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Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
2 months 3 weeks ago
The disciple must break the glass,...

The disciple must break the glass, or better the mirror, the reflection, his infinite speculation on the master. And start to speak.

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Cogito and The History of Madness, p.37 (Routledge classics edition)
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
2 months 4 weeks ago
It seems to me certain that...

It seems to me certain that more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness.

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p. 368
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
2 months 4 weeks ago
All our scientific and philosophic ideals...

All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods.

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Lecture at the Harvard Divinity School (13 March 1884); published in the The Unitarian Review and Religious Magazine as The Dilemma of Determinism
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months ago
There is no one at the...

There is no one at the Communion table who retains against you even the least of your sins, no one, unless you yourself do it. So cast them away from yourself, and the recollection of them, lest in it your retain them; and cast the recollection of your having cast your sins away, lest in it you retain them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months ago
Those who have been inspired to...

Those who have been inspired to action by the doctrine of the class war will have acquired the habit of hatred, and will instinctively seek new enemies when the old ones have been vanquished. But in actual fact the psychology of the working man in any of the Western democracies is totally unlike that which is assumed in the Communist Manifesto. He does not by any means feel that he has nothing to lose but his chains, nor indeed is this true. The chains which bind Asia and Africa in subjection to Europe are partly riveted by him. He is himself part of a great system of tyranny and exploitation. Universal freedom would remove, not only his own chains, which are comparatively light, but the far heavier chains which he has helped to fasten upon the subject races of the world.

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Ch. VI: International Relations
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 month 2 weeks ago
The Reformation was a popular uprising,...

The Reformation was a popular uprising, and for a century and a half drenched Europe in blood. The beginnings of the Scientific movement were confined to a minority among the intellectual elite.... The worst that happened to men of science was that Galileo suffered an honorable detention and a mild reproof, before dying peacefully in his bed. The way in which the persecution of Galileo has been remembered is a tribute to the quiet commencement of the most intimate change in outlook which the human race had yet encountered. Since a babe was born in a manger, it may be doubted whether so great a thing has happened with so little stir.

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Ch. 1: "The Origins of Modern Science", pp. 2-3
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
3 months 2 days ago
Our island is this earth; and...

Our island is this earth; and the most striking object we behold is the sun. As soon as we pass beyond our immediate surroundings, one or both of these must meet our eye. Thus the philosophy of most savage races is mainly directed to imaginary divisions of the earth or to the divinity of the sun.

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Philosophical Maxims
Democritus
Democritus
2 months 2 weeks ago
Repentance for one's evil deeds is...

Repentance for one's evil deeds is the safeguard of life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months ago
Neither the few nor the many...

Neither the few nor the many have a right to act merely by their will, in any matter connected with duty, trust, engagement, or obligation.

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p. 440
Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
6 days ago
Humans kill one another - and...

Humans kill one another - and in some cases themselves - for many reasons, but none is more human than the attempt to make sense of their lives. More than the loss of life, they fear loss of meaning.

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In the Puppet Theatre: Roof Gardens, Feathers and Human Sacrifice (p. 87)
Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
3 months 3 weeks ago
It would be better for me...

It would be better for me that multitudes of men should disagree with me rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
1 month 3 weeks ago
The abolition of private property has...

The abolition of private property has become not only possible but absolutely necessary. ... The outcome can only be the victory of the proletariat.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
2 months 5 days ago
Sleep is a death; oh, make...

Sleep is a death; oh, make me try By sleeping what it is to die, And as gently lay my head On my grave as now my bed.

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Section 12
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
Nothing is indefensible - from the...

Nothing is indefensible - from the absurdest proposition to the most monstrous crime.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 4 weeks ago
I fancy that most people who...

I fancy that most people who think at all have done a great deal of their thinking in the first fourteen years.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
1 month 1 week ago
We need to augment and amend...

We need to augment and amend the existing body of classical and neoclassical economic theory to achieve a more realistic picture of economic process.

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Herbert A. Simon (1986) in Preface to: Gilad & Kaish (eds.), Handbook of Behavioral Economics, p. xvi.
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
1 month 2 weeks ago
If people were told: what makes...

If people were told: what makes carnal desire imperious in you is not its pure carnal element. It is the fact that you put into it the essential part of yourself-the need for Unity, the need for God - they wouldn't believe it. To them it seems obvious that the quality of imperious need belongs to the carnal desire as such. In the same way it seems obvious to the miser that the quality of desirability belongs to gold as such, and not to its exchange value.

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Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
1 month 3 weeks ago
Because we cannot discover God's throne...

Because we cannot discover God's throne in the sky with a radiotelescope or establish (for certain) that a beloved father or mother is still about in a more or less corporeal form, people assume that such ideas are "not true." I would rather say that they are not "true" enough, for these are conceptions of a kind that have accompanied human life from prehistoric times, and that still break through into consciousness at any provocation.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 4 weeks ago
I wrote the books I should...

I wrote the books I should have liked to read. That's always been my reason for writing. People won't write the books I want, so I have to do it for myself.

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As quoted in C.S. Lewis (1963), by Roger Lancelyn Green, p. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
2 months 2 weeks ago
When my ability to reason shows...

