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John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 2 weeks ago
A bureaucracy always tends to become...

A bureaucracy always tends to become a pedantocracy.

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Ch. VI: Of the Infirmities and Dangers to Which Representative Government Is Liable (p. 234)
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
2 months 2 weeks ago
To hold a pen…

To hold a pen is to be at war.

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Letter to Jeanne-Grâce Bosc du Bouchet, comtesse d'Argental (4 October 1748)
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 2 weeks ago
Every poet has trembled on the...

Every poet has trembled on the verge of science.

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July 18, 1852
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 week 5 days ago
The bible belt is oral territory...

The bible belt is oral territory and therefore despised by the literati.

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The Critic, Volume 33, Thomas More Association, 1974, p. 12
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 1 week ago
Everything is nothing, including the consciousness...

Everything is nothing, including the consciousness of nothing.

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
3 months ago
Therefore let every Christian, yea, let...

Therefore let every Christian, yea, let the whole body of Christ everywhere cry out, despite the tribulations it endures, despite temptations and countless scandals, saying: "Preserve my soul, for I am holy; save Thy servant, O my God, that trusteth in thee" (Ps. 85:2) No, this holy one is not proud, for he trusts in God.

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p.429
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 1 week ago
I was assailed by memories of...

I was assailed by memories of a life that wasn't mine anymore, but one in which I'd found the simplest and most lasting joys.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ptahhotep
Ptahhotep
2 months 5 days ago
Be a craftsman in speech that...

Be a craftsman in speech that thou mayest be strong, for the strength of one is the tongue, and speech is mightier than all fighting.

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Translated by J. H. Breasted, The Dawn of Conscience (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933) p. 131
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
1 month 1 week ago
The world must be romanticized. In...

The world must be romanticized. In this way the originary meaning may be found again.

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As quoted in The Experience of the Foreign : Culture and Translation in Romantic Germany (1992) by Antoine Berman Variant translation: Romanticize the world.
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
2 months 2 days ago
Being summoned by the Athenians out...

Being summoned by the Athenians out of Sicily to plead for his life, Alcibiades absconded, saying that that criminal was a fool who studied a defence when he might fly for it.

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51 Alcibiades
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 1 week ago
Man has to awaken to wonder...

Man has to awaken to wonder - and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.

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p. 5e
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 1 week ago
We reduce things to mere Nature...

We reduce things to mere Nature in order that we may 'conquer' them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
2 months 3 weeks ago
To which we may add this...

To which we may add this other Aristotelian consideration, that he who confers a benefit on any one loves him better than he is beloved by him again.

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Book II, Ch. 8. Of the Affections of Fathers
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
2 months 2 weeks ago
Let us read, and let us...

Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 months 2 weeks ago
Opinion is like a pendulum and...

Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the centre of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest.

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Vol. 2 "Further Psychological Observations" as translated in Essays and Aphorisms (1970), as translated by R. J. Hollingdale
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 month 3 weeks ago
It is requisite to choose the...

It is requisite to choose the most excellent life; for custom will make it pleasant. Wealth is an infirm anchor, glory is still more infirm; and in a similar manner, the body, dominion, and honour. For all these are imbecile and powerless. What then are powerful anchors. Prudence, magnanimity, fortitude. These no tempest can shake. This is the Law of God, that virtue is the only thing that is strong; and that every thing else is a trifle.

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Pythagorean Ethical Sentences From Stobæus
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
2 months 2 days ago
Lysander, when Dionysius sent him two...

Lysander, when Dionysius sent him two gowns, and bade him choose which he would carry to his daughter, said, "She can choose best," and so took both away with him.

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Of Lysander
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 month 1 week ago
Experience has repeatedly confirmed that well-known...

Experience has repeatedly confirmed that well-known maxim of Bacon's that "a little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion." At the same time, when Bacon penned that sage epigram... he forgot to add that the God to whom depth in philosophy brings back men's minds is far from being the same from whom a little philosophy estranges them.

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Ch. I
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 1 week ago
I want to have her back...

I want to have her back as an ingredient in the restoration of my past. Could I have wished her anything worse? Having got once through death, to come back and then, at some later date, have all her dying to do all over again? They call Stephen the first martyr. Hadn't Lazarus the rawer deal?

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Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
3 months 4 days ago
The silent treasuring up of...

The silent treasuring up of knowledge; learning without satiety; and instructing others without being wearied: which one of these things belongs to me? To keep silently in mind what one has seen and heard, to study hard and never feel contented, to teach others tirelessly; have I done (all of) these things?

