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C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
5 months 3 weeks ago
What is now common to all...

What is now common to all men is a mere abstract universal, an H.C.F. [Highest Common Factor], and Man's conquest of himself means simply the rule of the Conditioners over the conditioned human material, the world of post-humanity which, some knowingly and some unknowingly, nearly all men in all nations are at present labouring to produce.

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
4 months 1 week ago
If a captive mind is unaware...

If a captive mind is unaware of being in prison, it is living in error. If it has recognized the fact, even for the tenth of a second, and then quickly forgotten it in order to avoid suffering, it is living in falsehood. Men of the most brilliant intelligence can be born, live and die in error and falsehood. In them, intelligence is neither a good, nor even an asset. The difference between more or less intelligent men is like the difference between criminals condemned to life imprisonment in smaller or larger cells. The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like a condemned man who is proud of his large cell.

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p. 69
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
4 months 2 weeks ago
Persons who feel themselves to be...

Persons who feel themselves to be exiles in this world-and what noble mind, from Empedocles down, has not had that feeling?-are mightily inclined to believe themselves citizens of another.

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pp. 39-40
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
6 months 3 weeks ago
Since... nature is a principle of...

Since... nature is a principle of motion and mutation... it is necessary that we should not be ignorant of what motion is... But motion appears to belong to things continuous; and the infinite first presents itself to the view in that which is continuous. ...Frequently ...those who define the continuous, employ the nature or the infinite, as if that which is divisible to infinity is continuous.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
6 months 2 weeks 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
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
1 month 2 weeks ago
A brilliant man is his own...

A brilliant man is his own best company, unless he can find other company of the same sort.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 months 3 weeks ago
Government is violence, Christianity is meekness,...

Government is violence, Christianity is meekness, non-resistance, love. And, therefore, government cannot be Christian, and a man who wishes to be a Christian must not serve government.

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Letter to Dr. Eugen Heinrich Schmitt (October 12, 1896), translated by Nathan Haskell Dole
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
4 months 1 week ago
A man discovers what he is...

A man discovers what he is actually worth in this world when he faces society as a man, without money, name, or powerful connections, stripped of all but his native potentialities. He soon finds that nothing has less weight than his human qualities. They are prized so low that the market does not even list them. Strict science, which acknowledges man only as a biological concept, reflects man's lot in the actual world; in himself, man is nothing more than a member of a species. In the eyes of the world, the quality of humanity confers no title to existence, nay, not even a right of sojourn. Such title must be certified by special social circumstances stipulated in documents to be presented on demand.

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p. 137.
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 2 weeks ago
So it is that after each...

So it is that after each night, facing a new day, the impossible necessity of dealing with it fills us with dread; exiled in light as if the world had just started, inventing the sun, we flee from tears-just one of which would be enough to wash us out of time.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 1 week ago
There should be....

There should be 2 systems. One for needs and one for wants. We shouldn't have to compete for needs, and we shouldn't expect the things we want. An ideal system would definitely be a seriously regulated capitalism with an uncompromised safety net that we focus on with automation and AI. But, those with just want those without to die. In the end, they will lose.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
6 months 2 weeks ago
An observer studying the Solar system...

An observer studying the Solar system dispassionately, and finding himself capable of bringing the four giant planets to his notice, could reasonably say that the Solar system consisted of one star, four planets, and some traces of debris.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
4 months 2 weeks ago
Do not tell lies, and do...

Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
6 months 3 weeks ago
One sticks one's finger into the...

One sticks one's finger into the soil to tell by the smell in what land one is: I stick my finger in existence - it smells of nothing. Where am I? Who am I? How came I here? What is this thing called the world? What does this world mean? Who is it that has lured me into the world? Why was I not consulted, why not made acquainted with its manners and customs instead of throwing me into the ranks, as if I had been bought by a kidnapper, a dealer in souls? How did I obtain an interest in this big enterprise they call reality? Why should I have an interest in it? Is it not a voluntary concern? And if I am to be compelled to take part in it, where is the director? I should like to make a remark to him. Is there no director? Whither shall I turn with my complaint?

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 3 weeks ago
They might need a preparatory discourse...

They might need a preparatory discourse on the text of 'prove all things, hold fast that which is good,' in order to unlearn the lesson that reason is an unlawful guide in religion. They might startle on being first awaked from the dreams of the night, but they would rub their eyes at once, and look the spectres boldly in the face.

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Letter to Benjamin Waterhouse (19 July 1822), published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 12, p. 244
Philosophical Maxims
Mozi
Mozi
2 months ago
The words of malicious slander should...

The words of malicious slander should not be allowed to enter the ear. A defensive voice should not be allowed to come out of the mouth. The want to gravely injure people should not be allowed to exist in the heart. If this is accomplished, though there be people who cynically expose others, they would be without people who would align with them.