When my ability to reason shows me that the suffering of another being is very similar to my own suffering and matters just as much to that other being as my own suffering matters to me, then my reason is showing me something that is undeniably true. ... The perspective on ourselves that we get when we take the point of view of the universe also yields as much objectivity as we need if we are to find a cause that is worthwhile in a way that is independent of our own desires. The most obvious such cause is the reduction of pain and suffering, wherever it is to be found.

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p. 238
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
1 month 1 week ago
Computers were within my sphere of...

Computers were within my sphere of attention, but only computers used as number crunchers. In spite of the "giant brain" metaphor, there is little suggestion in this 1950 talk that the most important application of computers might lie in imitating intelligence symbolically, not numerically.

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p. 199.
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 3 weeks ago
Ye do err, not knowing the...

Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

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22:29-32 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 3 weeks ago
The lord of that servant will...

The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.

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Luke 12:46 (KJV)
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
3 months 1 week ago
It cannot be that axioms established...

It cannot be that axioms established by argumentation should avail for the discovery of new works, since the subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of argument. But axioms duly and orderly formed from particulars easily discover the way to new particulars, and thus render sciences active.

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Aphorism 24
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
2 months 4 days ago
We do not know nature...

We do not know nature; causes hidden in her breast might have produced everything. In your turn, observe the polyp of Trembley: does it not contain in itself the causes which bring about regeneration? Why then would it be absurd to think that there are physical causes by reason of which everything has been made, and to which the whole chain of this vast universe is so necessarily bound and held that, nothing which happens, could have failed to happen,-causes, of which we are so invincibly ignorant that we have had recourse to a God, who, as some aver, is not so much as a logical entity? Thus to destroy chance is not to prove the existence of a supreme being, since there may be some other thing which is neither chance nor God-I mean, nature. It follows that the study of nature can make only unbelievers; and the way of thinking of all its more successful investigators proves this.

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As quoted by Julien Offray de La Mettrie, Man a Machine (1747) Tr. Gertrude Carman Bussey
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 1 week ago
It's not the experience....
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Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 months 3 weeks ago
A serious and good philosophical work...

A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.

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As quoted in "A View from the Asylum" in Philosophical Investigations from the Sanctity of the Press (2004), by Henry Dribble, p. 87
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
3 months 1 week ago
They are splendidly built [Italian Hospitals],...

They are splendidly built [Italian Hospitals], the best food and drink are at hand, the attendants are very diligent, the physicians are learned, the beds and coverings are very clean, and the bedsteads are painted. As soon as a sick man is brought in, all his clothes are taken off in the presence of a notary and are faithfully kept for him. He is then laid in a handsomely painted bed with clean sheets. Two physicians are fetched at once. Attendants come with food and drink, served in immaculate glass vessels; these are not touched with as much as a finger but are brought on a tray.

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3930
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
1 month 3 weeks ago
Building worlds is not enough for...

Building worlds is not enough for the deeper urging mind; but a loving heart sates the striving spirit.

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Fragment No. 91
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months ago
A logical theory may be tested...

A logical theory may be tested by its capacity for dealing with puzzles, and it is a wholesome plan, in thinking about logic, to stock the mind with as many puzzles as possible, since these serve much the same purpose as is served by experiments in physical science.

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"On Denoting", Mind, Vol. 14, No. 56 (October 1905), pp. 479-493; as reprinted in Logic and Knowledge: Essays, 1901-1950, 1956
Philosophical Maxims
Emmanuel Levinas
Emmanuel Levinas
1 month 3 weeks ago
By asserting the objectivity of the...

By asserting the objectivity of the physical world, naturalism identifies the existence and the conditions of existence of the physical world with existence and the conditions of existence in general. It forgets that the world of the physicist necessarily refers back, through its intrinsic meaning, through the subjective world which one tries to exclude from reality as being pure appearance, conditioned by the empirical nature of man, which is incapable of reaching directly to a world of things in themselves. But while the world of the physicist claims to go beyond naive experience, his world really exists only in relation to naive experience.

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The Theory Of Intuition In Husserls Phenomenology 1963, 1995 p. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months ago
Do not yet see, that, if...

Do not yet see, that, if the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.

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par. 43
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
3 weeks 4 days ago
You could read Kant by yourself,...

You could read Kant by yourself, if you wanted; but you must share a joke with someone else.

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Virginibus Puerisque, Ch. 1. Cornhill Magazine,
Philosophical Maxims
William Godwin
William Godwin
1 month 3 weeks ago
If there be such a thing...

If there be such a thing as truth, it must infallibly be struck out by the collision of mind with mind.

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Vol. 1, bk. 1, ch.4
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 2 days ago
Of all the ways whereby children...

Of all the ways whereby children are to be instructed, and their manners formed, the plainest, easiest, and most efficacious, is, to set before their eyes the examples of those things you would have them do, or avoid; which, when they are pointed out to them, in the practice of persons within their knowledge, with some reflections on their beauty and unbecomingness, are of more force to draw or deter their imitation, than any discourses which can be made to them.

