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6 months 1 week ago

If we endeavor to form our conceptions upon history and life, we remark three classes of men. The first consists of those for whom the chief thing is the qualities of feelings. These men create art. The second consists of the practical men, who carry on the business of the world. They respect nothing but power, and respect power only so far as it [is] exercized. The third class consists of men to whom nothing seems great but reason. If force interests them, it is not in its exertion, but in that it has a reason and a law. For men of the first class, nature is a picture; for men of the second class, it is an opportunity; for men of the third class, it is a cosmos, so admirable, that to penetrate to its ways seems to them the only thing that makes life worth living.

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Vol. I, par. 43
1 month 3 days ago

Good morning! Remember...Emil says you still have the freedom to kill yourself!....but, remember, preserve life....and don't listen to me....😁🤷‍♂️☠️

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5 months 3 weeks ago

Psychoanalysis, which interprets the human being as a socialized being, and the psychic apparatus as essentially developed and determined through the relationship of the individual to society, must consider it a duty to participate in the investigation of sociological problems to the extent the human being or his/her psyche plays any part at all.

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"Psychoanalyse und Soziologie" (1929); published as "Psychoanalysis and Sociology" as translated by Mark Ritter, in Critical Theory and Society : A Reader (1989) edited by S. E. Bronner and D. M. Kellner
3 months 2 weeks ago

I am a mariner of Odysseus with heart of fire but with mind ruthless and clear.

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Toda Raba
7 months 4 weeks ago

By protracting life, we do not deduct one jot from the duration of death.

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Book III, lines 1087-1088 (tr. Rouse)
6 months 3 weeks ago

We indeed, who are beings of finite powers, are forced to make use of instruments. And the use of an instrument sheweth the agent to be limited by rules of another's prescription, and that he cannot obtain his end but in such a way, and by such conditions. Whence it seems a clear consequence, that the supreme unlimited agent useth no tool or instrument at all. The will of an Omnipotent Spirit is no sooner exerted than executed, without the application of means; which, if they are employed by inferior agents, it is not upon account of any real efficacy that is in them, or necessary aptitude to produce any effect, but merely in compliance with the laws of nature, or those conditions prescribed to them by the First Cause, who is Himself above all limitation or prescription whatsoever.

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Philonous to Hylas. The Second Dialogue
6 months 1 week ago

In a single second we do away with all seconds; God himself could not do as much.

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3 months 4 days ago

Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that some spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe, one that is vastly superior to that of man.

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7 months 2 weeks ago

The Calculus required continuity, and continuity was supposed to require the infinitely little; but nobody could discover what the infinitely little might be.

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Ch. 5: Mathematics and the Metaphysicians
6 months 2 weeks ago

The President ... may err ... Congress may decide amiss ... But if the Supreme Court is ever composed of imprudent or bad men, the Union may be plunged into anarchy or civil war.

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Chapter XVIII.
7 months 2 weeks ago

Life is a task to be done. It is a fine thing to say defunctus est; it means that the man has done his task.

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"On the Sufferings of the World"
6 months 1 week ago

Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.' "Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." ' "But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?' "This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."

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12:15-21 (NIV)
8 months 4 days ago

Only after Winter comes do we know that the pine and the cypress are the last to fade.

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3 months 4 days ago

Much reading after a certain age diverts the mind from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking, just as the man who spends too much time in the theaters is apt to be content with living vicariously instead of living his own life.

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7 months 2 weeks ago

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.
7 months 1 week ago

I can imagine no man who will look with more horror on the End than a conscientious revolutionary who has, in a sense sincerely, been justifying cruelties and injustices inflicted on millions of his contemporaries by the benefits which he hopes to confer on future generations: generations who, as one terrible moment now reveals to him, were never going to exist. Then he will see the massacres, the faked trials, the deportations, to be all ineffaceably real, an essential part, his part, in the drama that has just ended: while the future Utopia had never been anything but a fantasy.

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6 months 1 week ago

Heroes abound at the dawn of civilizations, during pre-Homeric and Gothic epochs, when people, not having yet experienced spiritual torture, satisfy their thirst for renunciation through a derivative: heroism.

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7 months 2 weeks ago

Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered.

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Sec. 70
6 months 1 week ago

In all probability, the proletarian revolution will transform existing society gradually and will be able to abolish private property only when the means of production are available in sufficient quantity. What will be the course of this revolution? Above all, it will establish a democratic constitution, and through this, the direct or indirect dominance of the proletariat.

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5 months 3 weeks ago

There is no such thing as data-driven thinking.

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5 months 3 weeks ago

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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7 months 1 week ago

The paradox of race in America is that our common destiny is more pronounced and imperiled precisely when our divisions are deeper.

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(p4)
3 months 2 weeks ago

Architecture worth great attention. As we double our numbers every 20 years we must double our houses. Besides we build of such perishable materials that one half of our houses must be rebuilt in every space of 20 years. So that in that term, houses are to be built for three fourths of our inhabitants. It is then among the most important arts: and it is desireable to introduce taste into an art which shews so much.

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Hints to Americans travelling in Europe, letter to John Rutledge, Jr. (June 19, 1788); in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd (1956), vol. 13, p. 269
6 months 1 week ago

Hear, and understand: Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.

