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George Santayana
George Santayana
5 months 2 days ago
I like to walk about amidst...

I like to walk about amidst the beautiful things that adorn the world; but private wealth I should decline, or any sort of personal possessions, because they would take away my liberty.

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"The Irony of Liberalism"
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
6 months 1 week ago
The theory of Communism may be...

The theory of Communism may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.

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Section 2, paragraph 13.
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
4 months 5 days ago
Ten years ago, you could have...

Ten years ago, you could have traveled thousands of miles through the United States and never seen a baseball cap turned back to front. Today, the reverse baseball cap is ubiquitous. I do not know what the pattern of geographical spread of the reverse baseball cap precisely was, but epidemiology is certainly among the professions primarily qualified to study it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Montesquieu
Montesquieu
4 months 3 weeks ago
A man should be mourned at...

A man should be mourned at his birth, not at his death.

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No. 40. (Usbek writing to Ibben)
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
3 months 3 weeks ago
So far from the posterior lobe,...

So far from the posterior lobe, the posterior cornu, and the hippocampus minor, being structures peculiar to and characteristic of man, as they have been over and over again asserted to be, even after the publication of the clearest demonstration of the reverse, it is precisely these structures which are the most marked cerebral characters common to man with the apes. They are among the most distinctly Simian peculiarities which the human organism exhibits.

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Ch.2, p. 119
Philosophical Maxims
William Whewell
William Whewell
2 months 1 week ago
It is better to form new...

It is better to form new words as technical terms, than to employ old ones in which the last three Aphorisms cannot be complied with.

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Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
4 months 3 weeks ago
Logos is powerless without the force...

Logos is powerless without the force of eros.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
6 months 1 week ago
Maybe this world is another planet's...

Maybe this world is another planet's Hell.

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As quoted in Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1979) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 239 Point Counter Point (New York: The Modern Library, 1928), Chapter XVII, p. 263
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
5 months 2 days ago
The total victimization of the individual...

The total victimization of the individual that takes place is encouraged for the specific benefit of the industrial and political bureaucracy. It therefore cannot be justified on the ground of the individual's true interest. National Socialist ideology simply states that true human existence consists in unconditional sacrifice, that it is of the essence of the individual's life to abbey and to serve-'service which never comes to an end because service and life coincide.'

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P. 416
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
5 months 1 week ago
Unlike private enterprise which quickly modifies...

Unlike private enterprise which quickly modifies its actions to meet emergencies - unlike the shopkeeper who promptly finds the wherewith to satisfy a sudden demand - unlike the railway company which doubles its trains to carry a special influx of passengers; the law-made instrumentality lumbers on under all varieties of circumstances at its habitual rate. By its very nature it is fitted only for average requirements, and inevitably fails under unusual requirements.

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Vol. 3, Ch. VII, Over-Legislation
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
4 months 3 weeks ago
We think in generalities, but we...

We think in generalities, but we live in detail. To make the past live, we must perceive it in detail in addition to thinking of it in generalities.

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"The Education of an Englishman" in The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 138 (1926), p. 192.
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
4 months 3 weeks ago
To all this, someone is sure...

To all this, someone is sure to object that life ought to subject itself to reason, to which we will reply that nobody ought to do what he is unable to do, and life cannot subject itself to reason. "Ought, therefore can," some Kantian will retort. To which we shall demur: "Cannot, therefore ought not." And life cannot submit itself to reason, because the end of life is living and not understanding.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
5 months 1 week ago
We have an enemy, to whose...

We have an enemy, to whose virtues we can owe nothing; but on this occasion we are infinitely obliged to one of his vices. We owe more to his insolence than to our own precaution.

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p.3
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
7 months 6 days ago
Every revolutionary ends as an oppressor...

Every revolutionary ends as an oppressor or a heretic.

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Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
6 months 2 weeks ago
Lucid intervals and happy pauses...

Lucid intervals and happy pauses.

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History of King Henry VII, III
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
1 month 4 weeks ago
How can it be that...

How can it be that mathematics, being, after all, a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality? Is human reason, then, without experience, merely by taking thought, able to fathom the properties of real things?

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 3 weeks ago
The intolerant can....
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Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
6 months 1 week ago
How can I, who was not...

How can I, who was not able to retain my own past, hope to save that of another?

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
3 months 3 weeks ago
It is true that if philosophers...