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Sec. 82
Philosophical Maxims
Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch
1 month 3 weeks ago
But fantasy kills imagination, pornography is...

But fantasy kills imagination, pornography is death to art.

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The Message to the Planet (1989) p. 43.
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
3 months 2 weeks ago
I became evil for no reason....

I became evil for no reason. I had no motive for my wickedness except wickedness itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved the self-destruction, I loved my fall, not the object for which I had fallen but my fall itself. My depraved soul leaped down from your firmament to ruin. I was seeking not to gain anything by shameful means, but shame for its own sake.

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II, 4
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months ago
At puberty, the elements of an...

At puberty, the elements of an unsuperstitious sexual morality ought to be taught. Boys and girls should be taught that nothing can justify sexual intercourse unless there is mutual inclination... Boys and girls should be taught respect for each other's liberty; they should be made to feel that nothing gives one human being rights over another, and that jealousy and possessiveness kill love. They should be taught that to bring another human being into the world is a very serious matter, only to be undertaken when the child will have a reasonable prospect of health, good surroundings, and parental care. But they should also be taught methods of birth control, so as to insure that children shall only come when they are wanted. Finally, they should be taught the dangers of venereal disease, and the methods of prevention and cure. The increase of human happiness to be expected from sex education on these lines is immeasurable.

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Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
1 week 1 day ago
As well as seriously - indeed...

As well as seriously - indeed exhaustively - researching everything that could conceivably go wrong, I think we should also investigate what could go right. The world is racked by suffering. The hedonic treadmill might more aptly be called a dolorous treadmill. Hundreds of millions of people are currently depressed, pain-ridden or both. Hundreds of billions of non-human animals are suffering too. If we weren't so inured to a world of pain and misery, then the biosphere would be reckoned in the throes of a global medical emergency. Thanks to breakthroughs in biotechnology, pain-thresholds, default anxiety levels, hedonic range and hedonic set-points are all now adjustable parameters in human and non-human animals alike. We are living in the final century of life on Earth in which suffering is biologically inevitable. As a society, we need an ethical debate about how much pain and misery we want to preserve and create. How do you break the hedonic treadmill?"

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, Quora, 6 Apr. 2019
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 3 weeks ago
Let us be understood. If the...

Let us be understood. If the Japanese surrender after the destruction of Hiroshima, having been intimidated, we will rejoice. But we refuse to see anything in such grave news other than the need to argue more energetically in favor of a true international society, in which the great powers will not have superior rights over small and middle-sized nations, where such an ultimate weapon will be controlled by human intelligence rather than by the appetites and doctrines of various states. Before the terrifying prospects now available to humanity, we see even more clearly that peace is the only goal worth struggling for. This is no longer a prayer but a demand to be made by all peoples to their governments a demand to choose definitively between hell and reason.

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Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
1 month 3 weeks ago
The best thing about the sciences...

The best thing about the sciences is their philosophical ingredient, like life for an organic body. If one dephilosophizes the sciences, what remains left? Earth, air, and water.

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Fragment No. 62
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
2 months 4 weeks ago
Look for yourself, and you will...

Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.

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Book IV, Chapter 10, "The New Men"
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
Since it is difficult to approve...

Since it is difficult to approve the reasons people invoke, each time we leave one of our 'fellow men', the question which comes to mind is invariably the same: how does he keep from killing himself?

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 3 weeks ago
I dream of wanting - and...

I dream of wanting - and all I want seems to me worthless.

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Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 month 2 weeks ago
Hegel made famous his aphorism that...

Hegel made famous his aphorism that all the rational is real and all the real rational; but there are many of us who, unconvinced by Hegel, continue to believe that the real, the really real, is irrational, that reason builds upon irrationalities. Hegel, a great framer of definitions, attempted with definitions to reconstruct the universe, like that artillery sergeant who said that cannon were made by taking a hole and enclosing it with steel.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months ago
Certain forms of sex which do...

Certain forms of sex which do not lead to children are at present punished by the criminal law: this is purely superstitious, since the matter is one which affects no one except the parties directly concerned... The peculiar importance attached, at present, to adultery is quite irrational... Moral rules ought not to be such as to make instinctive happiness impossible.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months ago
Because half-a-dozen grasshoppers under a fern...

Because half-a-dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that of course they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.

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Volume iii, p. 344
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
3 weeks 6 days ago
At no period of human culture...

At no period of human culture have men understood the psychic mechanism involved in invention and technology.

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(p. 300)
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
3 months 2 days ago
The universal and lasting establishment of...

The universal and lasting establishment of peace constitutes not merely a part, but the whole final purpose and end of the science of right as viewed within the limits of reason.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 month 2 weeks ago
In training a child to activity...

In training a child to activity of thought, above all things we must beware of what I will call "inert ideas"-that is to say, ideas that are merely received into the mind without being utilised, or tested, or thrown into fresh combinations.In the history of education, the most striking phenomenon is that schools of learning, which at one epoch are alive with a ferment of genius, in a succeeding generation exhibit merely pedantry and routine. The reason is, that they are overladen with inert ideas. Education with inert ideas is not only useless: it is, above all things, harmful.

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Philosophical Maxims
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