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Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 3 weeks ago
The middle sort of historians (of...

The middle sort of historians (of which the most part are) spoil all; they will chew our meat for us.

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Book II, Ch. 10. Of Books
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
3 months 4 weeks ago
The successful revolutionary is a statesman,...

The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.

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Ch. 7
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
4 months 1 day ago
Philosophy, in one of its functions,...

Philosophy, in one of its functions, is the critic of cosmologies. It is its function to harmonise, refashion, and justify divergent intuitions as to the nature of things. It has to insist on the scrutiny of the ultimate ideas, and on the retention of the whole of the evidence in shaping our cosmological scheme. Its business is to render explicit, and - so far as may be - efficient, a process which otherwise is unconsciously performed without rational tests.

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Preface, pp. ix-x
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
5 months 1 week ago
The core of ethics runs deep...

The core of ethics runs deep in our species and is common to human beings everywhere. It survives the most appalling hardships and the most ruthless attempts to deprive human beings of their humanity. Nevertheless, some people resist the idea that his core has a biological basis which we have inherited from our pre-human ancestors.

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Chapter 2, The Biological Basis Of Ethics, p. 27
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 1 week ago
No solitary miscreant, scarcely any solitary...

No solitary miscreant, scarcely any solitary maniac, would venture on such actions and imaginations, as large communities of sane men have, in such circumstances, entertained as sound wisdom.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
5 months 2 weeks ago
A man's body and the needs...

A man's body and the needs of his body are now everywhere treated with a tender indulgence. Is the thinking mind then, to be the only thing that is never to obtain the slightest measure of consideration or protection, to say nothing of respect?

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"On Noise"
Philosophical Maxims
Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Berdyaev
4 months 2 days ago
There is absolute truth in anarchism...

There is absolute truth in anarchism and it is to be seen in its attitude to the sovereignty of the state and to every form of state absolutism. ... The religious truth of anarchism consists in this, that power over man is bound up with sin and evil, that a state of perfection is a state where there is no power of man over man, that is to say, anarchy. The Kingdom of God is freedom and the absence of such power... the Kingdom of God is anarchy.

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Slavery and Freedom (1939), p. 147
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 months 4 weeks ago
The progress of human knowledge depends...

The progress of human knowledge depends on maintaining that touch of scepticism even about the most "unquestionable" truths. A century ago, Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection was regarded as scientifically unshakeable; today, most biologists have their reservations about it. Fifty years ago, Freud's sexual theory of neurosis was accepted by most psychiatrists; today, it is widely recognized that his methods were highly questionable. At the turn of this century, a scientist who questioned Newton's theory of gravity would have been regarded as insane; twenty years later, it had been supplanted by Einstein's theory, although, significantly, few people actually understood it. It seems perfectly conceivable that our descendants of the twenty-second century will wonder how any of us could have been stupid enough to have been taken in by Darwin, Freud or Einstein.

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p. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
3 months 1 week ago
I speak as a biologist. There...

I speak as a biologist. There aren't many absolutely clear distinctions in biology. Mostly what we have is a spectrum. But the male-female divide is exceptional in biology. It really is a true binary.

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Interviewed by Judith Woods, as cited in "Richard Dawkins interview: 'I shall continue to use every one of the prohibited words'", The Telegraph
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
1 month 3 weeks ago
Awakening of Western thought will not...

Awakening of Western thought will not be complete until that thought steps outside itself and comes to an understanding with the search for a world-view as this manifests itself in the thought of mankind as a whole. We have too long been occupied with the developing series of our own philosophical systems, and have taken no notice of the fact that there is a world-philosophy of which our Western philosophy is only a part. If, however, one conceives philosophy as being a struggle to reach a view of the world as a whole, and seeks out the elementary convictions which are to deepen it and give it a sure foundation, one cannot avoid setting our own thought face to face with that of the Hindus, and of the Chinese in the Far East. ... Our Western philosophy, if judged by its own latest pronouncements, is much naiver than we admit to ourselves, and we fail to perceive this only because we have acquired the art of expressing what is simple in a pedantic way.

