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Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
7 months 1 week ago
The chief function of the disciplinary...

The chief function of the disciplinary power is to 'train', rather than to select and to levy; or, no doubt, to train in order to levy and select all the more. It does not link forces together in order to reduce them; it seeks to bind them together in such a way as to multiply and use them.

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Part Three, The Means of Correct Training
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
7 months 4 weeks ago
For he who is unmusical is...

For he who is unmusical is a child in music; he who is without letters is a child in learning; he who is untaught, is a child in life.

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Book III, ch. 19, 6.
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 months 3 weeks ago
A judgment, for me....
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George Santayana
George Santayana
6 months 6 days ago
Every moment celebrates obsequies over the...

Every moment celebrates obsequies over the virtues of its predecessor.

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Ch. XIV
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
7 months 1 week ago
Generally speaking, all the authorities exercising...

Generally speaking, all the authorities exercising individual control function according to a double mode; that of binary division and branding (mad/sane; dangerous/harmless; normal/abnormal); and that of coercive assignment, of differential distribution (who he is; where he must be; how he is to be characterized' how he is to be recognized' how a constant surveillance is to be exercised over him in a individual way, etc.).

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Part Four, Complete and austere institutions
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
7 months 3 weeks ago
But by far the greatest obstacle...

But by far the greatest obstacle to the progress of science and to the undertaking of new tasks and provinces therein is found in this - that men despair and think things impossible.

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Aphorism 92
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
5 months 4 weeks ago
I have always noticed that deeply...

I have always noticed that deeply and truly religious persons are fond of a joke, and I am suspicious of those who aren't.

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As quoted in Church and Home, Vol. 1 (1964) by United Methodist Church, and Evangelical United Brethren Church, p. 21.
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
7 months 3 weeks ago
One should hasten to put such...

One should hasten to put such witches to death. Statement of 20 August 1538;

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as quoted in Conversations With Martin Luther (1915), translated and edited by Preserved Smith and Herbert Percival Gallinger, p. 163
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
5 months 2 days ago
Perhaps no person can be a...

Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.

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p. 7
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
8 months 1 week ago
For once touched by love, everyone...

For once touched by love, everyone becomes a poet.

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Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
8 months 4 days ago
It is only he, possessed of...

It is only he, possessed of all sagely qualities that can exist under heaven, who shows himself quick in apprehension, clear in discernment, of far-reaching intelligence, and all-embracing knowledge, fitted to exercise rule; magnanimous, generous, benign, and mild, fitted to exercise forbearance; impulsive, energetic, firm, and enduring, fitted to maintain a firm hold; self-adjusted, grave, never swerving from the Mean, and correct, fitted to command reverence; accomplished, distinctive, concentrative, and searching, fitted to exercise discrimination. All-embracing is he and vast, deep and active as a fountain, sending forth in their due season his virtues. All-embracing and vast, he is like Heaven. Deep and active as a fountain, he is like the abyss. He is seen, and the people all reverence him; he speaks, and the people all believe him; he acts, and the people all are pleased with him.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
7 months 2 weeks ago
Force is the midwife of every...

Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic power.

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Vol. I, Ch. 31, pg. 824
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
6 months 1 week ago
The more you are a victim...

The more you are a victim of contradictory impulses, the less you know which to yield to. To lack character - precisely that and nothing more.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
6 months 1 week ago
Espousing the melancholy of ancient symbols,...

Espousing the melancholy of ancient symbols, I would have freed myself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
4 months 4 weeks ago
Lamarck, sagacious as many of his...

Lamarck, sagacious as many of his views were, mingled them with so much that was crude and even absurd, as to neutralize the benefit which his originality might have effected had he been a more sober and cautious thinker…

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Ch.2, p. 125
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
7 months 2 weeks ago
The commodities of Europe were almost...

The commodities of Europe were almost all new to America, and many of those of America were new to Europe. A new set of exchanges, therefore, began..and which should naturally have proved as advantageous to the new, as it certainly did to the old continent. The savage injustice of the Europeans rendered an event, which ought to have been beneficial to all, ruinous and destructive to several of those unfortunate countries.

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Chapter I, p. 481.
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
3 months 1 week ago
But if we judge only those...

But if we judge only those things which are in our power to be good or bad, there remains no reason either for finding fault with God or standing in a hostile attitude to man.

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VI, 41
Philosophical Maxims
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva
4 months 3 weeks ago
As Gandhi taught, freedom can be...

As Gandhi taught, freedom can be reclaimed only by refusing to cooperate with unjust, immoral laws. The fight for truth-employing the principles of civil disobedience, nonviolence, and noncooperation-is not just our right as free citizens of free societies. It is our duty as citizens of the earth.

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(p184)
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
5 months 4 weeks ago
In a certain sense, everything is...