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Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
1 month 1 week ago
The same energy of character which...

The same energy of character which renders a man a daring villain would have rendered him useful to society, had that society been well organized.

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Letter 19
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Schlegel
Friedrich Schlegel
1 month 2 weeks ago
To disrespec the masses…

To disrespect the masses is moral; to honor them, lawful.

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Lucinde and the Fragments, P. Firchow, trans. (1991), "Athenaeum Fragments" § 211
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Buber
Martin Buber
1 month 5 days ago
It is the highest service to...

It is the highest service to submit the evil impulse to God through the power of love.

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p. 45
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
1 month 2 weeks ago
The "I" who speaks in this...

The "I" who speaks in this book is by no means the author. Rather, the author wishes that the reader may come to see himself in this "I": that the reader may not simply relate to what is said here as he would to history, but rather that while reading he will actually converse with himself, deliberate back and forth, deduce conclusions, make decisions like his representative in the book, and through his own work and reflection, purely out of his own resources, develop and build within himself the philosophical disposition that is presented to him in this book merely as a picture.

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P. Preuss, trans. (1987), p. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 week 5 days ago
Technologies themselves, regardless of content, produce...

Technologies themselves, regardless of content, produce a hemispheric bias in the users.

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p. 71
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 2 weeks ago
Whenever our neighbour's house is on...

Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 2 weeks ago
It was the case of common...

It was the case of common soldiers deserting from their officers, to join a furious, licentious populace. It was a desertion to a cause, the real object of which was to level all those institutions, and to break all those connexions, natural and civil, that regulate and hold together the community by a chain of subordination; to raise soldiers against their officers; servants against their masters; tradesmen against their customers; artificers against their employers; tenants against their landlords; curates against their bishops; and children against their parents. That this cause of theirs was not an enemy to servitude, but to society.

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Speech in the House of Commons (9 February 1790), quoted in The Parliamentary History of England, From the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, Vol. XXVIII (1816), column 359
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
1 month 5 days ago
We cannot avoid conflict, conflict with...

We cannot avoid conflict, conflict with society, other individuals and with oneself. Conflicts may be the sources of defeat, lost life and a limitation of our potentiality but they may also lead to greater depth of living and the birth of more far-reaching unities, which flourish in the tensions that engender them.

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As quoted in Turning Conflict Into Profit : A Roadmap for Resolving Personal and Organizational Disputes (2005) by Larry Axelrod and Rowland Johnson
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 month 1 day ago
An eternal purgatory, then, rather than...

An eternal purgatory, then, rather than a heaven of glory; an eternal ascent. If there is an end to all suffering, however pure and spiritualized we may suppose it to be, if there is an end to all desire, what is it that makes the blessed in paradise go on living? If in paradise they do not suffer for want of God, how shall they love Him? And if there, in the heaven of glory, while they behold God little by little and closer and closer, yet without ever wholly attaining Him, there does not always remain something more for them to know and desire, if there does not always remain a substratum of doubt, how shall they not fall asleep?

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 1 week ago
Bold ideas, unjustified anticipations, and speculative...

Bold ideas, unjustified anticipations, and speculative thought, are our only means for interpreting nature: our only organon, our only instrument, for grasping her. And we must hazard them to win our prize. Those among us who are unwilling to expose their ideas to the hazard of refutation do not take part in the scientific game.

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Ch. 10 "Corroboration, or How a Theory Stands up to Tests", section 85: The Path of Science, p. 280.
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
2 months 4 weeks ago
O pitiable minds of men...

O pitiable minds of men, O blind intelligences! In what gloom of life, in how great perils is passed all your poor span of time! not to see that all nature barks for is this, that pain be removed away out of the body, and that the mind, kept away from care and fear, enjoy a feeling of delight!

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Book II, lines 14-19 (tr. Rouse)
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
2 months 3 weeks ago
Anyone who actually admires money as...

Anyone who actually admires money as the most precious thing in life, and rests his security on it to the extent of believing that as long as he possesses it he will be happy, has fashioned too many false gods for himself. Too many people put money in the place of Christ, as if it alone has the key to their happiness or unhappiness.

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p. 100
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 months 2 weeks ago
By means of ever more effective...

By means of ever more effective methods of mind-manip­ulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms- elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest-will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitari­anism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slo­gans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial-but democracy and free­dom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of sol­diers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit.

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Chapter 3, p. 25
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
2 months 2 weeks ago
Use, do not abuse…

Use, do not abuse; as the wise man commands. I flee Epictetus and Petronius alike. Neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.

