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John Locke
John Locke
5 months 3 weeks ago
He that thinks diversion may not...

He that thinks diversion may not lie in hard and painful labour, forgets the early rising, hard riding, heat, cold and hunger of huntsmen, which is yet known to be the constant recreation of men of the greatest condition.

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Sec. 206
Philosophical Maxims
Ernest Renan
Ernest Renan
2 months 2 weeks ago
A Muslim who knows French will...

A Muslim who knows French will never be a dangerous Muslim.

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quoted in Arvidsson, Stefan (2006), Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science, translated by Sonia Wichmann, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.'(107)
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
5 months 3 weeks ago
He begins to think for himself...

He begins to think for himself and meets Nineteenth-century Rationalism Which can explain away religion by any number of methods.

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Pilgrim's Regress 19-20
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
5 months 3 weeks ago
The perception of beauty is a...

The perception of beauty is a moral test.

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June 21, 1852
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
6 months 3 weeks ago
I wouldn't give an astrologer the...

I wouldn't give an astrologer the time of day.

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Philosophical Maxims
Montesquieu
Montesquieu
4 months 1 week ago
You have to study a great...

You have to study a great deal to know a little.

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I
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
5 months 1 week ago
When he was wounded with an...

When he was wounded with an arrow in the ankle, and many ran to him that were wont to call him a god, he said smiling, "That is blood, as you see, and not, as Homer saith, 'such humour as distils from blessed gods.'"

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43 Alexander
Philosophical Maxims
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee
3 months 6 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
William Godwin
William Godwin
4 months 3 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
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
4 months 1 week ago
The ultimate metaphysical principle is the...

The ultimate metaphysical principle is the advance from disjunction to conjunction, creating a novel entity other than the entities given in disjunction.

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Pt. I, ch. 2, sec. 2.
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
5 months 3 weeks ago
One is still what one is...

One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one's death, one dies one's life.

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Book 2, "The Melodious Child Dead in Me"
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
5 months 3 weeks ago
In regard to man's final end,...

In regard to man's final end, all the higher religions are in complete agreement. The purpose of human life is the discovery of Truth, the unitive knowledge of the Godhead. The degree to which this unitive knowledge is achieved here on earth determines the degree to which it will be enjoyed in the posthumous state. Contemplation of truth is the end, action the means.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
5 months 3 weeks ago
Pray go back and recollect one...

Pray go back and recollect one of the conclusions to which I sought to lead you in my very first lecture. You may remember how I there argued against the notion that the worth of a thing can be decided by its origin. Our spiritual judgment, I said, our opinion of the significance and value of a human event or condition, must be decided on empirical grounds exclusively. If the fruits for life of the state of conversion are good, we ought to idealize and venerate it, even though it be a piece of natural psychology; if not, we ought to make short work of it, no matter what supernatural being may have infused it.

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Lecture IX, "Conversion, concluded"
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 2 weeks ago
Whoso belongs only to his own...

Whoso belongs only to his own age, and reverences only its gilt Popinjays or smoot-smeared Mumbojumbos, must needs die with it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
3 months 3 weeks ago
What froze me was the fact...

What froze me was the fact that I had absolutely no reason to move in any direction. What had made me move through so many dead and pointless years was curiosity. Now even that flickered out.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
5 months 3 weeks ago
People are often reproached because their...

People are often reproached because their desires are directed mainly to money and they are fonder of it than of anything else. Yet it is natural and even inevitable for them to love that which, as an untiring Proteus, is ready at any moment to convert itself into the particular object of our fickle desires and manifold needs. Thus every other blessing can satisfy only one desire and one need; for instance, food is good only to the hungry, wine only for the healthy, medicine for the sick, a fur coat for winter, women for youth, and so on. Consequently, all these are only ... relatively good. Money alone is the absolutely good thing because it meets not merely one need in concreto, but needs generally in abstracto.

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E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 347
Philosophical Maxims
Max Stirner
Max Stirner
2 months 1 week ago
Human or general needs can be...

Human or general needs can be satisfied through society; for satisfaction of unique needs you must do some seeking. A friend and a friendly service, or even an individual's service, society cannot procure you. And yet you will every moment be in need of such a service, and on the slightest occasions require somebody who is helpful to you. Therefore do not rely on society, but see to it that you have the wherewithal to - purchase the fulfilment of your wishes.

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Cambridge 1995, p. 243
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 3 weeks ago
A man might say, with enough...