In a certain sense, everything is everywhere at all times. For every location involves an aspect of itself in every other location. Thus every spatio-temporal standpoint mirrors the world.

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Ch. 5: "The Romantic Reaction", p. 128
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
7 months 2 weeks ago
For want of the apparatus of...

For want of the apparatus of propositional functions, many logicians have been driven to the conclusion that there are unreal objects. It is argued, e.g., by Meinong, that we can speak about "the golden mountain," "the round square," and so on; we can make true propositions of which these are the subjects; hence they must have some kind of logical being, since otherwise the propositions in which they occur would be meaningless. In such theories, it seems to me, there is a failure of that feeling for reality which ought to be preserved even in the most abstract studies. Logic, I should maintain, must no more admit a unicorn than zoology can; for logic is concerned with the real world just as truly as zoology, though with its more abstract and general features.

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Ch. 16: Descriptions
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
3 months 1 week ago
At dawn, when you have trouble...

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: 'I have to go to work - as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I'm going to do what I was born for - the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?' 

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(Farquharson translation)(Hays translation) At dawn of day, when you dislike being called, have this thought ready: "I am called to man's labour; why then do I make a difficulty if I am going out to do what I was born to do and what I was brought into the
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
5 months 3 weeks ago
To err is human also in...

To err is human also in so far as animals seldom or never err, or at least only the cleverest of them do so.

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G 30
Philosophical Maxims
Polybius
Polybius
4 months 6 days ago
It is a course which perhaps...

It is a course which perhaps would not have been necessary had it been possible to form a state composed of wise men, but as every multitude is fickle, full of lawless desires, unreasoned passion, and violent anger, the multitude must be held in by invisible terrors and suchlike pageantry. For this reason I think, not that the ancients acted rashly and at haphazard in introducing among the people notions concerning the gods and beliefs in the terrors of hell, but that the moderns are most rash and foolish in banishing such beliefs.

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Philosophical Maxims
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle
3 months 1 week ago
It is somewhat strange to me,...

It is somewhat strange to me, that neither the Spagyrists themselves, nor yet their Adversaries, should have taken notice that Chymists have rather supposed than evinced, that the Analysis of bodies by fire, or even that at least some Analysis is the onely instrument of investigating what Ingredients mixt bodies are made up of, since in divers cases That may be discovered by Composition as well as by Resolution; as it may appear, that Vitriol consists of metalline parts (whether Martial, or Venereal, or both) associated by Coagulation with acid ones, one may, I say, discover this as well by making true Vitriol with Spirit (improperly called Oil) of Sulphur, or that of Salt, as by distilling or Resolving Vitriol by the fire.

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Philosophical Maxims
Sydney Smith
Sydney Smith
3 months 4 weeks ago
We know nothing of tomorrow; our...

We know nothing of tomorrow; our business is to be good and happy today.

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Vol. I, ch. 12, p. 472
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
6 months 1 week ago
Only optimists commit suicide, the optimists...

Only optimists commit suicide, the optimists who can no longer be . . . optimists. The others, having no reason to live, why should they have any to die?

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Philosophical Maxims
Montesquieu
Montesquieu
6 months 1 day ago
Raillery is a mode…

Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one's wit at the expense of one's better nature.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
6 months 1 week ago
For a writer, to change languages...

For a writer, to change languages is to write a love letter with a dictionary.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
4 months 5 days ago
I feel that these old Northmen...

I feel that these old Northmen wore looking into Nature with open eye and soul: most earnest, honest; childlike, and yet manlike; with a great-hearted simplicity and depth and freshness, in a true, loving, admiring, unfearing way.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
7 months 2 weeks ago
Assembled in a crowd, people lose...

Assembled in a crowd, people lose their powers of reasoning and their capacity for moral choice.

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Chapter 5 (p. 42)
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
6 months 2 weeks ago
This is a work that cannot...

This is a work that cannot be completed except by a society of men of letters and skilled workmen, each working separately on his own part, but all bound together solely by their zeal for the best interests of the human race and a feeling of mutual good will.

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Article on Encyclopedia, as translated in The Many Faces of Philosophy : Reflections from Plato to Arendt (2001), "Diderot", p. 237
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
7 months 1 week ago
But when they have realized that...

But when they have realized that it [society] rejects them forever, they themselves assume the ostracism of which they are victims so as not to leave the initiative to their oppressors.

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p. 65-6
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
7 months 1 week ago
In speaking of sociological laws or...

In speaking of sociological laws or natural laws of social life I have in mind such laws as are formulated by modern economic theories, for instance, the theory of international trade, or the theory of the trade cycle. These and other important sociological laws are connected with the functioning of social institutions. These laws play a role in our social life corresponding to the role played in mechanical engineering by, say, the principle of the lever. For institutions, like levers, are needed if we want to achieve anything which goes beyond the power of our muscles. Like machines, institutions multiply our power for good or evil. Like machines, they need intelligent supervision by someone who understands their way of functioning and, most of all, their purpose, since we cannot build them so that they work entirely automatically.