It is true that if philosophers have suffered their cause has been amply avenged. Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules; and history records that whenever science and orthodoxy have been fairly opposed, the latter has been forced to retire from the lists, bleeding and crushed if not annihilated; scotched, if not slain. But orthodoxy is the Bourbon of the world of thought. It learns not, neither can it forget; and though, at present, bewildered and afraid to move, it is as willing as ever to insist that the first chapter of Genesis contains the beginning and the end of sound science... Darwiniana: the Origin of Species

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1860
Philosophical Maxims
William Whewell
William Whewell
2 months 1 week ago
All hypotheses respecting the manner in...

All hypotheses respecting the manner in which the elements of inorganic bodies are arranged in space, must be constructed with regard to the general facts of crystallization.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
6 months 1 week ago
Most of us are not neutral...

Most of us are not neutral in feeling, but, as human beings, we have to remember that, if the issues between East and West are to be decided in any manner that can give any possible satisfaction to anybody, whether Communist or anti-Communist, whether Asian or European or American, whether White or Black, then these issues must not be decided by war. We should wish this to be understood, both in the East and in the West.

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Philosophical Maxims
Averroes
Averroes
6 months 4 weeks ago
Praise be to God with all...

Praise be to God with all due praise, and a prayer for Muhammad His chosen servant and apostle. The purpose of this treatise is to examine, from the standpoint of the study of the Law, whether the study of philosophy and logic is allowed by the Law, or prohibited, or commanded either by way of recommendation or as obligatory.

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
6 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
René Descartes
René Descartes
6 months 2 weeks ago
No more useful inquiry can be...

No more useful inquiry can be proposed than that which seeks to determine the nature and the scope of human knowledge. ... This investigation should be undertaken once at least in his life by anyone who has the slightest regard for truth, since in pursuing it the true instruments of knowledge and the whole method of inquiry come to light. But nothing seems to me more futile than the conduct of those who boldly dispute about the secrets of nature ... without yet having ever asked even whether human reason is adequate to the solution of these problems.

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Rules for the Direction of the Mind in Key Philosophical Writings (1997), pp. 29-30
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
7 months 1 week ago
It is of this sort of...

It is of this sort of divine service I used the expression that, in comparison with the Christianity of the New Testament, it is playing Christianity. The expression is essentially true and characterizes the thing perfectly. For what does it mean to play, when one reflects how the word must be understood in this connection? It means to imitate, to counterfeit, a danger when there is no danger, and to do it in such a way that the more art is applied to it, the more delusive the pretense is that the danger is present.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
4 months 1 week ago
Never did Christ….

Never did Christ utter a single word attesting to a personal resurrection and a life beyond the grave.

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My Religion (1884), Ch. 8
Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
2 months 1 week ago
There's far too much generalization now...

There's far too much generalization now about rural America. Conservatives and corporations have had their eye on rural America all along. And they've been turning it into money as fast as they can, which is to say destroying the land and the people...

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
3 months ago
Democracy is, by the nature of...

Democracy is, by the nature of it, a self-canceling business; and it gives in the long run a net result of zero.

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Ch. 6, Laissez-Faire.
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
1 month 4 weeks ago
I am enough of an...

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Mencius
Mencius
3 months 1 day ago
The superior man has three things...

The superior man has three things in which he delights, and to be ruler over the kingdom is not one of them. That his father and mother are both alive, and that the condition of his brothers affords no cause for anxiety;-this is one delight. That, when looking up, he has no occasion for shame before Heaven, and, below, he has no occasion to blush before men;-this is a second delight. That he can get from the whole kingdom the most talented individuals, and teach and nourish them;-this is the third delight.

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7A:20, as translated by James Legge in The Chinese Classics, Vol. II (1861), p. 335
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
6 months 1 week ago
Aims, principles, &c., have a place...

Aims, principles, &c., have a place in our thoughts, in our subjective design only; but not yet in the sphere of reality. That which exists for itself only, is a possibility, a potentiality; but has not yet emerged into Existence. A second element must be introduced in order to produce actuality - viz. actuation, realization; and whose motive power is the Will - the activity of man in the widest sense.

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Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
5 months 5 days ago
To suppose universal laws of nature...

To suppose universal laws of nature capable of being apprehended by the mind and yet having no reason for their special forms, but standing inexplicable and irrational, is hardly a justifiable position. Uniformities are precisely the sort of facts that need to be accounted for. That a pitched coin should sometimes turn up heads and sometimes tails calls for no particular explanation; but if it shows heads every time, we wish to know how this result has been brought about. Law is par excellence the thing that wants a reason.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
2 months 6 days ago
The nature of the universe is...

