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Confucius
Confucius
2 months 4 days ago
There are only the wise...

There are only the wise of the highest class, and the stupid of the lowest class, who cannot be changed.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 day ago
True science teaches…

True science teaches, above all, to doubt and be ignorant.

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Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
1 month 4 days ago
The covetous man….

The covetous man is ever in want.

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Book I, epistle ii, line 56
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 weeks 3 days ago
He is a dreamer...
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Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
1 week 5 days ago
All religions, with their gods, their...

All religions, with their gods, their demigods, and their prophets, their messiahs and their saints, were created by the credulous fancy of men who had not attained the full development and full possession of their faculties. Consequently, the religious heaven is nothing but a mirage in which man, exalted by ignorance and faith, discovers his own image, but enlarged and reversed - that is, divinized. The history of religion, of the birth, grandeur, and decline of the gods who have succeeded one another in human belief, is nothing, therefore, but the development of the collective intelligence and conscience of mankind.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
6 days ago
The animating purpose of James was,...

The animating purpose of James was, on the other hand, primarily moral and artistic. It is expressed in his phrase, "block universe," employed as a term of adverse criticism. Mechanism and idealism were abhorrent to him because they both hold to a closed universe in which there is no room for novelty and adventure. Both sacrifice individuality and all the values, moral and aesthetic, which hang upon individuality; for according to absolute idealism, as to mechanistic materialism, the individual is simply a part determined by the whole of which he is a part. Only a philosophy of pluralism, of genuine indetermination, and of change which is real and intrinsic gives significance to individuality. It alone justifies struggle in creative activity and gives opportunity for the emergence of the genuinely new.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 week 3 days ago
No one can enjoy freedom without...

No one can enjoy freedom without trembling.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
1 month 2 weeks ago
The goal to be reached is...

The goal to be reached is the mind's insight into what knowing is. Impatience asks for the impossible, wants to reach the goal without the means of getting there. The length of the journey has to be borne with, for every moment is necessary, ... because by nothing less could that all-pervading mind ever manage to become conscious of what itself is - for that reason, the individual mind, in the nature of the case, cannot expect by less toil to grasp what its own substance contains.

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Preface (J. B. Baillie translation), § 29
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
5 days ago
Spontaneous social action will be broken...

Spontaneous social action will be broken up over and over again by State intervention; no new seed will be able to fructify. Society will have to live for the State, man for the governmental machine. And as, after all, it is only a machine whose existence and maintenance depend on the vital supports around it, the State, after sucking out the very marrow of society, will be left bloodless, a skeleton, dead with that rusty death of machinery, more gruesome than the death of a living organism. Such was the lamentable fate of ancient civilisation. ... Already in the times of the Antonines (IInd Century), the State overbears society with its anti-vital supremacy. Society begins to be enslaved, to be unable to live except in the service of the State. The whole of life is bureaucratised. What results? The bureaucratisation of life brings about its absolute decay in all orders.

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Chapter XIII: The Greatest Danger, The State
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 2 weeks ago
In civil law the existing property...

In civil law the existing property relationships are declared to be the result of the general will. The jus utendi et abutendi itself asserts on the one hand the fact that private property has become entirely independent of the community, and on the other the illusion that private property itself is based solely on the private will, the arbitrary disposal.

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ibid, pp. 188
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
1 month 1 week ago
I disbelieve in specialization and... experts....

I disbelieve in specialization and... experts. ...[P]aying too much respect to the specialist ...[is] destroying the commonwealth of learning, the rationalist tradition, and science ...

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
1 month 2 weeks ago
As usurpation is the exercise of...

As usurpation is the exercise of power which another has a right to, so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to...

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Second Treatise of Government, Ch. XVIII, sec. 199
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
1 month 2 weeks ago
The scene should be gently open'd,...

The scene should be gently open'd, and his entrance made step by step, and the dangers pointed out that attend him from several degrees, tempers, designs, and clubs of men. He should be prepared to be shocked by some, and caress'd by others; warned who are like to oppose, who to mislead, who to undermine him, and who to serve him. He should be instructed how to know and distinguish them; where he should let them see, and when dissemble the knowledge of them and their aims and workings.

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Sec. 94
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 week 3 days ago
I do nothing, granted. But I...

I do nothing, granted. But I see the hours pass - which is better than trying to fill them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 day ago
...as the great Unitarian preacher Channing...

