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David Hume
David Hume
2 months 4 weeks ago
Nothing appears more surprising to those,...

Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as Force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular.

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Part I, Essay 4: Of The First Principles of Government
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 3 weeks ago
The absurd is the essential concept...

The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 2 weeks ago
It is not meet to take...

It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.

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15:26 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 months 3 weeks ago
Life is a task to be...

Life is a task to be done. It is a fine thing to say defunctus est; it means that the man has done his task.

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"On the Sufferings of the World"
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
2 months ago
I know of no country, indeed,...

I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken stronger hold on the affections of men, and where the profounder contempt is expressed for the theory of the permanent equality of property.

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Chapter III, Part I.
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 1 week ago
Yet its essence was the certitude...

Yet its essence was the certitude that his life was not totally at the mercy of chance. Somehow, it was more important than that. This sense of power inside his head - which he could intensify by pulling a face and wrinkling up the muscles of his forehead - aroused a glow of optimism, an expectation of exciting events. He knew that for him, fate held something special in store.

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p. 26
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
2 months 1 week ago
When Darius offered him ten thousand...

When Darius offered him ten thousand talents, and to divide Asia equally with him, "I would accept it," said Parmenio, "were I Alexander." "And so truly would I," said Alexander, "if I were Parmenio." But he answered Darius that the earth could not bear two suns, nor Asia two kings.

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42 Alexander
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
The slave is doomed to worship...

The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.

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Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 month 2 weeks ago
O World, Thou Choosest Not

O world, thou choosest not the better part! It is not wisdom to be only wise, And on the inward vision close the eyes, But it is wisdom to believe the heart. Columbus found a world, and had no chart, Save one that faith deciphered in the skies; To trust the soul's invincible surmise Was all his science and his only art.

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O World, Thou Choosest Not
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 month 1 week ago
In fact, for a voluntarist like...

In fact, for a voluntarist like Schopenhauer, a theory so sanely and cautiously empirical and rational as that of Darwin, left out of account the inward force, the essential motive, of evolution. For what is, in effect, the hidden force, the ultimate agent, which impels organisms to perpetuate themselves and to fight for their persistence and propagation? Selection, adaptation, heredity, these are only external conditions. This inner, essential force has been called will on the supposition that there exists also in other beings that which we feel in ourselves as a feeling of will, the impulse to be everything, to be others as well as ourselves yet without ceasing to be what we are.

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Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
2 months 2 weeks ago
If the only alternative to fascism...

If the only alternative to fascism we produce is a corporate-driven, milquetoast, neoliberal Democratic Party, fascism will come to America. Let us be very clear. It's like a Weimar America.

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Speaking to Chris Hedges on The Real News Network, Cornel West's presidential candidacy is 'for the least of these'. June 16, 2023.
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
Man exists for his own sake...

Man exists for his own sake and not to add a laborer to the state.

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November 15, 1839
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 3 days ago
Physicians have this advantage: the sun...

Physicians have this advantage: the sun lights their success and the earth covers their failures.

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Ch. 37
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
3 weeks 1 day ago
The individual selectionist would admit that...

The individual selectionist would admit that groups do indeed die out, and that whether or not a group goes extinct may be influenced by the behaviour of the individuals in that group. He might even admit that if only the individuals in a group had the gift of foresight they could see that in the long run their own best interests lay in restraining their selfish greed, to prevent the destruction of the whole group. How many times must this have been said in recent years to the working people of Britain? But group extinction is a slow process compared with the rapid cut and thrust of individual competition. Even while the group is going slowly and inexorably downhill, selfish individuals prosper in the short term at the expense of altruists. The citizens of Britain may or may not be blessed with foresight, but evolution is blind to the future.

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Ch. 1. Why Are People?
Philosophical Maxims
John Searle
John Searle
4 weeks ago
Where conscious subjectivity is concerned, there...

Where conscious subjectivity is concerned, there is no distinction between the observation and the thing observed.

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The Rediscovery of the Mind, p. 97, MIT Press (1992) ISBN 0-262-69154-X.
Philosophical Maxims
Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch
1 month 2 weeks ago
Writing is like getting married. One...

Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.

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The Black Prince (1973); 2003, p. 10.
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 weeks 4 days ago
Only the truth and its expression...

Only the truth and its expression can establish that new public opinion which will reform the ancient obsolete and pernicious order of life; and yet we not only do not express the truth we know, but often even distinctly give expression to what we ourselves regard as false. If only free men would not rely on that which has no power, and is always fettered - upon external aids; but would trust in that which is always powerful and free - the truth and its expression!

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Ch. 17
Philosophical Maxims
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
3 weeks 6 days ago
High school is closer to the...

High school is closer to the core of the American experience than anything else I can think of.

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Introduction to Our Time Is Now: Notes From the High School Underground, John Birmingham, ed.
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
2 months 2 weeks ago
The capacity to reason is a...

The capacity to reason is a special sort of capacity because it can lead us to places that we did not expect to go.

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Chapter 4, Reason, p. 88
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
1 month 2 weeks ago
Understanding being nothing else, but conception...

Understanding being nothing else, but conception caused by Speech.

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The First Part, Chapter 4, p. 17
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
2 days ago
The belief in unity that has...

The belief in unity that has fuelled so many utopian dreams is an effort to reconcile the irreconcilable that ends in repression. Berlin suggests we renounce this venerable faith, and learn how to live with intractable conflict.

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'Isaiah Berlin: The Value of Decency' (p.106-7)
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 3 days ago
A little folly is desirable in...

A little folly is desirable in him that will not be guilty of stupidity.