The nature of the universe is the nature of things that are. Now, things that are have kinship with things that are from the beginning. Further, this nature is styled Truth; and it is the first cause of all that is true.

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IX, 1
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
2 months 3 weeks ago
Therefore, my dear Lucilius, begin at...

Therefore, my dear Lucilius, begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei
3 months 3 days ago
We seek not what God could...

We seek not what God could have done but what He has done.... God could have caused birds to fly with bones of solid gold, with veins full of quicksilver, with flesh heavier than lead and very small and heavy wings, so as to better show His power ... but He wanted to make their bones, flesh and feathers very light ... to teach us that He likes simplicity and ease.

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Notes in a copy of Jean-Baptiste Morin's "Famous and ancient problems of the earth's motion or rest, yet to be solved" (published 1631).
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
5 months 1 week ago
We have a priori reasons for...

We have a priori reasons for believing that in every sentence there is some one order of words more effective than any other; and that this order is the one which presents the elements of the proposition in the succession in which they may be most readily put together.

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Pt. I, sec. 3, "The Principle of Economy Applied to Sentences"
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
6 months 1 week ago
Tis very certain that each man...

Tis very certain that each man carries in his eye the exact indication of his rank in the immense scale of men, and we are always learning to read it. A complete man should need no auxiliaries to his personal presence.

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Behavior
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
6 months 1 week ago
I wish to write such rhymes...

I wish to write such rhymes as shall not suggest a restraint, but contrariwise the wildest freedom.

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June 27, 1839
Philosophical Maxims
Walter Kaufmann
Walter Kaufmann
3 months 1 week ago
The great artist liberates the emotions...

The great artist liberates the emotions and recreates the sheer wonder of childhood without surrendering the development of the intellect.

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p. 258
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
3 months 3 days ago
One need only open the eyes...

One need only open the eyes to see that the conquests of industry which have enriched so many practical men would never have seen the light, if these practical men alone had existed and if they had not been preceded by unselfish devotees who died poor, who never thought of utility, and yet had a guide far other than caprice.As Mach says, these devotees have spared their successors the trouble of thinking.

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Author's Essay Prefatory to the Translation: "The Choice of Facts," p.4
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
5 months 2 days ago
To call war the soil of...

To call war the soil of courage and virtue is like calling debauchery the soil of love.

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Ch. III: Industry, Government, the peasants
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
5 months ago
If by enlightenment and intellectual progress...

If by enlightenment and intellectual progress we mean the freeing of man from superstitious belief in evil forces, in demons and fairies, in blind fate-in short, emancipation of fear-then denunciation of what is currently called reason is the greatest service reason can render.

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Philosophical Maxims
Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard
5 months 2 days ago
A word is a bud attempting...

A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream.

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Introduction, sect. 6
Philosophical Maxims
Joseph de Maistre
Joseph de Maistre
2 months 1 week ago
All pain is a punishment, and...

All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice.

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"Fifth Dialogue," p. 149
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
6 months 1 week ago
He will better comprehend the foundations...

He will better comprehend the foundations and measures of decency and justice, and have livelier, and more lasting impressions of what he ought to do, by giving his opinion on cases propos'd, and reasoning with his tutor on fit instances, than by giving a silent, negligent, sleepy audience to his tutor's lectures; and much more than by captious logical disputes, or set declamations of his own, upon any question. The one sets the thoughts upon wit and false colours, and not upon truth; the other teaches fallacy, wrangling, and opiniatry; and they are both of them things that spoil the judgment, and put a man out of the way of right and fair reasoning; and therefore carefully to be avoided by one who would improve himself, and be acceptable to others.

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Sec. 98
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
4 months 2 weeks ago
One has to do something new...

One has to do something new in order to see something new.

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J 1770
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
6 months 3 weeks ago
No thing great is created suddenly,...

No thing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

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Book I, ch. 15, 7.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
6 months 1 week ago
I do like clarity and exact...

I do like clarity and exact thinking and I believe that very important to mankind because when you allow yourself to think inexactly your prejudices, your bias, your self interest comes in in ways you don't notice and you do bad things without knowing that you are doing them: self deception is very easy. So that I do think clear thinking immensely important.

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Television interview ("On clarity and exact thinking" - available on youtube)
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
4 months 1 week ago
All media work us over completely....

All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. The medium is the massage. Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments. All media are extensions of some human faculty - psychic or physical.

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(p. 26)
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
6 months 1 week ago
Do not be too moral. You...

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.

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Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 177
Philosophical Maxims
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