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Jesus
Jesus
1 month 4 weeks ago
Look at the birds of the...

Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

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Matthew 6:26 (NKJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
3 months 3 weeks ago
The happiness which belongs to man,...

The happiness which belongs to man, is that state in which he enjoys as many of the good things, and suffers as few of the evils incident to human nature as possible; passing his days in a smooth course of permanent tranquility. A wise man, though deprived of sight or hearing, may experience happiness in the enjoyment of the good things which yet remain; and when suffering torture, or laboring under some painful disease, can mitigate the anguish by patience, and can enjoy, in his afflictions, the consciousness of his own constancy.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
1 month 4 weeks ago
Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance...

Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the Right, and toleration of movements from the Left.

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An Essay on Liberation Beacon Press, 1969, p. 109
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
3 weeks 4 days ago
And why were those haughty [French]...

And why were those haughty [French] nobles destroyed with that utter destruction? Why were they scattered over the face of the earth, their titles abolished, their escutcheons defaced, their parks wasted, their palaces dismantled, their heritage given to strangers? Because they had no sympathy with the people, no discernment of the signs of their time; because, in the pride and narrowness of their hearts, they called those whose warnings might have saved them theorists and speculators; because they refused all concession till the time had arrived when no concession would avail.

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Speech in the House of Commons on the Reform Bill (20 September 1831), quoted in Speeches of the Right Honourable T. B. Macaulay, M.P. (1854), p. 50
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 1 week ago
My desire for knowledge is intermittent...

My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. I do not know that this higher knowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge before - a discovery that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.

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Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
2 months 3 weeks ago
Human social institutions can effect the...

Human social institutions can effect the course of human evolution. Just as climate-change, food supply, predators, and other natural forces of selection have molded our nature, so too can our culture.

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Chapter 6, A New Understanding Of Ethics, p. 172
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
3 weeks 4 days ago
To have been a Sovereign, yet...

To have been a Sovereign, yet the champion of liberty,-a revolutionary leader, yet the supporter of social order, is the peculiar glory of William. Till his accession the British Constitution was in its Chaos. It had contained, from a very remote period, the simple elements of an harmonious government. But they were in a state not of amalgamation, but of conflict,-not of equilibrium but of alternate elevation and depression. The tyranny of Charles the first produced civil war and anarchy. Tyranny had now again produced resistance and revolution. And, but for the wisdom of the new King, it seems probable that the same cycle of misery would have been again described.

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'Essay on the Life and Character of King William III' (1822), written for the Greaves Historical Prize at Cambridge, quoted in The Times Literary Supplement (1 May 1969), p. 469
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 month 4 days ago
Treat your friend as if he...

Treat your friend as if he might become an enemy.

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Maxim 401
Philosophical Maxims
Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch
1 month 4 weeks ago
I daresay anything can be made...

I daresay anything can be made holy by being sincerely worshipped.

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The Message to the Planet (1989) p. 322.
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
1 month 2 weeks ago
Asceticism is the trifling of an...

Asceticism is the trifling of an enthusiast with his power, a puerile coquetting with his selfishness or his vanity, in the absence of any sufficiently great object to employ the first or overcome the last.

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Letter (5 September 1857), quoted in The Life of Florence Nightingale (1913) by Edward Tyas Cook, p. 369
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
2 months 3 weeks ago
Force without wisdom…

Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 month 3 weeks ago
In all philosophic theory there is...

In all philosophic theory there is an ultimate which is actual in virtue of its accidents. It is only then capable of characterization through its accidental embodiments, and apart from these accidents is devoid of actuality. In the philosophy of organism this ultimate is termed creativity; and [[God] is its primordial, non-temporal accident. In monistic philosophies, Spinoza's or absolute idealism, this ultimate is God, who is also equivalently termed The Absolute. In such monistic schemes, the ultimate is illegitimately allowed a final, eminent reality, beyond that ascribed to any of its accidents. In this general position the philosophy of organism seems to approximate more to some strains of Indian, or Chinese, thought, than to western Asiatic, or European, thought. One side makes process ultimate; the other side makes fact ultimate.

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Pt. I, ch. 1, sec. 2.
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
1 month 6 days ago
The savage recognizes life only in...

The savage recognizes life only in himself and his personal desires. His interest in life is concentrated on himself alone. The highest happiness for him is the fullest satisfaction of his desires. The motive power of his life is personal enjoyment. His religion consists in propitiating his deity and in worshiping his gods, whom he imagines as persons living only for their personal aims.

