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Adam Smith
Adam Smith
2 months 3 weeks ago
The qualities most useful to ourselves...

The qualities most useful to ourselves are, first of all, superior reason and understanding, by which we are capable of discerning the remote consequences of all our actions, and of foreseeing the advantage or detriment which is likely to result from them: and secondly, self-command, by which we are enabled to abstain from present pleasure or to endure present pain, in order to obtain a greater pleasure or to avoid a greater pain in some future time. In the union of those two qualities consists the virtue of prudence, of all the virtues that which is most useful to the individual.

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Chap. II.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
2 months 3 weeks ago
England, it is true, in causing...

England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindostan, was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is not the question. The question is, can mankind fulfil its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution.

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"The British Rule in India," New York Daily Tribune, 10 June 1853.
Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
1 month 3 weeks ago
Anarchy, in its own nature, is...

Anarchy, in its own nature, is an evil of short duration. The more horrible are the mischiefs it inflicts, the more does it hasten to a close.

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Book 7, Ch. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 6 days ago
Suffering is admittedly one of the...

Suffering is admittedly one of the central problems of human existence; but this is because we have a suspicion that it is all for nothing. If we had a certainty about meaning, the suffering would be bearable. With no certainty of meaning, even comfort begins to feel futile.

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p. 89
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
2 months 2 weeks ago
I never believed in a God....

I never believed in a God. [...] There may have been times when I wondered if there might be a God, but it always seemed to me wildly implausible that a God worth worshipping could allow the Holocaust to occur.

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From an interview, as cited by Dan Goldberg "Peter Singer: is he really the most dangerous man in the world?", The Jewish Chronicle
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 3 weeks ago
[M]y father's rejection of all that...

[M]y father's rejection of all that is called religious belief, was not, as many might suppose, primarily a matter of logic and evidence: the grounds of it were moral, still more than intellectual. He found it impossible to believe that a world so full of evil was the work of an Author combining infinite power with perfect goodness and righteousness.

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(pp. 39-40)
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
1 month 2 weeks ago
The other conclusion is that art...

The other conclusion is that art is the complement of science. Science as I have said is concerned wholly with relations, not with individuals. Art, on the other hand, is not only the disclosure of the individuality of the artist but also a manifestation of individuality as creative of the future, in an unprecedented response to conditions as they were in the past. Some artists in their vision of what might be, but is not, have been conscious rebels. But conscious protest and revolt is not the form which the labor of the artist in creation of the future must necessarily take. Discontent with things as they are is normally the expression of the vision of what may be and is not, art in being the manifestation of individuality is this prophetic vision.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 months 3 weeks ago
Revolutions never go backwards.

Revolutions never go backwards.

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p. 214
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 month 1 week ago
Use harms and even….

Use harms and even destroys beauty. The noblest function of an object is to be contemplated.

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Niebla [Mist]
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 3 weeks ago
My thought is me...

My thought is me: that's why I can't stop. I exist because I think ... and I can't prevent myself from thinking.

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Lundi ("Monday")
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 3 weeks ago
Economy is a distributive virtue, and...

Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving but selection. Parsimony requires no providence, no sagacity, no powers of combination, no comparison, no judgment.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 6 days ago
Now the basic impulse behind existentialism...

Now the basic impulse behind existentialism is optimistic, very much like the impulse behind all science. Existentialism is romanticism, and romanticism is the feeling that man is not the mere he has always taken himself for. Romanticism began as a tremendous surge of optimism about the stature of man. Its aim - like that of science - was to raise man above the muddled feelings and impulses of his everyday humanity, and to make him a god-like observer of human existence.

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p. 96
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 3 weeks ago
If we cannot "practice the presence...

If we cannot "practice the presence of God," it is something to practice the absence of God, to become increasingly aware of our unawareness till we feel like man who should stand beside a great cataract and hear no noise, or like a man in a story who looks in a mirror and finds no face there, or a man in a dream who stretches his hand to visible objects and gets no sensation of touch. To know that one is dreaming is to no longer be perfectly asleep. Bur for news of the fully waking world you must go to my betters.

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"Charity"
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 3 weeks ago
There is an almost universal tendency,...

There is an almost universal tendency, perhaps an inborn tendency, to suspect the good faith of a man who holds opinions that differ from our own opinions. ... It obviously endangers the freedom and the objectivity of our discussion if we attack a person instead of attacking an opinion or, more precisely, a theory.

