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Ernst Mach
Ernst Mach
6 days ago
Not bodies produce sensations, but element-complexes...

Not bodies produce sensations, but element-complexes (sensation-complexes) constitute the bodies. When the physicist considers the bodies as the permanent reality, the `elements' as the transient appearance, he does not realise that all `bodies' are only mental symbols for element-complexes (sensation-complexes)

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p. 23, as quoted in Lenin as Philosopher: A Critical Examination of the Philosophical Basis of Leninism (1948) by Anton Pannekoek, p. 33
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 1 week ago
The criticism of religion ends with...

The criticism of religion ends with the doctrine that man is the supreme being for man, hence the categorical imperative to overthrow all those conditions in which man is degraded, enslaved, neglected, contemptible being-conditions which can hardly be better described than in the exclamation of a Frenchman on the occasion of a proposed tax upon dogs: 'Wretched dogs! They want to treat you like men!'

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 days ago
Beware of false prophets, which come...

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

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Matthew 7:15 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
1 week ago
The secret is that only that...

The secret is that only that which can destroy itself is truly alive.

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Psychology and Alchemy
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 1 week ago
In former days, men sold themselves...

In former days, men sold themselves to the Devil to acquire magical powers. Nowadays they acquire those powers from science, and find themselves compelled to become devils. There is no hope for the world unless power can be tamed, and brought into the service, not of this or that group of fanatical tyrants, but of the whole human race, white and yellow and black, fascist and communist and democrat; for science has made it inevitable that all must live or all must die.

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Ch. 2: Leaders and Followers
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
1 month 1 week ago
Philosophy is by its nature something...

Philosophy is by its nature something esoteric, neither made for the mob nor capable of being prepared for the mob.

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Introduction to the Critical Journal of Philosophy, cited in W. Kaufmann, Hegel (1966), p. 56
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 week 4 days ago
Of all our infirmities...
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Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
3 days ago
The doctrine of Right and Wrong,...

The doctrine of Right and Wrong, is perpetually disputed, both by Pen and the Sword: Whereas the doctrine of Lines, and Figures, is not so; because men care not, in that subject what be truth, as a thing that crosses no mans ambition, profit, or lust. For I doubt not, but if it had been a thing contrary to any mans right of dominion, or to the interest of men that have dominion, That the three Angles of a Triangle, should be equall to two Angles of a Square; that doctrine should have been, if not disputed, yet by the burning of all books of Geometry, suppressed, as far as he whom it concerned was able.

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The First Part, Chapter 11, p. 80-81
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
1 month 2 weeks ago
When I play with my cat….

When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?

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Ch. 12 (tr. Donald M. Frame) , tr. David Wills, 2008
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
2 days ago
The true antithesis of nature is...

The true antithesis of nature is not art but arbitrary conceit, fantasy, and stereotyped convention.

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p. 158
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
4 weeks ago
A prating barber asked Archelaus how...

A prating barber asked Archelaus how he would be trimmed. He answered, "In silence."

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33 Archelaus
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 1 week ago
I wanted pure love: foolishness; to...

I wanted pure love: foolishness; to love one another is to hate a common enemy: I will thus espouse your hatred. I wanted Good: nonsense; on this earth and in these times, Good and Bad are inseparable: I accept to be evil in order to become good.

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Act 11, sc. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
1 month ago
To Xeniades, who had purchased Diogenes...

To Xeniades, who had purchased Diogenes at the slave market, he said, "Come, see that you obey orders."

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Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 36
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
1 month 3 weeks ago
If the public thought elevates you...

If the public thought elevates you above the generality of men, let the other humble you, and hold you in a perfect equality with all mankind, for this is your natural condition.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
1 month 1 week ago
Aeschylus had a clear eye for...

Aeschylus had a clear eye for the commonest things. His genius was only an enlarged common sense. He adverts with chaste severity to all natural facts. His sublimity is Greek sincerity and simpleness, naked wonder which mythology had not helped to explain... Whatever the common eye sees at all and expresses as best it may, he sees uncommonly and describes with rare completeness. The multitude that thronged the theatre could no doubt go along with him to the end... The social condition of genius is the same in all ages. Aeschylus was undoubtedly alone and without sympathy in his simple reverence for the mystery of the universe.

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January 29, 1840
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
1 week 3 days ago
Reason does not exist for the...

Reason does not exist for the sake of life, but life for the sake of reason. An existence which does not of itself satisfy reason and solve all her doubts, cannot be the true one.

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Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p.94
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
1 month 1 week ago
Eloquence may strike the ear, but...