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Chapter IV, Christianity Misunderstood by Men of ScienceChapter IV, Christianity Misunderstood by Men of Science
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 days ago
To Live signifies to believe and...

To Live signifies to believe and hope - to lie and to lie to oneself.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
3 months 1 week ago
The same good sense, that directs...

The same good sense, that directs men in the ordinary occurrences of life, is not hearkened to in religious matters, which are supposed to be placed altogether above the cognizance of human reason.

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Philosophical Maxims
Empedocles
Empedocles
2 months 3 weeks ago
Hear first the four roots…

Hear first the four roots of all things: shining Zeus, life-bringing Hera, Aidoneus, and Nestis, who wets with tears the mortal wellspring.

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fr. 6
Philosophical Maxims
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Leibniz
3 months 1 week ago
And as every…

And as every present state of a simple substance is naturally a consequence of its preceding state, so its present is pregnant with its future.

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La monadologie (22).
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
3 months 1 week 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
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 1 week ago
We are taught to believe that...

We are taught to believe that a desire of domineering over our countrymen is love to our country; and those who hate civil war abet rebellion, and that the amiable and conciliatory virtues of lenity, moderation, and tenderness to the privileges of those who depend on this kingdom are a sort of treason to the state. It is impossible that we should remain long in a situation, which breeds such notions and dispositions, without some great alteration in the national character.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
1 day ago
After World War II, liberal rights...

After World War II, liberal rights were not something that were only deserved by white Europeans. ...There was a recognition that the black and brown peoples being held in colonial bondage could not consistently be held in that bondage, because liberalism was a universal doctrine. ...That's the other respect in which we can defend liberalism, a moral one.

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10:30
Philosophical Maxims
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
3 days ago
In a free society the state...

In a free society the state does not administer the affairs of men. It administers justice among men who conduct their own affairs.

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Ch. XII: "The Political Principles of Liberalism", §6, p. 267
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Fourier
Charles Fourier
2 days ago
There is a class of writers...

There is a class of writers who are ever boasting of the progress of civilization and of the human mind in modern times. If we were to credit their pretensions, we should be led to believe that the science of society had reached its highest degree of perfection, because old metaphysical and economic theories have been somewhat refined upon.In answer to their boasts of social progress, it is not sufficient to refer to the deeply-rooted social evils which exist, and which prey upon our boasted civilized social order. We will mention but a single one, the frightful increase of national debts and of taxation.

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The Theory of Social Organization. Harmonian Man: Selected Writings of Charles Fourier
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
2 months 2 weeks ago
Do not even think of doing...

Do not even think of doing what ought not to be done.

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Pythagorean Ethical Sentences From Stobæus
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
3 months 3 weeks ago
Man reaches the highest point of...

Man reaches the highest point of his knowledge about God when he knows that he knows him not, inasmuch as he knows that that which is God transcends whatsoever he conceives of him.

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q. 7, art. 5, ad 14
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 1 week ago
If you punish him for what...

If you punish him for what he sees you practise yourself, he... will be apt to interpret it the peevishness and arbitrary imperiousness of a father, who, without any ground for it, would deny his son the liberty and pleasure he takes himself.

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Sec. 71
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
1 week 6 days ago
The true goal of the bourgeois...

The true goal of the bourgeois life, in other words, is not self-enactment, but diversion. Most people need the organised distraction of work (if they can find it). Idleness - the life of the playboy who doesn't answer the phone - is simply too demanding. "

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A difficult business," New Statesman
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 1 week ago
It would be too ridiculous to...

It would be too ridiculous to go about seriously to prove that wealth does not consist in money, or in gold and silver; but in what money purchases, and is valuable only for purchasing. Money no doubt, makes always a part of the national capital; but it has already been shown that it generally makes but a small part, and always the most unprofitable part of it.

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Chapter I, p. 470.
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
1 month 2 weeks ago
In the process of decision those...

In the process of decision those alternatives are chosen which are considered to be appropriate means of reaching desired ends. Ends themselves, however, are often merely instrumental to more final objectives. We are thus led to the conception of a series, or hierarchy, of ends. Rationality has to do with the construction of means-ends chains of this kind.

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p. 62.
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 month 4 days ago
Even a single hair casts its...

Even a single hair casts its shadow.

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Maxim 228
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 months 1 week ago
I go to spread the tidings,...

