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Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
3 months 2 weeks ago
That man and woman have an...

That man and woman have an equality of duties and rights is accepted by woman even less than by man. Behind his destiny woman must annihilate herself, must be only his complement. A woman dedicates herself to the vocation of her husband; she fills up and performs the subordinate parts in it. But if she has any destiny, any vocation of her own, she must renounce it, in nine cases out of ten.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
3 months 2 weeks ago
Intolerance is the besetting sin of...

Intolerance is the besetting sin of moral fervour.

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p. 63, Ch. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Mannheim
Karl Mannheim
1 month ago
The non-evaluative general total conception of...

The non-evaluative general total conception of ideology is to be found primarily in those historical investigations, where, provisionally and for the sake of the simplification of the problem, no judgments are pronounced as to the correctness of the ideas to be treated. This approach confines itself to discovering the relations between certain mental structures and the life-situations in which they exist. We must constantly ask ourselves how it comes about that a given type of social situation gives rise to a given interpretation. Thus the ideological element in human thought, viewed at this level, is always bound up with the existing life-situation of the thinker. According to this view human thought arises, and operates, not in a social vacuum but in a definite social milieu.

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Philosophical Maxims
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
4 weeks ago
Violated, dishonored, wading in blood, dripping...

Violated, dishonored, wading in blood, dripping filth - there stands bourgeois society. This is it [in reality]. Not all spic and span and moral, with pretense to culture, philosophy, ethics, order, peace, and the rule of law - but the ravening beast, the witches' sabbath of anarchy, a plague to culture and humanity. Thus it reveals itself in its true, its naked form.

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Ch. 1
Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
4 months 3 weeks ago
Commit no slander; so that infamy...

Commit no slander; so that infamy and wickedness may not happen unto thee.

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(p. 59)
Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
5 months 6 days ago
A great stock, though with small...

A great stock, though with small profits, generally increases faster than a small stock with great profits. Money, says the proverb, makes money. When you have a little, it is often easier to get more. The great difficulty is to get that little.

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Chapter IX, p. 111.
Philosophical Maxims
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle
4 weeks ago
But though much may be said...

But though much may be said to Excuse the Chymists when they write Darkly, and Ænigmatically, about the Preparation of their Elixir, and Some few other grand Arcana, the divulging of which they may upon Grounds Plausible enough esteem unfit; yet when they pretend to teach the General Principles of Natural Philosophers, this Equivocall Way of Writing is not to be endur'd. For in such Speculative Enquiries, where the naked Knowledge of the Truth is the thing Principally aim'd at, what does he teach me worth thanks that does not, if he can, make his Notion intelligible to me, but by Mystical Termes, and Ambiguous Phrases darkens what he should clear up; and makes me add the Trouble of guessing at the sence of what he Equivocally expresses, to that of examining the Truth of what he seems to deliver.

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Philosophical Maxims
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
3 months 4 weeks ago
A certain maxim of Logic which...

A certain maxim of Logic which I have called Pragmatism has recommended itself to me for diverse reasons and on sundry considerations. Having taken it as my guide for most of my thought, I find that as the years of my knowledge of it lengthen, my sense of the importance of it presses upon me more and more. If it is only true, it is certainly a wonderfully efficient instrument. It is not to philosophy only that it is applicable. I have found it of signal service in every branch of science that I have studied. My want of skill in practical affairs does not prevent me from perceiving the advantage of being well imbued with pragmatism in the conduct of life.

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Lecture I : Pragmatism : The Normative Sciences, CP 5.14
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 3 days ago
I cannot believe - and I...

I cannot believe - and I say this with all the emphasis of which I am capable - that there can ever be any good excuse for refusing to face the evidence in favour of something unwelcome. It is not by delusion, however exalted, that mankind can prosper, but only by unswerving courage in the pursuit of truth.

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"The Pursuit of Truth" in The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, 1993
Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
5 months 5 days ago
Nature does nothing in vain, and...

Nature does nothing in vain, and in the use of means to her goals she is not prodigal. Her giving to man reason and the freedom of the will which depends upon it is clear indication of her purpose. Man accordingly was not to be guided by instinct, not nurtured and instructed with ready-made knowledge; rather, he should bring forth everything out of his own resources.

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Third Thesis
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 months 2 days ago
He is great who is what...

He is great who is what he is from Nature, and who never reminds us of others.

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Uses of Great Men
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
5 months 4 days ago
There are two distinct classes of...

There are two distinct classes of men in the nation, those who pay taxes, and those who receive and live upon the taxes.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
2 months 2 weeks ago
The language of the chalk is...

