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Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
5 months 1 week ago
Eternity is best spent under a...

Eternity is best spent under a general anesthetic - which is what is going to happen.

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Interview with Joe Rogan on The Joe Rogan Experience (2019);
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
5 months 3 weeks ago
It is a safe rule to...

It is a safe rule to apply that, when a mathematical or philosophical author writes with a misty profundity, he is talking nonsense.

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ch. 15.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
3 months 1 week ago
Never buy what you do not...

Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you.

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Philosophical Maxims
Empedocles
Empedocles
7 months 1 day ago
And I will tell you something….

And I will tell you something else: there is no birth of all mortal things, nor any end in wretched death, but only a mixing and dissolution of mixtures; 'birth' is so called on the part of mankind.

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fr. 8
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
7 months 2 weeks ago
Christ ought to be preached with...

Christ ought to be preached with this goal in mind - that we might be moved to faith in him so that he is not just a distant historical figure but actually Christ for you and me.

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p. 69
Philosophical Maxims
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
3 months 1 week ago
The modern proletarian class doesn't carry...

The modern proletarian class doesn't carry out its struggle according to a plan set out in some book or theory; the modern workers' struggle is a part of history, a part of social progress, and in the middle of history, in the middle of progress, in the middle of the fight, we learn how we must fight... That's exactly what is laudable about it, that's exactly why this colossal piece of culture, within the modern workers' movement, is epoch-defining: that the great masses of the working people first forge from their own consciousness, from their own belief, and even from their own understanding the weapons of their own liberation.

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The Politics of Mass Strikes and Unions; Collected Works 2
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
7 months 1 week ago
Death is not an event in...

Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
7 months 1 week ago
The limits of my language mean...

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. 

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(5.6) Variant translations: The limits of my language stand for the limits of my world. The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for.
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
8 months 1 week ago
Because that which is finite is...

Because that which is finite is always bounded with reference to something... it is necessary that there should be no end... Number also appears to be infinite, and mathematical magnitudes, and that which is beyond the heavens. And since that which is beyond is infinite, body also appears to be infinite, and it would seem that there are infinite worlds; for why is there rather void here than there? ...If also there is a vacuum, and an infinite place, it is necessary that there should be an infinite body: for in things which have a perpetual subsistence, capacity differs nothing from being. The speculation of the infinite is, however, attended with doubt: for many impossibilities happen both to those who do not admit that it has a subsistence, and to those who do. ...It is ...especially the province of a natural philosopher to consider if there be a sensible infinite magnitude.

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Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
3 months 1 week ago
Individualism is going around these days...

Individualism is going around these days in uniform, handing out the party line on individualism.

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Think Little
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
8 months 1 week ago
In order to cease being a...

In order to cease being a doubtful case, one has to cease being, that's all.

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Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
6 months 2 days ago
To imagine that Caesar aspired to...

To imagine that Caesar aspired to do something in the way Alexander did it - and this is what almost all historians have believed - is definitely to give up trying to understand him. Caesar is very nearly the opposite of Alexander. ...[I]t is not merely a universal kingdom that Caesar has in view. His purpose is a deeper one. He wants a Roman empire which does not live on Rome, but on the periphery, on the provinces, and this implies the complete supersession of the City-State. It implies a State in which the most diverse peoples collaborate, in regard to which all feel solidarity.

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Chapter XIV: Who Rules The World?
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Owen
Robert Owen
5 months 5 days ago
They would receive the same care...

They would receive the same care and attention as those who belong to the establishment. Nor will there be any distinction made between the children of those parents who are deemed the worst, and of those who may be esteemed the best members of society: indeed I would prefer to receive the offspring of the worst, if they shall be sent at an early age; because they really require more of our care and pity and by well-training these, society will be more essentially benefited than if the like attention were paid to those whose parents are educating them in comparatively good habits. On educating children of the poor, and of neighboring communities.

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Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
7 months 1 week ago
Opinion is like a pendulum and...

Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the centre of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest.

