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Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
2 months 2 weeks ago
Our Traders in Men (an unnatural...

Our Traders in Men (an unnatural commodity!) must know the wickedness of that Slave-Trade, if they attend to reasoning, or the dictates of their own hearts; and such as shun and stiffle all these, wilfully sacrifice Conscience, and the character of integrity to that golden Idol.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
2 months 2 weeks ago
Children (nay, and men too) do...

Children (nay, and men too) do most by example.

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Sec. 67
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
2 months 3 weeks ago
Our preaching does not stop with...

Our preaching does not stop with the law. That would lead to wounding without binding up, striking down and not healing, killing and not making alive, driving down to hell and not bringing back up, humbling and not exalting. Therefore, we must also preach grace and the promise of forgiveness - this is the means by which faith is awakened and properly taught. Without this word of grace, the law, contrition, penitence, and everything else are done and taught in vain.

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pp. 78-79
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
2 months 3 weeks ago
Mother love is stronger than the...

Mother love is stronger than the filth and scabbiness on a child, and so the love of God toward us is stronger than the dirt that clings to us.

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94
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
1 month 2 weeks ago
How shall the dead arise, is...

How shall the dead arise, is no question of my faith; to believe only possibilities, is not faith, but mere philosophy.

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Section 48
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
1 month 1 week ago
Unconscious assumptions or opinions are the...

Unconscious assumptions or opinions are the worst enemy of woman; they can even grow into a positively demonic passion that exasperates and disgusts men, and does the woman herself the greatest injury by gradually smothering the charm and meaning of her femininity and driving it into the background. Such a development naturally ends in profound psychological disunion, in short, in a neurosis.

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P.245
Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
2 months 2 weeks ago
As to the Approbation or Esteem...

As to the Approbation or Esteem of those Blockheads who call themselves the Public, & whom a Bookseller, a Lord, a Priest, or a Party can guide, I do most heartily despise it.

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Letter 138, To Gilbert Elliot of Minto; August 9, 1757
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 month 1 day ago
Ether is, in effect, a merely...

Ether is, in effect, a merely hypothetical entity, valuable only in so far as it explains that which by means of it we endeavor to explain - light, electricity, or universal gravitation - and only so far as these facts cannot be explained in any other way. In like manner the idea of God is also an hypothesis, valuable only in so far as it enables us to explain that which by means of it we endeavor to explain - the essence and existence of the Universe - and only so long as these cannot be explained in any other way. And since in reality we explain the Universe neither better nor worse with this idea than without it, the idea of God, the supreme petitio principii, is valueless.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 1 week ago
To tell the truth, I couldn't...

To tell the truth, I couldn't care less about the relativity of knowledge, simply because the world does not deserve to be known.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 1 week ago
It's my belief that the Universe...

It's my belief that the Universe possesses, in its essence, fractal properties of a very complex sort and that the pursuit of science shares those properties. It follows that any part of the Universe that remains un-understood, and any part of scientific investigation that remains unresolved, however small that might be in comparison to what is understood and resolved, contains within it all the complexity of the original. Therefore, we'll never finish. No matter how far we go, the road ahead will be as long as it was at the start, and that's the secret of the Universe.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 1 week ago
If the only significant history of...

If the only significant history of human thought were to be written, it would have to be the history of its successive regrets and its impotences.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
1 month 2 weeks ago
France had for some time been...

France had for some time been guilty of a continued series of hostile acts against this country, both external and internal: first, she directed her pursuits to universal empire, under the name of fraternity, in order to overturn the fabric of our laws and government.

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Speech in the House of Commons (12 February 1793)
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
2 months 2 weeks ago
Go where we will on the...

Go where we will on the surface of things, men have been there before us.

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
1 month 2 weeks ago
I know now that I shall....

I know now that I shall. But all Actual Knowledge brings with it, by its formal nature, its schematised apposition; - although I now know of the Schema of God, yet I am not yet immediately this Schema, but I am only a Schema of the Schema. The required Being is not yet realised. I shall be. Who is this I? Evidently that which is, - the Ego gives in Intuition, the Individual. This shall be. What does its Being signify? It is given as a Principle in the World of Sense. Blind Instinct is indeed annihilated, and in its place there now stands the clearly perceived Shall. But the Power that at first set this Instinct in motion remains, in order that the Shall my now set it (the Power) in motion, and become its higher determining Principle. By means of this Power, I shall therefore, within its sphere, - the World of Sense, - produce and make manifest that which I recognise as my true Being in the Supersensuous World.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
1 month 2 weeks ago
We have busied ourselves and contented...

We have busied ourselves and contented ourselves long enough with speaking and writing; now at last we demand that the word become flesh, the spirit matter; we are as sick of political as we are of philosophical idealism; we are determined to become political materialists.

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Lecture I, Occasion and Context
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 week 6 days ago
Good order is....
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Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1 month 2 weeks ago
... people only count their misfortunes;...

