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Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 5 days ago
I can be twenty women, one...

I can be twenty women, one hundred, if that's what you want, all women. Ride with me behind you, I weigh nothing, your horse will not feel me. I want to be your whorehouse!

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Act 3, sc. 4
Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
2 weeks 1 day ago
[B]oth natural selection and the historical...

[B]oth natural selection and the historical record offer powerful reasons for doubting the trustworthiness of our naive moral intuitions. So the possibility that human civilisation might be founded upon some monstrous evil should be taken seriously - even if the possibility seems transparently absurd at the time.

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The Antispeciesist Revolution, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, 26 Jul. 2013
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
1 month 2 weeks ago
Nothing can well be imagined more...

Nothing can well be imagined more painful than the present position of woman, unless, on the one hand, she renounces all outward activity and keeps herself within the magic sphere, the bubble of her dreams; or, on the other, surrendering all aspiration, she gives herself to her real life, soul and body. For those to whom it is possible, the latter is best; for out of activity may come thought, out of mere aspiration can come nothing.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 month 2 weeks ago
Familiar things happen, and mankind does...

Familiar things happen, and mankind does not bother about them. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.

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Ch. 1: "The Origins of Modern Science", p. 6
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
3 months 1 week ago
We see in tragedy the noblest...

We see in tragedy the noblest men, after a long conflict and suffering, finally renounce forever all the pleasure of life and the aims till then pursued so keenly, or cheerfully and willingly give up life itself.

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Book 1
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
4 months 3 days ago
Throughout history there have been peasant...

Throughout history there have been peasant rebellions which have followed always the same course. Blindly, the peasants sacked and destroyed, and when members of the "upper classes" fell into their hands, they killed ruthlessly and cruelly, for never in their lives had they been taught gentleness and mercy by those now in their power.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 1 week ago
How could one speak properly about...

How could one speak properly about love if you were forgotten, you God of love, source of all love in heaven and on earth; you who spared nothing but in love gave everything; you who are love, so that one who loves is what he is only by being in you.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 1 week ago
Philosophy is to be studied, not...

Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind is also rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.

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Philosophical Maxims
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei
Just now
Well, since paradoxes are at hand,...

Well, since paradoxes are at hand, let us see how it might be demonstrated that in a finite continuous extension it is not impossible for infinitely many voids to be found.

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Salviati, First Day, Stillman Drake translation
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
3 months 1 week ago
Do not shorten the morning by...

Do not shorten the morning by getting up late, or waste it in unworthy occupations or in talk; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred. Evening is like old age: we are languid, talkative, silly. Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.

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Vol. 2, Ch. 2: Our Relation To Ourselves
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
1 month 2 weeks ago
It is the private dominion over...

It is the private dominion over things that condemns millions of people to be mere nonentities, living corpses without originality or power of initiative, human machines of flesh and blood, who pile up mountains of wealth for others and pay for it with a gray, dull and wretched existence for themselves. I believe that there can be no real wealth, social wealth, so long as it rests on human lives - young lives, old lives and lives in the making.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
1 month 2 weeks ago
Yet its essence was the certitude...

Yet its essence was the certitude that his life was not totally at the mercy of chance. Somehow, it was more important than that. This sense of power inside his head - which he could intensify by pulling a face and wrinkling up the muscles of his forehead - aroused a glow of optimism, an expectation of exciting events. He knew that for him, fate held something special in store.

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p. 26
Philosophical Maxims
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
2 weeks 1 day ago
I don't believe in total freedom...

I don't believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there's one thing that's dangerous for an artist, it's precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and the rest of it.

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Artistic Freedom
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 5 days ago
Suso has even left a diagrammatic...

Suso has even left a diagrammatic picture of the relations subsisting between Godhead, triune God and creatures. In this very curious and interesting drawing a chain of manifestation connects the mysterious symbol of the Divine Ground with the three Persons of the Trinity, and the Trinity in turn is connected in a descending scale with angels and human beings. These last, as the drawing vividly shows, may make one of two choices. They can either live the life of the outer man, the life of the separative selfhood; in which case they are lost (for, in the words of the Theologia Germanica, "nothing burns in hell but the self"). Or else they can identify themselves with the inner man, in which case it becomes possible for them, as Suso shows, to ascend again, through unitive knowledge, to the Trinity and even, beyond the Trinity, to the ultimate Unity of the Divine Ground.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 days ago
To try curing someone of a...

To try curing someone of a "vice," of what is the deepest thing he has, is to attack his very being, and this is indeed how he himself understands it, since he will never forgive you for wanting him to destroy himself in your way and not his.

