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Karl Marx
Karl Marx
5 months 4 days ago
These numerous points at which money...

These numerous points at which money is withdrawn from circulation and accumulated in numerous individual hoards or potential money-capitals appears as so many obstacles to circulation, because they immobilise the money and deprive it of its capacity to circulate for a certain time.

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Vol. II, Ch. XXI, p. 497.
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
1 month 2 weeks ago
World-view is a product of life-view,...

World-view is a product of life-view, not vice versa.

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Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
5 months 3 days ago
Nobody knows what is going to...

Nobody knows what is going to happen because so much depends on an enormous number of variables, on simple hazard. On the other hand if you look at history retrospectively, then, even though it was contingent, you can tell a story that makes sense.... Jewish history, for example, in fact had its ups and downs, its, enmities and its friendships, as every history of all people has. The notion that there is one unilinear history is of course false. But if you look at it after the experience of Auschwitz it looks as though all of history-or at least history since the Middle Ages - had no other aim than Auschwitz.... This, is the real problem of every philosophy of history how is it possible that in retrospect it always looks as though it couldn't have happened otherwise?

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 3 weeks ago
They that be whole need not...

They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

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9:12-13 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 3 weeks ago
The immeasurable beauty of life is...

The immeasurable beauty of life is a very fine thing to write about, and there are, indeed, some who resign themselves to accept it and accept it as it is, and even some who would persuade us that there is no problem in the "trap." But it has been said by Calderón that "to seek to persuade a man that the misfortunes which he suffers are not misfortunes, does not console him for them, but it is another misfortune in addition." And furthermore, "only the heart can speak to the heart," as Fray Diego de Estella said.

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(Vanidad del Mundo, cap. xxi.)
Philosophical Maxims
Emperor Julian
Emperor Julian
1 month 1 week ago
I feel awe of the gods,...

I feel awe of the gods, I love, I revere, I venerate them, and in short have precisely the same feelings towards them as one would have towards kind masters or teachers or fathers or guardians or any beings of that sort.

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Oration to the Cynic Heracleios
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 month 1 day ago
Each of us lives only now,...

Each of us lives only now, this brief instant.

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(Hays translation) III, 10
Philosophical Maxims
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
1 month 5 days ago
It is not you talking. Nor...

It is not you talking. Nor is it your race only which shouts within you, for all the innumerable races of mankind shout and rush within you: white, yellow, black. Free yourself from race also; fight to live through the whole struggle of man.

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Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
4 months 4 weeks ago
The rule of Big Money and...

The rule of Big Money and its attendant culture of cupidity and mendacity has so poisoned our hearts, minds and souls that a dominant self-righteous neoliberal soulcraft of smartness, dollars and bombs thrives with little opposition.

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America is spiritually bankrupt. We must fight back together. The Guardian,
Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
3 months 2 weeks ago
To be sure, exchange-value exerts its...

To be sure, exchange-value exerts its power in a special way in the realm of cultural goods. For in the world of commodities this realm appears to be exempted from the power of exchange, to be in an immediate relationship with the goods, and it is this appearance in turn which alone gives cultural goods their exchange-value. But they nevertheless simultaneously fall completely into the world of commodities, are produced for the market, and are aimed at the market.

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p. 279
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 months 2 weeks ago
One gloomy and pessimistic writer with...

One gloomy and pessimistic writer with a powerful style affects a whole generation of writers, who in turn affect almost every educated person in the country.

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p. 79
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
5 months 6 days ago
The boundaries of the species, whereby...

The boundaries of the species, whereby men sort them, are made by men.

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Book III, Ch. 6, sec. 37
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 months 4 days ago
When the Indians complain that the...

When the Indians complain that the English have enslaved them it is as if drunkards complained that the spirit-dealers who have settled among them have enslaved them. You tell them that they might give up drinking, but they reply that they are so accustomed to it that they cannot abstain, and that they must have alcohol to keep up their energy. Is it not the same thing with the millions of people who submit to thousands or even to hundreds, of others - of their own or other nations? If the people of India are enslaved by violence it is only because they themselves live and have lived by violence, and do not recognize the eternal law of love inherent in humanity.