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Book 1; Self-culfivation
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
6 months 2 weeks ago
Moreover, there is a victory and...

Moreover, there is a victory and defeat, the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeat, which each man gains or sustains at the hands, not of another, but of himself; this shows that there is a war against ourselves going on within every one of us. Book I Sometimes paraphrased as "The first and best victory is to conquer self".

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle
1 month 2 weeks ago
I shall take leave to think...

I shall take leave to think the worse, rather of the practice of the men than of the book of God.

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Some Considerations Touching the Style of the Holy Scriptures (1661) "Seventh Objection"
Philosophical Maxims
Antonio Negri
Antonio Negri
2 months 2 weeks ago
The possibility of democracy on a...

The possibility of democracy on a global scale is emerging today for the very first time.

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(xi)
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
5 months 2 weeks ago
A philosopher who is not taking...

A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.

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Conversation of 1930
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
6 months 1 day ago
It would be an unsound fancy...

It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.

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Aphorism 6
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 3 weeks ago
The imitator dooms himself to hopeless...

The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator something else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man's.

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p. 26
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 2 weeks ago
Illusion begets and sustains the world;...

Illusion begets and sustains the world; we do not destroy one without destroying the other. Which is what I do every day. An apparently ineffectual operation, since I must begin all over again the next day.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
5 months 3 weeks ago
Fear? If I have gained anything...

Fear? If I have gained anything by damning myself, it is that I no longer have anything to fear.

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Act 1
Philosophical Maxims
Alan Watts
Alan Watts
2 months 3 days ago
This mysterious something has been called...

This mysterious something has been called God, the Absolute, Nature, Substance, Energy, Space, Ether, Mind, Being, the Void, the Infinite-names and ideas which shift in popularity and respectabilitywith the winds of intellectual fashion, of considering the universe intelligent or stupid, superhuman or subhuman, specific or vague. All of them might be dismissed as nonsense-noises if the notion of an underlying Ground of Being were no more than a product of intellectual speculation. But these names are often used to designate the content of a vivid and almost sensorily concrete experience-the "unitive" experience of the mystic, which, with secondary variations, is found in almost all cultures at all times. This experience is the transformed sense of self which I was discussing in the previous chapter, though in "naturalistic" terms, purified of all hocus-pocus about mind, soul, spirit, and other intellectually gaseous words.

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p. 104-105
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
4 months 2 weeks ago
True confessions are written with tears...

True confessions are written with tears only. But my tears would drown the world, as my inner fire would reduce it to ashes.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 3 weeks ago
I have stated that the constitutions...

I have stated that the constitutions of our several States vary more or less in some particulars. But there are certain principles in which all agree, and which all cherish as vitally essential to the protection of the life, liberty, property, and safety of the citizen:

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
6 months 1 week ago
The Apostle says: I make up...

The Apostle says: I make up in my flesh what is lacking to the sufferings of Christ (Col. 1:24). I make up, he tells us, not what is lacking to my sufferings, but what is lacking to the sufferings of Christ; not in Christ flesh, but in mine. not in Christ's flesh, but in mine. Christ is still suffering, not in His own flesh which He took with Him into heaven, but in my flesh, which is still suffering on earth.

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p.423
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 3 weeks ago
There never, gentlemen, was a period...

There never, gentlemen, was a period in which the steadfastness of some men has been nut to so sore a trial. It is not very difficult for well-formed minds to abandon their interest; but the separation of fame and virtue is an harsh divorce. Liberty is in danger of being made unpopular to Englishmen. Contending for an imaginary power, we begin to acquire the spirit of domination, and to lose the relish of honest equality.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 3 weeks ago
As you say of yourself, I...

As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurian. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.

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Letter to William Short
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 3 weeks ago
God forbid we should ever be...

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

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Letter to William Stephens Smith (13 November 1787). Manuscript at the Library of Congress.
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
6 months 2 weeks ago
You want to know whether I...

You want to know whether I can make a long speech, such as you are in the habit of hearing; but that is not my way. Socrates speaking to Alcibiades

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 3 weeks ago
People are said to believe in...

People are said to believe in God, or to disbelieve in Adam and Eve. But in such cases what is believed or disbelieved is that there is an entity answering a certain description. This, which can be believed or disbelieved is quite different from the actual entity (if any) which does answer the description. Thus the matter of belief is, in all cases, different in kind from the matter of sensation or presentation, and error is in no way analogous to hallucination. A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.

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On the Nature of Acquaintance: Neutral Monism, 1914
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
5 months 1 week ago
'Tis well to restrain the wicked,...