... people only count their misfortunes; their good luck they take no account of. But if they were to take everything into account, as they should, they'd find that they had their fair share of it.

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Part 2, Chapter 6 (tr. ?)
Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 weeks ago
It is not sufficient to observe...

It is not sufficient to observe our mysteries in the seclusion of our lodge-we must act-act! We are drowsing, but we must act. (Pierre raised his notebook and began to read.) For the dissemination of pure truth and to secure the triumph of virtue," he read, "we must cleanse men from prejudice, diffuse principles in harmony with the spirit of the times, undertake the education of the young, unite ourselves in indissoluble bonds with the wisest men, boldly yet prudently overcome superstitions, infidelity, and folly, and form of those devoted to us a body linked together by unity of purpose and possessed of authority and power.

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
1 month 2 weeks ago
What is the use of all...

What is the use of all knowledge, if one does not act in accordance with it? This remark implies that knowledge is regarded as a means to action, and the latter as the real end. One could put the question the other way round and ask: How can we possibly act well without knowing what the Good is? This way of expressing it would regard knowledge as conditioning action. But both expressions are one-sided, and the truth is that both, knowledge as well as action, are in the same way inseparable elements of rational life.

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Consequences of the Difference p. 75
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
2 months 1 week ago
For the lesson of such stories...

For the lesson of such stories [of resistance to Nazi atrocities] is simple and within everybody's grasp. Politically speaking, it is that under conditions of terror, most people will comply but some people will not, just as the lesson of the countries to which the Final Solution was proposed is that "it could happen" in most places but it did not happen everywhere. Humanly speaking, no more is required, and no more can reasonably be asked, for this planet to remain a place fit for human habitation.

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Ch. XIV
Philosophical Maxims
Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
1 month ago
In a world that has been...

In a world that has been thoroughly permeated by the structures of the social order, a world that so overpowers every individual that scarcely any option remains but to accept it on its own terms, such naiveté reproduces itself incessantly and disastrously. What people have forced upon them by a boundless apparatus, which they themselves constitute and which they are locked into, virtually eliminates all natural elements and becomes "nature" to them.

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p. 12
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 1 week ago
He that is without sin among...

He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

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8:7 (King James Version)
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
2 months 1 week ago
Be quiet! Anyone can spit in...

Be quiet! Anyone can spit in my face, and call me a criminal and a prostitute. But no one has the right to judge my remorse.

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Act 1
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 1 week ago
The doctrine that there is as...

The doctrine that there is as much science in a subject as... mathematics in it, or as much... measurement or 'precision' in it, rests upon... misunderstanding.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
2 weeks 3 days ago
"The Precession of Simulacra," p. 6

"The Precession of Simulacra,"

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p. 6
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 1 week ago
A fate is not a punishment.

A fate is not a punishment.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
2 months 5 days ago
To look for a single general...

To look for a single general theory of how to decide the right thing to do is like looking for a single theory of how to decide what to believe.

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"The Fragmentation of Value" (1977), p. 135.
Philosophical Maxims
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
1 month 5 days ago
Philosophy is in history, and is...

Philosophy is in history, and is never independent of historical discourse. But for the tacit symbolism of life it substitutes, in principle, a conscious symbolism; for a latent meaning, one that is manifest. It is never content to accept its historical situation. It changes this situation by revealing it to itself.

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p. 57
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 1 week ago
Why in the world shouldn't they...

Why in the world shouldn't they have regarded with awe and reverence that act by which the human race is perpetuated. Not every religion has to have St. Augustine's attitude to sex. Why even in our culture marriages are celebrated in a church, everyone present knows what is going to happen that night, but that doesn't prevent it being a religious ceremony.

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Intentionality, and Romanticism (1997) by Richard Thomas Eldridge, p. 130
Philosophical Maxims
Pythagoras
Pythagoras
1 month 3 weeks ago
To use Virtue is perfect blessedness.

To use Virtue is perfect blessedness.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
3 weeks 3 days ago
Doubt must be no more than...

Doubt must be no more than vigilance, otherwise it can become dangerous.

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F 53
Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
1 month 2 weeks ago
In America, more than anywhere else...

In America, more than anywhere else in the world, care has been taken constantly to trace clearly distinct spheres of action for the two sexes, and both are required to keep in step, but along paths that are never the same.

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Book Three, Chapter XII.
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
3 days ago
[I]f it is the moral right...

If it is the moral right we are to look at, I say, that on every principle of moral obligation, I hold that the Jew has a right to political power.

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Speech in the House of Commons (5 April 1830) in favour of Robert Grant's Jewish Disabilities Bill
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
3 months 2 weeks ago
To understand oneself in existence is...

To understand oneself in existence is the Christian principle, except that this self has received much richer and much more profound qualifications that are even more difficult to understand together with existing. The believer is a subjective thinker, and the difference, is only between the simple person and the simple wise person. Here again the oneself is not humanity in general, subjectivity in general, and other such things, whereas everything becomes easy inasmuch as the difficulty is removed and the whole matter is shifted over into the shadow play of abstraction.