...as the great Unitarian preacher Channing pointed out, that in France and Spain there are multitudes who have proceeded from rejecting Popery to absolute atheism, because "the fact is, that false and absurd doctrines, when exposed, have a natural tendency to beget skepticism in those who receive them without reflection. None are so likely to believe too little as those who have begun by believing too much." Here is, indeed, the terrible danger of believing too much. But no! the terrible danger comes from another quarter - from seeking to believe with the reason and not with the life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
1 month 2 weeks ago
Where is the prince…

Where is the prince sufficiently educated to know that for seventeen hundred years the Christian sect has done nothing but harm?

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Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great (New York: Brentano's, 1927), transl. Richard Aldington, letter 160 from Voltaire to Frederick II of Prussia, 6 April 1767
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
2 months 4 days ago
No matter how busy you may...

No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.

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Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
Just now
When I speak of 'negative dialectics'...

When I speak of 'negative dialectics' not the least important reason for doing so is my desire to dissociate myself from this fetishization of the positive.

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p. 18
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
1 month 4 days ago
Making money is not without its...

Making money is not without its value, but nothing is baser than to make it by wrong-doing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
2 weeks 6 days ago
He who discommendeth others obliquely commendeth...

He who discommendeth others obliquely commendeth himself.

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Part I, Section XXXIV
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 1 week ago
In order to make myself recognized...

In order to make myself recognized by the Other, I must risk my own life. To risk one's life, in fact, is to reveal oneself as not-bound to the objective form or to any determined existence - as not-bound to life.

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p. 237, 1998 edition
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
1 month 3 weeks ago
Nature forms us for ourselves, not...

Nature forms us for ourselves, not for others; to be, not to seem.

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Book II, Ch. 37. Of the Resemblance of Children to their Brothers
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
1 month 3 weeks ago
This world, the whole of the...

This world, the whole of the planet called earth, is the common country of all who live and breathe upon it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
1 month 2 weeks ago
Do not hire a man who...

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

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p. 486
Philosophical Maxims
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham
1 month 2 weeks ago
Secrecy is an instrument of conspiracy;...

Secrecy is an instrument of conspiracy; it ought not, therefore, to be the system of a regular government.

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On Publicity from The Works of Jeremy Bentham volume 2, part 2, 1839
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
2 months ago
Now, justification in this life is...

Now, justification in this life is given to us according to these three things: first by the laver of regeneration by which all sins are forgiven; then, by a struggle with the faults from whose guilt we have been absolved; the third, when our prayer is heard, in which we say: Forgive us our debts, because however bravely we fight against our faults, we are men; but the grace of God so aids as we fight in this corruptible body that there is reason for His hearing us as we ask forgiveness.

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Against Julian, Book II, ch. 8, 22. In The Fathers of the Church, Matthew A. Schumacher, tr., 1957, ISBN 0813214009 ISBN 9780813214009 pp. 83-84.
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 weeks 1 day ago
Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions,...

Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 weeks 1 day ago
I have never in my life...

I have never in my life met a man like him for noble simplicity, and boundless truthfulness. I understood from the way he talked that anyone who chose could deceive him, and that he would forgive anyone afterwards who had deceived him, and that was why I grew to love him.

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Part 4, Chapter 8
Philosophical Maxims
Willard van Orman Quine
Willard van Orman Quine
Just now
The issue over there being classes...

The issue over there being classes seems more a question of convenient conceptual scheme; the issue over there being centaurs, or brick houses on Elm Street, seems more a question of fact. But I have been urging that this difference is only one of degree, and that it turns upon our vaguely pragmatic inclination to adjust one strand of the fabric of science rather than another in accommodating some particular recalcitrant experience. Conservatism figures in such choices, and so does the quest for simplicity.

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"Two Dogmas of Empiricism"
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 2 weeks ago
No congress, nor mob, nor guillotine,...

No congress, nor mob, nor guillotine, nor fire, nor all together, can avail, to cut out, burn, or destroy the offense of superiority in persons. The superiority in him is inferiority in me.

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p. 65
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
1 month 4 days ago
If any one hearken with understanding...

If any one hearken with understanding to these sayings of mine many a deed worthy of a good man shall he perform and many a foolish deed be spared.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
2 months 2 weeks ago
Most men are too concerned with...
Most men are too concerned with themselves to be malicious.
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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Schelling
Friedrich Schelling
2 weeks 1 day ago
Countless attempts have been made to...

Countless attempts have been made to no avail to construct a continuity from the supreme principle of the intellectual world to the finite world. The oldest and most frequent of these attempts is well known: the principle of emanation, according to which the outflowings from the godhead, in gradual increments and detachment from the ordinary source, losing their divine perfection until, in the end, they pass into the opposite (matter, privation), just as light is finally confined by darkness.

