Skip to main content

Main navigation

☰ ˟
  • Home
  • Articulation
  • Contact
  • Shop
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months 4 days ago
The frontiers are not east or...

The frontiers are not east or west, north or south, but wherever a man fronts a fact, though that fact be his neighbor, there is an unsettled wilderness between him and Canada, between him and the setting sun, or, farther still, between him and it.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
4 months 2 weeks ago
Let not that which in the...

Let not that which in the case of another is contrary to nature become an evil for you; for you are born not to be humiliated along with others, nor to share in their misfortunes, but to share in their good fortune. If, however, someone is unfortunate, remember that his misfortune concerns himself. For God made all mankind to be happy, to be serene.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book III, ch. 24, 1
Philosophical Maxims
Leszek Kołakowski
Leszek Kołakowski
3 weeks 5 days ago
Far from secularization inexorably leading to...

Far from secularization inexorably leading to the death of religion, it has instead given birth to the search for new forms of religious life. The imminent victory of the Kingdom of Reason has never materialized. As a whole, mankind can never get rid of the need for religious self-identification: who am I, where did I come from, where do I fit in, why am I responsible, what does my life mean, how will I face death? Religion is a paramount aspect of human culture. Religious need cannot be excommunicated from culture by rationalist incantation. Man does not live by reason alone.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Interview with Nathan Gardels
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
5 months ago
Great novelists are philosopher novelists

Great novelists are philosopher novelists, that is, the contrary of thesis-writers.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 4 days ago
...my extreme anxiety about the Object...

...my extreme anxiety about the Object of our common sollicitude and my clear and decided conviction, that there is one part of the War, which instead of being postponed and considered in a secondary light, ought to have priority over every other, and requires our most early and our most careful attention; I mean La Vendée. ... This is a War directly against Jacobinism and its principles. It strikes at the Enemy in his weakest and most vulnerable part. At La Vendée with infinitely less Charge, we may make an impression likely to be decisive. This goes to the heart of the Business.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Letter to the Home Secretary Henry Dundas (8 October 1793), quoted in P. J. Marshall and John A. Woods (eds.)
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
4 months 1 week ago
In particular, at this point also...

In particular, at this point also urge governing authorities and parents to rule well and to send their children to school. Point out how they are obliged to do so and what a damnable sin they commit if they do not, for thereby, as the worst enemies of God and humanity, they overthrow and lay waste both the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. Explain very clearly what kind of horrible damage they do when they do not help to train children as pastors, preachers, civil servants, etc., and tell them that God will punish them dreadfully for this. For in our day and age it is necessary to preach about these things. The extent to which parents and governing authorities are now sinning in these matters defies description. The devil, too, intends to do something horrible in all this.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Foreword to the small catechismus, as quoted in the Preface, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (2000) by Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, p. 19
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 3 weeks ago
My kingdom is not of this...

My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
18: 36, (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
3 days ago
After all, it is my principle...

After all, it is my principle that the will of the Majority should always prevail.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
4 months 3 weeks ago
The perfection of the effect demonstrates...

The perfection of the effect demonstrates the perfection of the cause, for a greater power brings about a more perfect effect. But God is the most perfect agent. Therefore, things created by Him obtain perfection from Him. So, to detract from the perfection of creatures is to detract from the perfection of divine power.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
III, 69, 15
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
2 months 1 week ago
Broadly stated, the task is to...

Broadly stated, the task is to replace the global rationality of economic man with a kind of rational behavior that is compatible with the access to information and the computational capacities that are actually possessed by organisms, including man, in the kinds of environments in which such organisms exist.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Simon (1955) "A behavioral model of rational choice", The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 69 (1); As cited in: Gustavo Barros (2010, p. 462).
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
4 months 4 days ago
We are told that a utilitarian...

We are told that a utilitarian will be apt to make his own particular case an exception to moral rules, and, when under temptation, will see a utility in the breach of a rule, greater than he will see in its observance. But is utility the only creed which is able to furnish us with excuses for evil doing, and means of cheating our own conscience? They are afforded in abundance by all doctrines which recognise as a fact in morals the existence of conflicting considerations; which all doctrines do, that have been believed by sane persons. It is not the fault of any creed, but of the complicated nature of human affairs, that rules of conduct cannot be so framed as to require no exceptions, and that hardly any kind of action can safely be laid down as either always obligatory or always condemnable.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 4 days ago
God said, I am tired of...

God said, I am tired of kings, I suffer them no more; Up to my ear the morning brings The outrage of the poor.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Boston Hymn, st. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
1 month ago
The facts we see depend on...

The facts we see depend on where we are placed, and the habits of our eyes.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. VI: "Stereotypes", p. 80
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 3 days ago
You can't get a cup of...

You can't get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in Of This and Other Worlds (1982) by Walter Hooper, Preface, p. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
5 months 6 days ago
Art furnishes us with eyes and...
Art furnishes us with eyes and hands and above all the good conscience to be able to turn ourselves into such a phenomenon.
0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months ago
If, at the limit, you can...

