Skip to main content

Main navigation

☰ ˟
  • Home
  • Articulation
  • Contact
  • Shop
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 3 weeks ago
The monopoly of capital becomes a...

The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production, which has sprung up and flourished along with, and under it. Centralisation of the means of production and socialisation of labour at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Vol. I, Ch. 32, p. 837.
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
2 days ago
The great secret of success is...

The great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up. That is possible for him who never argues and strives with men and facts, but in all experience retires upon himself, and looks for the ultimate cause of things in himself.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 3 weeks ago
It must not be supposed that...

It must not be supposed that the subjective elements are any less 'real' than the objective elements; they are only less important... because they do not point to anything beyond ourselves...

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
An Outline of Philosophy Ch.15 The Nature of our Knowledge of Physics, 1927
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
3 months 4 weeks ago
I am entirely of the opinion...

I am entirely of the opinion that the papacy is the Antichrist. But if anyone wants to add the Turk, then the Pope is the spirit of the Antichrist, and the Turk is the flesh of the Antichrist. They help each other in their murderous work. The latter slaughters bodily and by the sword, the former spiritually and by doctrine.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
330
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 2 weeks ago
Attention spans get very weak at...

Attention spans get very weak at the speed of light, and that goes along with a very weak identity.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 week 5 days ago
All old Poems, Homer's and the...

All old Poems, Homer's and the rest, are authentically Songs. I would say, in strictness, that all right Poems are; that whatsoever is not sung is properly no Poem, but a piece of Prose cramped into jingling lines,-to the great injury of the grammar, to the great grief of the reader, for most part! What we wants to get at is the thought the man had, if he had any: why should he twist it into jingle, if he could speak it out plainly? It is only when the heart of him is rapt into true passion of melody, and the very tones of him, according to Coleridge's remark, become musical by the greatness, depth and music of his thoughts, that we can give him right to rhyme and sing; that we call him a Poet, and listen to him as the Heroic of Speakers,-whose speech is Song.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 3 weeks ago
Communism... is the genuine resolution of...

Communism... is the genuine resolution of the antagonism between man and nature and between man and man; it is the true resolution of the conflict between existence and essence, objectification and self-affirmation, freedom and necessity, individual and species. It is the riddle of history solved and knows itself as the solution.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Private Property and Communism, p. 43.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
When you have understood that nothing...

When you have understood that nothing is, that things do not even deserve the status of appearances, you no longer need to be saved, you are saved, and miserable forever.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
To get up in the morning,...

To get up in the morning, wash and then wait for some unforeseen variety of dread or depression. I would give the whole universe and all of Shakespeare for a grain of ataraxy.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
4 months 2 weeks ago
What, then, of human activities? Is...

What, then, of human activities? Is humankind itself hastening its own end? Man has, for instance, been burning carbon-containing fuel — wood, coal, oil, gas — at a steadily accelerating rate. All these fuels form carbon dioxide. Some is absorbed by plants and the oceans but not as fast as it is produced. This means the carbon dioxide content of the air is going up — slightly but nevertheless up. Carbon dioxide retains heat, and even a small rise means a warming of the Earth's atmosphere. This may result in the melting of the polar ice caps with unusual speed, flooding the world before we have learned climate control. In reverse, our industrial civilization is making our atmosphere dustier so that it reflects more sunlight away and cools the Earth slightly — thus making possible a glacial advance in a few centuries, also before we have learned climate control.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
3 months 2 weeks ago
As soon as we cease to...

As soon as we cease to believe in such an engineer and in a discourse which breaks with the received historical discourse, and as soon as we admit that every finite discourse is bound by a certain bricolage and that the engineer and the scientist are also species of bricoleurs, then the very idea of bricolage is menaced and the difference in which it took on its meaning breaks down.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," Writing and Difference, tr. w/ intro & notes by Alan Bass. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago, 1978. p. 285
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
2 months ago
Organizations and institutions provide the general...

Organizations and institutions provide the general stimuli and attention-directors that channelize the behaviors of the members of the group, and that provide those members with the intermediate objectives that stimulate action.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 100.
Philosophical Maxims
Max Stirner
Max Stirner
1 week ago
Man with the great M is...

Man with the great M is only an ideal, the species only something thought of.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Dover 2005, p. 182
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
2 weeks 1 day ago
But these labels can only be...

But these labels can only be finite in number. On that score, psychologic time should be discontinuous.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
2 months 3 weeks ago
Who am I? Subject and object...