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Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
4 months 1 week ago
The blessing that the market does...

The blessing that the market does not ask about birth is paid for in the exchange society by the fact that the possibilities conferred by birth are molded to fit the production of goods that can be bought on the market.

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E. Jephcott, trans., p. 9.
Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
1 month 2 weeks ago
Never forget: We are alive within...

Never forget: We are alive within mysteries.

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Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
3 months 4 weeks ago
The Church is now more like...

The Church is now more like the Scribes and Pharisees than like Christ... What are now called the "essential doctrines" of the Christian religion he does not even mention.

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As quoted in The Life of Florence Nightingale (1913) by Edward Tyas Cook, p. 392
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 months 2 weeks ago
Writing turned a spotlight on the...

Writing turned a spotlight on the high, dim Sierras of speech; writing was the visualization of acoustic space. It lit up the dark.

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(p. 14)
Philosophical Maxims
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei
2 months 1 week ago
I was obliged to retract, like...

I was obliged to retract, like a good Catholic, this opinion of mine; and as a punishment my dialogue was prohibited; and after five months being dismissed from Rome (at the time that the city of Florence was infected with plague), the habitation which with generous pity was assigned to me, was that of the dearest friend I had in Siena, Monsignor the Archbishop Piccolomini, whose most agreeable conversation I enjoyed with such quite and satisfaction of mind, that having there resumed my studies, I discovered and demonstrated a great number on the mechanical conclusions on the resistance of solids ... after about five months, the pestilence having ceased, the confinement of that house was changed by His Holiness for the freedom of the country so agreeable to me, whence I returned to the villa of Bellosguardo, and afterwards to Arcetri, where I still breathe salubrious air near my dear native-country Florence.

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Stay sane. p. 251-253
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
5 months 1 week ago
The public execution, then, has a...

The public execution, then, has a juridico-political function. It is a ceremonial by which a momentarily injured sovereignty is reconstituted. It restores that sovereignty by manifesting it at its most spectacular. The public execution, however hasty and everyday, belongs to a whole series of great rituals in which power is eclipsed and restored (coronation, entry of the king into a conquered city, the submission of rebellious subjects); over and above the crime that has placed the sovereign in contempt, it deploys before all eyes an invincible force. Its aim is not so much to re-establish a balance as to bring into play, as its extreme point, the dissymmetry between the subject who has dared to violate the law and the all-powerful sovereign who displays his strength.

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Chapter One, The Spectacle of the Scaffold
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
3 months 4 weeks ago
Exploitation and manipulation produce boredom and...

Exploitation and manipulation produce boredom and triviality; they cripple man, and all factors that make man into a psychic cripple turn him also into a sadist or a destroyer. This position will be characterized by some as "overoptimistic," "utopian," or "unrealistic." In order to appreciate the merits of such criticism a discussion of the ambiguity of hope and the nature of optimism and pessimism seems called for.

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p. 483
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 2 weeks ago
We are and irrefutable arbiters of...

We are and irrefutable arbiters of value, and in the world of value Nature is only a part. Thus in this world we are greater than Nature. In the world of values, Nature in itself is neutral, neither good nor bad deserving of neither admiration nor censure. It is we who create value and our desires which confer value. In this realm we are kings, and we debase our kingship if we bow down to Nature. It is for us to determine our good life, not for Nature - not even for Nature personified as God.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
5 months 3 weeks ago
All seed except Mary was vitiated...

All seed except Mary was vitiated [by original sin].

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Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works, English translation edited by J. Pelikan [Concordia: St. Louis], Vol. 11, WA, 39, II:107
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
4 months 2 weeks ago
To enrich God, man must become...

To enrich God, man must become poor; that God may be all, man must be nothing.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 1 week ago
Myths are not....
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Jesus
Jesus
4 months 1 week ago
Peace be with you. Receive my...

