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Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
1 day ago
Human nature asserts itself regardless of...

Human nature asserts itself regardless of all laws, nor is there any plausible reason why nature should adapt itself to a perverted conception of morality.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
1 month 2 weeks ago
Children should not be suffer'd to...

Children should not be suffer'd to lose the consideration of human nature in the shufflings of outward conditions. The more they have, the better humor'd they should be taught to be, and the more compassionate and gentle to those of their brethren who are placed lower, and have scantier portions. If they are suffer'd from their cradles to treat men ill and rudely, because, by their father's title, they think they have a little power over them, at best it is ill-bred; and if care be not taken, will by degrees nurse up their natural pride into an habitual contempt of those beneath them. And where will that probably end but in oppression and cruelty?

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Sec. 117
Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
2 months 1 week ago
Fortitude, the virtue which enables us...

Fortitude, the virtue which enables us to endure pain, and to banish fear, is of great use in producing tranquility. Philosophy instructs us to pay homage to the gods, not through hope or fear, but from veneration of their superior nature. It moreover enables us to conquer the fear of death, by teaching us that it is no proper object of terror; since, whilst we are, death is not, and when death arrives, we are not: so that it neither concerns the living nor the dead.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
1 month 3 weeks ago
...it is the peculiar and perpetual...

...it is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives...

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Aphorism 46
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
2 months 3 weeks ago
We obtain the concept, as we...
We obtain the concept, as we do the form, by overlooking what is individual and actual; whereas nature is acquainted with no forms and no concepts, and likewise with no species, but only with an X which remains inaccessible and undefinable for us.
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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
4 days ago
Art is the symbol of the...

Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.

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The Pre-War Notebook (1933-1939), published in First and Last Notebooks (1970) edited by Richard Rees
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
1 month 2 weeks ago
An act has no ethical quality...

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

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Ch. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
2 months 2 weeks ago
The roots of education ... are...

The roots of education ... are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
1 month 3 weeks ago
There is no conversation more boring...

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
1 month 3 weeks ago
We must remove the Decalogue out...

We must remove the Decalogue out of sight and heart.

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Wilhelm Martin Leberecht De Wette, 4, 188. As cited by Jonathan Ramachandran (January 1, 2019), Lake of Fire - Hope for the Wicked One Day? - Essays in First Christianity, 5 Loaf 2 Fish Publications, p. 1264.
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
1 month 3 weeks ago
Amongst so many borrowed things, I...

Amongst so many borrowed things, I am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service.

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Book III, Ch. 12. Of Physiognomy
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
1 week 4 days ago
We have reached the point where...

We have reached the point where the Objective Logic turns into the Subjective Logic, or, where subjectivity emerges as the true form of objectivity. We may sum up Hegel's analysis in the following schema: The true form of reality requires freedom. Freedom requires self-consciousness and knowledge of the truth. Self-consciousness and knowledge of the truth are the essentials of the subject. The form of reality must be conceived as subject.

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P. 154-155
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
2 months 2 weeks ago
If one thing goes without saying,...

If one thing goes without saying, almost anything can.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 week 4 days ago
The sun will be darkened, and...

The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory... I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.

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24:29-34 (NIV)
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
2 weeks 1 day ago
What can a man say about...

What can a man say about woman, his own opposite? I mean of course something sensible, that is outside the sexual program, free of resentment, illusion, and theory. Where is the man to be found capable of such superiority? Woman always stands just where the man's shadow falls, so that he is only too liable to confuse the two. Then, when he tries to repair this misunderstanding, he overvalues her and believes her the most desirable thing in the world.

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P. 236
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
1 month 1 week ago
That is what is meant, I...

That is what is meant, I think by the allegation that it is good simply to be alive, even if one is undergoing terrible experiences. The situation is roughly this: There are elements which, if added to one's experience, make life better; there are other elements which, if added to one's experience, make life worse. But what remains when these are set aside is not merely neutral: it is emphatically positive. Therefore life is worth living even when the bad elements of experience are plentiful, and the good ones too meager to outweigh the bad ones on their own. The additional positive weight is supplied by experience itself, rather than by any of its contents.