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Philosophical Maxims
Xunzi
Xunzi
2 days ago
Learning proceeds until death and only...

Learning proceeds until death and only then does it stop. ... Its purpose cannot be given up for even a moment. To pursue it is to be human, to give it up to be a beast.

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Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy (2001), p. 258
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
1 day ago
We need a good alternative to...

We need a good alternative to Trumpism. There is a majority in favor of that, but... the other party is really not providing that alternative in a very clear way.

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46:46:00
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 days ago
The sphere of consciousness shrinks in...

The sphere of consciousness shrinks in action; no one who acts can lay claim to the universal, for to act is to cling to the properties of being at the expense of being itself, to form a reality to reality's detriment.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 6 days ago
[The career a young man should...

The career a young man should choose should be] one that is most consonant with our dignity, one that is based on ideas of whose truth we are wholly convinced, one that offers us largest scope in working for humanity and approaching that general goal towards which each profession offers only one of the means: the goal of perfection ... If he works only for himself he can become a famous scholar, a great sage, an excellent imaginative writer [Dichter], but never a perfected, a truly great man.

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in Karl Marx and World Literature (1976) by S. S. Prawer, p. 2.
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 months 1 day ago
Philosophy hasn't made any progress?-If someone...

Philosophy hasn't made any progress?-If someone scratches where it itches, do we have to see progress? Is it not genuine scratching otherwise, or genuine itching?

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p. 98e
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
3 weeks ago
The only medicine for suffering, crime,...

The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all the other woes of mankind, is wisdom.

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Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
3 months ago
To be an intellectual really means...

To be an intellectual really means to speak a truth that allows suffering to speak. That is, it creates a vision of the world that puts into the limelight the social misery that is usually hidden or concealed by the dominant viewpoints of a society. "Intellectual" in that sense simply means those who are willing to reflect critically upon themselves as well as upon the larger society and to ascertain whether there is some possibility of amelioration and betterment.

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"Chekhov, Coltrane, and Democracy: Interview by David Lionel Smith." in The Cornel West Reader. Basic Books. 2000. p. 551. ISBN 978-0-465-09110-2.
Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
2 months 2 days ago
The word "God," so "capitalised" (as...

The word "God," so "capitalised" (as we Americans say), is the definable proper name, signifying Ens necessarium; in my belief Really creator of all three Universes of Experience. I, Ens necessarium is a latin expression which signifies "Necessary being, necessary entity"

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
3 weeks 3 days ago
Men are never so likely to...

Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.

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p. 248
Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
2 months 3 days ago
Government in reality, as has abundantly...

Government in reality, as has abundantly appeared, is a question of force, and not of consent. It is desirable that a government should be made as agreeable as possible to the ideas and inclinations of its subjects and that they should be consulted, as extensively as may be, respecting its construction and regulations. But, at last, the best constituted government that can be formed particularly for a large community, will contain many provisions that, far from having obtained the consent of all its members, encounter even in their outset a strenuous, thought ineffectual opposition.

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Book III, "Of Obedience"
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 6 days ago
I wish that life should not...

I wish that life should not be cheap, but sacred. I wish the days to be as centuries, loaded, fragrant.

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Considerations by the Way
Philosophical Maxims
Edward Said
Edward Said
1 month 2 weeks ago
As a way of maintaining relative...

As a way of maintaining relative intellectual independence, having the attitude of an amateur instead of a professional is a better course.

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p. 87
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 month 2 weeks ago
Heaven knows what seeming nonsense may...

Heaven knows what seeming nonsense may not to-morrow be demonstrated truth.

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Ch. 7: "Relativity", p. 161
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 month 3 days ago
Money alone sets all the world...

Money alone sets all the world in motion.

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Maxim 656
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
3 months 2 weeks ago
No Man is wise at all...

No Man is wise at all Times, or is without his blind Side.

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The Alchymyst, in Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I.
Philosophical Maxims
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
1 month 2 weeks ago
Happiness is the indication that man...

Happiness is the indication that man has found the answer to the problem of human existence: the productive realization of his potentialities and thus, simultaneously, being one with the world and preserving the integrity of his self. In spending his energy productively he increases his powers, he "burns without being consumed."

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p.189
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
3 months 2 weeks ago
I would have written…

I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.

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Provincial Letters: Letter XVI (4 December 1656)
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 weeks 3 days ago
The object before us....
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Main Content / General
Epictetus
Epictetus
3 months 2 weeks ago
Remember that you ought to behave...

Remember that you ought to behave in life as you would at a banquet. As something is being passed around it comes to you; stretch out your hand, take a portion of it politely. It passes on; do not detain it. Or it has not come to you yet; do not project your desire to meet it, but wait until it comes in front of you. So act toward children, so toward a wife, so toward office, so toward wealth.

