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Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 1 day ago
Every man is, no doubt, by...

Every man is, no doubt, by nature, first and principally recommended to his own care; and as he is fitter to take care of himself than of any other person, it is fit and right that it should be so.

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Section II, Chap. II.
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 3 weeks ago
Landlords... grow richer, as it were...

Landlords... grow richer, as it were in their sleep, without working, risking, or economizing.

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Book V, Chapter 1, Section 5
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
1 month 1 week ago
the impressionable mind of the child...

the impressionable mind of the child realizes early enough that the lives of their parents are in contradiction to the ideas they represent; that, like the good Christian who fervently prays on Sunday, yet continues to break the Lord's commands the rest of the week, the radical parent arraigns God, priesthood, church, government, domestic authority, yet continues to adjust himself to the condition he abhors.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 3 weeks ago
Man cannot do without beauty, and...

Man cannot do without beauty, and this is what our era pretends to want to disregard. It steels itself to attain the absolute and authority; it wants to transfigure the world before having exhausted it, to set it to rights before having understood it. Whatever it may say, our era is deserting this world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 3 weeks ago
You could attach prices to thoughts....

You could attach prices to thoughts. Some cost a lot, some a little. And how does one pay for thoughts? The answer, I think, is: with courage.

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p. 52e
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
3 months 6 days ago
They [theologians] will explain to...

They [theologians] will explain to you how Christ was formed in the Virgin's womb; how accident subsists in synaxis without domicile in place. The most ordinary of them can do this. Those more fully initiated explain further whether there is an instans in Divine generation; whether in Christ there is more than a single filiation; whether 'the Father hates the Son' is a possible proposition; whether God can become the substance of a woman, of an ass, of a pumpkin, or of the devil, and whether, if so, a pumpkin could preach a sermon, or work miracles, or be crucified. And they can discover a thousand other things to you besides these. They will make you understand notions, and instants, formalities, and quiddities, things which no eyes ever saw, unless they were eyes which could see in the dark what had no existence.

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as quoted by Froude ibid.,
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
3 weeks 3 days ago
It takes a long time to...

It takes a long time to bring excellence to maturity.

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Maxim 780
Philosophical Maxims
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam
1 month 4 days ago
In short, analytic statements are statements...

In short, analytic statements are statements which we all accept and for which we do not give reasons. This is what we mean when we say that they are true by 'implicit convention'. The problem is then to distinguish them from other statements that we accept, and do not give reasons for, in particular from the statements that we unreasonably accept. To resolve this difficulty, we have to point out some of the crucial distinguishing features of analytic statements (e.g. the fact that the subject concept is not a law-cluster concept), and we have to connect these features with what, in the preceding section, was called the 'rationale' of the analytic-synthetic distinction. Having done this, we can see that the acceptance of analytic statements is rational, even though there are no reasons (in the sense of' evidence') in connection with them.

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The analytic and the synthetic
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
2 months 2 weeks ago
Many who have not learned wisdom...

Many who have not learned wisdom live wisely, and many who do the basest deeds can make most learned speeches.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 1 week ago
The rather more dubious side of...

The rather more dubious side of Nietzsche's 'evolutionism' is his glorification of the warrior -- particularly when, as an exemplification of the warrior-hero, he chooses an archetypal 'spoilt brat' like Cesare Borgia. Nietzsche's own physical weakness and consequent inability to escape the atmosphere of the study leads him to take a rather unrealistic view of the man of action.

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p. 87
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
3 months 3 weeks ago
It is the mark of an...

It is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
2 months 4 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
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
2 months 4 weeks ago
There are, in every country, some...

There are, in every country, some magnificent charities established by individuals. It is, however, but little that any individual can do, when the whole extent of the misery to be relieved is considered. He may satisfy his conscience, but not his heart. He may give all that he has, and that all will relieve but little. It is only by organizing civilization upon such principles as to act like a system of pulleys, that the whole weight of misery can be removed.

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Means by Which the Fund Is to Be Created
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
Life is possible only by the...

Life is possible only by the deficiencies of our imagination and memory.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 3 weeks ago
...and if you are common, you...

...and if you are common, you can dress up as a woman, show you behind or write poems: there's nothing offensive about a naked behind if it's everybody's; each person will be mirrored in it.