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V
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months ago
It makes no sense to say...

It makes no sense to say that death is the goal of life, but what else is there to say?

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Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
4 months ago
There is rarely a creative man...

There is rarely a creative man who does not have to pay a high price for the divine spark of his greatest gifts...the human element is frequently bled for the benefit of the creative element and to such an extent that it even brings out the bad qualities, as for instance, ruthless, naive egoism (so-called "auto-eroticism"), vanity, all kinds of vices-and all this in order to bring to the human I at least some life-strength, since otherwise it would perish of sheer inanition.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
6 months 2 days ago
Printing will tell you such useful...

Printing will tell you such useful things and such interesting things that not being able to read would be as bad as not being able to see.

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Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
4 months 1 week ago
The single spirit doth simultaneously temper...

The single spirit doth simultaneously temper the whole together; this is the single soul of all things; all are filled with God.

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IV 9; as translated by Dorothea Waley Singer
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
6 months 1 day ago
A nihilist is not one who...

A nihilist is not one who believes in nothing, but one who does not believe in what exists.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 1 week ago
Ambition is not a vice of...

Ambition is not a vice of little people.

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Book III, Ch. 10
Philosophical Maxims
Max Scheler
Max Scheler
3 months 3 weeks ago
Antiquity believed that the forces of...

Antiquity believed that the forces of love in the universe were limited. Therefore they were to be used sparingly,and everyone was to be loved only according to his value.

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L. Coser, trans. (1961), p. 94
Philosophical Maxims
William Whewell
William Whewell
1 month 4 days ago
In the 'Induction of Causes' the...

In the 'Induction of Causes' the principal maxim is, that we must be careful to possess, and to apply, with perfect clearness, the Fundamental Idea on which the Induction depends. The Induction of Substance, of Force, of Polarity, go beyond mere laws of phenomena, and may be considered as the Induction cf Causes. The Cause of certain phenomena being inferred, we are led to inquire into the Cause of this Cause, which inquiry must be conducted in the same manner as the previous one; and thus we have the Induction of Ulterior Causes.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ernst Mach
Ernst Mach
4 months ago
I know of nothing more terrible...

I know of nothing more terrible than the poor creatures who have learned too much. Instead of the sound powerful judgement which would probably have grown up if they had learned nothing, their thoughts creep timidly and hypnotically after words, principles and formulae, constantly by the same paths. What they have acquired is a spider's web of thoughts too weak to furnish sure supports, but complicated enough to provide confusion.

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On the Relative Educational Value of the Classics and the Mathematico-Physical Sciences in Colleges and High Schools, an address in (16 April 1886)
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
4 months 3 weeks ago
By convention sweet is sweet, bitter...

By convention sweet is sweet, bitter is bitter, hot is hot, cold is cold, color is color; but in truth there are only atoms and the void.

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(trans. Durant 1939), Ch. XVI, §II, p. 353; citing C. Bakewell, Sourcebook in Ancient Philosophy, New York, 1909, "Fragment O" (Diels), p. 60
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
6 months 2 days ago
Civilizations have always been pyramidal in...

Civilizations have always been pyramidal in structure. As one climbs toward the apex of the social edifice, there is increased leisure and increasing opportunity to pursue happiness. As one climbs, one finds also fewer and fewer people to enjoy this more and more. Invariably, there is a preponderance of the dispossessed. And remember this, no matter how well off the bottom layers of the pyramid might be on an absolute scale, they are always dispossessed in comparison with the apex.So there is always social friction in ordinary human societies. The action of social revolution and the reaction of guarding against such revolution or combating it once it has begun are the causes of a great deal of the human misery with which history is permeated.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
6 months 2 days ago
There is nothing so eternally adhesive...

There is nothing so eternally adhesive as the memory of power.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
5 months 1 week ago
The trade of insurance gives great...