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"Death", p. 2. This passage not present in the 1970 version (Nous, IV, no. 1), but present in the 1979 version.
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
1 month 2 weeks ago
It is because we are predominantly...

It is because we are predominantly purposeful beings that we are perpetually correcting our immediate sensations. But men are free not to be utilitarianly purposeful. They can sometime be artists, for example. In which case they may like to accept the immediate sensation uncorrected, because it happens to be beautiful.

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"One and Many," p. 11
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
2 weeks 4 days ago
No nation which has sunk into...

No nation which has sunk into this state of dependence can raise itself out of it by the means which have usually been adopted hitherto. Since resistance was useless to it when it was still in possession of all its powers, what can such resistance avail now that it has been deprived of the greater part of them?

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Introduction p. 9-10
Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
2 weeks 2 days ago
Government was intended to suppress injustice,...

Government was intended to suppress injustice, but it offers new occasions and temptations for the commission of it.

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"Summary of Principles" 2.4
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
3 days ago
We do not require elaborate training...

We do not require elaborate training merely in order to refrain from embarking upon intricate trains of inference. Such abstinence is only too easy.

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Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect (1927).
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 month ago
In anger…

In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.

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As quoted in Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, "Pythagoras", Sect. 23-24, as translated in Dictionary of Quotations (1906) by Thomas Benfield Harbottle, p. 370
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 2 weeks ago
I exist, that is all, and...

I exist, that is all, and I find it nauseating.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
1 month 1 week ago
The bourgeois public sphere may be...

The bourgeois public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of private people come together as a public; they soon claimed the public sphere regulated from above against the public authorities themselves, to engage them in a debate over the general rules governing relations in the basically privatized but publicly relevant sphere of commodity exchange and social labor.

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p. 27
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
1 month 3 weeks ago
A spurious axiom of the first...

A spurious axiom of the first class is: Whatever is, is somewhere and sometime.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 weeks 2 days ago
The power of the periodical press...

The power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people.

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Chapter XI.
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
2 weeks 4 days ago
The Republican form of government is...

The Republican form of government is the highest form of government; but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature - a type nowhere at present existing.

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Vol. 3, Ch. XV, The Americans
Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
1 month 3 weeks ago
I pass, at length, to the...

I pass, at length, to the third and perfectly absolute dominion, which we call democracy.

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Ch. 11, Of Democracy
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
1 month 3 weeks ago
Hatred, as well as love, renders...

Hatred, as well as love, renders its votaries credulous.

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V
Philosophical Maxims
G. E. Moore
G. E. Moore
2 weeks ago
I can prove now, for instance,...

I can prove now, for instance, that two human hands exist. How? By holding up my two hands, and saying, as I make a certain gesture with the right hand, "Here is one hand," and adding, as I make a certain gesture with the left, "and here is another." And if, by doing this, I have proved ipso facto the existence of external things, you will all see that I can also do it now in numbers of other ways: there is no need to multiply examples.

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"Proof of an External World," Proceedings of the British Academy 25 (1939).
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 2 weeks ago
Write it on your heart that...

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

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Works and Days
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
2 weeks 4 days ago
By means of the new education...

By means of the new education we want to mould the Germans into a corporate body, which shall be stimulated and animated in all its individual members by the same interest.

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Introduction p. 15
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks 6 days ago
I believe that...
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Main Content / General
Plutarch
Plutarch
1 month 6 days ago
When Demaratus was asked whether he...

When Demaratus was asked whether he held his tongue because he was a fool or for want of words, he replied, "A fool cannot hold his tongue."

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Of Demaratus
Philosophical Maxims
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
1 week 2 days ago
Socrates reminds us that it is...

Socrates reminds us that it is not the same thing, but almost the opposite, to understand religion and to accept it.

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p. 45
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
1 month 3 weeks ago
The sneaking arts of underling tradesmen...

The sneaking arts of underling tradesmen are thus erected into political maxims for the conduct of a great empire; for it is the most underling tradesmen only who make it a rule to employ chiefly their own customers. A great trader purchases his good always where they are cheapest and best, without regard to any little interest of this kind.

