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham
4 months 3 weeks ago
It is the principle of antipathy...

It is the principle of antipathy which leads us to speak of offences as deserving punishment. It is the corresponding principle of sympathy which leads us to speak of certain actions as meriting reward. This word merit can only lead to passion and error. It is effects good or bad which we ought alone to consider.

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MSS 29, 32, University College Collection
Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
3 months 2 weeks ago
The case of mere titles is...

The case of mere titles is so absurd that it would deserve to be treated only with ridicule were t not for the serious mischief they impose on mankind. The feudal system was a ferocious monster, devouring, where it came, all that the friend of humanity regards with attachment and love. The system of titles appears under a different form. The monster is at length destroyed, and they who followed in his train, and fattened upon the carcasses of those he slew, have stuffed his skin, and, b exhibiting it, hope still to terrify mankind into patient and pusillanimity.

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Book V, Chapter 13
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
1 month 2 weeks ago
If you look at the sociology...

If you look at the sociology of populism in the United States, it is tied most closely to population density, which... is correlated... to these types of cultural differences... to belief... in traditional cultural values, in family, in religion and the like, and conversely to... belief in immigration and diversity as strengths... This is the fundamental division that's taken hold of the United States. It has been augmented by technology because the internet has succeeded in... destroying every other source of authority that used to filter news and facts and information that... formed the basis of a democratic ability to have political discourse.

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25:32
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
2 months 2 weeks ago
Even sticking to the higher plane...

Even sticking to the higher plane of love, is it so very obvious that you can't love more than one person? We seem to manage it with parental love (parents are reproached if they don't at least pretend to love all their children equally), love of books, of food, of wine (love of Chateau Margaux does not preclude love of a fine Hock, and we don't feel unfaithful to the red when we dally with the white), love of composers, poets, holiday beaches, friends . . . why is erotic love the one exception that everybody instantly acknowledges without even thinking about it?

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Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster, November 2007.
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 3 weeks ago
It is the same: a chosen...

It is the same: a chosen one is a man whom God's finger crushes against the wall.

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Act 2, sc. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 2 weeks ago
In the learned professions as in...

In the learned professions as in the unlearned, and in human things throughout, in every place and in every time, the true function of intellect is not that of talking, but of understanding and discerning with a view to performing!

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Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
3 months 5 days ago
The martyr sacrifices herself (himself in...

The martyr sacrifices herself (himself in a few instances) entirely in vain. Or rather not in vain; for she (or he) makes the selfish more selfish, the lazy more lazy, the narrow narrower.

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As quoted in Forever Yours (1990) by Martha Vicinus and Bea Nergaard , p. 275. Letter, c. 1867, to the scholar Benjamin Jowett.
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 1 week ago
It is not the man…

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

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Line 6.
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 2 weeks ago
Any loss of identity prompts people...

Any loss of identity prompts people to seek reassurance and rediscovery of themselves by testing, and even by violence. Today, the electric revolution, the wired planet, and the information environment involve everybody in everybody to the point of individual extinction.

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Letter to Clare Westcott, November 26 1975. Letters of Marshall McLuhan, p. 514
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 3 weeks ago
He the devil always sends errors...

He the devil always sends errors into the world in pairs-pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But do not let us be fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight through between both errors. We have no other concern than that with either of them.

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Book IV, chapter 6, "Two Notes"
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 months 6 days ago
It seemed perfectly possible that, in...

It seemed perfectly possible that, in spite of my certainty of my own genius, I might die of some illness, or perhaps even in a street accident, before I had ever glimpsed the meaning of life. My moods of happiness and self-confidence convinced me that I had a "destiny" to become a famous writer, and to be remembered as one of the most important thinkers of the century.

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p. 67
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
I love talking to simple people,...

I love talking to simple people, with common folk, if you like, and I still do it and still chat now as before with anyone, regardless of intellectual level. On the contrary, I like uneducated people much better and that is obviously my Rumanian heritage.