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Vol. 2 "Further Psychological Observations" as translated in Essays and Aphorisms (1970), as translated by R. J. Hollingdale
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
7 months 1 week ago
For nature beats in perfect tune,...

For nature beats in perfect tune, And rounds with rhyme her every rune, Whether she work in land or sea, Or hide underground her alchemy. Thou canst not wave thy staff in air, Or dip thy paddle in the lake, But it carves the bow of beauty there, And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake.

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Wood-notes, no. II, st. 7
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
7 months 1 week ago
He regarded it with the feelings...

He regarded it with the feelings due not to a mere mental delusion, but to a great moral evil. He looked upon it as the greatest enemy of morality: first, by setting up factitious excellencies,-belief in creeds, devotional feelings, and ceremonies, not connected with the good of human kind,-and causing these to be accepted as substitutes for genuine virtues: but above all, by radically vitiating the standard of morals; making it consist in doing the will of a being, on whom it lavishes indeed all the phrases of adulation, but whom in sober truth it depicts as eminently hateful.

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(p. 40)
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
6 months 1 week ago
What pride to discover that nothing...

What pride to discover that nothing belongs to you - what a revelation.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 days ago
The Greeks follow.....
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Democritus
Democritus
7 months 1 day ago
All who delight in the pleasures...

All who delight in the pleasures of the belly, exceeding all measure in eating and drinking and love, find that the pleasures are brief and last but a short while-only so long as they are eating and drinking-but the pains that come after are many and endure. The longing for the same things keeps ever returning, and whenever the objects of one's desire are realized forthwith the pleasure vanishes, and one has no further use for them. The pleasure is brief, and once more the need for the same things returns.

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Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
5 months 1 week ago
The world and the universe is...

The world and the universe is an extremely beautiful place, and the more we understand about it the more beautiful does it appear. It is an immensely exciting experience to be born in the world, born in the universe, and look around you and realise that before you die you have the opportunity of understanding an immense amount about that world and about that universe and about life and about why we're here. We have the opportunity of understanding far, far more than any of our predecessors ever. That is such an exciting possibility, it would be such a shame to blow it and end your life not having understood what there is to understand.

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Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
3 months 3 weeks ago
Fortune has taken away, but Fortune...

Fortune has taken away, but Fortune has given.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
8 months 1 week ago
Time will prolong time, and life...

Time will prolong time, and life will serve life. In this field that is both limited and bulging with possibilities, everything to himself, except his lucidity, seems unforeseeable to him. What rule, then, could emanate from that unreasonable order? The only truth that might seem instructive to him is not formal: it comes to life and unfolds in men. The absurd mind cannot so much expect ethical rules at the end of its reasoning as, rather, illustrations and the breath of human lives.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
4 months 3 weeks ago
I can assure you that there...

I can assure you that there is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life. You learn that which is of inestimable importance - that there are a great many people in the world who are just as clever as you are. You learn to put your trust, by and by, in an economy and frugality of the exercise of your powers, both moral and intellectual; and you very soon find out, if you have not found it out before, that patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.

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On Medical Education
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
5 months 3 weeks ago
Rightness of limitation is essential for...

Rightness of limitation is essential for growth of reality.Unlimited possibility and abstract creativity can procure nothing. The limitation, and the basis arising from what is already actual, are both of them necessary and interconnected.

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Religion in the Making (February 1926), Lecture IV: "Truth and Criticism".
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
5 months 2 weeks ago
It is indeed a matter of...

It is indeed a matter of great difficulty to discover, and effectually to distinguish, the true motions of particular bodies from the apparent; because the parts of that immovable space, in which those motions are performed, do by no means come under the observation of our senses. Yet the thing is not altogether desperate; for we have some arguments to guide us, partly from the apparent motions, which are the differences of the true motions; partly from the forces, which are the causes and effects of the true motions.

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Definitions - Scholium
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
8 months 1 day ago
It is only he who is...

