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Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
2 weeks 1 day ago
Be afraid of the Chinese. I...

Be afraid of the Chinese. I mean, the Chinese shoot down satellites in space; they hack into Google's computers; the Osama bin Laden people can't make their underwear blow up.

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On The Colbert Report (2 May 2011), answering the question of who Americans should be scared of now that bin Laden is dead
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 week 4 days ago
There is clear truth in the...

There is clear truth in the idea that a struggle from the lower classes of society, towards the upper regions and rewards of society, must ever continue. Strong men are born there, who ought to stand elsewhere than there.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
2 months 2 weeks ago
We have, indeed, in the part...

We have, indeed, in the part taken by many scientific men in this controversy of "Law versus Miracle," a good illustration of the tenacious vitality of superstitions. Ask one of our leading geologists or physiologists whether he believes in the Mosaic account of the creation, and he will take the question as next to an insult. Either he rejects the narrative entirely, or understands it in some vague non-natural sense. ...Whence ...this notion of "special creations"...Why, after rejecting all the rest of the story, he should strenuously defend this last remnant of it, as though he had received it on valid authority, he would be puzzled to say.

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Philosophical Maxims
A. J. Ayer
A. J. Ayer
2 months 2 weeks ago
I suddenly stopped and looked out...

I suddenly stopped and looked out at the sea and thought, my God, how beautiful this is ... for 26 years I had never really looked at it before.

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On his greater appreciation of the scenery of the world, after his near-death experience, as quoted in "Did atheist philosopher see God when he 'died'?" by William Cash, in National Post (3 March 2001).
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
3 months 3 weeks ago
Wealth is like sea-water; the more...

Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become.

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E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 347
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
2 months 1 week ago
And here, facing this supreme religious...

And here, facing this supreme religious sacrifice, we reach the summit of the tragedy, the very heart of it - the sacrifice of our own individual consciousness upon the alter of the perfected Human Consciousness, of the Divine Consciousness. But is there really a tragedy? ...if we could succeed in understanding and feeling that we were going to enrich Christ, should we hesitate for a moment in surrendering ourselves to Him? Would the stream that flows into the sea, and feels in the freshness of its waters the bitterness of the salt of the ocean, wish to flow back to its source? would it wish to return to the cloud which drew it life from the sea? is it not joy to feel itself absorbed?

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
Losing love is so rich a...

Losing love is so rich a philosophical ordeal that it makes a hairdresser into a rival of Socrates.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 1 week ago
See ye not all these things?...

See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

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24:2 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 month 4 weeks ago
Food probably has a very great...

Food probably has a very great influence on the condition of men. Wine exercises a more visible influence, food does it more slowly but perhaps just as surely. Who knows if a well-prepared soup was not responsible for the pneumatic pump or a poor one for a war?

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A 14
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
3 months 3 weeks ago
The universe is the bible of...

The universe is the bible of a true Theophilanthropist. It is there that he reads of God. It is there that the proofs of his existence are to be sought and to be found. As to written or printed books, by whatever name they are called, they are the works of man's hands, and carry no evidence in themselves that God is the author of any of them. It must be in something that man could not make, that we must seek evidence for our belief, and that something is the universe; the true bible; the inimitable word, of God.

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A Discourse, &c. &c.
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
3 months 2 weeks ago
"What is meant by saying that...

"What is meant by saying that my choice of which way to walk home after the lecture is ambiguous and matter of chance?...It means that both Divinity Avenue and Oxford Street are called but only one, and that one either one, shall be chosen.

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The Dilemma of Determinism (1884) p.155
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
I don't understand how people can...

I don't understand how people can believe in God, even when I myself think of him everyday.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 2 weeks ago
Humans are amphibians - half spirit...

Humans are amphibians - half spirit and half animal.... As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.

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Letter VIII
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 2 weeks ago
When we have chosen the vocation...

When we have chosen the vocation in which we can contribute most to humanity, burdens cannot bend us because they are only sacrifices for all. Then we experience no meager, limited, egotistic joy, but our happiness belongs to millions, our deeds live on quietly but eternally effective, and glowing tears of noble men will fall on our ashes.

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Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, L. Easton, trans. (1967), p. 39
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 week 4 days ago
Every candid eye, I think, will...

Every candid eye, I think, will read the Koran far otherwise than so. It is the confused ferment of a great rude human soul; rude, untutored, that cannot even read; but fervent, earnest, struggling vehemently to utter itself in words. With a kind of breathless intensity he strives to utter himself; the thoughts crowd on him pell-mell: for very multitude of things to say, he can get nothing said. The meaning that is in him shapes itself into no form of composition, is stated in no sequence, method, or coherence;-they are not shaped at all, these thoughts of his; flung out unshaped, as they struggle and tumble there, in their chaotic inarticulate state.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
3 months 4 weeks ago
...God commanded in the law ....