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"Cinquième discours: sur la nature de plaisir," Sept Discours en Vers sur l'Homme, 1738
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 2 weeks ago
It is strange that men will...

It is strange that men will talk of miracles, revelations, inspiration, and the like, as things past, while love remains.

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Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 163
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
1 month 1 week ago
From whence it follows, that were...

From whence it follows, that were the publique and private interest are most closely united, there is the publique most advanced.

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The Second Part, Chapter 19, p. 97
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
2 months 2 weeks ago
Necessity may be defined in two...

Necessity may be defined in two ways, conformably to the two definitions of cause, of which it makes an essential part. It consists either in the constant conjunction of like objects, or in the inference of the understating from one object to another.

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§ 8.27
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
2 months 2 days ago
The mind is not a vessel...

The mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.

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On Listening to Lectures (Tr. Waterfield)
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 2 weeks ago
Passing from quantity to quality of...

Passing from quantity to quality of population, we come to the question of eugenics. We may perhaps assume that, if people grow less superstitious, government will acquire the right to sterilize those who are not considered desirable as parents. This power will be used, at first, to diminish imbecility, a most desirable object. But probably, in time, opposition to the government will be taken to prove imbecility, so that rebels of all kinds will be sterilized. Epileptics, consumptives, dipsomaniacs and so on will gradually be included; in the end, there will be a tendency to include all who fail to pass the usual school examinations. The result will be to increase the average intelligence; in the long run, it may be greatly increased. But probably the effect upon really exceptional intelligence will be bad. Mr. Micawber, who was Dickens's father, would hardly have been regarded as a desirable parent. How many imbeciles ought to outweigh one Dickens I do not profess to know.

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Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 week 3 days ago
The successful scientist and the raving...

The successful scientist and the raving crank are separated by the quality of their inspirations. But I suspect that this amounts, in practice, to a difference, not so much in ability to notice analogies as in ability to reject foolish analogies and pursue helpful ones.

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Chapter 8 "Explosions and Spirals" (pp. 195-196)
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
2 months 2 weeks ago
Look round the world: contemplate the...

Look round the world: contemplate the whole and every part of it: You will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions, to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy, which ravishes into admiration all men, who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance; of human design, thought, wisdom, and intelligence.

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Philo to Cleanthes, Part II
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
Just now
From the point of view of...

From the point of view of the moralist the animal world is on about the same level as a gladiator's show. The creatures are fairly well treated, and set to fight-whereby the strongest, the swiftest and the cunningest live to fight another day. The spectator has no need to turn his thumbs down, as no quarter is given.

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(February 1888) "The Struggle for Existence: A Programme". The Nineteenth Century 23: 161-180. (quote from p. 163)
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 weeks 6 days ago
Jung believed that he was proceeding...

Jung believed that he was proceeding scientifically, but most Freudians remain convinced that he was inventing his own underground realm, rather as Tolkien invented Middle Earth. There is at least an element of truth in this view.

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p. 126
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
3 weeks 2 days ago
The world you perceive is drastically...

The world you perceive is drastically simplified model of the real world.

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p. xxvi.
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
Just now
From fanaticism to barbarism...
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Main Content / General
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 2 weeks ago
Freedom of opinion can only exist...

Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure...

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A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42 (1996), p. 443
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 1 week ago
Science fiction may be defined as...

Science fiction may be defined as that branch of literature which deals with the response of human beings to advances in science and technology. Actual change in science and technology, occurring quickly enough and striking deeply enough to affect a human being in the course of his normal lifetime, is a phenomenon peculiar to the world only since the Industrial Revolution ... The first well-known writer who responded to this new factor in human affairs by dealing regularly with science fiction, by studying the effect of additional scientific advance upon mankind ... was Jules Verne. In the English language, the early master was H. G. Wells. Between them, they laid the foundation for every theme upon which science fiction writers have been ringing variations ever since.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 1 week ago
I do not believe in what...

I do not believe in what is often called... 'exact terminology'... [or] in definitions... [they] do not... add to exactness... I especially dislike pretentious terminology and... pseudo-exactness concerned with it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 weeks 6 days ago
Our institutions and conditions rest upon...

Our institutions and conditions rest upon deep-seated ideas. To change those conditions and at the same time leave the underlying ideas and values intact means only a superficial transformation, one that cannot be permanent or bring real betterment. It is a change of form only, not of substance, as so tragically proven by Russia.

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Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 month 1 week ago
To call war the soil of...

To call war the soil of courage and virtue is like calling debauchery the soil of love.

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Ch. III: Industry, Government, the peasants
Philosophical Maxims
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