Skip to main content

Main navigation

☰ ˟
  • Home
  • Articulation
  • Contact
  • Shop
Georg Simmel
Georg Simmel
Just now
Cities are, first of all, seats...

Cities are, first of all, seats of the highest economic division of labor. They produce thereby such extreme phenomena as in Paris the remunerative occupation of the quatorzième. They are persons who identify themselves by signs on their residences and who are ready at the dinner hour in correct attire, so that they can be quickly called upon if a dinner party should consist of thirteen persons. In the measure of its expansion, the city offers more and more the decisive conditions of the division of labor. It offers a circle which through its size can absorb a highly diverse variety of services.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 420
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
2 months 2 weeks ago
Second, by this and other means...

Second, by this and other means we are driven to perceive, what is quite evident in itself, that instantaneous feelings flow together in a continuum of feeling, which has in a modified degree the peculiar vivacity of feeling and has gained generality. And in reference to such general ideas, or continua of feeling, the difficulties about resemblance and suggestion and reference to the external, cease to have any force.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
1 month 2 weeks ago
And perhaps this habit of much...

And perhaps this habit of much travel, and the engendering of scattered friendships, may prepare the euthanasia of ancient nations.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Pt. I, ch. II.
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 month 2 weeks ago
They are in you and me;...

They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 2. The replicators
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 3 weeks ago
I do wish I believed in...

I do wish I believed in the life eternal, for it makes me quite miserable to think man is merely a kind of machine endowed, unhappily for himself, with consciousness.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Greek Exercises (1888); at the age of fifteen, Russell used to write down his reflections in this book, for fear that his people should find out what he was thinking.
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 3 weeks ago
I would rather sleep in the...

I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard, than in the tombs of the Capulets.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Letter to Matthew Smith
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
2 months 1 week ago
A child educated only at school...

A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
"Why I Am Not a Marxist" "Modern Monthly: Volume: 9″ (April 1935); Page: 77-79.
Philosophical Maxims
Gottlob frege
Gottlob frege
2 months 1 week ago
Gottlob Frege created modern logic including...

Gottlob Frege created modern logic including "for all," "there exists," and rules of proof. Leibniz and Boole had dealt only with what we now call "propositional logic" (that is, no "for all" or "there exists"). They also did not concern themselves with rules of proof, since their aim was to reach truth by pure calculation with symbols for the propositions. Frege took the opposite track: instead of trying to reduce logic to calculation, he tried to reduce mathematics to logic, including the concept of number.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Michael J. Beeson, "The Mechanization of Mathematics," in Alan Turing: Life and Legacy of a Great Thinker2004
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 3 weeks ago
Men must be governed by those...

Men must be governed by those laws which they love. Where thirty millions are to be governed by a few thousand men, the government must be established by consent, and must be congenial to the feelings and to the habits of the people. That which creates tyranny is the imposition of a form of government contrary to the will of the governed: and even a free and equal plan of government, would be considered as despotic by those who desired to have their old laws and their ancient system.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Speech in the House of Commons on India (27 June 1781), quoted in The Parliamentary Register: Or, History of the Proceedings and Debates of the House of Commons, Volume III (1782), pp. 666-667
Philosophical Maxims
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
2 months 1 week ago
By becoming the pure subject who...

By becoming the pure subject who knows the world objectively, man ultimately realizes that absolute consciousness with respect to which the body and individual existence are no longer anything but objects; death is deprived of meaning. Reduced to the status of object of consciousness, the body could not be conceived as an intermediary between "things" and the consciousness which knows them.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 204
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 months 4 days ago
I have always noticed that deeply...

I have always noticed that deeply and truly religious persons are fond of a joke, and I am suspicious of those who aren't.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
As quoted in Church and Home, Vol. 1 (1964) by United Methodist Church, and Evangelical United Brethren Church, p. 21.
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 1 week ago
If thou wilt be perfect, go...

If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
19:21 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
2 months 1 week ago
As we shall see later, the...

As we shall see later, the most important factor in the training of good mental habits consists in acquiring the attitude of suspended conclusion, and in mastering the various methods of searching for new materials to corroborate or to refute the first suggestions that occur. To maintain the state of doubt and to carry on systematic and protracted inquiry ― these are the essentials of thinking.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter 1: "What Is Thought?"
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 2 weeks ago
Much of the modern resistance to...