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15:10-11 (KJV)
4 months 4 weeks ago

The WTO-related events in Seattle created the first experience of a rainbow politics-a successful pluralistic politics, without the working of a master mind, but with the currents and beauty that come out of free thinking. In the new politics, people have different ways of talking, but I feel the core will be living democracy and living economies, and that it will include both taking personal responsibility to make change and being part of national and international movements for change.

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3 months 4 weeks ago

Whatever can happen at any time can happen today.

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7 months 2 weeks ago

Through laziness and cowardice a large part of mankind, even after nature has freed them from alien guidance, gladly remain immature. It is because of laziness and cowardice that it is so easy for others to usurp the role of guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor!

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We cannot stem linguistic change, but we can drag our feet. If each of us were to defy Alexander Pope and be the last to lay the old aside, it might not be a better world, but it would be a lovelier language.

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Quiddities: An Intermittently Philosophical Dictionary (1987), p. 231
3 months 2 weeks ago

High up where the poor sat, the people quaked with fear:they saw the soul stretched on the ground, a votive beastbeaten by the conflicting powers of light and dark,and their minds shook, nor knew now what great god to choose,for comfort's road dropped to the right, the rough ascentrose to the left, and both roads seemed to lead to God,while at the crossroads stood the human heart, and swayed.

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Book VI, line 242
7 months 2 weeks ago

For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms, and did my duty faithfully, though I never received one cent for it.

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After February 22, 1846
6 months 3 weeks ago

It is manifest... that every soul and spirit hath a certain continuity with the spirit of the universe, so that it must be understood to exist and to be included not only there where it liveth and feeleth, but it is also by its essence and substance diffused throughout immensity... The power of each soul is itself somehow present afar in the universe... Naught is mixed, yet is there some presence. Anything we take in the universe, because it has in itself that which is All in All, includes in its own way the entire soul of the world, which is entirely in any part of it.

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7 months 2 weeks ago

All traditional logic habitually assumes that precise symbols are being employed. It is therefore not applicable to this terrestial life but only to an imagined celestial existence... logic takes us nearer to heaven than other studies.

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Vagueness', first published in The Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy, 1 June, 1923
3 months 2 weeks ago

I like well your idea of issuing treasury notes bearing interest, because I am persuaded they would soon be withdrawn from circulation and locked up in vaults & private hoards. It would put it in the power of every man to lend his 100. or 1000 d. tho' not able to go forward on the great scale, and be the most advantageous way of obtaining a loan. The other idea of creating a National bank, I do not concur in, because it seems now decided that Congress has not that power, (altho' I sincerely wish they had it exclusively) and because I think there is already a vast redundancy, rather than a scarcity of paper medium.

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Letter to Thomas Law (6 November 1813) FE 9:433 : The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (10 Vols., 1892-99) edited by Paul Leicester Ford
7 months 1 week ago

Blood doubly unites us, for we share the same blood and we have spilled blood.

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Orestes to Electra, Act 2
7 months 2 days ago

Lamachus chid a captain for a fault; and when he had said he would do so no more, "Sir," said he, "in war there is no room for a second miscarriage." Said one to Iphicrates, "What are ye afraid of?" "Of all speeches," said he, "none is so dishonourable for a general as 'I should not have thought of it.'"

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52 Iphicrates
6 months 1 week ago

Anarchy, in its own nature, is an evil of short duration. The more horrible are the mischiefs it inflicts, the more does it hasten to a close.

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Book 7, Ch. 5
6 months 1 week ago

And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, he is there; believe him not: For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect. But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things. But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.

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13:21-27 (KJV)
6 months 1 week ago

Government was intended to suppress injustice, but its effect has been to embody and perpetuate it.

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"Summary of Principles" 2.7
4 months 2 weeks ago

I agree with Paul that love is more important than faith and hope; but so are honesty, integrity, and moral courage. The world needs less faith and more love and nobility.

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Preface
3 months 3 weeks ago

When we come to think about the several benefits in regard to their cause, how have they arisen? Have they arisen out of hate of others and injuring others? Of course we should say no. We should say they have arisen out of love of others and benefiting others. If we should classify one by one all those who love others and benefit others, should we find them to be partial or universal? Of course we should say they are universal. Now, since universal love is the cause of the major benefits in the world, therefore Mozi proclaims universal love is right. And, as has already been said, the interest of the magnanimous lies in procuring benefits for the world and eliminating its calamities. Now that we have found out the consequences of universal love to be the major benefits of the world and the consequences of partiality to be the major calamities in the world; this is the reason why Mozi said partiality is wrong and universality is right.

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Book 4; Universal Love III
7 months 2 weeks ago

Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror.

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Examen important de milord Bolingbroke (1736): Conclusion
6 months 1 day ago

The Ottoman Empire whose sick body was not supported by a mild and regular diet, but by a powerful treatment, which continually exhausted it.

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No. 19. (Usbek writing to Rustan)
7 months 5 days ago

With a malicious man carry on no conflict, and do not molest him in any way whatever.

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4 months 5 days ago

Certainly the Art of Writing is the most miraculous of all things man has devised.

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5 months 4 weeks ago

No reason can be given for the nature of God, because that nature is the ground of all rationality.

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Ch. 11: "God", p. 250
7 months 4 weeks ago

To the rational being only the irrational is unendurable, but the rational is endurable.

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Variant translation: To a reasonable creature, that alone is insupportable which is unreasonable; but everything reasonable may be supported. Book I, ch. 2,1.

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