The language of the chalk is not hard to learn, not nearly so hard as Latin, if you only want to get at the broad features of the story it has to tell; and I propose that we now set to work to spell that story out together.

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Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
3 months 4 weeks ago
I know every numbskull will babble...

I know every numbskull will babble on about "black man," "maneater," "chance," and "retrospective interpretation," in order to banish something terribly inconvenient that might sully the familiar picture of childhood innocence. Ah, these good, efficient, healthy-minded people, they always remind me of those optimistic tadpoles who bask in a puddle in the sun, in the shallowest of waters, crowding together and amiably wriggling their tails, totally unaware that the next morning the puddle will have dried up and left them stranded. On a phallic dream he had as a young child.

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p. 14
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
5 months 1 day ago
Night is falling: at dusk, you...

Night is falling: at dusk, you must have good eyesight to be able to tell the Good Lord from the Devil.

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Act 10, sc. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 months 2 weeks ago
I prefer to reach the few...

I prefer to reach the few who really want to learn, rather than the many who come to be amused.

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Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
6 months ago
Moreover, there is a victory and...

Moreover, there is a victory and defeat, the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeat, which each man gains or sustains at the hands, not of another, but of himself; this shows that there is a war against ourselves going on within every one of us. Book I Sometimes paraphrased as "The first and best victory is to conquer self".

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Philosophical Maxims
Will Durant
Will Durant
1 month 3 weeks ago
Happiness is the free play of...

Happiness is the free play of the instincts, and so is youth.

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Ch. 2 : On Youth
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
4 months 3 weeks ago
There can be no brotherhood when...

There can be no brotherhood when some nations indulge in previously unheard of luxuries, while others struggle to stave off famine.

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Chapter 4, Reason, p. 119
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Schlegel
Friedrich Schlegel
4 months 3 days ago
Moderation is the spirit of castrated...

Moderation is the spirit of castrated narrow-mindedness.

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"Selected Aphorisms from the Athenaeum (1798)", Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms, Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, trans. (Pennsylvania University Press:1968) #64
Philosophical Maxims
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
3 months 3 weeks ago
Were art to redeem man, it...

Were art to redeem man, it could do so only by saving him from the seriousness of life and restoring him to an unexpected boyishness. The symbol of art is seen again in the magic flute of the Great God Pan which makes the young goats frisk at the edge of the grove. All modern art begins to appear comprehensible and in a way great when it is interpreted as an attempt to instill youthfulness into an ancient world.

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"Art a Thing of No Consequence"
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
4 months 3 weeks ago
To be honest, I was somewhat...

To be honest, I was somewhat disappointed... It's had effects around the margins, of course, but they have mostly been minor. When I wrote it, I really thought the book would change the world. I know it sounds a little grand now, but at the time the sixties still existed for us. It looked as if real changes were possible, and I let myself believe that this would be one of them. All you have to do is walk around the corner to McDonald's to see how successful I have been.

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Quoted by Michael Specter on the impact of the book Animal Liberation, "The Dangerous Philosopher", The New Yorker, 6 September 1999.
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 3 weeks ago
And be sure of this: I...

And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

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Jesus in Matthew 28:20
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
5 months 2 days ago
If things are ever to move...

If things are ever to move upward, some one must take the first step, and assume the risk of it. No one who is not willing to try charity, to try non-resistance as the saint is always willing, can tell whether these methods will or will not succeed.

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Lectures XIV and XV, "The Value of Saintliness"
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
2 months 3 weeks ago
In all ages a chief cause...

In all ages a chief cause of the intestine disorders of states has been that the natural distribution of power and the legal distribution of power have not corresponded with each other.

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Speech in the House of Commons (28 February 1832), quoted in Speeches of the Right Honourable T. B. Macaulay, M.P. (1854), p. 91
Philosophical Maxims
John Searle
John Searle
3 months 5 days ago
You need to know enough of...

You need to know enough of the natural sciences so that you are not a stranger in the world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Mozi
Mozi
1 month 1 week ago
The words of malicious slander should...

The words of malicious slander should not be allowed to enter the ear. A defensive voice should not be allowed to come out of the mouth. The want to gravely injure people should not be allowed to exist in the heart. If this is accomplished, though there be people who cynically expose others, they would be without people who would align with them.

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Book 1; Self-culfivation
Philosophical Maxims
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
4 months 3 weeks ago
People do not feel in any...

People do not feel in any way ashamed or guilty about spending money on new clothes or a new car instead of giving it to famine relief. (Indeed, the alternative does not occur to them.) This way of looking at the matter cannot be justified. When we buy new clothes not to keep ourselves warm but to look "well-dressed" we are not providing for any important need. We would not be sacrificing anything significant if we were to continue to wear our old clothes, and give the money to famine relief. By doing so, we would be preventing another person from starving. It follows from what I have said earlier that we ought to give money away, rather than spend it on clothes which we do not need to keep us warm. To do so is not charitable, or generous. Nor is it the kind of act which philosophers and theologians have called "supererogatory" - an act which it would be good to do, but not wrong not to do. On the contrary, we ought to give the money away, and it is wrong not to do so.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
3 months 2 days ago
Several times I asked myself, "Can...

Several times I asked myself, "Can it be that I have overlooked something, that there is something which I have failed to understand? Is it not possible that this state of despair is common to everyone?" And I searched for an answer to my questions in every area of knowledge acquired by man. For a long time I carried on my painstaking search; I did not search casually, out of mere curiosity, but painfully, persistently, day and night, like a dying man seeking salvation. I found nothing.

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Pt. I, ch. 5
Philosophical Maxims
chanakya
chanakya
2 months 1 week ago
Treat your kid like a darling...

Treat your kid like a darling for the first five years. For the next five years, scold them. By the time they turn sixteen, treat them like a friend. Your grown up children are your best friends.

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Philosophical Maxims
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
1 month 4 weeks ago
The man who says that the...

The man who says that the world is a machine has really advanced no further than to say that he is so well satisfied with the analogy that he is through with searching any further.

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Ch. VI: "The Drama of Destiny", §5, p. 130.
Philosophical Maxims
Zoroaster
Zoroaster
4 months 3 weeks ago
Thou shouldst not become presumptuous through...

Thou shouldst not become presumptuous through great connections and race; for in the end thy trust is on thine own deeds.

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(p. 60)
Philosophical Maxims
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
2 months 2 weeks ago
Rollers on the beach, wind in...

Rollers on the beach, wind in the pines, the slow flapping of herons across sand dunes, drown out the hectic rhythms of city and suburb, time tables and schedules. One falls under their spell, relaxes, stretches out prone. One becomes, in fact, like the element on which one lies, flattened by the sea; bare, open, empty as the beach, erased by today's tides of all yesterday's scribblings.

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Philosophical Maxims
Cato the Younger
Cato the Younger
4 months 3 weeks ago
I will begin to speak when...

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
Philosophical Maxims
B. F. Skinner
B. F. Skinner
1 month 4 weeks ago
We shouldn't teach great books; we...

We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.

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As quoted in B. F. Skinner : The Man and His Ideas (1968) by Richard Isadore Evans, p. 73
Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
2 months 1 week ago
One might naively suppose that a...

One might naively suppose that a negative utilitarian would welcome human extinction. But only (trans)humans - or our potential superintelligent successors - are technically capable of phasing out the cruelties of the rest of the living world on Earth. And only (trans)humans - or rather our potential superintelligent successors - are technically capable of assuming stewardship of our entire Hubble volume.

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"Unsorted Postings", Facebook, pre-2014
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
3 months 3 weeks ago
'Resignation' is a keynote in Comte's...

Resignation' is a keynote in Comte's writings, deriving directly from assent to invariable social laws. 'True resignation, that is, a disposition to endure necessary evils steadfastly and without any hope of compensation therefore, can result only from a profound feeling for the invariable laws that govern the variety of natural phenomena.

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P. 345
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
3 months 1 week ago
Before we can establish any immutable...

Before we can establish any immutable 'principles' of administration, we must be able to describe, in words, exactly how an administrative organization looks and exactly how it works.

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p. xiv.
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
4 months 3 days ago
France had for some time been...

France had for some time been guilty of a continued series of hostile acts against this country, both external and internal: first, she directed her pursuits to universal empire, under the name of fraternity, in order to overturn the fabric of our laws and government.

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Speech in the House of Commons (12 February 1793)
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Hölderlin
Friedrich Hölderlin
4 months 3 days ago
What is all that men have...

What is all that men have done and thought over thousands of years, compared with one moment of love. But in all Nature, too, it is what is nearest to perfection, what is most divinely beautiful! There all stairs lead from the threshold of life. From there we come, to there we go.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
1 month 2 days ago
It has always been denied by...

It has always been denied by the republican party in this country, that the Constitution had given the power of incorporation to Congress. On the establishment of the Bank of the United States, this was the great ground on which that establishment was combated; and the party prevailing supported it only on the argument of its being an incident to the power given them for raising money.

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Letter to Dr. Maese, 1809. ME 12:231
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
5 months 1 day ago
""You do not love the mind...