The trade of insurance gives great security to the fortunes of private people, and by dividing among a great many that loss which would ruin an individual, makes it fall light and easy upon the whole society.

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Chapter I, Part III, p. 821.
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 week 6 days ago
Society attacks early....
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Main Content / General
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
5 months 5 days ago
In the Catholic Church, especially, they...

In the Catholic Church, especially, they go into chancery, make a clean confession, give up all, and think to start again. Thus men will lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make an effort to get up.

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p. 487
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 3 weeks ago
Men, I say, never did believe...

Men, I say, never did believe idle songs, never risked their soul's life on allegories: men in all times, especially in early earnest times, have had an instinct for detecting quacks, for detesting quacks.

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Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
3 months 1 day ago
When Fortune is on our side,...

When Fortune is on our side, popular favor bears her company.

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Maxim 275
Philosophical Maxims
Mozi
Mozi
1 month 1 week ago
When nobody in the world loves...

When nobody in the world loves any other, naturally the strong will overpower the weak, the many will oppress the few, the wealthy will mock the poor, the honoured will disdain the humble, the cunning will deceive the simple. Therefore all the calamities, strifes, complaints, and hatred in the world have arisen out of want of mutual love. Therefore the benevolent disapproved of this want.

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Book 4; Universal Love II
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
5 months 6 days ago
Go into the London Stock Exchange...

Go into the London Stock Exchange - a more respectable place than many a court - and you will see representatives from all nations gathered together for the utility of men. Here Jew, Mohammedan and Christian deal with each other as though they were all of the same faith, and only apply the word infidel to people who go bankrupt. Here the Presbyterian trusts the Anabaptist and the Anglican accepts a promise from the Quaker.

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Letters on England, letter 6, "On the Presbyterians" as quoted in Trust and Tolerance, Richard H. Dees, Routledge, London and New York, (2004) p. 92, published first in English in 1733.
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
6 months 5 days ago
A line by Thomas à Kempis...

A line by Thomas à Kempis which perhaps could be used as a motto sometime. He says of Paul: Therefore he turned everything over to God, who knows all, and defended himself solely by means of patience and humility . . . . He did defend himself now and then so that the weak would not be offended by his silence.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry George
Henry George
1 month 3 days ago
The tax upon land values is,...

The tax upon land values is, therefore, the most just and equal of all taxes. It falls only upon those who receive from society a peculiar and valuable benefit, and upon them in proportion to the benefit they receive. It is the taking by the community, for the use of the community, of that value which is the creation of the community. It is the application of the common property to common uses. When all rent is taken by taxation for the needs of the community, then will the equality ordained by Nature be attained. No citizen will have an advantage over any other citizen save as is given by his industry, skill, and intelligence; and each will obtain what he fairly earns. Then, but not till then, will labor get its full reward, and capital its natural return.

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Book VIII, Ch. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 4 weeks ago
Logic takes care of itself; all...

Logic takes care of itself; all we have to do is to look and see how it does it.

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Journal entry (13 October 1914), also in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (§ 5.47)
Philosophical Maxims
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
1 month 1 day ago
Among animals, some learn to speak...

Among animals, some learn to speak and sing; they remember tunes, and strike the notes as exactly as a musician. Others, for instance the ape, show more intelligence... would it be absolutely impossible to teach the ape a language? I do not think so.

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Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
4 months 1 day ago
Where children are, there is a...

Where children are, there is a golden age.

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Fragment No. 97
Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
5 months 1 week ago
Human infirmity in moderating….

Human infirmity in moderating and checking the emotions I name bondage: for, when a man is a prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune: so much so, that he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse.

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Part IV, Preface; translation by R. H. M. Elwes
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 5 days ago
If I understand at all the...

If I understand at all the true Spirit of the present contest, We are engaged in a Civil War ... I consider the Royalists of France, or, as they are (perhaps more properly) called, the Aristocrates, as of the party which we have taken in this civil war.

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Letter to Sir Gilbert Elliot (22 September 1793), quoted in P. J. Marshall and John A. Woods (eds.)
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
3 months 2 weeks ago
No member of a crew is...