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p. 463
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 4 weeks ago
Where is the boundary for the...

Where is the boundary for the single individual in his concrete existence between what is lack of will and what is lack of ability; what is indolence and earthly selfishness and what is the limitation of finitude? For an existing person, when is the period of preparation over, when this question will not arise again in all its initial, troubled severity; when is the time in existence that is indeed a preparation? Let all the dialecticians convene-they will not be able to decide this for a particular individual in concreto.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
2 months 3 weeks ago
Possibilities that fail to get realized...

Possibilities that fail to get realized are, for determinism, pure illusions: they never were possibilities at all. There is nothing inchoate, it says, about this universe of ours, all that was or is or shall be actual having been from eternity virtually there. The cloud of alternatives our minds escort this mass of actuality withal is a cloud of sheer deceptions, to which 'impossibilities' is the only name that rightfully belongs.

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The Dilemma of Determinism in "The Will to Believe" p. 151
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 weeks 3 days ago
Until now a culture has been...

Until now a culture has been a mechanical fate for societies, the automatic interiorization of their own technologies.

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(p. 86)
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
It makes a great difference in...

It makes a great difference in the force of a sentence whether a man be behind it or no.

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p. 261
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
We say: he has no talent,...

We say: he has no talent, only tone. But tone is precisely what cannot be invented - we're born with it. Tone is an inherited grace, the privilege some of us have of making our organic pulsations felt - tone is more than talent, it is its essence.

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1 month 3 weeks ago
Pain and suffering are always inevitable...

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on Earth.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 3 weeks ago
The theory of Communism may be...

The theory of Communism may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.

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Section 2, paragraph 13.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 3 weeks ago
The need of a constantly expanding...

The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.

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Section 1, paragraph 19
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
1 month 2 weeks ago
With the abolition of otium and...

With the abolition of otium and of the ego no aloof thinking is left. ... Without otium philosophical thought is impossible, cannot be conceived or understood.

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p. 39.
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 month 1 week ago
There is a quality of life...

There is a quality of life which lies always beyond the mere fact of life; and when we include the quality in the fact, there is still omitted the quality of the quality.

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Religion in the Making (February 1926), Lecture II: "Religion and Dogma".
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 weeks 5 days ago
To evoke in oneself a feeling...

To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed through words, so to convey this so that others may experience the same feeling - this is the activity of art.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 3 weeks ago
There is no more light in...

There is no more light in a genius than in any other honest man-but he has a particular kind of lens to concentrate this light into a burning point.

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p. 41e
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
2 months 2 weeks ago
Men have fashioned an image of...

Men have fashioned an image of Chance as an excuse for their own stupidity. For Chance rarely conflicts with intelligence, and most things in life can be set in order by an intelligent sharpsightedness.

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Freeman (1948), p. 155
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
Always put the best interpretation on...

Always put the best interpretation on a tenet. Why not on Christianity, wholesome, sweet, and poetic? It is the record of a pure and holy soul, humble, absolutely disinterested, a trutn-speaker, and bent on serving, teaching, and uplifting men. Christianity taught the capacity, the element, to Jove the All-perfect without a stingy bargain for personal happiness. It taught that to love him was happiness,-to love him in other's virtues.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
3 months 4 weeks ago
He who lives as children live
He who lives as children live who does not struggle for his bread and does not believe that his actions possess any ultimate significance remains childlike.
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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
1 month 3 weeks ago
We have repeatedly observed that while...

We have repeatedly observed that while any whole is evolving, there is always going on an evolution of the parts into which it divides itself; but we have not observed that this equally holds of the totality of things, which is made up of parts within parts from the greatest down to the smallest.

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Pt. II, The Knowable; Ch. XV, The Law of Evolution (continued)
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 3 weeks ago
In all persuasions the bigots are...

In all persuasions the bigots are persecutors; the men of a cool and reasonable piety are favourers of toleration; because the former sort of men not taking the pains to be acquainted with the grounds of their adversaries tenets, conceive them to be so absurd and monstrous, that no man of sense can give into them in good earnest. For which reason they are convinced that some oblique bad motive induces them to pretend to the belief of such doctrines, and to the maintaining of them with obstinacy. This is a very general principle in all religious differences, and it is the corner stone of all persecution.