...God commanded in the law [Deut. 22:22-24] that adulterers be stoned . . . The temporal sword and government should therefore still put adulterers to death . . . Where the government is negligent and lax, however, and fails to inflict the death penalty, the adulterer may betake himself to a far country and there remarry if he is unable to remain continent. But it would be better to put him to death, lest a bad example be set . . .

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 3 weeks ago
We rarely hear, it has been...

We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of the workman. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject.

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Chapter VIII, p. 80.
Philosophical Maxims
Ernst Mach
Ernst Mach
2 months 2 weeks 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
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
2 months 1 week ago
Hardness and softness, roughness and smoothness,...

Hardness and softness, roughness and smoothness, moonlight and sunlight present themselves in our recollection not preeminently as sensory contents but as certain kinds of symbioses, certain ways outside has of invading us and certain ways we have of meets this invasion...

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p. 317
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 month 2 weeks ago
Never promise more than you can...

Never promise more than you can perform.

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Maxim 528
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 3 weeks ago
Death cannot explain itself. The earnestness...

Death cannot explain itself. The earnestness consists precisely in this, that the observer must explain it to himself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 3 weeks ago
In the external, patience is some...

In the external, patience is some third element that must be added, and, humanly speaking, it would be better if it were not needed; some days it is needed more, some days less, all according to fortune, whose debtor a person becomes, even though he gained ever so little, because only when he wants to gain patience does he become one's debtor.

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Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
4 months 4 days ago
Practice yourself, for heaven's sake, in...

Practice yourself, for heaven's sake, in little things; and thence proceed to greater.

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Book I, ch. 18, 18.
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 3 weeks ago
Stop Traveller! Near this place lieth...

Stop Traveller! Near this place lieth John Locke. If you ask what kind of a man he was, he answers that he lived content with his own small fortune. Bred a scholar he made his learning subservient only to the cause of truth. This thou will learn from his writings, which will show thee everything else concerning him, with greater truth, than the suspect praises of an epitaph. His virtues, indeed, if he had any, were too little for him to propose as matter of praise to himself, or as an example to thee. Let his vices be buried together. As to an example of manners, if you seek that, you have it in the Gospels; of vices, to wish you have one nowhere; if mortality, certainly, (and may it profit thee), thou hast one here and everywhere.

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Epitaph, as translated from the Latin.
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 2 weeks ago
I became my own only when...

I became my own only when I gave myself to Another.

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Letters of C. S. Lewis (17 July 1953), para. 2, p. 251 - as reported in The Quotable Lewis (1989), p. 334
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
The more we try to wrest...

The more we try to wrest ourselves from our ego, the deeper we sink into it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
3 months 3 weeks ago
The perfection of a thing does...

The perfection of a thing does not annul its existence, but, on the contrary, asserts it. Imperfection, on the other hand, does annul it ; therefore we cannot be more certain of the existence of anything, than of the existence of a being absolutely infinite or perfect-that is, of God. For inasmuch as his essence excludes all imperfection, and involves absolute perfection, all cause for doubt concerning his existence is done away, and the utmost certainty on the question is given. This, I think, will be evident to every moderately attentive reader.

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Part I, Prop. XI
Philosophical Maxims
Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Berdyaev
2 months 6 days ago
There is absolute truth in anarchism...

There is absolute truth in anarchism and it is to be seen in its attitude to the sovereignty of the state and to every form of state absolutism. ... The religious truth of anarchism consists in this, that power over man is bound up with sin and evil, that a state of perfection is a state where there is no power of man over man, that is to say, anarchy. The Kingdom of God is freedom and the absence of such power... the Kingdom of God is anarchy.

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Slavery and Freedom (1939), p. 147
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
3 months 1 week ago
Now, that we do not really...

Now, that we do not really know of what sort each thing is, or is not, has often been shown.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 2 weeks ago
I'm afraid of losing my obscurity....

I'm afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery.

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Those Barren Leaves, 1925
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 3 weeks ago
Do not hire...
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Main Content / General
Alan Watts
Alan Watts
1 day ago
You do not ask what is...