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Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
1 month 1 week ago
The difference between a pessimistic and...

The difference between a pessimistic and an optimistic mind is of such controlling importance in regard to every intellectual function, and especially for the conduct of life, that it is out of the question to admit that both are normal, and the great majority of mankind are naturally optimistic.

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V
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 2 weeks ago
I frequently asked myself, if I...

I frequently asked myself, if I could, or if I was bound to go on living, when life must be passed in this manner. I generally answered to myself, that I did not think I could possibly bear it beyond a year.

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(p. 140)
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
1 month 1 week ago
It is imperative that we should...

It is imperative that we should not pare down the meaning of a dream to fit some narrow doctrine. ... No language exists that cannot be misused. It is hard to realize how badly we are fooled by the abuse of ideas, it even seems as if the unconscious had a way of strangling the physician in the coils of his own theory. p 11; this was originally listed here in a somewhat misleading form combining it with another statement on the interpretations of dreams on p. 14: No language exists that cannot be misused ... Every Interpretation is hypothetical, for it is a mere attempt to read an unfamiliar text.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
1 month 2 weeks ago
Freedom and whores are the most...

Freedom and whores are the most cosmopolitan items under the sun. .

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Act IV
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
3 weeks 6 days ago
The self-surmounter can never put up...

The self-surmounter can never put up with the man who has ceased to be dissatisfied with himself.

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p. 139
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1 month 2 weeks ago
In most cases, people, even the...

In most cases, people, even the most vicious, are much more naive and simple-minded than we assume them to be. And this is true of ourselves too.

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Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
3 months 1 week ago
A robot may not injure a...

A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

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Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
2 months 5 days ago
Human social institutions can effect the...

Human social institutions can effect the course of human evolution. Just as climate-change, food supply, predators, and other natural forces of selection have molded our nature, so too can our culture.

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Chapter 6, A New Understanding Of Ethics, p. 172
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
2 months 2 weeks ago
A Turk thinks, or used to...

A Turk thinks, or used to think (for even Turks are wiser now-a-days), that society would be on a sandbank if women were suffered to walk about the streets with their faces uncovered. Taught by these and many similar examples, I look upon this expression of loosening the foundations of society, unless a person tells in unambiguous terms what he means by it, as a mere bugbear to frighten imbeciles with.

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Stability of Society (17 August 1850), quoted in Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (eds.), The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, XXV - Newspaper Writings December 1847 - July 1873 Part IV, 1986
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 month 1 week ago
Because the peculiarity of man is...

Because the peculiarity of man is that his machinery for reaction on external things has involved an imaginative transcript of these things, which is preserved and suspended in his fancy; and the interest and beauty of this inward landscape, rather than any fortunes that may await his body in the outer world, constitute his proper happiness. By their mind, its scope, quality, and temper, we estimate men, for by the mind only do we exist as men, and are more than so many storage-batteries for material energy. Let us therefore be frankly human. Let us be content to live in the mind.

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p. 64
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 1 week ago
Put up again thy sword into...

Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?

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Philosophical Maxims
Lucretius
Lucretius
2 months 4 weeks ago
But if one should…

But if one should guide his life by true principles, man's greatest riches is to live on a little with contented mind; for a little is never lacking.

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Book V, lines 1117-1119 (tr. Rouse)
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
3 weeks 3 days ago
What is called an acute knowledge...

What is called an acute knowledge of human nature is mostly nothing but the observer's own weaknesses reflected back from others.

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G 7
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 1 week ago
Men became scientific because they expected...

Men became scientific because they expected law in Nature; and they expected law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator.

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Ch. 3: "The Cardinal Difficulty of Naturalism"
Philosophical Maxims
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
6 months 2 weeks ago
Ghandi had balls

One should oppose the fascination with Hitler according to which Hitler was, of course, a bad guy, responsible for the death of millions — but he definitely had balls, he pursued with iron will what he wanted. … This point is not only ethically repulsive, but simply wrong: no, Hitler did not ‘have the balls’ to really change things; he did not really act, all his actions were fundamentally reactions, i.e., he acted so that nothing would really change, he stages a big spectacle of Revolution so that the capitalist order could survive.”
In this precise sense of violence, Gandhi was more violent than Hitler: Gandhi’s movement effectively endeavored to interrupt the basic functioning of the British colonial state.

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Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
3 months ago
A man might say, "The things...

A man might say, "The things that are in the world are what God has made. ... Why should I not love what God has made?" ...Suppose, my brethren, a man should make for his betrothed a ring, and she should prefer the ring given her to the betrothed who made it for her, would not her heart be convicted of infidelity? ... God has given you all these things: therefore, love him who made them.

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Second Homily, as translated by John Burnaby (1955), pp. 275-276
Philosophical Maxims
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