Eloquence may strike the ear, but the language of poverty strikes the heart; the first may charm like music, but the second alarms like a knell. 

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The Case of the Officers of Excise (1772), p. 20
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
2 months 1 week ago
Men grew desperate and the border...

Men grew desperate and the border between bitter frustration and wild destruction is sometimes easily crossed.

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Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
1 month 3 weeks ago
They [men] have corrupted this [God's...

They [men] have corrupted this [God's supernatural] order by making profane things what they should make of holy things, because in fact, we believe scarcely any thing except which pleases us.

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Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
2 months ago
We must consider both the ultimate...

We must consider both the ultimate end and all clear sensory evidence, to which we refer our opinions; for otherwise everything will be full of uncertainty and confusion.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
1 month 2 weeks ago
As soon as the land of...

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.

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Chapter VI, p. 60.
Philosophical Maxims
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham
1 month 1 week ago
Of corruption, the principal and direct...

Of corruption, the principal and direct use is, to engage the representatives of the people to betray their trust, and sell themselves and the people to the universal corrupter-the monarch, in his capacity of corrupter-general.

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Constitutional Code (written between 1820 and 1832), quoted in The Works of Jeremy Bentham, Vol. XVII (1841), p. 76
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
2 months 1 week ago
It is impossible that evils should...

It is impossible that evils should be done away with, for there must always be something opposed to the good; and they must inevitably hover about mortal nature and this earth. Therefore we ought to try to escape from earth to the dwelling of the gods as quickly as we can; and to escape is to become like God, so far as this is possible, God is in no wise and in no manner unrighteous, but utterly and perfectly righteous, and there is nothing so like him as that one of us who in turn becomes most nearly perfect in righteousness.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
1 month 1 week ago
Days of absence, sad and dreary,Clothed...

Days of absence, sad and dreary,Clothed in sorrow's dark array,-Days of absence, I am weary: She I love is far away.

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Day of Absence, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 weeks 1 day ago
Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that...

Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 1 week ago
When we have chosen the vocation...

When we have chosen the vocation in which we can contribute most to humanity, burdens cannot bend us because they are only sacrifices for all. Then we experience no meager, limited, egotistic joy, but our happiness belongs to millions, our deeds live on quietly but eternally effective, and glowing tears of noble men will fall on our ashes.

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Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, L. Easton, trans. (1967), p. 39
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
2 months 1 week ago
Korell is that frequent phenomenon in...

Korell is that frequent phenomenon in history: the republic whose ruler has every attribute of the absolute monarch but the name. It therefore enjoyed the usual despotism unrestrained even by those two moderating influences in the legitimate monarchies: regal, honor and court etiquette.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
2 months 1 week ago
It is not enough to prove...
It is not enough to prove something, one has also to seduce or elevate people to it. That is why the man of knowledge should learn how to speak his wisdom: and often in such a way that it sounds like folly!
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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
1 week 3 days ago
The secret of Hegel's dialectic lies...

The secret of Hegel's dialectic lies ultimately in this alone, that it negates theology through philosophy in order then to negate philosophy through theology. Both the beginning and the end are constituted by theology; philosophy stands in the middle as the negation of the first positedness, but the negation of the negation is again theology. At first everything is overthrown, but then everything is reinstated in its old place, as in Descartes. The Hegelian philosophy is the last grand attempt to restore a lost and defunct Christianity through philosophy, and, of course, as is characteristic of the modern era, by identifying the negation of Christianity with Christianity itself.

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Part II, Section 21
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
1 month 1 week ago
That the outer man is a...

That the outer man is a picture of the inner, and the face an expression and revelation of the whole character, is a presumption likely enough in itself, and therefore a safe one to go on; borne out as it is by the fact that people are always anxious to see anyone who has made himself famous .... Photography ... offers the most complete satisfaction of our curiosity.

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Vol. 2, Ch. 29, § 377
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
1 month 2 weeks ago
No regulation of commerce can increase...

No regulation of commerce can increase the quantity of industry in any society beyond what its capital can maintain. It can only divert a part of it into a direction into which it might not otherwise have gone; and it is by no means certain that this artificial direction is likely to be more advantageous to the society than that into which it would have gone of its own accord. Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society, which he has in his view. But the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily leads him to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to the society.

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Chapter II, p. 486.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 1 week ago
When a man acts in ways...

When a man acts in ways that annoy us we wish to think him wicked, and we refuse to face the fact that his annoying behaviour is a result of antecedent causes which, if you follow them long enough, will take you beyond the moment of his birth and therefore to events for which he cannot be held responsible by any stretch of imagination.