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"The Importance of Critical Discussion" in On the Barricades: Religion and Free Inquiry in Conflict (1989) by Robert Basil
Philosophical Maxims
Avicenna
Avicenna
3 months 1 week ago
An ignorant doctor is the aide-de-camp...

An ignorant doctor is the aide-de-camp of death.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 3 weeks ago
According to Christian teachers, the essential...

According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.

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Book III, Chapter 8, "The Great Sin"
Philosophical Maxims
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
1 month 3 weeks ago
The more I see of the...

The more I see of the world, the more I am convinced that civilisation is a blessing not sufficiently estimated by those who have not traced its progress; for it not only refines our enjoyments, but produces a variety which enables us to retain the primitive delicacy of our sensations. Without the aid of the imagination all the pleasures of the senses must sink into grossness, unless continual novelty serve as a substitute for the imagination, which, being impossible, it was to this weariness, I suppose, that Solomon alluded when he declared that there was nothing new under the sun!

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Letter 2
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 2 weeks ago
The aim of philosophy is to...

The aim of philosophy is to erect a wall at the point where language stops anyway.

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Ch. 9 : Philosophy, p. 187
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
2 months 3 weeks ago
The collective name for the ripe...

The collective name for the ripe fruits of religion in a character is Saintliness. The saintly character is the character for which spiritual emotions are the habitual centre of the personal energy; and there is a certain composite photograph of universal saintliness, the same in all religions, of which the features can easily be traced.

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Lectures XI, XII, AND XIII : "Saintliness"
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 month 1 week ago
Everything in me that conspires to...

Everything in me that conspires to break the unity and continuity of my life conspires to destroy me and consequently to destroy itself. Every individual in a people who conspires to break the spiritual unity and continuity of that people tends to destroy it and to destroy himself as a part of that people.

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Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 month 2 weeks ago
My atheism, like that of Spinoza,...

My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests.

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"On My Friendly Critics"
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 month 1 week ago
There are pretenses which are very...

There are pretenses which are very sincere, and marriage is their school.

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Tres novelas ejemplares y un prólogo [Three Exemplary Novels and a Prologue] (1920); Two Mothers
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 2 weeks ago
The need to devour oneself absolves...

The need to devour oneself absolves one of the need to believe.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 3 weeks ago
I do not wish to kill...

I do not wish to kill nor to be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in which both these things would be by me unavoidable. We preserve the so-called peace of our community by deeds of petty violence every day. Look at the policeman's billy and handcuffs! Look at the jail! Look at the gallows! Look at the chaplain of the regiment! We are hoping only to live safely on the outskirts of this provisional army. So we defend ourselves and our hen-roosts, and maintain slavery. I know that the mass of my countrymen think that the only righteous use that can be made of Sharp's rifles and revolvers is to fight duels with them, when we are insulted by other nations, or to hunt Indians, or shoot fugitive slaves with them, or the like. I think that for once the Sharp's rifles and the revolvers were employed in a righteous cause. The tools were in the hands of one who could use them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
2 months 3 weeks ago
Europeans are awakening more and more...

Europeans are awakening more and more to a sense that beasts have rights, in proportion as the strange notion is being gradually overcome and outgrown, that the animal kingdom came into existence solely for the benefit and pleasure of man. This view, with the corollary that non-human living creatures are to be regarded merely as things, is at the root of the rough and altogether reckless treatment of them, which obtains in the West.

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Part III, Ch. VIII, 7, p. 225
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 3 weeks ago
I am thus one of the...

I am thus one of the very few examples, in this country, of one who has, not thrown off religious belief, but never had it...

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(p. 43)
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
3 months 1 week ago
A scholar who loves comfort is...

A scholar who loves comfort is not worthy of the name.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
2 months 3 weeks ago
The retinue of a grandee in...

The retinue of a grandee in China or Indostan accordingly is, by all accounts, much more numerous and splendid than that of the richest subjects of Europe.

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Chapter XI, Part III, Third Period, p. 240.
Philosophical Maxims
Horace
Horace
2 months 1 week ago
Brave men...

Brave men were living before Agamemnon. 

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Book IV, ode ix, line 25
Philosophical Maxims
Judith Butler
Judith Butler
3 weeks 5 days ago
When the world presents as a...

When the world presents as a force field of violence, the task of nonviolence is to find ways of living and acting in that world such that violence is checked or ameliorated, or its direction turned, precisely at moments when it seems to saturate that world and offer no way out.

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p. 10
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
4 months 3 weeks ago
Well, some get lucky sometimes...
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Main Content / General
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
If the Communists conquered the world,...