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Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
3 months 1 week ago
The complexity of the connection between...

The complexity of the connection between the world of perception and the world of physics does not preclude that such a connection can be shown to exist at any time.

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p. 133.
Philosophical Maxims
Will Durant
Will Durant
1 month 1 week ago
Most of our literature and social...

Most of our literature and social philosophy after 1850 was the voice of freedom against authority, of the child against the parent, of the pupil against the teacher. Through many years I shared in that individualistic revolt. I do not regret it; it is the function of youth to defend liberty and innovation, of the old to defend order and tradition, and of middle age to find a middle way. But now that I too am old, I wonder whether the battle I fought was not too completely won. Let us say humbly but publicly that we resent corruption in politics, dishonesty in business, faithlessness in marriage, pornography in literature, coarseness in language, chaos in music, meaninglessness in art.

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"The Second Sexual Revolution", Time magazine,
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
4 months 3 weeks ago
When the happiness or misery of...

When the happiness or misery of others depends in any respect upon our conduct, we dare not, as self-love might suggest to us, prefer the interest of one to that of many. The man within immediately calls to us, that we value ourselves too much and other people too little, and that, by doing so, we render ourselves the proper object of the contempt and indignation of our brethren. Neither is this sentiment confined to men of extraordinary magnanimity and virtue. It is deeply impressed upon every tolerably good soldier, who feels that he would become the scorn of his companions, if he could be supposed capable of shrinking from danger, or of hesitating, either to expose or to throw away his life, when the good of the service required it.

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Chap. III.
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 3 weeks ago
"A pleasure is full grown only...

"A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered. You are speaking, Hmān, as if the pleasure were one thing and the memory another. It is all one thing. The séroni could say it better than I say it now. Not better than I could say it in a poem. What you call remembering is the last part of the pleasure, as the crah is the last part of a poem. When you and I met, the meeting was over very shortly, it was nothing. Now it is growing something as we remember it. But still we know very little about it. What it will be when I remember it as I lie down to die, what it makes in me all my days till then-that is the real meeting. The other is only the beginning of it."

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Hyoi, p. 73
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
4 months 2 weeks ago
In order to remain silent Da-sein...

In order to remain silent Da-sein must have something to say.

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Stambaugh translation
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
3 months 4 weeks ago
It is proof of a base...

It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.

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Included as a quotation in The Great Quotations (1977) by George Seldes, p. 35
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 weeks 6 days ago
If a man is mistaken, instruct...

If a man is mistaken, instruct him kindly and show him his error. But if thou art not able, blame thyself, or blame not even thyself.

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X, 4
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 months 6 days ago
In fact, we had a number...

In fact, we had a number of extreme leftists and trade unionists among us, and they seemed to take it for granted that we all agreed that the rich must somehow be forced to surrender their ill-gotten gains. Yet there was an air of good humor about their idealism that made me feel they would not be too offended if I admitted that I regard socialists as well-meaning but muddle-headed brigands.

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p. 30
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 weeks 6 days ago
Remember this- that there is a...

Remember this- that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.

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IV, 32
Philosophical Maxims
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
4 months 2 weeks ago
The interpretation of a case is...

The interpretation of a case is corroborated only by the successful continuation of a self-formative process, that is by the completion of self-reflection, and not in any unmistakable way by what the patient says or how he behaves.

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p. 266
Philosophical Maxims
Georges Sorel
Georges Sorel
1 month 3 days ago
In ignoring the important fundamental contribution...

In ignoring the important fundamental contribution of the followers of Marx, and by insisting exclusively on the phenomenon of superficial adaptation and variation, Sorel passed in silence over all that was healthy, live and fruitful in the Marxist doctrine.

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Lucien Laurat, Marxism and Democracy, 1940, published by the Left Book Club, Victor Gollancz Ltd, London; translated by Edward Fitzgerald. Text online at the Marxists Internet Archive.
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 3 weeks ago
There are things....
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