Peace be with you. Receive my peace unto yourselves. Beware that no one lead you astray saying Lo here or lo there! For the Son of Man is within you. Follow after Him! Those who seek Him will find Him. Go then and preach the gospel of the Kingdom. Do not lay down any rules beyond what I appointed you, and do not give a law like the lawgiver lest you be constrained by it.

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Chapter 4. tion.
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
5 months 2 weeks ago
A people that sells its own children…

A people that sells its own children is more condemnable than the buyer; this commerce demonstrates our superiority; he who gives himself a master was born to have one.

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Essai sur les Moeurs et l'Espit des Nations (1753)
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 month 1 week ago
Because most of what we say...

Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you'll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, "Is this necessary?" But we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well. To eliminate the unnecessary actions that follow.

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(Hays translation) IV, 24
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 2 weeks ago
For the most trifling reasons, and...

For the most trifling reasons, and sometimes for no conceivable reason at all, his majesty has rejected laws of the most salutary tendency. The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state. But previous to the infranchisement of the slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations from Africa. Yet our repeated attempts to effect this by prohibitions, and by imposing duties which might amount to a prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by his majesty's negative: thus preferring the immediate advantages of a few British corsairs to the lasting interests of the American states, and to the rights of human nature deeply wounded by this infamous practice.

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A Summary View of the Rights of British America
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
1 month 6 days ago
The scientific organization and comprehensive...

The scientific organization and comprehensive exposition in accessible form of the Talmud has a twofold importance for us Jews. It is important in the first place that the high cultural values of the Talmud should not be lost to modern minds among the Jewish people nor to science, but should operate further as a living force. In the second place, The Talmud must be made an open book to the world, in order to cut the ground from under certain malevolent attacks, of anti-Semitic origin, which borrow countenance from the obscurity and inaccessibility of certain passages in the Talmud. To support this cultural work would thus mean an important achievement for the Jewish people.

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Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
5 months 4 weeks ago
Of the truths within our reach......

Of the truths within our reach... the mind and the heart are as doors by which they are received into the soul, but... few enter by the mind, whilst they are brought in crowds by the rash caprices of the will, without the council of reason.

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Philosophical Maxims
chanakya
chanakya
2 months 3 weeks ago
If a king is energetic, his...

If a king is energetic, his subjects will be equally energetic. If he is reckless, they will not only be reckless likewise, but also eat into his works. Besides, a reckless king will easily fall into the hands of his enemies. Hence the king shall ever be wakeful.

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Book I : "Concerning Discipline" Chapter 19 "The Duties of a King"
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
6 months 4 days ago
A hymn is the praise of...

A hymn is the praise of God with song; a song is the exultation of the mind dwelling on eternal things, bursting forth in the voice.

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Commentary on the Psalms (c. 1273), Introduction
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
5 months 1 week ago
What is important...

What is important is that sex was not only a question of sensation and pleasure, of law and interdiction, but also of the true and the false.

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Vol. I, p. 76
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 months 4 weeks ago
The real pioneers in ideas, in...

The real pioneers in ideas, in art and in literature have remained aliens to their time, misunderstood and repudiated.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
5 months 2 weeks ago
But what all the violence of...

But what all the violence of the feudal institutions could never have effected, the silent and insensible operation of foreign commerce and manufactures gradually brought about.

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Chapter IV, p. 448.
Philosophical Maxims
Bernard Williams
Bernard Williams
4 months ago
If the passion for truthfulness is...

If the passion for truthfulness is merely controlled and stilled without being satisfied, it will kill the activities it is supposed to support. This may be one of the reasons why, at the present time, the study of the humanities runs a risk of sliding from professional seriousness, through professionalization, to a finally disenchanted careerism.

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p. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
6 months 2 weeks ago
It is only afterward that a...

It is only afterward that a new idea seems reasonable. To begin with, it usually seems unreasonable.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
1 month 6 days ago
Much reading after a certain...

Much reading after a certain age diverts the mind from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking, just as the man who spends too much time in the theaters is apt to be content with living vicariously instead of living his own life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 2 weeks ago
Dispersed as the Jews are, they...

Dispersed as the Jews are, they still form one nation, foreign to the land they live in.