Who am I? Subject and object in one - contemplating and contemplated, thinking and thought of. As both must I have become what I am.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 71
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 3 weeks ago
Our chief want in life is...

Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Considerations by the Way
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 3 weeks ago
England, it is true, in causing...

England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindostan, was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is not the question. The question is, can mankind fulfil its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"The British Rule in India," New York Daily Tribune, 10 June 1853.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 3 weeks ago
I observe that a very large...

I observe that a very large portion of the human race does not believe in God and suffers no visible punishment in consequence. And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt his existence.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Bertrand Russell's Best: Silhouettes in Satire (1958), "On Religion".
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
1 month 3 weeks ago
It seems to me, that if...

It seems to me, that if the matter of our sun and planets and all the matter of the universe, were evenly scattered throughout all the heavens, and every particle had an innate gravity towards all the rest, and the whole of space throughout which this matter was scattered was but finite, the matter on [toward] the outside of this space would, by its gravity, tend towards all the matter on the inside, and, by consequence, fall down into the middle of the whole space, and there compose one great spherical mass. But if the matter was evenly disposed throughout an infinite space it could never convene into one mass; but some of it would convene into one mass and some into another, so as to make an infinite number of great masses, scattered at great distances from one another throughout all that infinite space.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Four Letters to Bentley (1692) first letter
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
2 months 3 weeks ago
What chiefly diverts the men of...

What chiefly diverts the men of democracies from lofty ambition is not the scantiness of their fortunes, but the vehemence of the exertions they daily make to improve them.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book Three, Chapter XIX.
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 1 week ago
Familiar things happen....
0
⚖0
Main Content / General
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
2 months 3 weeks ago
No one can be perfectly free...

No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Pt. IV, Ch. 30 : General Considerations
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
3 months 1 week ago
In a shared fish, there are...

In a shared fish, there are no bones.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Freeman (1948), p. 157
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 3 weeks ago
The Crown of Great Britain cannot,...

The Crown of Great Britain cannot, in my opinion, be too magnificent. Let us see some great public works set on foot; let it never be said, that the Commons of Great Britain failed in what they owe to the first Crown in the world. Looking up to royalty, I do say, it is the oldest and one of the best parts of our constitution. I wish it should look like royalty; that it should look like a King; like a King of Great Britain.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Speech in the House of Commons (28 February 1769)
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 months 6 days ago
Familiar things happen, and mankind does...

Familiar things happen, and mankind does not bother about them. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 1: "The Origins of Modern Science", p. 6
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
4 months 3 weeks ago
If a man knows what it...

If a man knows what it is right to do, he does not require a formal reason. And a person that has been thus trained, either possesses these first principles already, or can easily acquire them.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
4 weeks ago
Through all of history and pre-history...

Through all of history and pre-history it has been accepted that there is something wrong with the human animal. Health may be the natural condition of other species, but in humans it is sickness that is normal. To be chronically unwell is part of what it means to be human. It is no accident that every culture has its own versions of therapy. Tribal shamans and modern psychotherapists answer the same needs and practise the same trade.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Beyond the Last Thought: Freud's cigars and the long way round to Nirvana (p. 84)
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
2 days ago
I was convinced - and I...

I was convinced - and I am so still - that the fundamental principles of Christianity have to be proved true by reasoning, and by no other method. Reason, I said to myself, is given us that we may bring everything within the range of its action, even the most exalted ideas of religion. And this certainty filled me with joy.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 2 weeks ago
Art, at least, teaches us that...

Art, at least, teaches us that man cannot be explained by history alone and that he also finds a reason for his existence in the order of nature.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
6 days ago
Our feeling about…

Our feeling about every obligation depends in each case upon the spirit in which the benefit is conferred; we weigh not the bulk of the gift, but the quality of the good-will which prompted it.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Line 6
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
2 days ago
World-view is a product of life-view,...

World-view is a product of life-view, not vice versa.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
3 months 3 weeks ago
Poetry is the universal art of...

Poetry is the universal art of the spirit which has become free in itself and which is not tied down for its realization to external sensuous material; instead, it launches out exclusively in the inner space and the inner time of ideas and feelings.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in the Introduction to Aesthetics (1842), translated by T. M. Knox, (1979), p. 89
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
4 months 1 week ago
For it still seemed to me...