It is only he who is possessed of the most complete sincerity that can exist under heaven, who can give its full development to his nature. Able to give its full development to his own nature, he can do the same to the nature of other men. Able to give its full development to the nature of other men, he can give their full development to the natures of animals and things. Able to give their full development to the natures of creatures and things, he can assist the transforming and nourishing powers of Heaven and Earth. Able to assist the transforming and nourishing powers of Heaven and Earth, he may with Heaven and Earth form a ternion.

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Philosophical Maxims
Cisero
Cisero
7 months 4 weeks ago
The first duty of a man...

The first duty of a man is the seeking after and the investigation of truth.

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As quoted in A Crowd of One: The Future of Individual Identity (2007) by John Clippinger, p. 130 Compare: "The distinguishing property of man is to search for and to follow after truth." – De Officiis, Book I, 13
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
7 months 3 weeks ago
"For I am holy." When I...

"For I am holy." When I hear these words I recognize the voice of the Saviour. But shall I take away my own? Certainly when He speaks thus He speaks in inseparable union with His body. But can I say, "I am holy"? If I mean a holiness that I have not received, I should be proud and a liar; but if I mean a holiness that I have received - as it is written: "Be ye holy because I the Lord your God am holy" (Lev. 19:2) - then let the body of Christ say these words. And let this one man, who cries from the ends of the earth, say with his Head and united with his Head: "I am holy." … That is not foolish pride, but an expression of gratitude. If you were to say that you are holy of yourselves, that would be pride; but if, as one of Christ's faithful and as a member of Christ, you say that you are not holy, you are ungrateful.

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p.428
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
6 months 1 week ago
No one, of a surety, wanders...

No one, of a surety, wanders farther from the mark than he who fancies to himself that he already understands this marvellous Kingdom, and can, in few words, fathom its constitution, and everywhere find the right path. To no one, who has broken off, and made himself an Island, will insight rise of itself, nor even without toilsome effort. Only to children, or childlike men, who know not what they do, can this happen. Long, unwearied intercourse, free and wise Contemplation, attention to faint tokens and indications; an inward poet-life, practised senses, a simple and devout spirit: these are the essential requisites of a true Friend of Nature; without these no one can attain his wish.

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Philosophical Maxims
Montesquieu
Montesquieu
5 months 4 weeks ago
I have always….

I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should appear like a fool but be wise.

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Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
6 months 2 days ago
The physical change in the thickness...

The physical change in the thickness of walls since the Middle Ages could be shown in a diagram. In the fourteenth century each house was a fortress. Man spent the major portion of his day in them, in secret and well-defended solitude. That solitude, working on the soul hour after hour, forged it, like a transcendent blacksmith, into a compact and forceful character. Under its treatment, man consolidated his individual destiny and sallied forth with impunity, never yielding to the contamination from the public. It is only in isolation that we gain, almost automatically, a certain discrimination in ideas, desires, longings, that we learn which are ours, and which are anonymous, floating in the air, falling on us like dust in the street.

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p. 168
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
5 months 1 week ago
Poetry and the arts can't exist...

Poetry and the arts can't exist in America. Mere exposure to the arts does nothing for a mentality which is incorrigibly dialectical. The vital tensions and nutritive action of ideogram remain inaccessible to this state of mind.

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Letter to Ezra Pound
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
3 months 3 weeks ago
We are weak, watery beings standing...

We are weak, watery beings standing in the midst of unrealities; therefore let us turn our minds to the things that are everlasting.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
4 months 2 days ago
With what scientific stoicism he walks...

With what scientific stoicism he walks through the land of wonders, unwondering.

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
7 months 3 weeks ago
Man desires to praise thee...

Man desires to praise thee, for he is a part of thy creation; he bears his mortality about with him and carries the evidence of his sin and the proof that thou dost resist the proud. Still he desires to praise thee, this man who is only a small part of thy creation. Thou hast prompted him, that he should delight to praise thee, for thou hast made us for thyself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in thee.

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I, 1
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
6 months 1 week ago
So it is that you come...

So it is that you come to know what a real God is. ... The God wants my life. He wants to go with me, sit at the table with me, work with me. Above all he wants to be ever-present.