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"The Doctrine of Free Will"
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
6 days ago
Industry controlled by society as a...

Industry controlled by society as a whole, and operated according to a plan, presupposes well-rounded human beings, their faculties developed in balanced fashion, able to see the system of production in its entirety.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 1 week ago
There is a freemasonry among the...

There is a freemasonry among the dull by which they recognize and are sociable with the dull, as surely as a correspondent tact in men of genius.

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1827
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
1 month 1 week ago
Freedom is only necessity understood. The...

Freedom is only necessity understood.

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The Dilemma of Determinism, 1884
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
1 month 1 week ago
The concept of space is not...

The concept of space is not abstracted from external sensations.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 days ago
Therefore whoever hears these sayings of...

Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 1 week ago
Everything intercepts us from ourselves...

Everything intercepts us from ourselves.

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1833
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
2 months 1 week ago
The truly good and wise man...

The truly good and wise man will bear all kinds of fortune in a seemly way, and will always act in the noblest manner that the circumstances allow.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
1 month 1 week ago
Every poet and musician and artist,...

Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him.

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Ch. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
2 months 1 week ago
A fate is not a punishment.

A fate is not a punishment.

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
1 month 3 weeks ago
Bad times, hard times, this is...

Bad times, hard times, this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times.

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80:8
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
1 month 2 weeks ago
Custom, then, is the great guide...

Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared in the past. Without the influence of custom, we should be entirely ignorant of every matter of fact beyond what is immediately present to the memory and senses. We should never know how to adjust means to ends, or to employ our natural powers in the production of any effect. There would be an end at once of all action, as well as of the chief part of speculation. Variant (perhaps a paraphrase of this passage): It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
3 days ago
And hereby it comes to passe,...

And hereby it comes to passe, that Intemperance, is naturally punished with Diseases; Rashness, with Mischance; Injustice; with Violence of Enemies; Pride, with Ruine; Cowardice, with Oppression; Negligent government of Princes, with Rebellion; and Rebellion with Slaughter.

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The Second Part, Chapter 31, p. 194
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
1 month 1 week ago
[L]ike Coleridge, he might plead as...

[L]ike Coleridge, he might plead as a set-off that he had been to many persons, through his conversation, a source not only of much instruction but of great elevation of character. On me his influence was most salutary. It was moral in the best sense. He took a sincere and kind interest in me, far beyond what could have been expected towards a mere youth from a man of his age, standing, and what seemed austerity of character. There was in his conversation and demeanour a tone of high-mindedness which did not show itself so much, if the quality existed as much, in any of the other persons with whom at that time I associated. My intercourse with him was the more beneficial, owing to his being of a different mental type from all other intellectual men whom I frequented...

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(pp. 75-76)
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
2 months 1 week ago
If self-knowledge does not lead to...

If self-knowledge does not lead to knowing oneself before God - well, then there is something to what purely human self-observation says, namely, this self-knowledge leads to a certain emptiness that produces dizziness. Only by being before God can one totally come to oneself in the transparency of soberness.

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Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
1 month 1 week ago
There must be a seed of...

There must be a seed of every good thing in the character of men, otherwise no one can bring it out. Lacking that, analogous motives, honor, etc., are substituted. Parents are in the habit of looking out for the inclinations, for the talents and dexterity, perhaps for the disposition of their children, and not at all for their heart or character.

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Part III : Selection on Education from Kant's other Writings, Ch. I Pedagogical Fragments, # 13
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
6 days ago
Third, these general ideas are not...

Third, these general ideas are not mere words, nor do they consist in this, that certain concrete facts will every time happen under certain descriptions of conditions; but they are just as much, or rather far more, living realities than the feelings themselves out of which they are concreted. And to say that mental phenomenon are governed by law does not mean merely that they are describable by a general formula; but that there is a living idea, a conscious continuum of feeling which pervades them, and to which they are docile.

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Philosophical Maxims
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5
1 week 5 days ago
The Attention Economy

Your attention is harvested and sold. Social media platforms engineer addiction, fragment focus, monetize distraction. Sustained attention threatens profit; scattered scrolling generates revenue. They're not giving you a service - they're selling your consciousness to advertisers. Attention extraction is the business model.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
1 month 2 weeks ago
The value of money is in...

The value of money is in proportion to the quantity of the necessaries of life which it will purchase.

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Chapter II, Part II, Article IV.
Philosophical Maxims
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