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2 months 3 weeks ago

I will begin to speak when I am not going to say what were better left unsaid.

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Quoted by Plutarch, Life of Cato the Younger, 4 Bernadotte Perrin, ed. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. 8, LCL 100 (1919), pp. 247, 361
3 months 4 days ago

The state is primarily an organization for killing foreigners.

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Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind (1960), p. 83
3 months 3 days ago

But petitional prayer is only one department of prayer; and if we take the word in the wider sense as meaning every kind of inward communion or conversation with the power recognized as divine, we can easily see that scientific criticism leaves it untouched. Prayer in this wide sense is the very soul and essence of religion.

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Lecture XIX, "Other Characteristics"
3 months 5 days ago

Our moral virtues benefit mainly other people; intellectual virtues, on the other hand, benefit primarily ourselves; therefore the former make us universally popular, the latter unpopular.

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The destiny of the spiritual World, and, - since this is the substantial World, while the physical remains subordinate to it, or, in the language of speculation, has no truth as against the spiritual, - the final cause of the World at large, we allege to be the consciousness of its own freedom on the part of Spirit, and ipso facto, the reality of that freedom.

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3 months 1 week ago

Plato says, "'Tis to no purpose for a sober man to knock at the door of the Muses;" and Aristotle says "that no excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of folly."

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Book II, Ch. 2. Of Drunkenness
1 month 4 weeks ago

The class of the wholly propertyless, who are obliged to sell their labor to the bourgeoisie in order to get, in exchange, the means of subsistence for their support. This is called the class of proletarians, or the proletariat.

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3 months 4 days ago

Arithmetic must be discovered in just the same sense in which Columbus discovered the West Indies, and we no more create numbers than he created the Indians.

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Principles of Mathematics (1903), p. 451
1 month 4 weeks ago

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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1 month 2 weeks ago

One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often.

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ABC TV
3 months 3 weeks ago

The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration.

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3 months 5 days ago

Truth that is naked is the most beautiful, and the simpler its expression the deeper is the impression it makes; this is partly because it gets unobstructed hold of the hearer's mind without his being distracted by secondary thoughts, and partly because he feels that here he is not being corrupted or deceived by the arts of rhetoric, but that the whole effect is got from the thing itself.

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4 months 6 days ago
The man who is guided by concepts and abstractions only succeeds by such means in warding off misfortune, without ever gaining any happiness for himself from these abstractions. And while he aims for the greatest possible freedom from pain, the intuitive man, standing in the midst of a culture, already reaps from his intuition a harvest of continually inflowing illumination, cheer, and redemption in addition to obtaining a defense against misfortune. To be sure, he suffers more intensely, when he suffers; he even suffers more frequently, since he does not understand how to learn from experience and keeps falling over and over again into the same ditch.
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3 months 4 days ago

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
4 months 4 days ago

There are three lines of life which stand out prominently to view: the life of pleasure, the political life, and the life of reflection.

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2 months 1 week ago

Aristotle whilst he labours to refute the ideas of Plato, falls upon one himself: for his summum bonum, is a Chimera, and there is no such thing as his Felicity.

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Section 15
1 month 2 weeks ago

But many of us seek community solely to escape the fear of being alone. Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.

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All About Love: New Visions, 1999
2 months 4 days ago

It is not, what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice, tell me I ought to do.

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To have been a Sovereign, yet the champion of liberty,-a revolutionary leader, yet the supporter of social order, is the peculiar glory of William. Till his accession the British Constitution was in its Chaos. It had contained, from a very remote period, the simple elements of an harmonious government. But they were in a state not of amalgamation, but of conflict,-not of equilibrium but of alternate elevation and depression. The tyranny of Charles the first produced civil war and anarchy. Tyranny had now again produced resistance and revolution. And, but for the wisdom of the new King, it seems probable that the same cycle of misery would have been again described.

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'Essay on the Life and Character of King William III' (1822), written for the Greaves Historical Prize at Cambridge, quoted in The Times Literary Supplement (1 May 1969), p. 469
1 month 1 day ago

In tetrad form, the artefact is seen to be not netural or passive, but an active logos or utterance of the human mind or body that transforms the user and his ground.