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Book III, Ch. 9. Of Vanity
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
2 months 3 weeks ago
The word "art" does not designate...

The word "art" does not designate the concept of a mere eventuality; it is a concept of rank.

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p. 125
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 month 2 weeks ago
No doubt the spirit or energy...

No doubt the spirit or energy of the world is what is acting in us, as the sea is what rises in every little wave; but it passes through us, and cry out as we may, it will move on. Our privilege is to have perceived it as it moves.

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p. 199
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 3 days ago
All men would...
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Main Content / General
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
2 months 3 weeks ago
Proverbs are always platitudes until you...

Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them.

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Part IV: America,Jesting Pilate: The Diary of a Journey, 1926
Philosophical Maxims
Montesquieu
Montesquieu
1 month 1 week ago
The Spirit of the Law] became...

The Spirit of the Laws became the nobleman's Bible all over Europe.

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Catherine Behrens, The Ancien Régime (1967), p. 78
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 month 1 week 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
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
Not content with real sufferings, the...

Not content with real sufferings, the anxious man imposes imaginary ones on himself; he is a being for whom unreality exists, must exist; otherwise where would he obtain the ration of torment his nature demands?

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
But these young scholars who invade...

But these young scholars who invade our hills, Bold as the engineer who fells the wood, And travelling often in the cut he makes, Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not, And all their botany is Latin names.

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Blight, st. 2
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 3 weeks ago
For me, reason is the natural...

For me, reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning. Imagination, producing new metaphors or revivifying old, is not the cause of truth, but its condition.

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"Bluspels and Flalansferes: A Semantic Nightmare", Rehabilitations and Other Essays, 1939
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
3 months 1 week ago
For if a thing is not...

For if a thing is not diminished by being shared with others, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned and not shared.

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1:1:1 English Latin Latin: Omnis enim res quae dando non deficit, dum habetur et non datur, nondum habetur quomodo habenda est.
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
Obey the voice at eve obeyed...

Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime.

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Terminus
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
1 month 3 weeks ago
How many women does one need...

How many women does one need to sing the scale of love all the way up and down?

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Act I.
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 3 weeks ago
You had that action and counteraction...

You had that action and counteraction which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers draws out the harmony of the universe.

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Volume iii, p. 277
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 weeks 4 days ago
By words one transmits thoughts to...

By words one transmits thoughts to another, by means of art, one transmits feelings.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
2 months 3 weeks ago
A command can express no more...

A command can express no more than an ought or a shall, because it is a universal, but it does not express an 'is'; and this at once makes plain its deficiency. Against such commands Jesus sets virtue, i.e., a loving disposition, which makes the content of the command superfluous and destroys its form as a command, because that form implies an opposition between a commander and something resisting the command.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
3 months 5 days ago
Reading maketh a full man; conference...

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

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Of Studies
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 weeks 2 days ago
The bias of each medium of...

The bias of each medium of communication is far more distorting than the deliberate lie.

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JQ. Journalism quarterly, Volume 50, Association for Education in Journalism, 1973, p. 145
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 month 2 weeks ago
... I once shook hands with...

... I once shook hands with Longfellow at a garden party in 1881; and I often saw Dr. Holmes, who was our neighbor in Beacon Street: but Emerson I never saw.

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p. 50
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 3 weeks ago
The aim of art, the aim...

The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom, even temporarily.

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Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
1 month 1 week ago
Newton's law is nothing but the...

Newton's law is nothing but the statistics of gravitation, it has no power whatever. Let us get rid of the idea of power from law altogether. Call law tabulation of facts, expression of facts, or what you will; anything rather than suppose that it either explains or compels.

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Suggestions for Thought : Selections and Commentaries (1994), edited by Michael D. Calabria and Janet A. MacRae, p. 41
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 months 3 weeks ago
Life is a task to be...

Life is a task to be done. It is a fine thing to say defunctus est; it means that the man has done his task.

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"On the Sufferings of the World"
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 3 weeks ago
People are entirely too disbelieving of...

People are entirely too disbelieving of coincidence. They are far too ready to dismiss it and to build arcane structures of extremely rickety substance in order to avoid it. I, on the other hand, see coincidence everywhere as an inevitable consequence of the laws of probability, according to which having no unusual coincidence is far more unusual than any coincidence could possibly be.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
2 months 4 weeks ago
All that time is lost which...

All that time is lost which might be better employed.

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As quoted in A Dictionary of Quotations in Most Frequent Use: Taken Chiefly from the Latin and French, but comprising many from the Greek, Spanish, and Italian Languages, translated into English (1809) by David Evans Macdonnel
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
Whatever limits us we call Fate....

Whatever limits us we call Fate.

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Fate
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
2 months ago
In America, more than anywhere else...

In America, more than anywhere else in the world, care has been taken constantly to trace clearly distinct spheres of action for the two sexes, and both are required to keep in step, but along paths that are never the same.

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Book Three, Chapter XII.
Philosophical Maxims
David Wood
David Wood
5 days ago
To understand how indirect communication is...

To understand how indirect communication is possible we must grasp what it is about ordinary communication that is being changed.

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Chapter 6, Indirect Communication, p. 110
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
1 month 1 week ago
One could count on one's fingers...

One could count on one's fingers the number of scientists in the entire world who have a general idea of the history and development of their own particular science; there is not one who is really competent as regards sciences other than his own. As science forms an indivisible whole, one may say that there are no longer, strictly speaking, any scientists, but only drudges doing scientific work. . . .

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p. 13 (as quoted in On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God (1968), p.1)
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 3 weeks ago
Slavery they can have anywhere. It...

Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil.

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Philosophical Maxims
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