I go to spread the tidings, I want to spread the tidings - of what? Of the truth, for I have seen it, have seen it with my own eyes, have seen it in all its glory.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 6 days ago
There are two laws discrete Not...

There are two laws discrete Not reconciled, Law for man, and law for thing.

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Ode: Inscribed to W. H. Channing, st. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
3 months 1 week ago
The possession of self-conscious reason, which...

The possession of self-conscious reason, which belongs to us of the present world, did not arise suddenly, nor did it grow only from the soil of the present. This possession must be regarded as previously present, as an inheritance, and as the result of labour - the labour of all past generations of men.

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Introduction p. 2 Ibid
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 2 weeks ago
For truth itself does not have...

For truth itself does not have the privilege to be employed at any time and in every way; its use, noble as it is, has its circumscriptions and limits.

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Ch. 13
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 days ago
Each time I fail to think...

Each time I fail to think about death, I have the impression of cheating, of deceiving someone in me.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
4 months 1 week ago
As for the life of money-making,...

As for the life of money-making, it is one of constraint, and wealth is manifestly not the good of which we are in search, for it is only useful as a means to something else, and for this reason there is less to be said for it than for the ends mentioned before, which are, at any rate, desired for their own sakes.

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Philosophical Maxims
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
2 months 3 weeks ago
When the slave auctioneer asked in...

When the slave auctioneer asked in what he was proficient, he replied, "In ruling people."

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Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 74
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 1 week ago
It is true that in the...

It is true that in the confessional it is the pastor who preaches; but the true preacher is still the secret-sharer in your inner being. The pastor can preach only in vague generalities; the preacher in your inner being is just the opposite; he speaks simply and solely about you, to you, and within you.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
3 months 1 week ago
The beginning of religion, more precisely...

The beginning of religion, more precisely its content, is the concept of religion itself, that God is the absolute truth, the truth of all things, and subjectively that religion alone is the absolutely true knowledge.

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
2 months 6 days ago
Of what I am, I know...

Of what I am, I know no more than that I am, but here no tie is necessary between subject and object. My own being is this tie, I am at once the subject knowing, and the object known of; and this reflection or return of the knowledge on itself is what I designate by the term I, if I have any determinate meaning.

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Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 50
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 1 week ago
The only fence against the world...

The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it, into which a young gentleman should be enter'd by degrees, as he can bear it; and the earlier the better, so he be in safe and skillful hands to guide him.

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Sec. 94
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 days ago
We replace God as best we...

We replace God as best we can; for every god is good, provided he perpetuates in eternity our desire for a crucial solitude. . . .

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Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
2 months 4 days ago
Ministers become a sort of miniature...

Ministers become a sort of miniature kings in their turn. Though they have the greatest opportunity of observing the impotence and unmeaningness of the character, they envy it. It is their trade perpetually to extol the dignity and importance of the master they serve; and men cannot long anxiously endeavor to convince others of the truth of any proposition without becoming half convinced themselves.

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Book V, Ch. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
1 month 1 week ago
Today's terrorism is not the product...

Today's terrorism is not the product of a traditional history of anarchism, nihilism, or fanaticism. It is instead the contemporary partner of globalization.

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The Spirit of Terrorism (2003) "The Violence of the Global"
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 days ago
Out of the shadow of the...

Out of the shadow of the abstract man, who thinks for the pleasure of thinking, emerges the organic man, who thinks because of a vital imbalance, and who is beyond science and art.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
3 months 5 days ago
I appeal to the philosophers of...

I appeal to the philosophers of all countries to unite and never again mention Heidegger or talk to another philosopher who defends Heidegger. This man was a devil. I mean, he behaved like a devil to his beloved teacher, and he has a devilish influence on Germany. ... One has to read Heidegger in the original to see what a swindler he was.

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As quoted in "At 90, and Still Dynamic : Revisiting Sir Karl Popper and Attending His Birthday Party" by Eugene Yue-Ching Ho, in Intellectus 23
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 6 days ago
I see that sensible men and...

I see that sensible men and conscientious men all over the world were of one religion.

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The Preacher
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
4 months 1 week ago
Nature does not do anything in...

Nature does not do anything in vain.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 week 6 days ago
Few people...
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Main Content / General
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 1 week ago
Good nature is, of all moral...

Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for the others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish for ever.

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Ch. 1: In Praise of Idleness
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 5 days ago
Similarly, individual acts of aristocratic generosity...

Similarly, individual acts of aristocratic generosity do not eliminate pauperism; they perpetuate it.

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p. 219
Philosophical Maxims
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