You do not ask what is the value, or what is the use, of this feeling. Of what use is the universe? What is the practical application of a million galaxies? Yet just because it has no use, it has a use-which may sound like a paradox, but is not. What, for instance, is the use of playing music? If you play to make money, to outdo some other artist, to be a person of culture, or to improve your mind, you are not really playing-for your mind is not on the music. You don't swing. When you come to think of it, playing or listening to music is a pure luxury, an addiction, a waste of valuable time and money for nothing more than making elaborate patterns of sound.

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p. 92
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
4 months 2 weeks ago
People who want to do so...

People who want to do so can lose weight most safely and permanently if they realize that above all they must be patient. ... It is better to eat a little less at each meal than impulse would suggest and to do that constantly. Add to this a little more exercise or activity than impulse suggests and keep that up constantly too. A few less calories taken in each day and a few more used up will decrease weight, slowly, to be sure, but without undue misery. And with better long-range results too.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 week 4 days ago
They indicate the saddest spiritual paralysis,...

They indicate the saddest spiritual paralysis, and mere death-life of the souls of men: more godless theory, I think, was never promulgated in this Earth. A false man found a religion? Why, a false man cannot build a brick house!

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Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
2 months 6 days ago
What appears as the positive is...

What appears as the positive is essentially the negative, i.e. the thing that is to be criticized.

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p. 18
Philosophical Maxims
René Descartes
René Descartes
3 months 3 weeks ago
Staying as I am…

Staying as I am, one foot in one country and the other in another, I find my condition very happy, in that it is free.

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Letter to Elisabeth of Bohemia, Princess Palatine, Paris, June/July 1648
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
I was walking late one night...

I was walking late one night along a tree-lined path; a chestnut fell at my feet. The noise it made as it burst, the resonance it provoked in me, and an upheaval out of all proportion to this insignificant event thrust me into miracle, into the rapture of the definitive, as if there were no more questions - only answers. I was drunk on a thousand unexpected discoveries, none of which I could make use of. This is how I nearly reached the Supreme. But instead I went on with my walk.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
3 months 2 weeks ago
"We may ignore, but we can...

"We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito."

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 months 2 weeks ago
Russia was a slave in Europe...

Russia was a slave in Europe but would be a master in Asia.

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As quoted in "Dilemmas of Empire 1850-1918: Power, Territory, Identity" by Dominic Livien in Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 34, No.2 (April 1999), pp. 180
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 2 weeks ago
We will freedom for freedom's sake,...

We will freedom for freedom's sake, in and through particular circumstances. And in thus willing freedom, we discover that it depends entirely upon the freedom of others and that the freedom of others depends upon our own. Obviously, freedom as the definition of a man does not depend upon others, but as soon as there is a commitment, I am obliged to will the liberty of others at the same time as my own. I cannot make liberty my aim unless I make that of others equally my aim.

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p. 52
Philosophical Maxims
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
2 weeks 2 days ago
The newspaper is in all its...

The newspaper is in all its literalness the bible of democracy, the book out of which a people determines its conduct.

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What Modern Liberty Means, p. 47. Essay first published in The Atlantic (November 1919).
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 month 2 weeks ago
A beautiful face….

A beautiful face is a silent commendation.

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Maxim 283
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 2 weeks ago
Privacy invasion is now one of...

Privacy invasion is now one of biggest knowledge industries.

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(p. 24)
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
2 months 2 weeks ago
It has never been in my...

It has never been in my power to study anything, - mathematics, ethics, metaphysics, gravitation, thermodynamics, optics, chemistry, comparative anatomy, astronomy, psychology, phonetics, economics, the history of science, whist, men and women, wine, metrology, except as a study of semeiotic.

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Letter to Victoria
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
4 months 1 week ago
A man's character is formed by...

A man's character is formed by the Odes, developed by the Rites and perfected by music.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 2 weeks ago
Can anybody remember when the times...

Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?

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Works and Days
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month 2 weeks ago
The unformulated message of an assembly...

The unformulated message of an assembly of news items from every quarter of the globe is that the world today is one city. All war is civil war. All suffering is our own.

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p. 291
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
3 months 1 day ago
As long as Man continues to...

As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.

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Attribution to Pythagoras by Ovid, as quoted in The Extended Circle: A Dictionary of Humane Thought (1985) by Jon Wynne-Tyson, p. 260; also in Vegetarian Times, No. 168 (August 1991), p. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
4 months 1 week ago
Is God willing to prevent evil,...

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 2 weeks ago
It is only by poets that...

It is only by poets that the life of any epoch can be synthesized. Encyclopaedias and guides to knowledge cannot do it, for the good reason that they affect only the intellectual surface of a man's life. The lower layers, the core of his being, they leave untouched.

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p. 4
Philosophical Maxims
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