Much of the modern resistance to chastity comes from men's belief that they "own" their bodies - those vast and perilous estates, pulsating with the energy that made the worlds, in which they find themselves without their consent and from which they are ejected at the pleasure of Another!

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Letter XXI
Philosophical Maxims
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
1 month 1 week ago
There are evils, as someone has...

There are evils, as someone has pointed out, that have the ability to survive identification and go on for ever - money, for instance, or war.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The Dean's December (1982) [Penguin Classics, 1998, ISBN 0-140-18913-0], ch. 13, p. 140
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Schlegel
Friedrich Schlegel
2 months 2 weeks ago
In the same way as philosophy...

In the same way as philosophy loses sight of its true object and appropriate matter, when either it passes into and merges in theology, or meddles with external politics, so also does it mar its proper form when it attempts to mimic the rigorous method of mathematics.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Philosophy of Life, Lecture 1
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 3 weeks ago
When the husk gets separated from...

When the husk gets separated from the kernel, almost all men run after the husk and pay their respects to that. It is only the husk of Christianity that is so bruited and wide spread in this world; the kernel is still the very least and rarest of all things. There is not a single church founded on it.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2 months ago
If it were true what in...

If it were true what in the end would be gained? Nothing but another truth. Is this such a mighty advantage? We have enough old truths still to digest, and even these we would be quite unable to endure if we did not sometimes flavor them with lies.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
E 10
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 2 weeks ago
Casting my perils before swains.

Casting my perils before swains.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks 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.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
2 months 2 weeks ago
It is false that kings are...

It is false that kings are entitled to the eminence they obtain. They possess no intrinsic superiority over their subjects. The line of distinction that is drawn is the offspring of pretense, an indirect means employed for effecting certain purposes, and not the language of truth. It tramples upon the genuine nature of things, and depends for its support upon this argument, 'that, were it not for impositions of a similar nature, mankind would be miserable.'

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book V, Ch. 6, "Of Subjects"
Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
3 months 3 weeks ago
God is the...

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

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Part I, Prop. XVIII
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 3 weeks ago
Religion, which should most distinguish us...

Religion, which should most distinguish us from the beasts, and ought most particularly elevate us, as rational creatures, above brutes, is that wherein men often appear most irrational, and more senseless than beasts.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Book IV, Ch. 18
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
3 months 3 weeks ago
When we reflect on the long...

When we reflect on the long and dense night in which France and all Europe have remained plunged by their governments and their priests, we must feel less surprise than grief at the bewilderment caused by the first burst of light that dispels the darkness.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Author's Inscription: French Edition
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
1 month 2 weeks ago
The conscience of a man of...

The conscience of a man of our circle, if he retains but a scrap of it, cannot rest, and poisons all the comforts and enjoyments of life supplied to us by the labour of our brothers, who suffer and perish at that labour. And not only does every conscientious man feel this himself (he would be glad to forget it, but cannot do so in our age) but all the best part of science and art - that part which has not forgotten the purpose of its vocation - continually reminds us of our cruelty and of our unjustifiable position. The old firm justifications are all destroyed; the new ephemeral justifications of the progress of science for science's sake and art for art's sake do not stand the light of simple common sense. Men's consciences cannot be set at rest by new excuses, but only by a change of life which will make any justification of oneself unnecessary as there will be nothing needing justification.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
3 months 2 weeks ago
Mr. Galton ...in his English Men...

Mr. Galton ...in his English Men of Science, has given ...cases showing individual variations in the type of memory... Some have it verbal. Others... for facts and figures, others for form. Most say... [it] must first be rationally conceived and assimilated.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 16
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
2 months 2 days ago
His concept of the anal character...

His concept of the anal character as one that has not reached maturity is in fact a sharp criticism of bourgeois society of the nineteenth century, in which the qualities of the anal character constituted the norm for moral behavior.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
To Have or to Be? (2005) p. 68
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 months 2 weeks ago
A fool with a heart and...

A fool with a heart and no sense is just as unhappy as a fool with sense and no heart.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Part 1, Chapter 7
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
3 months 2 weeks ago
Could the activity of thinking as...