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(15).
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 days ago
Is it conceivable to adhere to...

Is it conceivable to adhere to a religion founded by someone else?

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
2 months 6 days ago
The death clock is ticking slowly...

The death clock is ticking slowly in our breast, and each drop of blood measures its time, and our life is a lingering fever.

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Act II.
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 month 2 weeks ago
There is no greater impediment to...

There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly.

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K 72
Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
2 months 2 days ago
The deep critical thinker has become...

The deep critical thinker has become the misfit of the world. This is not a coincidence. To maintain order and control you must isolate the intellectual, the sage, the philosopher, the savant before their ideas awaken people.

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Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 months 1 week ago
Every man has his dignity. I'm...

Every man has his dignity. I'm willing to forget mine, but at my own discretion and not when someone else tells me to.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
1 month 2 weeks ago
I believe government, organized authority, or...

I believe government, organized authority, or the State is necessary only to maintain or protect property and monopoly. It has proven efficient in that function only. As a promoter of individual liberty, human well-being and social harmony, which alone constitute real order, government stands condemned by all the great men of the world...I believe - indeed, I know - that whatever is fine and beautiful in the human expresses and asserts itself in spite of government, and not because of it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
2 months 3 days ago
We exhort the compromisers to open...

We exhort the compromisers to open their hearts to truth, to free themselves of their wretched and blind circumspection, of their intellectual arrogance, and of the servile fear which dries up their souls and paralyzes their movements. Let us therefore trust the eternal Spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unfathomable and eternal source of all life. The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too!

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"The Reaction in Germany" (1842) Often paraphrased as, "The urge to destroy is also a creative urge"
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
3 months 2 weeks ago
Again, we should notice the force,...

Again, we should notice the force, effect, and consequences of inventions, which are nowhere more conspicuous than in those three which were unknown to the ancients; namely, printing, gunpowder, and the compass. For these three have changed the appearance and state of the whole world; first in literature, then in warfare, and lastly in navigation: and innumerable changes have been thence derived, so that no empire, sect, or star, appears to have exercised a greater power and influence on human affairs than these mechanical discoveries.

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Aphorism 129
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
2 months 3 weeks ago
About Pontus there are some creatures...

About Pontus there are some creatures of such an extempore being that the whole term of their life is confined within the space of a day; for they are brought forth in the morning, are in the prime of their existence at noon, grow old at night, and then die.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
1 week 6 days ago
Human rights are not just cultural...

Human rights are not just cultural or legal constructions, as fashionable western relativists are fond of claiming. They are universal values. To deny the benefits of the new regime of rights to other cultures is to patronise them in a way that is reminiscent of the colonial era. If the new regime on torture is good enough for the US, who can say that it is not good for everyone?

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Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
3 months 1 week ago
This proof can at most, therefore,...

This proof can at most, therefore, demonstrate the existence of an architect of the world, whose efforts are limited by the capabilities of the material with which he works, but not of a creator of the world, to whom all things are subject.

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A 627, B 655 (Physico-Theological Proof Impossible)
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
1 month 4 weeks ago
For it is not the bare...

For it is not the bare Words, but the Scope of the writer that giveth true light, by which any writing is to bee interpreted; and they that insist upon single Texts, without considering the main Designe, can derive no thing from them clearly; but rather by casting atomes of Scripture, as dust before mens eyes, make everything more obscure than it is; an ordinary artifice of those who seek not the truth, but their own advantage.

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The Third Part, Chapter 43, p. 331
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 6 days ago
Capital is dead labor, that vampire-like,...

Capital is dead labor, that vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.

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Vol. I, Ch. 10, Section 1, p. 257.
Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
2 months 3 weeks ago
To a wise man, the whole...

To a wise man, the whole earth is open; for the native land of a good soul is the whole earth.

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Freeman (1948), p. 166 \
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
3 months 1 week ago
Two Chinamen visiting Europe went to...

Two Chinamen visiting Europe went to the theatre for the first time. One of them occupied himself with trying to understand the theatrical machinery, which he succeeded in doing. The other, despite his ignorance of the language, sought to unravel the meaning of the play. The former is like the astronomer, the latter the philosopher.

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Vol. 2 "On Various Subjects" as translated in Essays and Aphorisms (1970), as translated by R. J. Hollingdale
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
4 months 3 days ago
No man of sense can put...

No man of sense can put himself and his soul under the control of names... You must consider courageously and thoroughly and not accept anything carelessly.

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Philosophical Maxims
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