A man might say, with enough truth to justify a joke: "Science is what we know, and philosophy is what we don't know." But it should be added that philosophical speculation as to what we do not yet know has shown itself a valuable preliminary to exact scientific knowledge.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
4 months 3 weeks ago
I would rather be a devil...

I would rather be a devil in alliance with truth, than an angel in alliance with falsehood.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
6 months 1 day ago
I think these things firearms were...

I think these things firearms were invented by Satan himself, for they can't be defended against with (ordinary) weapons and fists. All human strength vanishes when confronted with firearms. A man is dead before he sees what's coming.

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3552
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
2 months 4 days ago
We have learned to tolerate the...

We have learned to tolerate the facts of war: that men are killed en masse - some twenty million in the Second World War - that whole cities and their inhabitants are annihilated by the atomic bomb, that men are turned into living torches by incendiary bombs. We learn of these things from the radio or newspapers and we judge them according to whether they signify success for the group of peoples to which we belong, or for our enemies. When we do admit to ourselves that such acts are the results of inhuman conduct, our admission is accompanied by the thought that the very fact of war itself leaves us no option but to accept them. In resigning ourselves to our fate without a struggle, we are guilty of inhumanity.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
6 months 1 day ago
I shall not have it judged...

I shall not have it judged by any man, not even by any angel. For since I am certain of it, I shall be your judge and even the angels' judge through this teaching (as St. Paul says [1 Cor. 6:3]) so that whoever does not accept my teaching may not be saved - for it is God's teaching and not mine.

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Against the Spiritual Estate of the Pope and the Bishops Falsely So Called, July 1522. Luther's Works, Church and Ministry I, Eric W. Gritsch, Helmut T. Lehman eds., Concordia Publishing House, 1986, ISBN 0800603397, ISBN 9780800603397, vol. 39, p. 249.
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
6 months 1 day ago
The veneration of Mary is inscribed...

The veneration of Mary is inscribed in the very depths of the human heart.

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Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works (Translation by William J. Cole) 10, III, p. 313
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Hölderlin
Friedrich Hölderlin
4 months 3 weeks ago
It was not delight, not wonder...

It was not delight, not wonder that arose among us, it was the peace of heaven. A thousand times have I said it to her and to myself: the most beautiful is also the most sacred. And such was everything in her. Like her singing, even so was her life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
6 months 3 weeks ago
In cases of this sort, let...

In cases of this sort, let us say adultery, rightness and wrongness do not depend on committing it with the right woman at the right time and in the right manner, but the mere fact of committing such action at all is to do wrong.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 2 weeks ago
In the lowest broad strata of...

In the lowest broad strata of the population, equally as in the highest and narrowest, are produced men of every kind of genius; man for man, your chance of genius is as good among the millions as among the units;-and class for class, what must it be! From all classes, not from certain hundreds now but from several millions, whatsoever man the gods had gifted with intellect and nobleness, and power to help his country, could be chosen: O Heavens, could,-if not by Tenpound Constituencies and the force of beer, then by a Reforming Premier with eyes in his head, who I think might do it quite infinitely better. Infinitely better. For ignobleness cannot, by the nature of it, choose the noble: no, there needs a seeing man who is himself noble, cognizant by internal experience of the symptoms of nobleness.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
4 months 1 week ago
The art of progress is to...

The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 3 weeks ago
The measure of a master is...

The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men round to his opinion twenty years later.

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Culture
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
5 months 3 weeks ago
We speak not strictly and philosophically...

We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.

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Part 3, Section 3
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 2 weeks ago
He who has never envied the...

He who has never envied the vegetable has missed the human drama. 

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p. 178, first American edition
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
6 months 2 weeks ago
It is the failing of a...

It is the failing of a certain literature to believe that life is tragic because it is wretched. Life can be magnificent and overwhelming that is its whole tragedy. Without beauty, love, or danger it would be almost easy to live. And M. Sartre's hero does not perhaps give us the real meaning of his anguish when he insists on those aspects of man he finds repugnant, instead of basing his reasons for despair on certain of man's signs of greatness. The realization that life is absurd cannot be an end, but only a beginning. This is a truth nearly all great minds have taken as their starting point. It is not this discovery that is interesting, but the consequences and rules of action drawn from it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 3 weeks ago
The power of perpetuating our property...

The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends most to the perpetuation of society itself. It makes our weakness subservient to our virtue; it grafts benevolence even upon avarice. The possession of family wealth and of the distinction which attends hereditary possessions (as most concerned in it,) are the natural securities for this transmission.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
5 months 3 weeks ago
But, if it will help ease...

But, if it will help ease your irritated souls, please know, dearly departed, that you have ruined our lives.