No member of a crew is praised for the rugged individuality of his rowing.

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"Harvard: The Future," The Atlantic Monthly, September 1936
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
2 months 1 week ago
As Malaparte saw it, Naples was...

As Malaparte saw it, Naples was a pagan city with an ancient sense of time. Christianity taught those who were converted to it to think of history as the unfolding of a single plot - a moral drama of sin and redemption. In the ancient world there was no such plot - only a multitude of stories that were forever being repeated. Inhabiting that ancient world, the Neapolitans did not expect any fundamental alteration in human affairs. Not having accepted the Christian story of redemption, they had not been seduced by the myth of progress. Never having believed civilization to be permanent, they were not surprised when it foundered.

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An Old Chaos: Frozen Horses and Deserts of Brick (p. 22)
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
1 month 4 weeks ago
It's also been attacked from the...

It's also been attacked from the left by people... I teach students at Stanford, and many of them think that liberalism is... the doctrine of their parents' or their grandparents' generation, but it's really not relevant to Gen Z younger people who are impatient for social justice and social change that liberalism is not providing.

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6:48
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months ago
To tell the truth, I couldn't...

To tell the truth, I couldn't care less about the relativity of knowledge, simply because the world does not deserve to be known.

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Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
4 months ago
As the animus is partial to...

As the animus is partial to argument, he can best be seen at work in disputes where both parties know they are right. Men can argue in a very womanish way, too, when they are anima-possessed and have thus been transformed into the animus of their own anima.

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Aion (1951). CW 9, Part II: P.29
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
3 months ago
By all means begin your folio;...

By all means begin your folio; even if the doctor does not give you a year, even if he hesitates about a month, make one brave push and see what can be accomplished in a week.

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316
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
6 months 1 week ago
We still do not yet know...
We still do not yet know where the drive for truth comes from. For so far we have heard only of the duty which society imposes in order to exist: to be truthful means to employ the usual metaphors. Thus, to express it morally, this is the duty to lie according to a fixed convention, to lie with the herd and in a manner binding upon everyone. Now man of course forgets that this is the way things stand for him. Thus he lies in the manner indicated, unconsciously and in accordance with habits which are centuries' old; and precisely by means of this unconsciousness and forgetfulness he arrives at his sense of truth.
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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 3 weeks ago
It has ever been held the...

It has ever been held the highest wisdom for a man not merely to submit to Necessity,-Necessity will make him submit,-but to know and believe well that the stern thing which Necessity had ordered was the wisest, the best, the thing wanted there. To cease his frantic pretension of scanning this great God's-World in his small fraction of a brain; to know that it had verily, though deep beyond his soundings, a Just Law, that the soul of it was Good;-that his part in it was to conform to the Law of the Whole, and in devout silence follow that; not questioning it, obeying it as unquestionable.

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Philosophical Maxims
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
2 months 3 weeks ago
One naturally regrets not being an...

One naturally regrets not being an expert or one of those insiders who thoroughly understand. It's hell to be an amateur. A little reflection calms your sorrow, however. The experts in their own little speedboat, the rest of us floating with the rest of mankind in a great barge - that is the picture.

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The Day They Signed the Treaty (1979), p. 224
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
5 months 4 days ago
These effects of mescalin are the...

These effects of mescalin are the sort of effects you could expect to follow the administration of a drug having the power to impair the efficiency of the cerebral reducing valve. When the brain runs out of sugar, the undernourished ego grows weak, can't be bothered to undertake the necessary chores, and loses all interest in those spatial and temporal relationships which mean so much to an organism bent on getting on in the world. As Mind at Large seeps past the no longer watertight valve, all kinds of biologically useless things start to happen. ... Other persons discover a world of visionary beauty. To others again is revealed the glory, the infinite value and meaningfulness of naked existence, of the given, unconceptualized event.

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describing his experiment with mescaline, p. 26
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
5 months 1 week ago
There is no pleasure to me...

There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to.

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Philosophical Maxims
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