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Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 2 weeks ago
Both in thought and in feeling,...

Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.

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p. 167
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
3 months 1 week ago
The total victimization of the individual...

The total victimization of the individual that takes place is encouraged for the specific benefit of the industrial and political bureaucracy. It therefore cannot be justified on the ground of the individual's true interest. National Socialist ideology simply states that true human existence consists in unconditional sacrifice, that it is of the essence of the individual's life to abbey and to serve-'service which never comes to an end because service and life coincide.'

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P. 416
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
3 months 2 weeks ago
If there is anything that we...

If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.

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p. 285
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 2 weeks ago
On recent and contemporary literature students...

On recent and contemporary literature student's need is least and our help least. They ought to understand it better than we, and if they do not then there is something radically wrong either with them or with the literature. But I need not labour the point. There is an intrinsic absurdity in making current literature a subject of academic study, and the student who wants a tutor's assistance in reading the works of his own contemporaries might as well ask for a nurse's assistance in blowing his own nose.

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"Our English syllabus", Rehabilitations and Other Essays (1939). Reprinted in Image and Imagination: Essays and Reviews by C. S. Lewis (2013), Cambridge University Press
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 1 week ago
I plead guilty to valuing such...

I plead guilty to valuing such a man beyond all other sorts of men. Smooth-shaven Respectabilities not a few one finds, that are not good for much. Small thanks to a man for keeping his hands clean, who would not touch the work but with gloves on!

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
4 months 2 weeks ago
"If God did not exist,…

"If God did not exist, he would have to be invented." But all nature cries aloud that he does exist: that there is a supreme intelligence, an immense power, an admirable order, and everything teaches us our own dependence on it.

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Voltaire quoting himself in his Letter to Prince Frederick William of Prussia (28 November 1770), translated by S.G. Tallentyre, Voltaire in His Letters, 1919
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
4 months 2 weeks ago
He will better comprehend the foundations...

He will better comprehend the foundations and measures of decency and justice, and have livelier, and more lasting impressions of what he ought to do, by giving his opinion on cases propos'd, and reasoning with his tutor on fit instances, than by giving a silent, negligent, sleepy audience to his tutor's lectures; and much more than by captious logical disputes, or set declamations of his own, upon any question. The one sets the thoughts upon wit and false colours, and not upon truth; the other teaches fallacy, wrangling, and opiniatry; and they are both of them things that spoil the judgment, and put a man out of the way of right and fair reasoning; and therefore carefully to be avoided by one who would improve himself, and be acceptable to others.

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Sec. 98
Philosophical Maxims
David Wood
David Wood
1 month 3 weeks ago
Nietzsche would say my friends lacked...

Nietzsche would say my friends lacked ears.

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Chapter 8, Performative Reflexivity, p. 133
Philosophical Maxims
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
2 weeks ago
The Leninist agrarian reform has created...

The Leninist agrarian reform has created a new and powerful layer of popular enemies of socialism on the countryside, enemies whose resistance will be much more dangerous and stubborn than that of the noble large landowners.

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Chapter Two
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months 3 weeks ago
We do not think good metaphors...

We do not think good metaphors are anything very important, but I think that a good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on...

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E 91 Variant translation: A good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on.
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
1 month 3 days ago
The proof of a theory is...

The proof of a theory is in its reasoning, not in its sponsorship.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
2 weeks 3 days ago
The Bank of the United States......

The Bank of the United States... is one of the most deadly hostility existing, against the principles and form of our Constitution... An institution like this, penetrating by its branches every part of the Union, acting by command and in phalanx, may, in a critical moment, upset the government. I deem no government safe which is under the vassalage of any self-constituted authorities, or any other authority than that of the nation, or its regular functionaries. What an obstruction could not this bank of the United States, with all its branch banks, be in time of war! It might dictate to us the peace we should accept, or withdraw its aids. Ought we then to give further growth to an institution so powerful, so hostile?

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Letter to Albert Gallatin, 1803. ME 10:437
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 1 week ago
Another parable put he forth unto...

Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

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13:24-30 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 months 3 weeks ago
Americans cleave to the things of...

Americans cleave to the things of this world as if assured that they will never die,... They clutch everything but hold nothing fast, and so lose grip as they hurry after some new delight. ... Death steps in in the end and stops him before he has grown tired of this futile pursuit of that complete felicity which always escapes him. At first sight there is something astonishing in this spectacle of so many lucky men restless in the midst of abundance. But it is a spectacle as old as the world; all that is new is to see a whole people performing in it.

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Book Two, Chapter XIII.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 2 weeks ago
There is a connected set of...

There is a connected set of events (light-waves) travelling outward from a centre... there are some respects in which all events are alike, and others in which they differ... We must not think of a light-wave as a 'thing', but as a connected group of rhythmical events. The mathematical characteristics of such a group can be inferred by physics, but the intrinsic character of the component events cannot be inferred.

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An Outline of Philosophy Ch.15 The Nature of our Knowledge of Physics, 1927
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
4 months 2 weeks ago
You can't worship a spirit in...