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Volume II, p. 148
Philosophical Maxims
Emmanuel Levinas
Emmanuel Levinas
1 month 3 weeks ago
The mores I return to myself,...

The mores I return to myself, the more I divest myself, under the traumatic effect of persecution , of my freedom as a constituted, wilful, imperialistic subject, the more I discover myself to be responsible' the more just I am, the more guilty I am. I am 'in myself' through others.

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The Levinas reader by Levinas, Emmanuel p. 102
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
3 months ago
Though experience be our only guide...

Though experience be our only guide in reasoning concerning matters of fact; it must be acknowledged, that this guide is not altogether infallible, but in some cases is apt to lead us into errors.

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Section 10 : Of Miracles Pt. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
There is always a certain meanness...

There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, joined with a certain superiority in its fact.

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Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 months 1 day ago
Man was born to live with...

Man was born to live with his fellow human beings. Separate him, isolate him, his character will go bad, a thousand ridiculous affects will invade his heart, extravagant thoughts will germinate in his brain, like thorns in an uncultivated land.

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The character Suzanne Simon, in La Religieuse [The Nun]
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 1 week ago
The fundamental tenet of Steiner's teaching...

The fundamental tenet of Steiner's teaching is that if we take the trouble to recognize the independent existence of the inner worlds of thought, and keep the mind turned in that direction, we shall soon become increasingly conscious of their reality. We are not, as Sartre believed, stranded in the universe of matter like a whale on a beach. That inner world is our natural home. Moreover, once we grasp this truth, we can also recognize that we ourselves possess an "essential ego," a "true self," a fundamental identity that goes far beyond our usual feeble sense of being "me."

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p. 26
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 3 weeks ago
A new word is like a...

A new word is like a fresh seed sown on the ground of the discussion.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
You shall have joy, or you...

You shall have joy, or you shall have power, said God; you shall not have both.

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October 1842
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
1 month 1 week ago
Following Foucault, we may define the...

Following Foucault, we may define the art of life as a practice of suicide, of giving oneself to death, of depsychologizing oneself, of playing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
1 month 1 week ago
The lack of objectivity, as far...

The lack of objectivity, as far as foreign nations are concerned, is notorious. From one day to another, another nation is made out to be utterly depraved and fiendish, while one's own nation stands for everything that is good and noble. Every action of the enemy is judged by one standard - every action of oneself by another. Even good deeds by the enemy are considered a sign of particular devilishness, meant to deceive us and the world, while our bad deeds are necessary and justified by our noble goals which they serve.

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Philosophical Maxims
Susan Neiman
Susan Neiman
2 weeks 3 days ago
What concerns me most here are...

What concerns me most here are the ways in which contemporary voices considered to be leftist have abandoned the philosophical ideas that are central to any left-wing standpoint: a commitment to universalism over tribalism, a firm distinction between justice and power, and a belief in the possibility of progress.

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Polity (2023), p. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 4 weeks ago
People seem good while they are...

People seem good while they are oppressed, but they only wish to become oppressors in their turn: life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.

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Letter to Ottoline Morrell, 17 December, 1920
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 2 weeks 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
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
2 months 3 weeks ago
The true is the whole…

The true is the whole.

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Preface
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 3 weeks ago
Manners are of more importance than...

Manners are of more importance than laws. The law can touch us here and there, now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation like that of the air we breathe in.

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No. 1, p. 172 in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke: A New Edition, v. VIII. London: F. C. and J. Rivington, 1815
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
3 months 1 week ago
Yet God hath not only granted...

Yet God hath not only granted these faculties, by which we may bear every event without being depressed or broken by it, but like a good prince and a true father, hath placed their exercise above restraint, compulsion, or hindrance, and wholly within our own control.

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Book I, ch. 6, 40.
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 weeks 5 days ago
The most difficult subjects can be...

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.

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Chapter III, Christianity Misunderstood by Believers
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 1 week ago
It is not proper....
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Main Content / General
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
3 months ago
I do not, therefore, need any...

I do not, therefore, need any penetrating acuteness to see what I have to do in order that my volition be morally good. Inexperienced in the course of the world, incapable of being prepared for whatever might come to pass in it, I ask myself only: can you also will that your maxim become a universal law?

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Philosophical Maxims
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