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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 3 weeks ago
There is no knowledge that is...

There is no knowledge that is not power.

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Old Age
Philosophical Maxims
Porphyry
Porphyry
5 months 1 week ago
Incorporeal hypostases, in descending, are distributed...

Incorporeal hypostases, in descending, are distributed into parts, and multiplied about individuals with a diminution of power; but when they ascend by their energies beyond bodies, they become united, and proceed into a simultaneous subsistence, through exuberance of power.

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Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
4 months 2 weeks ago
I think that the philosopher must,...

I think that the philosopher must, for his own purposes, carry methodological strictness to an extreme when he is investigating and pursuing his truths, but when he is ready to enunciate them and give them out, he ought to avoid the cynical skill with which some scientists, like a Hercules at the fair, amuse themselves by displaying to the public the biceps of their technique.

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pp. 19-20
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
5 months 2 weeks ago
Repentance for one's evil deeds is...

Repentance for one's evil deeds is the safeguard of life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
2 months 1 week ago
A great fortune…

A great fortune is a great slavery.

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From Ad Polybium De Consolatione (Of Consolation, To Polybius), chap. VI, line 5
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
6 months 1 week ago
Violence and injury....

Violence and injury enclose in their net all that do such things, and generally return upon him who began.

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Book V, lines 1152-1153 (tr. Rouse)
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
5 months 3 weeks ago
I have entered on an enterprise...

I have entered on an enterprise which is without precedent, and will have no imitator. I propose to show my fellows a man as nature made him, and this man shall be myself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
4 months 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
Edward Said
Edward Said
4 months 1 week ago
As a way of maintaining relative...

As a way of maintaining relative intellectual independence, having the attitude of an amateur instead of a professional is a better course.

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p. 87
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 3 weeks ago
Our laws, language, religion, politics, &...

Our laws, language, religion, politics, & manners are so deeply laid in English foundations, that we shall never cease to consider their history as a part of ours, and to study ours in that as it's origin.

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Letter to William Duane
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
6 months 3 weeks ago
There is more to a science...

There is more to a science fiction story than the science it contains.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 3 weeks ago
Either we must have war against...

Either we must have war against Russia, before she has the atom bomb, or we will have to lie down and let them govern us. ... Anything is better than submission.

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Speech quoted in The Observer (21 November 1948), quoted in Robert Skildesky, Oswald Mosley (1981), p. 542 and Martin Ceadel, Thinking about Peace and War (1987), p. 52
Philosophical Maxims
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva
3 months 1 week ago
Economic reforms based on the idea...

Economic reforms based on the idea of limitless growth in a limited world, can only be maintained by the powerful grabbing the resources of the vulnerable. The resource grab that is essential for "growth" creates a culture of rape-the rape of the earth, of local self-reliant economies, and of women.

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On economic reforms in India and rape in India, from "Vandana Shiva: Our Violent Economy is Hurting Women " article in Yes Magazine
Philosophical Maxims
Will Durant
Will Durant
2 months 2 weeks ago
She is a woman now, and...

She is a woman now, and not an idle girl, not a domestic ornament or a sexual convenience anymore.

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On the maturation of women, Ch. 4 : On Old Age
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
5 months 3 weeks ago
In politics, love is a stranger,...

In politics, love is a stranger, and when it intrudes upon it nothing is being achieved except hypocrisy. All the characteristics you stress in the Negro people: their beauty, their capacity for joy, their warmth, and their humanity, are well-known characteristics of all oppressed people. They grow out of suffering and they are the proudest possession of all pariahs. Unfortunately, they have never survived the hour of liberation by even five minutes. Hatred and love belong together, and they are both destructive; you can afford them only in private and, as a people, only so long as you are not free.

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Letter to James Baldwin
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
6 days ago
The real struggle.....
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Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
5 months 2 weeks ago
Philosophers often behave like little children...

Philosophers often behave like little children who scribble some marks on a piece of paper at random and then ask the grown-up "What's that?" - It happened like this: the grown-up had drawn pictures for the child several times and said "this is a man," "this is a house," etc. And then the child makes some marks too and asks: what's this then?

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p. 17e
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
6 months 2 days ago
The mad mob does not ask...

The mad mob does not ask how it could be better, only that it be different. And when it then becomes worse, it must change again. Thus they get bees for flies, and at last hornets for bees. Whether Soldiers Can Also Be in a State of Grace

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1526
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
6 months 1 week ago
The weakness of little children's limbs...

The weakness of little children's limbs is innocent, not their souls.