You can't worship a spirit in spirit, unless you do it now. Wallowing in the past may be good literature. As wisdom, it's hopeless. Time Regained is Paradise Lost, and Time Lost is Paradise Regained. Let the dead bury their dead. If you want to live at every moment as it presents itself, you've got to die to every other moment.

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John Rivers in The Genius and the Goddess, 1955
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
3 months 1 week ago
Big industry, freed from the pressure...

Big industry, freed from the pressure of private property, will undergo such an expansion that what we now see will seem as petty in comparison as manufacture seems when put beside the big industry of our own day. This development of industry will make available to society a sufficient mass of products to satisfy the needs of everyone. The same will be true of agriculture, which also suffers from the pressure of private property and is held back by the division of privately owned land into small parcels. Here, existing improvements and scientific procedures will be put into practice, with a resulting leap forward which will assure to society all the products it needs. In this way, such an abundance of goods will be able to satisfy the needs of all its members.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
4 months 3 weeks ago
The human understanding is moved by...

The human understanding is moved by those things most which strike and enter the mind simultaneously and suddenly, and so fill the imagination; and then it feigns and supposes all other things to be somehow, though it cannot see how, similar to those few things by which it is surrounded.

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Aphorism 47
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
4 months 2 weeks ago
Nothing contributes more to nourish elevation...

Nothing contributes more to nourish elevation of sentiments in a people, than the large and free character of their habitations.

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(p. 55)
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
2 weeks 4 days ago
Death's dry bones glowed with light...

Death's dry bones glowed with light in the erotic darkbut he woke not nor felt the two warm bodies merge;the male worm then took heart and in his wife's ear whispered:"With one sweet kiss, dear wife, we've conquered conquering Death!"

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Orpheus' song, Book III, line 178
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
4 months 2 weeks ago
Experience teaches only the teachable... Tragedy...

Experience teaches only the teachable...

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Tragedy and the Whole Truth
Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
4 months 3 weeks ago
God is the...

God is the Immanent Cause of all things, never truly transcendent from them.

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Part I, Prop. XVIII
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 2 weeks ago
The cup of life is not...

The cup of life is not so shallow

That we have drained the best 

That all the wine at once we swallow 

And lees make all the rest.

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1827
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
3 months 2 weeks ago
Unless man have a natural bent...

Unless man have a natural bent in accordance with nature's, he has no chance of understanding nature at all.

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IV
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
4 months 5 days ago
As Athenodorus was taking his leave...

As Athenodorus was taking his leave of Cæsar, "Remember," said he, "Cæsar, whenever you are angry, to say or do nothing before you have repeated the four-and-twenty letters to yourself."

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Cæsar Augustus
Philosophical Maxims
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
3 weeks 5 days ago
It is not so much what...

It is not so much what you believe in that matters, as the way in which you believe it and proceed to translate that belief into action.

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Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 8
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
1 week ago
I am a determinist. As...

I am a determinist. As such, I do not believe in free will. The Jews believe in free will. They believe that man shapes his own life. I reject that doctrine philosophically. In that respect, I am not a Jew.

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Quoted in [http://books.google.com/books?id=dJMpQagbz_gC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA387#v=onepage&q&f=false Einstein: His Life and Universe] by Walter Isaacson, p. 387
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 4 weeks ago
Advocates of capitalism...
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Main Content / General
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
1 month 2 weeks ago
There is nothing disastrous in the...

There is nothing disastrous in the temporary nature of our ideas. They are always that. But there may very easily be a train of evil in the self-deception which regards them as final. I think God will forgive us our skepticism sooner than our Inquisitions.

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Ch. VII: "The Making of Creeds", p. 236
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
3 months 2 days ago
It is the first step in...

It is the first step in sociological wisdom, to recognize that the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur:-like unto an arrow in the hand of a child. The art of free society consists first in the maintenance of the symbolic code; and secondly in fearlessness of revision, to secure that the code serves those purposes which satisfy an enlightened reason. Those societies which cannot combine reverence to their symbols with freedom of revision, must ultimately decay either from anarchy, or from the slow atrophy of a life stifled by useless shadows.

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Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect (1927), chapter 3, p. 88; final paragraph of the book.
Philosophical Maxims
Cisero
Cisero
5 months 5 days ago
What! You would convict me from...

What! You would convict me from my own words, and bring against me what I had said or written elsewhere. You may act in that manner with those who dispute by established rules. We live from hand to mouth, and say anything that strikes our mind with probability, so that we are the only people who are really at liberty.

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Book 5 Section 11
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 2 weeks ago
Bless advertising art for its pictorial...

Bless advertising art for its pictorial vitality and verbal creativity.

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(p. 18)
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 2 weeks ago
A habit of basing convictions upon...

A habit of basing convictions upon evidence, and of giving to them only that degree of certainty which the evidence warrants, would, if it became general, cure most of the ills from which the world is suffering. But at present, in most countries, education aims at preventing the growth of such a habit, and men who refuse to profess belief in some system of unfounded dogmas are not considered suitable as teachers of the young.

