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St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
5 months ago
But it isn't just a matter...

But it isn't just a matter of faith, but of faith and works. Each is necessary. For the demons also believe you heard the apostle and tremble (Jas 2:19); but their believing doesn't do them any good. Faith alone is not enough, unless works too are joined to it: Faith working through love (Gal 5:6), says the apostle.

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16A:11:2
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
4 months 2 weeks ago
I shall need only myself to...

I shall need only myself to be happy.

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As quoted in The prophetic voice, 1758-1778 by Lester G. Crocke, p. 148.
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
5 months ago
Even then [at the time of...

Even then [at the time of Peter's speech in Acts 2] it was the last days; how much more so now, when there must still be as much time till the end of the world as has passed since the ascension of the Lord! We do not know the end of the world, because it is not for us to know the times or the seasons that the Father has set in his power; but we know that, like the apostles, we live in the last times, in the last days, in the last hour. Those who lived after the apostles and before us were more in what we call the last times, and we ourselves are in them even more than they; those who will come after us will be so much more, till one gets to those who will be, if one may say so, the last of the last, and finally till that day, the very last, of which the Lord means to speak when he said, "And I will raise him up on the last day". How far are we from that day? That is an impenetrable secret.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 2 weeks ago
Society undergoes continual changes; it is...

Society undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is Christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. For everything that is given something is taken. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts. The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet; he has a fine Geneva watch, but cannot tell the hour by the sun.

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p. 243
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
5 months 1 week ago
What I will be remembered for...

What I will be remembered for are the Foundation Trilogy and the Three Laws of Robotics. What I want to be remembered for is no one book, or no dozen books. Any single thing I have written can be paralleled or even surpassed by something someone else has done. However, my total corpus for quantity, quality and variety can be duplicated by no one else. That is what I want to be remembered for.

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
3 months ago
The notion of rights is linked...

The notion of rights is linked with the notion of sharing out, of exchange, of measured quantity. It has a commercial flavor, essentially evocative of legal claims and arguments. Rights are always asserted in a tone of contention; and when this tone is adopted, it must rely upon force in the background, or else it will be laughed at.

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p. 61
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
3 months 1 week ago
The present stage redefines the possibilities...

The present stage redefines the possibilities of man and nature in accordance with the new means available for their realization.

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p. 65
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
4 months 2 weeks ago
The virtue of frugality lies in...

The virtue of frugality lies in a middle between avarice and profusion, of which the one consists in an excess, the other in a defect of the proper attention to the objects of self-interest.

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Section II, Chap. I.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
2 months ago
So far as cerebral structure goes......

So far as cerebral structure goes... it is clear that Man differs less from the Chimpanzee or the Orang, than these do even from the Monkeys, and that the difference between the brains of the Chimpanzee and of Man is almost insignificant, when compared with that between the Chimpanzee brain and that of a Lemur.

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Ch.2, p. 120
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
4 months 2 weeks ago
The only thing that will redeem...

The only thing that will redeem mankind is co-operation, and the first step towards co-operation lies in the hearts of individuals.

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p. 212
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months 2 weeks ago
You must love the crust of...

You must love the crust of the earth on which you dwell more than the sweet crust of any bread or cake; you must be able to extract nutriment out of a sand heap.

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January 25, 1858
Philosophical Maxims
Will Durant
Will Durant
1 month 4 days ago
Both Stoicism and Epicureanism - the...

Both Stoicism and Epicureanism - the apathetic acceptance of defeat, and the effort to forget defeat in the arms of pleasure - were theories as to how one might yet be happy though subjugated or enslaved; precisely as the stoicism of Schopenhauer and the despondent epicureanism of Renan were in the nineteenth century the symbols of a shattered revolution and a broken France.

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Philosophical Maxims
Sydney Smith
Sydney Smith
4 weeks 1 day ago
Have the courage to be ignorant...

Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.

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Lecture IX : On the Conduct of the Understanding
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 1 week ago
Without will, no conflict: no tragedy...

Without will, no conflict: no tragedy among the abulic. Yet the failure of will can be experienced more painfully than a tragic destiny.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 1 week 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
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
3 months 1 week ago
All religions so far have been...

All religions so far have been the expression of historical stages of development of individual peoples or groups of peoples. But communism is the stage of historical development which makes all existing religions superfluous and brings about their disappearance.

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Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
4 months 2 weeks ago
In the deepest heart of all...

In the deepest heart of all of us there is a corner in which the ultimate mystery of things works sadly.