If, at the limit, you can rule without crime, you cannot do so without injustices.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
2 weeks 4 days ago
All savageness…

All savageness is a sign of weakness.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
De Vita Beata (On the Happy Life): cap. 3, line 4
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months ago
Even when he turns from religion,...

Even when he turns from religion, man remains subject to it; depleting himself to create false gods, he then feverishly adopts them; his need for fiction, for mythology triumphs over evidence and absurdity alike.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei
4 weeks ago
I am quite convinced; and, believe...

I am quite convinced; and, believe me, if I were again beginning my studies, I should follow the advice of Plato and start with mathematics, a science which proceeds very cautiously and admits nothing as established until it has been rigidly demonstrated.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Simplicio, First Day, page 90.
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 4 days ago
It is the love of the...

It is the love of the people; it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you both your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience, without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 months 4 weeks ago
There are two godheads: the world...

There are two godheads: the world and my independent I. I am either happy or unhappy, that is all. It can be said: good or evil do not exist. A man who is happy must have no fear. Not even in the face of death. Only a man who lives not in time but in the present is happy.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Journal entry (8 July 1916), p. 74e
Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
3 months 1 day ago
Mankind will never be, in an...

Mankind will never be, in an eminent degree, virtuous and happy till each man shall possess that portion of distinction and no more, to which he is entitled by his personal merits. The dissolution of aristocracy is equally the interest of the oppressor and the oppressed. The one will be delivered from the listlessness of tyranny, and the other from the brutalizing operation of servitude.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book V, Chapter 11, "Moral Effects of Aristocracy"
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 1 week ago
Of all our infirmities, the most...

Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book III, Ch. 13 Variant: Of all the infirmities we have, 'tis the most savage to despise our being. (Charles Cotton translation)
Philosophical Maxims
John Searle
John Searle
2 months 6 days ago
One can imagine a computer simulation...

One can imagine a computer simulation of the action of peptides in the hypothalamus that is accurate down to the last synapse. But equally one can imagine a computer simulation of the oxidation of hydrocarbons in a car engine or the action of digestive processes in a stomach when it is digesting pizza. And the simulation is no more the real thing in the case of the brain than it is in the case of the car or the stomach. Barring miracles, you could not run your car by doing a computer simulation of the oxidation of gasoline, and you could not digest pizza by running the program that simulates such digestion. It seems obvious that a simulation of cognition will similarly not produce the effects of the neurobiology of cognition.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"Is the Brain's Mind a Computer Program?", Scientific American (January 1990).
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months 4 days ago
And the cost of a thing...

And the cost of a thing it will be remembered as the amount of life it requires to be exchanged for it.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
After December 6, 1845
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
2 months 3 weeks ago
At present, when the prevailing forms...

At present, when the prevailing forms of society have become hindrances to the free expression of human powers, it is precisely the abstract branches of science, mathematics and theoretical physics, which ... offer a less distorted form of knowledge than other branches of science which are interwoven with the pattern of daily life, and the practicality of which seemingly testifies to their realistic character.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 133.
Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
1 month 1 week ago
[L]ike nonhuman animals in human factory...

[L]ike nonhuman animals in human factory farms, free-living nonhumans who are starving - or being disembowelled, asphyxiated or eaten alive - cannot console themselves by chanting the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. The moral case for helping other sentient beings, regardless or race or species, does not rest on the distress their plight does (or doesn't) cause spectators.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Reply to Meet the people who want to turn predators into herbivores, TreeHugger, 2 Apr. 2015
Philosophical Maxims
George Berkeley
George Berkeley
3 months 1 week ago
Few men think; yet all have...

Few men think; yet all have opinions.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Philonous to Hylas. The Second Dialogue. This appears in a passage first added in the third edition
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
3 weeks 4 days ago
Why not? What is to hinder...

Why not? What is to hinder this Samson from governing? There is in him what far transcends all apprenticeships; in the man himself there exists a model of governing, something to govern by! There exists in him a heart-abhorrence of whatever is incoherent, pusillanimous, unveracious,-that is to say, chaotic, _un_governed; of the Devil, not of God. A man of this kind cannot help governing! He has the living ideal of a governor in him; and the incessant necessity of struggling to unfold the same out of him.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 3 days ago
Since it cannot be overlooked by...

Since it cannot be overlooked by the Doctrine of Knowledge that Actual Knowledge does by no means present itself as a Unity, such as is assumed above but as a multiplicity, there is consequently a second task imposed upon it, - that of setting forth the ground of this apparent Multiplicity. It is of course understood that this ground is not to be derived from any outward source, but must be shown to be contained in the essential Nature of Knowledge itself as such; - and that therefore this problem, although apparently two-fold, is yet but one and the same, - namely, to set forth the essential Nature of Knowledge.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
2 months ago
We are not arrogant, not hubristic,...