For it still seemed to me that it is not we who sin, but some other nature sinned in us. And it gratified my pride to be beyond blame, and when I did anything wrong not to have to confess that I had done wrong. I loved to excuse my soul and to accuse something else inside me (I knew not what) but which was not I. But, assuredly, it was I, and it was my impiety that had divided me against myself. That sin then was all the more incurable because I did not deem myself a sinner.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
A. Outler, trans. (Dover: 2002), Book 5, Chapter 10, p. 77
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
2 days ago
Very little of the great cruelty...

Very little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct. Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or inherited habit. The roots of cruelty, therefore, are not so much strong as widespread. But the time must come when inhumanity protected by custom and thoughtlessness will succumb before humanity championed by thought. Let us work that this time may come.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
4 months 3 weeks ago
They pronounce absurdly who thus speak,...

They pronounce absurdly who thus speak, as the Pythagoreans assert: for at the same time they make the infinite to be essence, and distribute it into parts.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
4 months 2 weeks ago
Query: How to contrive not to...

Query: How to contrive not to waste one's time? Answer: By being fully aware of it all the while. Ways in which this can be done: By spending one's days on an uneasy chair in a dentist's waiting room; by remaining on one's balcony all a Sunday afternoon; by travelling by the longest and least-convenient train routes, and of course standing all the way; by queueing at the box-office of theatres and then not booking a seat.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 2 weeks ago
It is the good children, Madame,...

It is the good children, Madame, who make the most terrible revolutionaries. They say nothing, they do not hide under the table, they eat only one sweet at a time, but later on, they make Society pay dearly for it!

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Jessica, Act 3, sc. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 3 weeks ago
Reflect how you are to govern...

Reflect how you are to govern a people who think they ought to be free, and think they are not. Your scheme yields no revenue; it yields nothing but discontent, disorder, disobedience; and such is the state of America, that after wading up to your eyes in blood, you could only end just where you begun; that is, to tax where no revenue is to be found, to - my voice fails me; my inclination indeed carries me no farther - all is confusion beyond it.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
3 months 3 weeks ago
He who knows only his own...

He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. II: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
Once man loses his faculty of...

Once man loses his faculty of indifference he becomes a potential murderer; once he transforms his idea into a god the consequences are incalculable. We kill only in the name of a god or of his counterfeits: the excesses provoked by the goddess Reason, by the concept of nation, class, or race are akin to those of the Inquisition or of the Reformation.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
3 months 3 weeks ago
We have ...as M. Ribot says,...

We have ...as M. Ribot says, not memory so much as memories. The visual... tactile... muscular... auditory memory may all vary independently... and different individuals may have them developed in different degrees. As a rule, a man's memory is good in the departments in which his interest is strong; but those departments are apt to be those in which his discriminative sensibility is high. ...[D]ifferences in men's imagining power... the machinery of memory must be largely determined thereby.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 16
Philosophical Maxims
Antisthenes
Antisthenes
3 months 1 week ago
The investigation…

The investigation of the meaning of words is the beginning of education.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Arrian, Discourses of Epictetus, i. 17
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
2 months 4 days ago
It is true that parents today...

It is true that parents today are learning to enhance the physical qualities of their children. But their minds and characters they cannot mould. The antiquated system of education and our perverse social influences unfortunately do that. In view of the numerous misfit and marred children these institutions have created, I am quite content not to have contributed any of my own.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 months 3 days ago
If thy fellows hurt thee in...

If thy fellows hurt thee in small things, suffer it! and be as bold with them!

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 week 5 days ago
All greatness is unconscious, or it...

All greatness is unconscious, or it is little and naught.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 3 weeks ago
Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do...

Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Considerations by the Way
Philosophical Maxims
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
2 weeks 4 days ago
There are no conventions, no tabus,...

There are no conventions, no tabus, no gods, no priests, princes, fathers, or revelations which they must accept. ... The prison door is wide open. They stagger out into trackless space under a blinding sun.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Preface
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 months 3 weeks ago
From fanaticism to barbarism is only...

From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Essai sur le Mérite de la Vertu (1745)
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
3 months 2 weeks ago
The circle of day and night...

The circle of day and night is the law of the classical world: the most restricted but most demanding of the necessities of the world, the most inevitable but the simplest of the legislations of nature.This was a law that excluded all dialectics and all reconciliation, consequently laying the foundations for the smooth unity of knowledge as well as the uncompromising division of tragic existence. It reigns on a world without darkness, which knows neither effusiveness nor the gentle charms of lyricism. All is waking or dreams, truth or error, the light of being or the nothingness of shadow.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Part Two: 2. The Transcendence of Delirium
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
4 months 3 weeks ago
Although the most acute judges of...
Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.
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 0 users online.

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia