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Martin Luther
Martin Luther
4 months 3 weeks ago
She became the Mother of God,...

She became the Mother of God, in which work so many and such great good things are bestowed on her as pass man's understanding. For on this there follows all honor, all blessedness, and her unique place in the whole of mankind, among which she has no equal, namely, that she had a child by the Father in heaven, and such a Child.... Hence men have crowded all her glory into a single word, calling her the Mother of God.... None can say of her nor announce to her greater things, even though he had as many tongues as the earth possesses flowers and blades of grass: the sky, stars; and the sea, grains of sand. It needs to be pondered in the heart what it means to be the Mother of God.

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Luther's Works, 21:326, cf. 21:346
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 2 weeks ago
They defend their errors as if...

They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
4 months 2 weeks ago
The softer you find your child...

The softer you find your child is, the more you are to seek occasions, at fit times, thus to harden him. The great art in this is, to begin with what is but very little painful, and to proceed by insensible degrees, when you are playing, and in good humour with him, and speaking well of him: and when you have once got him to think himself made amends for his suffering by the praise is given him for his courage; when he can take pride in giving such marks of his manliness, and can prefer the reputation of being brave and stout, to the avoiding a little pain, or the shrinking under it; you need nor despair in time and by the assistance of his growing reason, to master his timorousness, and mend the weakness of his constitution.

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Sec. 115
Philosophical Maxims
Ian Hacking
Ian Hacking
2 months 3 weeks ago
A single observation that is inconsistent...

A single observation that is inconsistent with some generalization points to the falsehood of the generalization, and thereby 'points to itself'.

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Chapter 4, Evidence, p. 34.
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 2 weeks ago
Revolutions are the locomotives of history....

Revolutions are the locomotives of history.

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Chapter 3, The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850, 1850
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
2 weeks 4 days ago
Treasury notes of small as well...

Treasury notes of small as well as high denomination, bottomed on a tax which would redeem them in ten years, would place at our disposal the whole circulating medium of the United States... The public... ought never more to permit its being filched from them by private speculators and disorganizers of the circulation.

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Letter to William H. Crawford, 1815. ME 14:242
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
3 months 5 days ago
The cult of the Virgin, Mariolatry,...

The cult of the Virgin, Mariolatry, which by the gradual elevation of the divine element in the Virgin has led almost to her deification, answers merely to the feeling that God should be a perfect man, that God should include in his nature the feminine element. The progressive exaltation of the Virgin Mary, the work of Catholic piety, having its beginning in the expression Mother of God, ...has culminated in attributing to her the status of co-redeemer and in the dogmatic declaration of her conception without the stain of original sin. Hence she now occupies a position between Humanity and Divinity and nearer Divinity than Humanity. And it has been surmised that in course of time she may perhaps even come to be regarded as yet another personal manifestation of the Godhead.

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Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
4 months 3 weeks ago
There will always be some people...

There will always be some people who think for themselves, even among the self-appointed guardians of the great mass who, after having thrown off the yoke of immaturity themselves, will spread about them the spirit of a reasonable estimate of their own value and of the need for every man to think for himself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei
1 month 1 week ago
It always seems to me extreme...

It always seems to me extreme rashness on the part of some when they want to make human abilities the measure of what nature can do. On the contrary, there is not a single effect in nature, even the least that exists, such that the most ingenious theorists can arrive at a complete understanding of it. This vain presumption of understanding everything can have no other basis than never understanding anything. For anyone who had experienced just once the perfect understanding of one single thing, and had truly tasted how knowledge is accomplished, would recognize that of the infinity of other truths he understands nothing.

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Day One
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 months 1 day ago
Society creates the victims that it...

Society creates the victims that it afterwards vainly attempts to get rid of.

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Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
5 months 2 weeks ago
Of all the schools of patience...

Of all the schools of patience and lucidity, creation is the most effective. It is also the staggering evidence of man's sole dignity: the dogged revolt against his condition, perseverance in an effort considered sterile. It calls for a daily effort, self-mastery, a precise estimate of the limits of truth, measure, and strength. It constitutes an ascesis. All that "for nothing," in order to repeat and mark time. But perhaps the great work of art has less importance in itself than in the ordeal it demands of a man and the opportunity it provides him of overcoming his phantoms and approaching a little closer to his naked reality.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 2 weeks ago
Our language can be seen as...

Our language can be seen as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of houses with additions from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs with straight regular streets and uniform houses.

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§ 18
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
2 months 3 weeks ago
Plato is my friend…

Plato is my friend - Aristotle is my friend - but my greatest friend is truth.

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These are notes in Latin that Newton wrote to himself that he titled: Quaestiones Quaedam Philosophicae [Certain Philosophical Questions] (c. 1664)
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
5 months 3 weeks ago
We obtain the concept, as we...
We obtain the concept, as we do the form, by overlooking what is individual and actual; whereas nature is acquainted with no forms and no concepts, and likewise with no species, but only with an X which remains inaccessible and undefinable for us.
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Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 months 2 weeks ago
The activity of art is... as...

The activity of art is... as important as the activity of language itself, and as universal.

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Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
3 months 2 weeks ago
The determination to print them (his...

The determination to print them (his lectures), and to communicate them to the General Public, must also speak for itself; and should it not do so, any other recommendation of them would be thrown away. Thus, with respect to the appearance of this work, I have nothing further to say to the Public, than that I have nothing to say.

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Preface
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
In every man sleeps a prophet,...

In every man sleeps a prophet, and when he wakes there is a little more evil in the world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
Boredom is connected naturally with time,...

Boredom is connected naturally with time, with the horror of time, with the experience and the consciousness of time. Those who are not aware of time do not become bored. Basically life is only possible if one is not aware of time. If one should happen to want to experience consciously one of those moments that pass, one would be lost; life would become unbearable.

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Philosophical Maxims
Cornel West
Cornel West
4 months 1 week ago
Anytime two human beings find genuine...

Anytime two human beings find genuine pleasure, joy, and love, the stars smile and the universe is enriched. Yet as long as that pleasure, joy, and love is still predicated on myths of black sexuality, the more fundamental challenge of humane interaction remains unmet.

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(p85)
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 1 week ago
My kingdom is not of this...

My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.

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18: 36, (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
1 month 3 weeks ago
Evangelical atheists preach the need for...

Evangelical atheists preach the need for a scientific view of things, but a settled view does not go with scientific method. If we know anything it is that most of the theories that prevail at any one time are false. Scientific theories are not components of a world-view but tools we use to tinker with the world.

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Sweet Morality (p. 224)
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 2 weeks ago
Love may forgive all infirmities and...

Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emperor Julian
Emperor Julian
3 weeks 6 days ago
No wild beasts….

No wild beasts are such enemies to mankind as are most of the Christians in their deadly hatred of one another.

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Reported in Ammianus, Res gestae, bk. 22, ch. 5, sec. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
4 months 3 weeks ago
It is easier for the prince...

It is easier for the prince to make friends of those men who were contented under the former government, and are therefore his enemies, than of those who, being discontented with it, were favourable to him and encouraged him to seize it. 

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Ch. 20
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
4 months 1 week ago
It seems to me...

It seems to me that the current political task in a society like ours is to criticize the working of institutions that are apparently the most neutral and independent, to criticize these institutions and attack them in such a way that the political violence that exercises itself obscurely through them becomes manifest, so that one can fight against them.

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Debate with Noam Chomsky, École Supérieure de Technologie à Eindhoven, November 1971
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 months 2 weeks ago
When a whole nation is roaring...

When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart.

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December 10, 1824
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
2 months 4 days ago
Becky Sharp's acute remark that it...

Becky Sharp's acute remark that it is not difficult to be virtuous on ten thousand a year, has its application to nations; and it is futile to expect a hungry and squalid population to be anything but violent and gross.

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"Joseph Priestley"
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 2 weeks ago
The economic concept of value does...

The economic concept of value does not occur in antiquity.

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Notebook VII, The Chapter on Capital, p. 696.
Philosophical Maxims
Thales of Miletus
Thales of Miletus
4 months ago
Place is the greatest thing….

Place is the greatest thing, as it contains all things.

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As quoted in Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, I, 35
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
3 months 2 weeks ago
Old forms of government finally grow...

Old forms of government finally grow so oppressive, that they must be thrown off even at the risk of reigns of terror.

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On Manners and Fashion
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 months 1 day ago
"What I believe" is a process...

"What I believe" is a process rather than a finality. Finalities are for gods and governments, not for the human intellect. While it may be true that Herbert Spencer's formulation of liberty is the most important on the subject, as a political basis of society, yet life is something more than formulas. In the battle for freedom, as Ibsen has so well pointed out, it is the struggle for, not so much the attainment of, liberty, that develops all that is strongest, sturdiest and finest in human character.

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Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
4 months 1 week ago
Those who have a well-ordered character...

Those who have a well-ordered character lead also a well-ordered life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
3 months 2 weeks ago
I am a sick man…

I am a sick man... I am a wicked man. An unattractive man.

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Part 1, Chapter 1
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
4 months 3 weeks ago
Now I say this to keep...