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P. 24
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 week 3 days ago
One cannot live without motives. I...

One cannot live without motives. I have no motives left, and I am living.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
1 month 2 weeks ago
Generally speaking, the errors in religion...

Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.

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Part 4, Section 7
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
1 month 3 weeks ago
If a woman becomes weary and...

If a woman becomes weary and at last dead from bearing, that matters not; let her only die from bearing, she is there to do it.

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Sermon Von dem ehelichen Stande (1519), p. 41 - as quoted in The Ethic of Freethought: A Selection of Essays and Lectures (1888) by Karl Pearson
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
2 months 4 days ago
All things are nourished together without...

All things are nourished together without their injuring one another. The courses of the seasons, and of the sun and moon, are pursued without any collision among them. The smaller energies are like river currents; the greater energies are seen in mighty transformations. It is this which makes heaven and earth so great.

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Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 weeks 5 days ago
We are far more liable to...

We are far more liable to catch the vices than the virtues of our associates.

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As quoted in Thesaurus of Epigrams: A New Classified Collection of Witty Remarks, Bon Mots and Toasts (1942) by Edmund Fuller
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
1 month 2 weeks ago
Whensoever therefore the legislative shall transgress...

Whensoever therefore the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society; and either by ambition, fear, folly or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people; by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and, by the establishment of a new legislative, (such as they shall think fit) provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society.

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Second Treatise of Civil Government, Ch. XIX, sec. 222
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 day ago
And love, above all when it...

And love, above all when it struggles against destiny, overwhelms us with the feeling of the vanity of this world of appearances and gives us a glimpse of another world, in which destiny is overcome and liberty is law.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 2 weeks ago
Acquisitiveness - the wish to possess...

Acquisitiveness - the wish to possess as much as possible of goods, or the title to goods - is a motive which, I suppose, has its origin in a combination of fear with the desire for necessaries.

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
2 weeks ago
There is nothing enduring, permanent, either...

There is nothing enduring, permanent, either in me or out of me, nothing but everlasting change. I know of no existence, not even of my own. I know nothing and am nothing. Images - pictures - only are, pictures which wander by without anything existing past which they wander, without any corresponding reality which they might represent, without significance and without aim. I myself am one of these images, or rather a confused image of these images. All reality is transformed into a strange dream, without a world of which the dream might be, or a mind that might dream it. Contemplation is a dream; thought, the source of all existence and of all that I fancied reality, of my own existence, my own capacities, is a dream of that dream.

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Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 60
Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
1 week 5 days ago
It may be confidently asserted that...

It may be confidently asserted that no man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks. And the desire of rectifying these mistakes, is the noble ambition of an enlightened understanding, the impulse of feelings that Philosophy invigorates.

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A Vindication of the Rights of Men
Philosophical Maxims
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
5 days ago
It is a great good fortune,...

It is a great good fortune, as Stendhal said, for one "to have his passion as a profession."

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p. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 weeks 1 day ago
Early and provident fear is the...

Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.

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Speech on the Petition of the Unitarians (11 May 1792), volume vii, p. 50
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
1 month 2 weeks ago
It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the...

It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the universal favor with which the New Testament is outwardly received, and even the bigotry with which it is defended, there is no hospitality shown to, there is no appreciation of, the order of truth with which it deals.

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Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 week ago
American life is a powerful solvent....

American life is a powerful solvent. As it stamps the immigrant, almost before he can speak English, with an unmistakable muscular tension, cheery self-confidence and habitual challenge in the voice and eyes, so it seems to neutralize every intellectual element, however tough and alien it may be, and to fuse it in the native good-will, complacency, thoughtlessness, and optimism.

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"The Academic Environment" p. 47 (Hathi Trust)
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
1 month 1 week ago
Subject matters in general do not...

Subject matters in general do not exist. There are no subject matters; no branches of learning-or, rather, of inquiry: there are only problems, and the urge to solve them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
3 weeks ago
Of the eternal corporeal substance (which...

Of the eternal corporeal substance (which is not producible ex nihilo, nor reducible ad nihilum, but rarefiable, condensable, formable, arrangeable, and "fashionable") the composition is dissolved, the complexion is changed, the figure is modified, the being is altered, the fortune is varied, only the elements remaining what they are in substance, that same principle persevering which was always the one material principle, which is the true substance of things, eternal, ingenerable and incorruptible.

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As translated by Arthur Imerti
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
1 week ago
A Covenant not to defend my...

A Covenant not to defend my selfe from force, by force, is always voyd.

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The First Part, Chapter 14, p. 69
Philosophical Maxims
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