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"Is Life Worth Living?"
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month 4 days ago
A punishment that....
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Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee
1 month 3 weeks ago
The human race's prospects of survival...

The human race's prospects of survival were considerably better when we were defenceless against tigers than they are today when we have become defenceless against ourselves.

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"Man and Hunger: The Perspectives of History", Speech to the World Food Congress (4 June 1963)
Philosophical Maxims
Emperor Julian
Emperor Julian
3 weeks 2 days ago
As a general rule, all that...

As a general rule, all that has been hitherto advanced respecting the nature of this deity, must be understood to refer to his properties: for the nature of the god is not one thing, and his influence another: and truly, besides these two, his energy a third thing: seeing that all things which he wills, these he is, he can, and he works. For neither doth he will that which he is not; nor is he without strength to do that which he wills; nor doth he will that which he cannot effect. Now this is very different in the case of men, for theirs is a double nature mixed up in one, that of soul and body; the former divine, the latter full of darkness and obscurity: hence naturally arise warfare and discord between the two.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 1 day ago
Philosophy and religion are enemies, and...

Philosophy and religion are enemies, and because they are enemies they have need of one another. There is no religion without some philosophical basis, no philosophy without roots in religion. ... the attacks which are directed against religion from a presumed scientific or philosophical point of view are merely attacks from another but opposing religious point of view.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 2 weeks ago
I find the Englishman to be...

I find the Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in his shoes. They have in themselves what they value in their horses, - mettle and bottom.

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Manners
Philosophical Maxims
Zeno of Citium
Zeno of Citium
3 months 3 weeks ago
(The end is) life in agreement...

(The end is) life in agreement with nature.

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As quoted by Diogenes Laërtius, in Lives of Eminent Philosophers: 'Zeno', 7.87
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
2 months 1 week ago
We may with advantage at times...

We may with advantage at times forget what we know.

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Maxim 234
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
4 months 2 weeks ago
The question of the principle of...

The question of the principle of the form of the intelligible world turns, therefore, upon making apparent in what manner it is possible for several substances to be in mutual commerce, and for this reason to pertain to the same whole, which is called world. We do not here consider the world, let it be understood, as to matter, that is, as to the nature of the substances of which it consists, whether they be material or immaterial, but as to form, that is to say, how among several things taken separately a connection, and among them all, totality can have place.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 3 weeks ago
Nothing prints more lively in our...

Nothing prints more lively in our minds than something we wish to forget.

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Book II, Ch. 12
Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
4 months 4 weeks ago
Nothing is ever gotten….

Nothing is ever gotten out of nothing by divine power.

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Book I, line 150 (tr. Munro)
Philosophical Maxims
Epicurus
Epicurus
5 months 4 days ago
Pleasure, or pain, is not only...

Pleasure, or pain, is not only good, or evil, in itself, but the measure of what is good or evil, in every object of desire or aversion; for the ultimate reason why we pursue one thing, and avoid another, is because we expect pleasure from the former, and apprehend pain from the latter. If we sometimes decline a present pleasure, it is not because we are averse to pleasure itself, but because we conceive, that in the present instance, it will be necessarily connected with a greater pain. In like manner, if we sometimes voluntarily submit to a present pain, it is because we judge that it is necessarily connected with a greater pleasure.

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Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
3 months 3 weeks ago
Divinity reveals herself in all things......

Divinity reveals herself in all things... everything has Divinity latent within itself. For she enfolds and imparts herself even unto the smallest beings, and from the smallest beings, according to their capacity. Without her presence nothing would have being, because she is the essence of the existence of the first unto the last being.

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As translated by Arthur Imerti
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
4 months 1 week ago
Athuroglossos is characterized by..: (1) When...

Athuroglossos is characterized by..: (1) When you have "a mouth like a running spring," you cannot distinguish those occasions when you should speak from those when you should remain silent; or that which must be said from that which must remain unsaid; or the circumstances and situations where speech is required from those where one ought to remain silent. (2) As Plutarch notes... you have no regard for the value of logos, for rational discourse as a means of gaining access to truth.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 1 week ago
Incredible that the prospect of having...

Incredible that the prospect of having a biographer has made no one renounce having a life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
1 week 4 days ago
Never esteem anything as of advantage...

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

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III, 7
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
4 months 5 days ago
Herbert Spencer is little read now....

Herbert Spencer is little read now. Philosophers do not regard him as a major thinker.

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Social Darwinism has long been in disrepute. Chapter 3, From Evolution To Ethics?, p. 61
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
5 months 2 weeks ago
Now the mass of mankind are...

Now the mass of mankind are plainly... choosing a life like that of brute animals...