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p. 99
3 months 3 days ago

The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue.

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Race
2 months 3 weeks ago

Do not be arrogant because of your knowledge, but confer with the ignorant man as with the learned. For knowledge has no limits, and none has yet achieved perfection in it. Good speech is more hidden than malachite, yet it is found in the possession of women slaves at the millstones.

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Maxim no. 1.
1 month 2 weeks ago

Conduct, practice, is the proof of doctrine, theory. "If any man will do His will - the will of Him that sent me," said Jesus, "he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself" (John vii. 17); and there is a well known saying of Pascal: "Begin by taking holy water and you will end by becoming a believer." And pursuing a similar train of thought, Johann Jakob Moser, the pietist, was of the opinion that no atheist or naturalist had the right to regard the Christian religion as void of truth so long as he had not put it to the proof by keeping its precepts and commandments.

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(Ritschl, Geschichte des Pietismus, book viii., 43)
2 weeks 3 days ago

Properties perceived in nature will depend on how one looks and how one looks depends on the economic interest one has in the resources of nature. The value of profit maximization is thus linked to reductionist systems, while the value of life and the maintenance of life is linked to holistic and ecological systems.

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Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development
1 month 5 days ago

[When Vonnegut tells his wife he's going out to buy an envelope] Oh, she says, well, you're not a poor man. You know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I'm going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don't know. The moral of the story is, is we're here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we're not supposed to dance at all anymore.

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Interview by David Brancaccio, NOW (PBS)
3 months 1 week ago

You need only look around you, replied PHILO, to satisfy yourself with regard to this question. A tree bestows order and organisation on that tree which springs from it, without knowing the order; an animal in the same manner on its offspring; a bird on its nest; and instances of this kind are even more frequent in the world than those of order, which arise from reason and contrivance. To say, that all this order in animals and vegetables proceeds ultimately from design, is begging the question; nor can that great point be ascertained otherwise than by proving, a priori, both that order is, from its nature, inseparably attached to thought; and that it can never of itself, or from original unknown principles, belong to matter.

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Philo to Demea, Part VII
1 month 3 weeks ago

For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

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18:25 (KJV)
3 months 2 days ago

It is the good children, Madame, who make the most terrible revolutionaries. They say nothing, they do not hide under the table, they eat only one sweet at a time, but later on, they make Society pay dearly for it!

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Jessica, Act 3, sc. 1

But perhaps the rest of us could have separate classes in science appreciation, the wonder of science, scientific ways of thinking, and the history of scientific ideas, rather than laboratory experience.

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2 months 1 week ago

The God of the Christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children.

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No. 16
2 months 2 weeks ago

Truth is so great a perfection, that if God would render himself visible to men, he would choose light for his body and truth for his soul.

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As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tyron Edwards, p. 592
3 months 4 days ago

I do not pretend to start with precise questions. I do not think you can start with anything precise. You have to achieve such precision as you can, as you go along.

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1 month 2 weeks ago

Eros and depression are opposites.

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2 months 1 week ago

The French want no-one to be their superior. The English want inferiors. The Frenchman constantly raises his eyes above him with anxiety. The Englishman lowers his beneath him with satisfaction.

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Journeys to England and Ireland (1835).
3 months 1 week ago

Saying is one thing, doing another.

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Book II, Ch. 31. Of Anger
2 weeks 2 days ago

I kept looking at the flowers in a vase near me: lavender sweet peas, fragile winged and yet so still, so perfectly poised, apart, and complete. They are self-sufficient, a world in themselves, a whole - perfect. Is that then, perfection? Is what those sweet peas had what I have, occasionally in moments like that? But flowers always have it - poise, completion, fulfillment, perfection; I only occasionally, like that moment. For that moment I and the sweet peas had an understanding.