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As quoted in The Americans by Daniel Boorstin. See Truth from the "Zog Bog" by Gyeorgos Ceres Hatonn, 1993, 224 p.
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Hölderlin
Friedrich Hölderlin
4 months 2 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
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
4 months 4 weeks ago
The King that followeth Truth, and...

The King that followeth Truth, and ruleth according to Justice, shall reign quietly: but he that doth the contrary, seeketh another to reign for him.

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Philosophical Maxims
Antonio Negri
Antonio Negri
2 months 1 week ago
Today we have arrived at a...

Today we have arrived at a point when the three principles [of modern resistance: 1. measure of efficacy, 2. the form of political and military organization correspond to the current forms of economic and social production, 3. democracy and freedom] coincide. The distributed network structure provides the model for an absolutely democratic organization that corresponds to the dominant forms of economic and social production and is also the most powerful weapon against the ruling power structure.

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88
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 months 4 weeks ago
Now he saw the problem with...

Now he saw the problem with great clarity. If he lived here, life would be pleasant and safe. But it would also be predictable. A child could be born here, grow up here, die here, without ever experiencing the excitement of discovery. Why did Dona question him endlessly about his life in the burrow and his journey to the country of the ants? Because for her, it represented a world that was dangerous and full of fascinating possibilities. For the children of this underground city, life was a matter of repetition, of habit. And this, he suddenly realized, was the heart of the problem. Habit. Habit was a stifling, warm blanket that threatened you with suffocation and lulled the mind into a state of perpetual nagging dissatisfaction. Habit meant the inability to escape from yourself, to change and develop . . .

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pp. 132-133
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
5 months 4 weeks ago
The art of persuasion consists as...

The art of persuasion consists as much in that of pleasing as in that of convincing, so much more are men governed by caprice than by reason!

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Philosophical Maxims
Gottlob frege
Gottlob frege
4 months 1 week ago
It really is worth the trouble...

It really is worth the trouble to invent a new symbol if we can thus remove not a few logical difficulties and ensure the rigour of the proofs. But many mathematicians seem to have so little feeling for logical purity and accuracy that they will use a word to mean three or four different things, sooner than make the frightful decision to invent a new word.

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Gottlob Frege in: Dagobert David Runes (1962). Readings in epistemology, theory of knowledge and dialectics. p. 334
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
5 months 2 weeks ago
Merely to come into the world...

Merely to come into the world the heir of a fortune is not to be born, but to be still-born, rather. To be supported by the charity of friends, or a government-pension, - provided you continue to breathe, - by whatever fine synonymes you describe these relations, is to go into the almshouse.

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p. 487
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 month 1 week ago
Think not disdainfully of death, but...

Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor; for even death is one of the things that Nature wills.

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IX, 3
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 1 week ago
Only optimists commit suicide, the optimists...

Only optimists commit suicide, the optimists who can no longer be . . . optimists. The others, having no reason to live, why should they have any to die?

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Owen
Robert Owen
3 months 1 week ago
In advanced age, and in cases...

In advanced age, and in cases of disability from accident, natural infirmity or any other cause, the individual shall be supported by the colony, and receive every comfort which kindness can administer.

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Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
1 month 2 weeks ago
Crocodiles sweetly shut their lidded eyes,...

Crocodiles sweetly shut their lidded eyes, and yawned,for the blond meat had been quite good, and in slow rainsnew flesh would sprout once more and then be munched anew.

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Book XI, line 652
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 1 week ago
You have dreamed of setting the...

You have dreamed of setting the world ablaze, and you have not even managed to communicate your fire to words, to light up a single one!

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Philosophical Maxims
Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard
4 months 1 week ago
Man is a creation of desire,...

Man is a creation of desire, not a creation of need.

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The Psychoanalysis of Fire, ch. 2, "Fire and Reverie"
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 1 week ago
Happy the people whose annals are...

Happy the people whose annals are blank in history books!

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Life of Frederick the Great, Bk. XVI, ch. 1.
Philosophical Maxims
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