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 1 week ago
The more you obey your conscience,...

The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will demand of you.

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Book IV, Chapter 8, "Is Christianity Hard or Easy?"
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
4 months 5 days ago
If we tried to rely entirely...

If we tried to rely entirely on reason, and pressed it hard, our lives and beliefs would collapse - a form of madness that may actually occur if the inertial force of taking the world and life for granted is somehow lost. If we lose our grip on that, reason will not give it back to us.

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"The Absurd" (1971), p. 20.
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
4 months 3 weeks ago
The world is all a carcass...

The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play And in one word, just nothing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 2 weeks ago
The effect of liberty to individuals...

The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
4 months 2 weeks ago
Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both...

Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity.

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Chapter III, Part II, p. 534.
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson
3 months 1 week ago
Toute notre civilisation est aphrodisiaque Sex-appeal...

Sex-appeal is the keynote of our whole civilization.

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Chapter IV
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
4 months 3 weeks ago
You must not murder. (Exodus 20:13)...

You must not murder. (Exodus 20:13) Q. What does this mean? A. We should fear and love God so that we may not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body, but help and befriend him in every bodily need [in every need and danger of life and body].

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
4 months 2 weeks ago
May we not return….

May we not return to those scoundrels of old, the illustrious founders of superstition and fanaticism, who first took the knife from the altar to make victims of those who refused to be their disciples?

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Letter to Frederick II of Prussia (December 1740), published in Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, Vol. 7 (1869), edited by Georges Avenel, p. 105; as translated by Richard Aldington
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
2 months 2 weeks ago
Driving is a spectacular form of...

Driving is a spectacular form of amnesia. Everything is to be discovered, everything to be obliterated. Admittedly, there is the primal shock of the deserts and the dazzle of California, but when this is gone, the secondary brilliance of the journey begins, that of the excessive, pitiless distance, the infinity of anonymous faces and distances, or of certain miraculous geological formations, which ultimately testify to no human will, while keeping intact an image of upheaval. This form of travel admits of no exceptions: when it runs up against a known face, a familiar landscape, or some decipherable message, the spell is broken: the amnesic, ascetic, asymptotic charm of disappearance succumbs to affect and worldly semiology.

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Vanishing Point (pp. 9-10)
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
2 months 2 weeks ago
Every body continues in its state...

Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.

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Laws of Motion, I
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
2 months 2 weeks ago
This is how one puts an...

This is how one puts an end to totality. If all information can be found in each of its parts, the whole loses its meaning. It is also the end of the body, of this singularity called body, whose secret is precisely that it cannot be segmented into additional cells, that it is an indivisible configuration, to which its sexuation is witness (paradox: cloning will fabricate sexed beings in perpetuity, since they are similar to their model, whereas thereby sex becomes useless-but precisely sex is not a function, it is what makes a body a body, it is what exceeds all the parts, all the diverse functions of this body). Sex (or death: in this sense it is the same thing) is what exceeds all information that can be collected on a body. Well, where is all this information collected? In the genetic formula. This is why it must necessarily want to forge a path of autonomous reproduction, independent of sexuality and of death.

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"Clone Story," p. 97
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
2 months 3 weeks ago
Organizations are systems of coordinated action...

Organizations are systems of coordinated action among individuals and groups whose preferences, information, interests, or knowledge differ. Organization theories describe the delicate conversion of conflict into cooperation, the mobilization of resources, and the coordination of effort that facilitate the joint survival of an organization and its members.

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Simon (1993. p. 2); Cited in Mario Catalani, ‎Giuseppe F. Clerico (1996) Decision making structures. p. 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 5 days ago
It depends on what we read,...

It depends on what we read, after all manner of Professors have done their best for us.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
4 months 1 week ago
There is only one way to...

There is only one way to science-or to philosophy... to meet a problem, to see its beauty and fall in love with it; to get married to it, and to live with it happily, till death do ye part-unless you should meet another... more fascinating problem, or... obtain a solution. But even if you do... you may... discover, to your delight, the... a whole family of enchanting... perhaps difficult problem children for whose welfare you may work, with a purpose, to the end of your days.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 1 week ago
The obsession with suicide is characteristic...

The obsession with suicide is characteristic of the man who can neither live nor die, and whose attention never swerves from this double impossibility.

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Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
3 months ago
The thesis of the identity of...

The thesis of the identity of concept and thing is in general the vital nerve of idealist thought, and indeed traditional thought in general. ... Negative dialectics as critique means above all criticism of precisely this claim to identity.

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p. 20
Philosophical Maxims
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