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1 month 3 days ago

One might think that it must be quite clear to people not deprived of reason, that violence breeds violence; that the only means of deliverance from violence lies in not taking part in it. This method, one would think, is quite obvious. It is evident that a great majority of men can be enslaved by a small minority only if the enslaved themselves take part in their own enslavement. If people are enslaved, it is only because they either fight violence with violence or participate in violence for their own personal profit. Those who neither struggle against violence nor take part in it can no more be enslaved than water can be cut. They can be robbed, prevented from moving about, wounded or killed, but they cannot be enslaved: that is, made to act against their own reasonable will.

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The Meaning of the Russian Revolution
3 months 1 week ago

The greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men: as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a tarrasse, for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state, for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and contention; or a shop, for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse, for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate.

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Book I, v, 11
3 months 3 weeks ago

To entire sincerity there belongs ceaselessness. Not ceasing, it continues long. Continuing long, it evidences itself. Evidencing itself, it reaches far. Reaching far, it becomes large and substantial. Large and substantial, it becomes high and brilliant. Large and substantial; this is how it contains all things. High and brilliant; this is how it overspreads all things. Reaching far and continuing long; this is how it perfects all things. So large and substantial, the individual possessing it is the co-equal of Earth. So high and brilliant, it makes him the co-equal of Heaven. So far-reaching and long-continuing, it makes him infinite. Such being its nature, without any display, it becomes manifested; without any movement, it produces changes; and without any effort, it accomplishes its ends.

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2 months 4 days ago

We are at war with a system, which, by it's essence, is inimical to all other Governments, and which makes peace or war, as peace and war may best contribute to their subversion. It is with an armed doctrine that we are at war. It has, by it's essence, a faction of opinion, and of interest, and of enthusiasm, in every country. To us it is a Colossus which bestrides our channel. It has one foot on a foreign shore, the other upon the British soil. Thus advantaged, if it can at all exist, it must finally prevail.

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p. 19
1 month 6 days ago

I'm prepared to teach acceptance of religion, but, religion has to agree to the social contract. If we have to do it church by church, I'm ready.

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3 months 3 weeks ago

Chi Wan thought thrice, and then acted. When the Master was informed of it, he said, "Twice may do."

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4 months 4 days ago

Remember that time slurs over everything, let all deeds fade, blurs all writings and kills all memories. Except are only those which dig into the hearts of men by love.

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1 month 6 days ago

In many cases it is a matter for decision and not a simple matter of fact whether x understands y; and so on.

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3 months 2 days ago

I am responsible for everything ... except for my very responsibility, for I am not the foundation of my being. Therefore everything takes place as if I were compelled to be responsible. I am abandoned in the world ... in the sense that I find myself suddenly alone and without help, engaged in a world for which I bear the whole responsibility without being able, whatever I do, to tear myself away from this responsibility for an instant.

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Part 4, Chapter 1, III
2 months 3 days ago

Under the natural course of things each citizen tends towards his fittest function. Those who are competent to the kind of work they undertake, succeed, and, in the average of cases, are advanced in proportion to their efficiency; while the incompetent, society soon finds out, ceases to employ, forces to try something easier, and eventually turns to use.

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Vol. 3, Ch. VII, Over-Legislation
4 weeks 1 day ago

There is certainly some chill and arid knowledge to be found upon the summits of formal and laborious science; but it is all round about you, and for the trouble of looking, that you will acquire the warm and palpitating facts of life.

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An Apology for Idlers.
4 months 4 days ago

The greatest danger, that of losing one's own self, may pass off as quietly as if it were nothing; every other loss, that of an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife etc., is sure to be noticed.

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3 months 3 days ago

The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain; and there is no good theory of disease which does not at once suggest a cure.

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p. 212
1 month 3 weeks ago

In ordinary visual perception, we see by means of light; we distinguish by means of reflected and refracted colors. But in ordinary perception, this medium of color is mixed, adulterated. While we see, we also hear; we feel pressures, and heat and cold. In a painting, color renders the scene without these alloys and impurities. They are part of the dross that is squeezed out and left behind in an act of intensified expression. The medium becomes color alone, and since color alone must now carry the qualities of movement, touch, sound, etc., that are present physically on their own account in ordinary vision, the expressiveness and energy of color are enhanced.

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p. 203

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