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P. 291
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
6 months 1 week ago
Skepticism is an exercise in defascination.

Skepticism is an exercise in defascination.

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Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
7 months 2 weeks ago
This I know, that between finite...

This I know, that between finite and infinite there is no comparison; so that the difference between God and the greatest and most excellent created thing is no less than the difference between God and the least created thing.

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Letter to Hugo Boxel (October 1674) The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza (1891) Tr. R. H. M. Elwes, Vol. 2, Letter 58 (54).
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
5 months 1 week ago
Age may have one side, but...

Age may have one side, but assuredly Youth has the other. There is nothing more certain than that both are right, except perhaps that both are wrong. Let them agree to differ; for who knows but what agreeing to differ may not be a form of agreement rather than a form of difference?

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Crabbed Age and Youth.
Philosophical Maxims
Max Scheler
Max Scheler
6 months 2 days ago
Ressentiment must therefore be strongest in...

Ressentiment must therefore be strongest in a society like ours, where approximately equal rights (political and otherwise) or formal social equality, publicly recognized, go hand in hand with wide factual differences in power, property, and education.

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L. Coser, trans. (1973), p. 50
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
3 months 3 weeks ago
To no creature besides man has...

To no creature besides man has been given wisdom, foresight, industry, and reflection.

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Philosophical Maxims
Max Scheler
Max Scheler
6 months 2 days ago
Whenever convictions are not arrived at...

Whenever convictions are not arrived at by direct contact with the world and the objects themselves, but indirectly through a critique of the opinions of others, the processes of thinking are impregnated with ressentiment. The establishment of "criteria" for testing the correctness of opinions then becomes the most important task. Genuine and fruitful criticism judges all opinions with reference to the object itself. Ressentiment criticism, on the contrary, accepts no "object" that has not stood the test of criticism.

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L. Coser, trans. (1973), pp. 67-68
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
6 months 1 week ago
For a long while I have...

For a long while I have lived with the notion that I was the most normal being that ever existed. This notion gave me the taste, even the passion for being unproductive: what was the use of being prized in a world inhabited by madmen, a world mired in mania and stupidity? For whom was one to bother, and to what end? It remains to be seen if I have quite freed myself from this certitude, salvation in the absolute, ruin in the immediate.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
7 months 2 weeks ago
In ease of body and peace...

In ease of body and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.

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Chap. I.
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
7 months 2 weeks ago
The most manifest sign of wisdom...

The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness; her state is like that in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene.

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Book I, Ch. 26
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
3 months 1 week ago
Some people, when they do someone...

Some people, when they do someone a favor, are always looking for a chance to call it in. And some aren't, but they're still aware of it--still regard it as a debt. But others don't even do that. They're like a vine that produces grapes without looking for anything in return. (Hays translation) A man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear grapes again in season.

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V, 6
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
7 months 1 week ago
The christian religion is a parody...

The christian religion is a parody on the worship of the Sun, in which they put a man whom they call Christ, in the place of the Sun, and pay him the same adoration which was originally paid to the Sun.

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An Essay on the Origin of Free-Masonry (1803-1805); found in manuscript form after Paine's death and thought to have been written for an intended part III of The Age of Reason. It was partially published in 1810 and published in its entirety in 1818.
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
5 months 3 weeks ago
Ideas too are a life and...

Ideas too are a life and a world.

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F 70
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
7 months 1 week ago
The owl of Minerva first begins...

The owl of Minerva first begins her flight with the onset of dusk.

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Philosophical Maxims
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
11 months 2 weeks ago
Take ideology seriously

What is really disturbing about The Name of the Rose, however, is the underlying belief in the liberating, anti-totalitarain force of laughter, of ironic distance. Our thesis here is almost the exact opposite of the underlying premise of Eco's novel: in contemporary socities, democratic or totalitarian, that cynical distance, laughter, irony, are so to speak, part of the game. The ruling ideology is not meant to be taken seriously or literally. Perhaps the greatest danger for totalitarianism is people who take ideology seriously.

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Philosophical Maxims
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