If the Communists conquered the world, it would be very unpleasant for a while, but not forever. But if the human race is wiped out, that is the end.

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Television interview on March 24, 1958, as quoted in The United States in World Affairs (1959), p. 12
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
2 months 3 weeks ago
The right of voting for representatives...

The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case.

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Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
2 months 5 days ago
The soul of man…

The soul of man is divided into three parts, intelligence, reason, and passion. Intelligence and passion are possessed by other animals, but reason by man alone.

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As reported by Alexander Polyhistor, and Diogenes Laërtius in Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, "Pythagoras", Sect. 30, in the translation of C. D. Yonge
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 month 3 days ago
Even truth needs to be clad...

Even truth needs to be clad in new garments if it is to appeal to a new age.

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C 33
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
2 weeks 6 days ago
Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable...

Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses to the Holocaust. It is the plain truth that we are cousins of chimpanzees, somewhat more distant cousins of monkeys, more distant cousins still of aardvarks and manatees, yet more distant cousins of bananas and turnips... continue the list as long as desired.

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The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (2009) (p. 8)
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
The second matter in which Mill's...

The second matter in which Mill's principles condemn existing legislation is homosexuality. If two adults voluntarily enter into such a relation, this is a matter which concerns them only, and in which, therefore, the community ought not to intervene. If it were still believed, as it once was, that the toleration of such behavior would expose the community to the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, the community would have every right to intervene. But it does not acquire a right to intervene merely on the ground that such conduct is thought wicked. The criminal law may rightly be invoked to prevent violence or fraud inflicted upon unwilling victims, but it ought not to be invoked when whatever damage there may be is suffered only by the agents-always assuming that the agents are adults.

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p. 139
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 3 weeks ago
There ought to be system of...

There ought to be system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 3 weeks ago
Yes, I am so free...

Yes, I am so free. And what a superb absence is my soul.

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Orestes, Act 1
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 weeks 2 days ago
An arrogant person considers himself perfect....

An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person's main task in life-becoming a better person.

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p. 110
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 3 weeks ago
I know nothing, I am neither...

I know nothing, I am neither woman nor girl; I have been living in a dream and when someone kissed me, it made me want to laugh. Now I am here before you, it seems as though I have just awakened and it is morning.

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Act 6, sc. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 3 weeks ago
I do not know, my listener,...

I do not know, my listener, what your crime, your guilt, your sins are, but surely we are all more or less of the guilt of loving only little. Take comfort, then, in these words just as I take comfort in them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
1 month 4 weeks ago
We swallow greedily any lie that...

We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 3 weeks ago
It is all too easy to...

It is all too easy to forget that there are emotional motivations in history, as well as economic ones.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 month 3 days ago
Just as the performance of the...

Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity which under other circumstances we would call stupidity.

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F 87
Philosophical Maxims
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam
1 month 1 day ago
If reason is both transcendent and...

If reason is both transcendent and immanent, then philosophy, as culture-bound reflection and argument about eternal questions, is both in time and eternity. We don't have an Archimedean point; we always speak the language of a time and place; but the rightness and wrongness of what we say is not just for a time and a place.

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Why reason can't be naturalized
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
2 months 3 weeks ago
I have been merely oppressed by...

I have been merely oppressed by the weariness and tedium and vanity of things lately: nothing stirs me, nothing seems worth doing or worth having done: the only thing that I strongly feel worth while would be to murder as many people as possible so as to diminish the amount of consciousness in the world. These times have to be lived through: there is nothing to be done with them.

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Letter to Gilbert Murray, March 21, 1903
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
2 months 3 weeks ago
I cannot imagine how the clockwork...

I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker.

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As attributed in More Random Walks in Science : An Anthology (1982) by Robert L. Weber, p. 65
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 3 weeks ago
On the death of a friend,...

On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend's life also, in our own, to the world.

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February 28, 1840
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
1 month 2 weeks ago
The metaphor is perhaps one of...

The metaphor is perhaps one of man's most fruitful potentialities. Its efficacy verges on magic, and it seems a tool for creation which God forgot inside one of His creatures when He made him. All our other faculties keep us within the realm of the real, of what is already there. The most we can do is to combine things or to break them up. The metaphor alone furnishes an escape; between the real things, it lets emerge imaginary reefs, a crop of floating islands. A strange thing, indeed, the existence in man of this mental activity which substitutes one thing for another - from an urge not so much to get at the first as to get rid of the second.

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"Taboo and Metaphor"
Philosophical Maxims
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