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Chapter III, Part II, p. 530.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 weeks ago
If just once you were depressed...

If just once you were depressed for no reason, you have been so all your life without knowing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 weeks 5 days ago
…the prince says…

. ... the prince says that the world will be saved by beauty! And I maintain that the reason he has such playful ideas is that he is in love.

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Part 3, Chapter 5
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
2 months 1 week ago
If the Superior Man is...

If the Superior Man is not serious, then he will not inspire awe in others. If he is not learned, then he will not be on firm ground. He takes loyalty and good faith to be of primary importance, and has no friends who are not of equal (moral) caliber. When he makes a mistake, he doesn't hesitate to correct it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5
2 weeks 6 days ago
The Nonprofit Industrial Complex

Nonprofits let capitalism off the hook. Instead of demanding systemic change, we fund charities to address symptoms. Corporations donate money they should have paid in taxes, get public relations benefits, and maintain the status quo. Charity becomes a pressure valve that prevents revolution.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
1 month 2 weeks ago
I frequently asked myself, if I...

I frequently asked myself, if I could, or if I was bound to go on living, when life must be passed in this manner. I generally answered to myself, that I did not think I could possibly bear it beyond a year.

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(p. 140)
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 day 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
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
1 month 3 weeks ago
There as here, passions are the...

There as here, passions are the motive of all action, but they are livelier, more ardent, or merely simpler and purer, thereby assuming a totally different character. All the first movements of nature are good and right.

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First Dialogue; translated by Judith R. Bush, Christopher Kelly, Roger D. Masters
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
2 months 4 days ago
Love all men, even your enemies;...

Love all men, even your enemies; love them, not because they are your brothers, but that they may become your brothers. Thus you will ever burn with fraternal love, both for him who is already your brother and for your enemy, that he may by loving become your brother. Even he that does not as yet believe in Christ, love him, and love him with fraternal love. He is not yet thy brother, but love him precisely that he may be thy brother.

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p.436
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
1 month 2 weeks ago
Truth lives, in fact, for the...

Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs 'pass,' so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.

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Lecture VI, Pragmatism's Conception of Truth
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
1 day ago
Haikus allow the whole world to...

Haikus allow the whole world to appear within things.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
2 months 3 weeks ago
We produce these representations in and...
We produce these representations in and from ourselves with the same necessity with which the spider spins. If we are forced to comprehend all things only under these forms, then it ceases to be amazing that in all things we actually comprehend nothing but these forms. For they must all bear within themselves the laws of number, and it is precisely number which is most astonishing in things. All that conformity to law, which impresses us so much in the movement of the stars and in chemical processes, coincides at bottom with those properties which we bring to things. Thus it is we who impress ourselves in this way
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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 weeks 5 days ago
It was not only that I...

It was not only that I could not become spiteful, I did not know how to become anything; neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. Now, I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot become anything seriously, and it is only the fool who becomes anything.

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Part 1, Chapter 1
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 2 weeks ago
In order to make himself thoroughly...

In order to make himself thoroughly undesirable, he will speak.

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p. 463
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
1 month 3 weeks ago
Suicide evokes revulsion with horror, because...

Suicide evokes revulsion with horror, because everything in nature seeks to preserve itself: a damaged tree, a living body, an animal; and in man, then, is freedom, which is the highest degree of life, and constitutes the worth of it, to become now a principium for self-destruction? This is the most horrifying thing imaginable. For anyone who has already got so far as to be master, at any time, over his own life, is also master over the life of anyone else; for him, the door stands open to every crime, and before he can be seized he is ready to spirit himself away out of the world. So suicide evokes horror, in that a man thereby puts himself below the beasts. We regard a suicide as a carcase, whereas we feel pity for one who meets his end through fate.

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Part II, p. 146
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
1 month 2 weeks ago
His reputation will go…

His reputation will go on increasing because scarcely anyone reads him.

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"Dante", 1765
Philosophical Maxims
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