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preface xxiii-xxiv
Philosophical Maxims
Henry George
Henry George
2 weeks 2 days ago
I care nothing for creeds. I...

I care nothing for creeds. I am not concerned with any one's religious belief. But I would have men think for themselves. If we do not, we can only abandon one superstition to take up another, and it may be a worse one. It is as bad for a man to think that he can know nothing as to think he knows all. There are things which it is given to all possessing reason to know, if they will but use that reason. And some things it may be there are, that - as was said by one whom the learning of the time sneered at, and the high priests persecuted, and polite society, speaking through the voice of those who knew not what they did, crucified - are hidden from the wise and prudent and revealed unto babes.

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Conclusion : The Moral of this Examination
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
4 months 1 week ago
Sweet exists….

Sweet exists by convention, bitter by convention, colour by convention; atoms and Void [alone] exist in reality.

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(trans. Freeman 1948), p. 92.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
Utopia is a mixture of childish...

Utopia is a mixture of childish rationalism and secularized angelism.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 4 days ago
Only the feeble resign themselves to...

Only the feeble resign themselves to final death and substitute some other desire for the longing for personal immortality. In the strong the zeal for perpetuity overrides the doubt of realizing it, and their superabundance of life overflows upon the other side of death.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
4 months 3 weeks ago
The slaving Poor are incapable of...

The slaving Poor are incapable of any Principles: Gentlemen may be converted to true Principles, by Time and Experience. The middling Rank of Men have Curiosity and Knowledge enough to form Principles, but not enough to form true ones, or correct any Prejudices that they may have imbib'd: And 'tis among the middling Rank, that Tory Principles do at present prevail most in England.

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Part I, Essay 9: Of The Parties of Great Britain; final lines of this essay in the 1741 and 1742 editions of Essays, Moral and Political, they were not included in later editions.
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
5 months 2 days ago
For no fact….

For no fact is so simple we believe it at first sight, And there is nothing that exists so great or marvellous That over time mankind does not admire it less and less.

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Book II, lines 1026-1029 (tr. Stallings)
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
Death makes no sense except to...

Death makes no sense except to people who have passionately loved life. How can one die without having something to part from? Detachment is a negation of both life and death. Whoever has overcome his fear of death has also triumphed over life. For life is nothing but another word for this fear.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
4 months 2 weeks ago
To be shaken out of the...

To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with survival or to a human being obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Large - this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone and especially to the intellectual.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
4 months 2 weeks ago
He that denies any of the...

He that denies any of the doctrines that Christ has delivered, to be true, denies him to be sent from God, and consequently to be the Messiah; and so ceases to be a Christian.

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§ 232
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
5 months 2 days ago
For what is a child? Ignorance....

For what is a child? Ignorance. What is a child? Want of instruction. For where a child has knowledge, he is no worse than we are.

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Book II, ch. 1, 16
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 4 days ago
Reason perhaps teaches certain bourgeois virtues,...

Reason perhaps teaches certain bourgeois virtues, but it does not make either heroes or saints.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 months 1 day ago
Sexual activity is driven by the...

Sexual activity is driven by the same aims and motives as reading poetry or listening to music: to escape the limitations imposed by the need for particularity in the consciousness.

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p. 75
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
2 weeks 3 days ago
Our different States have differently modified...

Our different States have differently modified their several judiciaries as to the tenure of office. Some appoint their judges for a given term of time; some continue them during good behavior, and that to be determined on by the concurring vote of two-thirds of each legislative House. In England they are removable by a majority only of each House. The last is a practicable remedy; the second is not. The combination of the friends and associates of the accused, the action of personal and party passions, and the sympathies of the human heart, will forever find means of influencing one-third of either the one or the other House, will thus secure their impunity, and establish them in fact for life. The first remedy is the best, that of appointing for a term of years only, with a capacity of reappointment if their conduct has been approved.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 weeks ago
The art of life is more...

The art of life is more like the wrestler's art than the dancer's, in respect of this, that it should stand ready and firm to meet onsets which are sudden and unexpected.

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VII, 61
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 1 week ago
Blessed is the lion which becomes...

Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, and the lion becomes man. (7) This saying has been interpreted by some as referring to such anger as consumes a man…(rather than is consumed by him, through his reason and love), 'til that man is the lion of Anger. Other more mystical interpretations might also be found or devised that have merit.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 2 weeks ago
Try not to have Emily exposed...

Try not to have Emily exposed to hours and hours of TV. It is a vile drug which permeates the nervous system, especially in the young.

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Letter to son Eric McLuhan, regarding one of Eric's daughters, 1976
Philosophical Maxims
Hermann Weyl
Hermann Weyl
4 weeks ago
This letter, if judged by the...

This letter, if judged by the novelty and profundity of ideas it contains, is perhaps the most substantial piece of writing in the whole literature of mankind.

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Symmetry (1952), quote on p. 138; referring to a letter by Évariste Galois to Auguste Chevalier from May 29, 1832, two days before Galois' death, containing a testamentary summary of Galois' discoveries
Philosophical Maxims
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