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I, 7
Philosophical Maxims
Ian Hacking
Ian Hacking
4 months 2 days ago
A single observation that is inconsistent...

A single observation that is inconsistent with some generalization points to the falsehood of the generalization, and thereby 'points to itself'.

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Chapter 4, Evidence, p. 34.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
5 months 3 weeks ago
As to riots and tumults, let...

As to riots and tumults, let those answer for them, who, by willful misrepresentations, endeavor to excite and promote them; or who seek to stun the sense of the nation, and to lose the great cause of public good in the outrages of a misinformed mob. We take our ground on principles that require no such riotous aid. We have nothing to apprehend from the poor; for we are pleading their cause. And we fear not proud oppression, for we have truth on our side.

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Address and Declaration at a Select Meeting of the Friends of Universal Peace and Liberty (August 20, 1791) p. 6
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 3 weeks ago
The only subversive mind is the...

The only subversive mind is the one that questions the obligation to exist; all the others, the anarchist at the top of the list, compromise with the established order.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
5 months 2 weeks ago
In the darkest region of the...

In the darkest region of the political field the condemned man represents the symmetrical, inverted figure of the king.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Wood
David Wood
3 months 4 days ago
To recognize a difficulty is not...

To recognize a difficulty is not to solve it.

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Chapter 1, The Faces of Silence, p. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
5 months 3 weeks ago
Experience teaches only the teachable... Tragedy...

Experience teaches only the teachable...

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Tragedy and the Whole Truth
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
5 months 3 weeks ago
The next thing is by gentle...

The next thing is by gentle degrees to accustom children to those things they are too much afraid of. But here great caution is to be used, that you do not make too much haste, nor attempt this cure too early, for fear lest you increase the mischief instead of remedying it.

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Sec. 115
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 2 weeks ago
Is not every true Reformer, by...

Is not every true Reformer, by the nature of him, a Priest first of all? He appeals to Heaven's invisible justice against Earth's visible force; knows that it, the invisible, is strong and alone strong. He is a believer in the divine truth of things; a seer, seeing through the shows of things; a worshipper, in one way or the other, of the divine truth of things; a Priest, that is. If he be not first a Priest, he will never be good for much as a Reformer.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
5 months 3 weeks ago
His business is here, it is...

His business is here, it is here that he is despised and vilified, it is here that he must carry out his undertaking.

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p. 67
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
4 months 3 weeks ago
Let us apply these principles to...

Let us apply these principles to adultery. The state can no more prohibit it or punish it by law than any other illegitimate satisfaction of the sexual impulse.

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P. 431
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
5 months 3 weeks ago
In the metaphysical elements of aesthetics...

In the metaphysical elements of aesthetics the various nonmoral feelings are to be made use of; in the elements of moral metaphysics the various moral feelings of men, according to the differences in sex, age, education, and government, of races and climates, are to be employed.

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Part III : Selection on Education from Kant's other Writings, Ch. I Pedagogical Fragments, # 58
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
5 months 3 weeks ago
Technological progress has merely provided us...

Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.

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Ch. 1, p. 9 [2012 reprint]. Also in "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" in Adonis and the Alphabet (1956); later in Collected Essays (1959), p. 293
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
5 months 3 weeks ago
A man's body and the needs...

A man's body and the needs of his body are now everywhere treated with a tender indulgence. Is the thinking mind then, to be the only thing that is never to obtain the slightest measure of consideration or protection, to say nothing of respect?

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"On Noise"
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
3 months 1 day ago
The repression of liberty that took...

The repression of liberty that took place in the countries in which Communist regimes were established cannot be adequately explained as a product of backwardness, or of errors in the application of Marxian theory. It was the result of a resolute attempt to realize an Enlightenment utopia - a condition of society in which no serious form of conflict any longer exists.

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'Isaiah Berlin: The Value of Decency' (p.99)
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
3 months 1 day ago
Much in the study of the...

Much in the study of the paranormal was what we would now call pseudo-science. But the line between science and pseudo-science is smudged and shifting; where it lies seems clear only in retrospect. There is no pristine science untouched by the vagaries of faith.

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Foreword: Two Attempts to Cheat Death (p. 5)
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 1 week ago
Preserve life...

1) Preserve Life
2) State of war (opportunism)
3) Relativism
4) Confusion

Civilization, goodness, justice, fairness all contained inside the first option. Under # 1 (Universal Humanism):


1) Survive.
2) Don't prevent another from surviving.
3) Help the less fortunate.

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Philosophical Maxims
Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
3 months 2 weeks ago
Schopenhauer argues that the empirical world...