'Tis well to restrain the wicked, and in any case not to join him in his wrong-doing.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 day ago
Act as if....
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Main Content / General
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 3 weeks ago
These preachers of beauty, which light...

These preachers of beauty, which light the world with their admonishing smile.

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p. 248 (Stars)
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 month 2 weeks ago
Learn to ask of all actions,...

Learn to ask of all actions, "Why are they doing that?" Starting with your own.

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(Hays translation) X, 37
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
2 months 1 week ago
No Dilettantism in this Mahomet; it...

No Dilettantism in this Mahomet; it is a business of Reprobation and Salvation with him, of Time and Eternity: he is in deadly earnest about it! Dilettantism, hypothesis, speculation, a kind of amateur-search for Truth, toying and coquetting with Truth: this is the sorest sin. The root of all other imaginable sins. It consists in the heart and soul of the man never having been open to Truth; - "living in a vain show." Such a man not only utters and produces falsehoods, but is himself a falsehood. The rational moral principle, spark of the Divinity, is sunk deep in him, in quiet paralysis of life-death.

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Philosophical Maxims
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze
4 months 2 days ago
A leftist government doesn't exist because...

A leftist government doesn't exist because being on the left has nothing to do with governments.

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from L'Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze: G comme Gauche ("Gilles Deleuze's Alphabet Book: Left-wing Politics"), 1988-1989.
Philosophical Maxims
Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Berdyaev
4 months 1 week ago
In order to be able to...

In order to be able to go on living it is possible that the bankrupt peoples will have to enter on a new path of self-denial, by curbing their covetousness and putting a check on the indefinite expansion of their wants, and by having smaller families.

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p. 94
Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
4 months 6 days ago
A dangerous form of psychological splitting...

A dangerous form of psychological splitting had to have taken place, and it continues to take place, in the psyches of many African Americans who can on one hand oppose racism, and then on the other hand passively absorb ways of thinking about beauty that are rooted in white supremacist thought.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
3 months 2 weeks ago
The world is a great place...

The world is a great place and stocked with wealth and beauty, and there is no limit to the rewards that may be offered. Such an one who would refuse a million of money may sell his honour for an empire or the love of a woman.

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The Rajah's Diamond, The Adventure of Prince Florizel and a Detective.
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
5 months 1 week ago
Philip being arbitrator betwixt two wicked...

Philip being arbitrator betwixt two wicked persons, he commanded one to fly out of Macedonia and the other to pursue him.

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36 Philip
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
2 months 1 week ago
Why should I not regard this...

Why should I not regard this as desirable-not because the fire, burns me, but because it does not overcome me?

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
4 months 3 weeks ago
That by any series of changes...

That by any series of changes a protozoon should ever become a mammal, seems to those who are not familiar with zoology, and who have not seen how clear becomes the relationship between the simplest and the most complex forms when intermediate forms are examined, a very grotesque notion. Habitually, looking at things rather in their statical aspect than in their dynamical aspect, they never realize the fact that, by small increments of modification, any amount of modification may in time be generated.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
2 months 4 weeks ago
Evangelical atheists preach the need for...

Evangelical atheists preach the need for a scientific view of things, but a settled view does not go with scientific method. If we know anything it is that most of the theories that prevail at any one time are false. Scientific theories are not components of a world-view but tools we use to tinker with the world.

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Sweet Morality (p. 224)
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
4 months 1 week ago
A clash of doctrines is not...

A clash of doctrines is not a disaster - it is an opportunity.

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Ch. 12: "Religion and Science", p. 259
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
5 months 3 weeks ago
Music is an ocean, but the...

Music is an ocean, but the repertory is hardly even a lake; it is a pond.

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Interview, Time magazine, December 1957
Philosophical Maxims
Will Durant
Will Durant
2 months 1 week ago
Philosophy accepts the hard and hazardous...

Philosophy accepts the hard and hazardous task of dealing with problems not yet open to the methods of science - problems like good and evil, beauty and ugliness, order and freedom, life and death; so soon as a field of inquiry yields knowledge susceptible of exact formulation it is called science. Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement.

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Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
2 months 2 weeks ago
There is no science apart from...

There is no science apart from the general. It may even be said that the very object of the exact sciences is to spare us these direct verifications.

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Ch. I. (1905) Tr. George Bruce Halstead
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
5 months 3 weeks ago
That the outer man is a...

That the outer man is a picture of the inner, and the face an expression and revelation of the whole character, is a presumption likely enough in itself, and therefore a safe one to go on; borne out as it is by the fact that people are always anxious to see anyone who has made himself famous .... Photography ... offers the most complete satisfaction of our curiosity.

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Vol. 2, Ch. 29, § 377
Philosophical Maxims
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