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Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies, Vol I Plato Chapter 5: Nature and Convention. P. 67
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
6 months ago
Above all our thought should be...

Above all our thought should be empty, waiting, not seeking anything, but ready to receive in its naked truth the object that is to penetrate it. All wrong translations, all absurdities in geometry problems, all clumsiness of style, and all faulty connection of ideas in compositions and essays, all such things are due to the fact that thought has seized upon some idea too hastily, and being thus prematurely blocked, is not open to the truth.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
8 months 2 weeks ago
Knowledge of the fact differs from...

Knowledge of the fact differs from knowledge of the reason for the fact.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
7 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
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
3 months 2 weeks ago
It is not by the consolidation...

It is not by the consolidation or concentration, of powers, but by their distribution that good government is effected.

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Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson (1829) edited by Thomas Jefferson Randolph, p. 70
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
6 months 2 weeks ago
There are at the present time...

There are at the present time two great nations in the world-allude to the Russians and the Americans- All other nations seem to have nearly reached their national limits, and have only to maintain their power; these alone are proceeding-along a path to which no limit can be perceived.

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Chapter XVIII.
Philosophical Maxims
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei
4 months 1 week ago
Whence do you have it that...

Whence do you have it that the terrestrial globe is so heavy? For my part, either I do not know what heaviness is, or the terrestrial globe is neither heavy nor light, as likewise all other globes of the universe. Heaviness to me (and I believe to Nature) is that innate tendency by which a body resists being moved from its natural place and by which, when forcibly removed therefrom, it spontaneously returns there. Thus a bucketful of water raised on high and set free, returns to the sea; but who will say that the same water remains heavy in the sea, when being set free there, does not move?

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Philosophical Maxims
Mencius
Mencius
4 months 6 days ago
Most precious are the people;...

Most precious are the people; next come the spirits of land and grain; and last, the kings.

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7B:14.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
3 months 2 weeks ago
In our university of Virginia you...

In our university of Virginia you know there is no Professorship of Divinity. A handle has been made of this, to disseminate an idea that this is an institution, not merely of no religion, but against all religion. Occasion was taken at the last meeting of the Visitors, to bring forward an idea that might silence this calumny, which weighed on the minds of some honest friends to the institution.

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Letter to Thomas Cooper (3 November 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. 272
Philosophical Maxims
John Herschel
John Herschel
3 months 3 weeks ago
Man is constituted as a speculative...

Man is constituted as a speculative being; he contemplates the world, and the objects around him, not with a passive indifferent eye, but as a system disposed with order and design.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
6 months 1 week ago
Nothing proves that we are more...

Nothing proves that we are more than nothing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
6 months 1 week ago
But we must not forget that...

But we must not forget that only a very few people are artists in life; that the art of life is the most distinguished and rarest of all the arts. Modern Man in Search of a Soul.

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Section - The Stages of Life
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Schmitt
Carl Schmitt
3 months 1 week ago
The inevitable lack of objectivity in...

The inevitable lack of objectivity in political decisions, which is only the reflex to suppress the politically inherent friend-enemy antithesis, manifests itself in the regrettable forms and aspects of the scramble for office and the politics of patronage. The demand for depoliticalization which arises in this context means only the rejection of party politics, etc. The equation politics = party politics is possible whenever antagonisms among domestic political parties succeed in weakening the all-embracing political unit, the state.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
5 months 3 weeks ago
You've got the temperament of a...

You've got the temperament of a scholar, and you live on your own and write books. You don't have anything to do with civilization. You've been in London a few days and you can't wait to get back home. But how about the people who can't write books -- people there's no outlet for in this civilization? What about your new men who don't know what to do?

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p. 200
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
3 months 2 weeks ago
Of liberty I would say that,...

Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the limits of the law" because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

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Letter to Isaac H. Tiffany
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
6 months 5 days ago
It would be a piece of...

It would be a piece of ingenuousness to accuse the man of to-day of his lack of moral code. The accusation would leave him cold, or rather, would flatter him. Immoralism has become a commonplace, and anybody and everybody boasts of practising it.

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Chapter XV: We Arrive At The Real Question
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
7 months 2 weeks ago
In the revolt against idealism, the...

In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word "experience" have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word. It is to be feared, however, that if the word is avoided the confusions of thought with which it has been associated may persist.

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On the Nature of Acquaintance: Neutral Monism, 1914
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
7 months 1 week ago
I am not asking anyone to...

I am not asking anyone to accept Christianity if his best reasoning tells him that the weight of the evidence is against it.

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Book III, Chapter 11, "Faith"
Philosophical Maxims
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