Schopenhauer argues that the empirical world exists only as a representation: 'every object, whatever its origin, is, as object, already conditioned by the subject, and thus is essentially only the subject's representation.' A representation is a subjective state that has been ordered according to space, time and causality - the primary forms of sensibility and understanding. So long as we turn our thoughts towards the natural world, and search for the thing-in-itself behind the representation is futile. Every argument and every experience leads only to the same end: the system of representations, standing like a veil between the subject and the thing-in-itself. No scientific investigation can penetrate the veil; and yet it is only a veil, Schopenhauer affirms, a tissue of illusions which we can, if we choose, penetrate by other means. The way to penetrate the veil was stumbled upon by Kant.

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A Short History of Modern Philosophy (1981; 2nd ed. 1995), p. 177
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 month 3 weeks ago
This thou must always bear in...

This thou must always bear in mind, what is the nature of the whole...

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II, 9
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
4 months 3 weeks ago
The healthy man does not torture...

The healthy man does not torture others-generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.

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In Du, May 1941
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
5 months 3 weeks ago
"I wish I had never been...

"I wish I had never been born," she said. "What are we born for?" "For infinite happiness," said the Spirit. "You can step out into it at any moment..."

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Ch. 8
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
5 months 4 weeks ago
Here am I who have written...

Here am I who have written on all sorts of subjects calculated to excite hostility, moral, political, and religious, and yet I have no enemies - except, indeed, all the Whigs, all the Tories, and all the Christians.

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Statement to a friend shortly before his death, as recounted in Men of Letters by Lord Henry Brougham
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
4 months 6 days ago
The great reformers of the world...

The great reformers of the world turn into the great misanthropists, if circumstances or organisation do not permit them to act. Christ, if He had been a woman, might have been nothing but a great complainer. Peace be with the misanthropists! They have made a step in progress; the next will make them great philanthropists; they are divided but by a line. The next Christ will perhaps be a female Christ. But do we see one woman who looks like a female Christ? or even like "the messenger before" her "face", to go before her and prepare the hearts and minds for her? To this will be answered that half the inmates of Bedlam begin in this way, by fancying that they are "the Christ." People talk about imitating Christ, and imitate Him in the little trifling formal things, such as washing the feet, saying His prayer, and so on; but if anyone attempts the real imitation of Him, there are no bounds to the outcry with which the presumption of that person is condemned.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 3 weeks ago
Alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine are...

Alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine are weak dilutions. The surest poison is time.

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Poetry and Imagination
Philosophical Maxims
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei
2 months 2 weeks ago
If you could see the earth...

If you could see the earth illuminated when you were in a place as dark as night, it would look to you more splendid than the moon.

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Salviati, p. 88
Philosophical Maxims
Ernest Renan
Ernest Renan
2 months 2 weeks ago
To rule the imperial…..

To rule the imperial population, behold our vocation.

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94
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 2 weeks ago
The science of the age, in...

The science of the age, in short, is physical, chemical, physiological; in all shapes mechanical. Our favourite Mathematics, the highly prized exponent of all these other sciences, has also become more and more mechanical. Excellence in what is called its higher departments depends less on natural genius than on acquired expertness in wielding its machinery. Without undervaluing the wonderful results which a Lagrange or Laplace educes by means of it, we may remark, that their calculus, differential and integral, is little else than a more cunningly-constructed arithmetical mill; where the factors, being put in, are, as it were, ground into the true product, under cover, and without other effort on our part than steady turning of the handle. We have more Mathematics than ever; but less Mathesis.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
6 months 3 weeks ago
The bodies of which the world...

The bodies of which the world is composed are solids, and therefore have three dimensions. Now, three is the most perfect number, it is the first of numbers, for of one we do not speak as a number, of two we say both, but three is the first number of which we say all. Moreover, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

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Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
5 months 1 day ago
Divinity reveals herself in all things......

Divinity reveals herself in all things... everything has Divinity latent within itself. For she enfolds and imparts herself even unto the smallest beings, and from the smallest beings, according to their capacity. Without her presence nothing would have being, because she is the essence of the existence of the first unto the last being.

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As translated by Arthur Imerti
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
6 months 2 days ago
Truly man is….

Truly man is a marvellously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgement on him.

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Ch. 1. That Men by various Ways arrive at the same End (tr. Donald M. Frame)Cotton, rev. W. Hazlitt, 1842
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
3 months 3 weeks ago
Confession of our faults…

Confession of our faults is the next thing to innocence.

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Maxim 1060
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
6 months 2 weeks ago
No matter how busy you may...

No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.

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Philosophical Maxims
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