""You do not love the mind of your race, nor the body. Any kind of creature will please you if only it is begotten by your kind as they now are. It seems to me, Thick One, what you really love is no completed creature but the very seed itself: for that is all that is left".

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Oyarsa
Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
2 months 1 week ago
Given our anthropocentric bias, thinking of...

Given our anthropocentric bias, thinking of non-human vertebrates not just as equivalent in moral status to toddlers or infants, but as though they were toddlers or infants, is a useful exercise. Such reconceptualisation helps correct our lack of empathy for sentient beings whose physical appearance is different from "us". Ethically, the practice of intelligent "anthropomorphism" shouldn't be shunned as unscientific, but embraced insofar as it augments our stunted capacity for empathy. Such anthropomorphism can be a valuable corrective to our cognitive and moral limitations. This is not a plea to be sentimental, simply for impartial benevolence.

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Reprogramming Predators, BLTC Research, 2009
Philosophical Maxims
Julius Evola
Julius Evola
1 month 1 week ago
As for Hitler, he nourished a...

As for Hitler, he nourished a fundamental aversion to the monarchy and, as we have noted, his polemic against the Habsburgs, for instance, was of an unparalleled vulgarity. For Hitler, the Volk alone was the principle of legitimacy. He was established as its direct representative and guide, without intermediaries, and it was to follow him unconditionally. No higher princple existed or was tolerated by him. Therefore it is perfectly correct to speak of a consolidated populist dictatorship employing the tools of a single party and the myth of the Volk. Not only the ancient German traditions, but also the very concept of Reich and, as we shall see, the concept of race were brought by Hitler to the level of the masses, which implied their degradation and distorition. Still, in this context they became tools of great power.

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p. 35
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
5 months 3 days ago
The pursuit of knowledge is, I...

The pursuit of knowledge is, I think, mainly actuated by love of power. And so are all advances in scientific technique. In politics, also, a reformer may have just as strong a love of power as a despot. It would be a complete mistake to decry love of power altogether as a motive. Whether you will be led by this motive to actions which are useful, or to actions which are pernicious, depends upon the social system, and upon your capacities.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
4 months 2 days ago
Hegel determines and presents only the...

Hegel determines and presents only the most striking differences of various religions, philosophies, time and peoples, and in a progressive series of stages, but he ignores all that is common and identical in all of them. ... His system knows only subordination and succession; coordination and coexistence are unknown to it.

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Z. Hanfi, trans., in The Fiery Brook (1972), p. 54
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
4 weeks ago
It is beyond dispute...
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Main Content / General
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham
5 months 5 days ago
Liberty therefore not being more fit...

Liberty therefore not being more fit than other words in some of the instances in which it has been used, and not so fit in others, the less the use that is made of it the better. I would no more use the word liberty in my conversation when I could get another that would answer the purpose, than I would brandy in my diet, if my physician did not order me: both cloud the understanding and inflame the passions.

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Jeremy Bentham, quoted in P. J. Kelly, Utilitarianism and Distributive Justice: Jeremy Bentham and the Civil Law, Oxford, 1990, p. 96
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
5 months 4 days ago
The imagination is always restless and...

The imagination is always restless and suggests a variety of thoughts, and the will, reason being laid aside, is ready for every extravagant project; and in this State, he that goes farthest out of the way, is thought fittest to lead, and is sure of most followers: And when Fashion hath once Established, what Folly or craft began, Custom makes it Sacred, and 'twill be thought impudence or madness, to contradict or question it. He that will impartially survey the Nations of the World, will find so much of the Governments, Religion, and Manners brought in and continued amongst them by these means, that they will have but little Reverence for the Practices which are in use and credit amongst Men.

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First Treatise of Government
Philosophical Maxims
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
5 months 4 days ago
From the fundamental nature of the...

From the fundamental nature of the Philistine, it follows that, in regard to others, as he has no intellectual but only physical needs, he will seek those who are capable of satisfying the latter not the former. And so of all the demands he makes of others the very smallest will be that of any outstanding intellectual abilities. On the contrary, when he comes across these they will excite his antipathy and even hatred. For here he has a hateful feeling of inferiority and also a dull secret envy which he most carefully attempts to conceal even from himself; but in this way it grows sometimes into a feeling of secret rage and rancour. Therefore it will never occur to him to assess his own esteem and respect in accordance with such qualities, but they will remain exclusively reserved for rank and wealth, power and influence, as being in his eyes the only real advantages to excel in which is also his desire.

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E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, pp. 344-345
Philosophical Maxims
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