Could the activity of thinking as such, the habit of examining whatever happens to come to pass or to attract attention, regardless of results and specific content, could this activity be among the conditions that make men abstain from evil-doing?

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
3 months 2 weeks ago
Without the presence of black people...

Without the presence of black people in America, European-Americans would not be "white"-- they would be Irish, Italians, Poles, Welsh, and other engaged in class, ethnic, and gender struggles over resources and identity.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
(p. 107-108)
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
2 weeks 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
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 1 week ago
What man shall there be among...

What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
12:11-12 (KJV) Said to the Pharisees.
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
2 months 1 week ago
Skepticism is the chastity of the...

Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer: there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The Works of George Santayana p. 65
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 3 weeks ago
The wraith of Sigmund....
0
⚖0
Main Content / General
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
2 months 3 days ago
Our institutions and conditions rest upon...

Our institutions and conditions rest upon deep-seated ideas. To change those conditions and at the same time leave the underlying ideas and values intact means only a superficial transformation, one that cannot be permanent or bring real betterment. It is a change of form only, not of substance, as so tragically proven by Russia.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Edward Said
Edward Said
2 months 3 days ago
In the end, I am moved...

In the end, I am moved by causes and ideas that I can actually choose to support because they conform to values and principles that I believe in.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 88
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 3 weeks ago
In our science and philosophy, even,...

In our science and philosophy, even, there is commonly no true and absolute account of things. The spirit of sect and bigotry has planted its hoof amid the stars. You have only to discuss the problem, whether the stars are inhabited or not, in order to discover it.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 490
Philosophical Maxims
Willard van Orman Quine
Willard van Orman Quine
2 months 6 days ago
Logic chases truth up the tree...

Logic chases truth up the tree of grammar.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Philosophy of Logic
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 months 4 days ago
Nature is a structure of evolving...

Nature is a structure of evolving processes. The reality is the process.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 4: "The Eighteenth Century", p. 102
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
2 months 3 weeks ago
The Indian knew how to live...

The Indian knew how to live without wants, to suffer without complaint, and to die singing.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Chapter I.
Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
4 weeks 1 day ago
The existence of the mind-independent environment...

The existence of the mind-independent environment beyond one's world-simulation is a theoretical inference, not an empirical observation.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Postscript to review of Michael Lockwood's Mind, Brain and the Quantum, BLTC Research, Dec. 2016
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 2 weeks ago
Men became scientific because they expected...

Men became scientific because they expected law in Nature; and they expected law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Ch. 3: "The Cardinal Difficulty of Naturalism"
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 months 2 days ago
Better be mute, than dispute with...

Better be mute, than dispute with the Ignorant.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 2 weeks ago
They reckon ill who leave me...

They reckon ill who leave me out; When me they fly, I am the wings; I am the doubter and the doubt; And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Brahma, st. 3
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
3 months 2 weeks ago
The stronghold of the determinist argument...

The stronghold of the determinist argument is the antipathy to the idea of chance...This notion of alternative possibility, this admission that any one of several things may come to pass is, after all, only a roundabout name for chance.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
The Dilemma of Determinism (1884) p.153
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
1 month 2 weeks ago
There is no spirit-driven life force,...

There is no spirit-driven life force, no throbbing, heaving, pullulating, protoplasmic, mystic jelly. Life is just bytes and bytes and bytes of digital information.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
2 months 1 week ago
All liberation depends on the consciousness...

All liberation depends on the consciousness of servitude, and the emergence of this consciousness is always hampered by the predominance of needs and satisfactions which, to a great extent, have become the individual's own.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
p. 7
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 week 4 days ago
Not the external and physical alone...

Not the external and physical alone is now managed by machinery, but the internal and spiritual also. Here too nothing follows its spontaneous course, nothing is left to be accomplished by old natural methods. Everything has its cunningly devised implements, its preestablished apparatus; it is not done by hand, but by machinery.

0
⚖0
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 months 2 weeks ago
It is better to be unhappy...

It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool's paradise!

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Part 4, Chapter 5
Philosophical Maxims
Sydney Smith
Sydney Smith
5 days ago
Have the courage to be ignorant...

Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.

0
⚖0
▼ Source
source
Lecture IX : On the Conduct of the Understanding
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