Now I say this to keep the conscience free from mischievous laws and fictitious sins, and not because I would defend images. Nor would I condemn those who have destroyed them, especially those who destroy divine and idolatrous images. But images for memorial and witness, such as crucifixes and images of saints, are to be tolerated.

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p. 91
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
4 months 2 weeks ago
The greatest compliment that was ever...

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer. I am surprised, as well as delighted, when this happens, it is such a rare use he would make of me, as if he were acquainted with the tool.

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p. 484
Philosophical Maxims
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
2 weeks ago
Bourgeois class domination is undoubtedly an...

Bourgeois class domination is undoubtedly an historical necessity, but, so too, the rising of the working class against it. Capital is an historical necessity, but, so too, its grave digger, the socialist proletariat.

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The Junius Pamphlet
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks 5 days ago
The wind is blowing...
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Main Content / General
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 months 3 weeks ago
The territorial aristocracy of former ages...

The territorial aristocracy of former ages was either bound by law, or thought itself bound by usage, to come to the relief of its serving-men and to relieve their distresses. But the manufacturing aristocracy of our age first impoverishes and debases the men who serve it and then abandons them to be supported by the charity of the public.

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Book Two, Chapter XX.
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
4 months 2 weeks ago
Assembled in a crowd, people lose...

Assembled in a crowd, people lose their powers of reasoning and their capacity for moral choice.

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Chapter 5 (p. 42)
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 2 weeks ago
Men are qualified for civil liberty...

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, - in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity, - in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption, - in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emperor Julian
Emperor Julian
3 weeks 6 days ago
Come then, and let us celebrate...

Come then, and let us celebrate in the best way we can the anniversary festival which the imperial city is keeping by sacrifices, with unusual splendour. And yet I feel how difficult it is for the human mind even to form a conception of that Sun who is not visible to the sense, if our notion of Him is to be derived from the Sun that is visible; but to express the same in language, however inadequately, is, perhaps, beyond the capability of man! To fitly explain His glory, I am very well aware, is a thing impossible; in lauding it, however, mediocrity seems the highest point to which human eloquence is able to attain.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
4 months 2 weeks ago
Human beings have faculties more elevated...

Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification. I do not, indeed, consider the Epicureans to have been by any means faultless in drawing out their scheme of consequences from the utilitarian principle. To do this in any sufficient manner, many Stoic, as well as Christian elements require to be included. But there is no known Epicurean theory of life which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation.

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Ch. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
1 month 3 days ago
Why does...

Why does God afflict the best of men with ill-health, or sorrow, or other troubles? Because in the army the most hazardous services are assigned to the bravest soldiers: a general sends his choicest troops to attack the enemy in a midnight ambuscade, to reconnoitre his line of march, or to drive the hostile garrisons from their strong places. No one of these men says as he begins his march, " The general has dealt hardly with me," but "He has judged well of me."

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De Providentia (On Providence), 4.8, translated by Aubrey Stewart
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
2 weeks 4 days ago
From the nature of things, every...

From the nature of things, every society must at all times possess within itself the sovereign powers of legislation. The feelings of human nature revolt against the supposition of a state so situated as that it may not in any emergency provide against dangers which perhaps threaten immediate ruin. While those bodies are in existence to whom the people have delegated the powers of legislation, they alone possess and may exercise those powers; but when they are dissolved by the lopping off one or more of their branches, the power reverts to the people, who may exercise it to unlimited extent, either assembling together in person, sending deputies, or in any other way they may think proper.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 1 week ago
Simon Peter said to Him, "Let...

Simon Peter said to Him, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of Life." Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

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Philosophical Maxims
Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard
3 months 1 week ago
True poetry is a function of...

True poetry is a function of awakening. It awakens us, but it must retain the memory of previous dreams.

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Introduction
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
4 months 2 weeks ago
"You're a bitter man," said Candide....

"You're a bitter man," said Candide. "That's because I've lived," said Martin.

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Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
4 months 1 week ago
Men have made an idol of...

Men have made an idol of luck as an excuse for their own thoughtlessness. Luck seldom measures swords with wisdom. Most things in life quick wit and sharp vision can set right.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
3 months 1 week ago
No man's error becomes his own...

No man's error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it.

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The Second Part, Chapter 26, p. 144
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
2 months 2 weeks ago
Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' is...

Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' is really a special case of a more general law of survival of the stable. The universe is populated by stable things. The universe is populated by stable things. A stable thing is a collection of atoms that is permanent enough or common enough to deserve a name. It may be a unique collection of atoms, such as the Matterhorn, that lasts long enough to be worth naming. Or it may be a class of entities, such as rain drops, that come into existence at a sufficiently high rate to deserve a collective name, even if any one of them is short-lived.

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Ch. 2. The replicators
Philosophical Maxims
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