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Aegistheus, Act 2
Philosophical Maxims
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei
2 months 2 weeks ago
If I shall have sufficient strength...

If I shall have sufficient strength to improve and amplify what was written and published by me up to now about motion by adding some little speculations, and in particular those relating to the force of percussion, in the investigation of which I have consumed hundreds and thousands of hours, and finally reduced this to very easy explanation, so that people can understand it in less than half an hour of time.

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Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
6 months 1 week ago
Honesty and trust are promoted, and...

Honesty and trust are promoted, and good neighborliness cultivated.

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Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
4 months 1 week ago
Traditional philosophy's claim to totality, culminating...

Traditional philosophy's claim to totality, culminating in the thesis that the real is rational, is indistinguishable from apologetics.

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p. 7
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
5 months 3 weeks ago
The point, as Marx saw it,...

The point, as Marx saw it, is that dreams never come true.

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"On Violence"
Philosophical Maxims
John Searle
John Searle
3 months 3 weeks ago
Our tools are extensions of our...

Our tools are extensions of our purposes, and so we find it natural to make metaphorical attributions of intentionality to them; but I take it no philosophical ice is cut by such examples.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 3 weeks ago
I greatly doubt whether the men...

I greatly doubt whether the men who become pirate chiefs are those who are filled with retrospective terror of their fathers, or whether Napoleon, at Austerlitz, really felt that he was getting even with Madame Mère. I know nothing of the mother of Attila, but I rather suspect that she spoilt the little darling, who subsequently found the world irritating because it sometimes resisted his whims.

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Ch. 2: Leaders and Followers
Philosophical Maxims
Judith Butler
Judith Butler
3 months 3 weeks ago
We must fight those who are...

We must fight those who are committed to destruction, without replicating their destructiveness. Understanding how to fight in this way is the task and the bind of a nonviolent ethics and politics.

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p. 64
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
4 months 2 weeks ago
The masses are our masters; and...

The masses are our masters; and for every one who looks facts in the face his existence has become dependent on them, so that the thought of them must control his doings, his cares, and his duties. Even an articulated mass always tends to become unspiritual and inhuman. It is life without existence, superstitions without faith. It may stamp all flat; it is disinclined to tolerate independence and greatness, but prone to constrain people to become as automatic as ants.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
5 months 3 weeks ago
You have not that power you...

You have not that power you ought to have over him, till he comes to be more afraid of offending so good a friend than of losing some part of his future expectation.

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Sec. 97
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
4 months 2 weeks ago
Even at the outset, the total...

Even at the outset, the total and massive quality has its uniqueness; even when vague and undefined, it is just that which it is and not anything else. If the perception continues, discrimination inevitably sets in. Attention must move, and as it moves, parts, members, emerge from the background. And if attention moves in a unified direction instead of wandering, it is controlled by the pervading qualitative unity; attention is controlled by it because it operates within it.

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p. 199
Philosophical Maxims
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
3 months 2 weeks ago
Take our politicians: they're a bunch...

Take our politicians: they're a bunch of yo-yos. The presidency is now a cross between a popularity contest and a high school debate, with an encyclopedia of cliches.

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As quoted in The Portable Curmudgeon (1987) by Jon Winokur, p. 219
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 1 week ago
All government....
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Main Content / General
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
3 months 6 days ago
One can never pay in gratitude;...

One can never pay in gratitude; one can only pay "in kind" somewhere else in life.

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North to the Orient (1935) Ch. 19
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
5 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
Aristotle
Aristotle
6 months 3 weeks ago
May not we then confidently pronounce...

May not we then confidently pronounce that man happy who realizes complete goodness in action, and is adequately furnished with external goods? Or should we add, that he must also be destined to go on living not for any casual period but throughout a complete lifetime in the same manner, and to die accordingly, because the future is hidden from us, and we conceive happiness as an end, something utterly and absolutely final and complete? If this is so, we shall pronounce those of the living who possess and are destined to go on possessing the good things we have specified to be supremely blessed, though on the human scale of bliss.

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
5 months 3 weeks ago
While loving glory…

While loving glory so much how can you persist in a plan which will cause you to lose it?

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Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great (New York: Brentano's, 1927), transl. Richard Aldington, letter 130 from Voltaire to Frederick II of Prussia, October 1757.
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
6 months 6 days ago
These five rules [above] form all...

These five rules [above] form all that is necessary to render proofs convincing, immutable, and to say all, geometrical; and the eight rules together render them even more perfect.

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Philosophical Maxims
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