We are not arrogant, not hubristic, to celebrate the sheer bulk and detail of what we know through science. We are simply telling the honest and irrefutable truth. Also honest is the frank admission of how much we don't yet know - how much more work remains to be done. That is the very antithesis of hubristic arrogance. Science combines a massive contribution, in volume and detail, of what we do know with humility in proclaiming what we don't. Religion, by embarrassing contrast, has contributed literally zero to what we know, combined with huge hubristic confidence in the alleged facts it has simply made up.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The Intellectual and Moral Courage of Atheism
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
4 months 3 days ago
That all men are equal is...

That all men are equal is a proposition which at ordinary times no sane individual has ever given his assent.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"The Idea of Equality"
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 2 days ago
Your church is a whore: she...

Your church is a whore: she sells her favors to the rich.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Act 1
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
4 months 2 weeks ago
This right which you have, is...

This right which you have, is not founded any more than his upon any quality or any merit in yourself which renders you worthy of it. Your soul and your body are, of themselves, indifferent to the state of boatman or that of duke; and there is no natural bond that attaches them to one condition rather than to another.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
2 months 3 weeks ago
But Aversion wee have for things,...

But Aversion wee have for things, not only which we know have hurt us; but also that we do not know whether they will hurt us, or not.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The First Part, Chapter 6, p. 24
Philosophical Maxims
Henry George
Henry George
2 days ago
When we consider that labor is...

When we consider that labor is the producer of all wealth, is it not evident that the impoverishment and, dependence of labor are abnormal conditions resulting from restrictions and usurpations, and that instead of accepting protection, what labor should demand is freedom. That those who advocate any extension of freedom choose to go no further than suits their own special purpose is no reason why freedom itself should be distrusted.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 4 days ago
Of course, he who has put...

Of course, he who has put forth his total strength in fit actions, has the richest return of wisdom.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
par. 28
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 4 days ago
Resolved to die in the last...

Resolved to die in the last dike of prevarication.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Speech on the sixth article of charge in the impeachment of Warren Hastings (7 May 1789), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Volume the Tenth (1899), p. 406
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 3 days ago
Savage - There is only one...

Savage - There is only one way fit for a man - Heroism, or Master-Morality, or Violence. All the other people in between are ploughing the sand.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Pilgrim's Regress 100
Philosophical Maxims
Henry George
Henry George
2 days ago
We cannot think with precision unless...

We cannot think with precision unless in our own minds we use words with precision.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
General Introduction
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
3 months 1 week ago
It is the common wonder of...

It is the common wonder of all men, how among so many million of faces there should be none alike.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Section 2
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
4 months 3 days ago
It is not murder which is...

It is not murder which is forgiven but the killer, his person as it appears in circumstances and intentions. The trouble with the Nazi criminals was precisely that they renounced voluntarily all personal qualities, as if nobody were left to be either punished or forgiven. They protested time and again that they had never done anything out of their own initiative, that they had no intentions whatsoever, good or bad, and that they only obeyed orders.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
4 months 5 days ago
In early youth, as we contemplate...

In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theatre before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin. It is a blessing that we do not know what is really going to happen. Could we foresee it, there are times when children might seem like innocent prisoners, condemned, not to death, but to life, and as yet all unconscious of what their sentence means.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"On the Sufferings of the World"
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
Just now
Know the joy of life by...

Know the joy of life by piling good deed on good deed until no rift or cranny appears between them.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
XII, 29
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
2 months ago
The argument of this book is...

The argument of this book is that we, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 1. Why Are People?
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
5 months 1 day ago
Science doesn't purvey absolute truth. Science...

Science doesn't purvey absolute truth. Science is a mechanism. It's a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature. It's a system for testing your thoughts against the universe and seeing whether they match. And this works, not just for the ordinary aspects of science, but for all of life. I should think people would want to know that what they know is truly what the universe is like, or at least as close as they can get to it.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 3 weeks ago
All movements go...
0
⚖0
Main Content / General
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
4 months 2 days ago
If we are uncritical we shall...

If we are uncritical we shall always find what we want: we shall look for, and find, confirmations, and we shall look away from, and not see, whatever might be dangerous to our pet theories. In this way it is only too easy to obtain what appears to be overwhelming evidence in favor of a theory which, if approached critically, would have been refuted.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The Poverty of Historicism (1957) Ch. 29 The Unity of Method
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
Just now
If you don't have a consistent...

If you don't have a consistent goal in life, you can't live it in a consistent way."

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
(Hays translation) XI, 21
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 months 2 weeks ago
Repentance deserveth Pardon.

Repentance deserveth Pardon.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
  • Load More

User login

  • Create new account
  • Reset your password

Social

☰ ˟
  • Main Feed
  • Philosophical Maxims

Civic

☰ ˟
  • Propositions
  • Issue / Solution

Who's new

  • Søren Kierkegaard
  • Jesus
  • Friedrich Nietzsche
  • VeXed
  • Slavoj Žižek

Who's online

There are currently 1 users online.
  • comfortdragon

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia