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Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
5 days ago
...the Outsider's problem is the problem...

...the Outsider's problem is the problem of denial of self-expression.

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Chapter Four The Attempt to Gain Control
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
1 month 3 weeks ago
This is the contradiction of racism,...

This is the contradiction of racism, colonialism, and all forms of tyranny: in order to treat a man like a dog, one must first recognize him as a man.

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
3 weeks 1 day ago
I'll know how to die with...

I'll know how to die with courage; that is easier than living.

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Act II.
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
3 weeks 1 day ago
A good man with a good...

A good man with a good conscience doesn't walk so fast.

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Scene X.
Philosophical Maxims
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
2 months 1 day ago
But by far the greatest hindrance...

But by far the greatest hindrance and aberration of the human understanding proceeds from the dullness, incompetency, and deceptions of the senses; in that things which strike the sense outweigh things which do not immediately strike it, though they be more important. Hence it is that speculation commonly ceases where sight ceases; insomuch that of things invisible there is little or no observation.

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Aphorism 50
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
1 month 3 weeks ago
I think He made one law...

I think He made one law of that kind in order that there might be obedience. In all these other matters what you call obeying Him is but doing what seems good in your eyes also. Is love content with that? You do them, indeed, because they are His will, but not only because they are his will. Where can you taste the joy of obeying unless he bids you do something for which His bidding is the only reason?

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Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
3 weeks 5 days ago
In democratic ages men rarely sacrifice...

In democratic ages men rarely sacrifice themselves for another, but they show a general compassion for all the human race. One never sees them inflict pointless suffering, and they are glad to relieve the sorrows of others when they can do so without much trouble to themselves. They are not disinterested, but they are gentle.

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Book Three, Chapter I.
Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
2 months 3 weeks ago
Now the mass of mankind are...

Now the mass of mankind are plainly... choosing a life like that of brute animals...

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
2 months 3 weeks ago
For as only one thing is...

For as only one thing is necessary, and as the theme of the talk is the willing of only one thing: hence the consciousness before God of one's eternal responsibility to be an individual is that one thing necessary.

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Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
5 days ago
Like Fichte, Brentano had one simple...

Like Fichte, Brentano had one simple and powerful insight. He declared: there is a basic difference between a mental and physical act. if I slip on the snow and fall flat on my back, that is an unintentional physical act. But there is no such thing as an unintentional mental act. When I think, I have to think about something; I have to focus my mind on it. You could compare all mental acts (thinking, willing, loving, trying to remember something) to a searchlight beam stabbing into the darkness. There is an element of will, of 'intentionality,' in all mental activity. So it is quite inaccurate to compare mental activity to chemistry, or to a kind of drifting, like leaves on a stream. It flows purposefully or not at all.

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p. 35
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
2 weeks 5 days ago
Every state, like every theology, assumes...

Every state, like every theology, assumes man to be fundamentally bad and wicked.

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As quoted in Michael Bakunin (1937), E.H. Carr, p. 453
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
1 month 4 weeks ago
A good marriage would be between...

A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.

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Book III, Ch. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
2 months ago
A person must take care to...

A person must take care to exercise moderate discipline over the body and subject it to the Spirit by means of fasting, vigils, and labor. The goal is to have the body obey and conform - and not hinder - the inner person and faith. Unless it is held in check, we know it is the nature of the body to undermine faith and the inner person.

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pp. 71-72
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 3 weeks ago
Neither a man nor a crowd...

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 3 weeks ago
If you think that your belief...

If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument, rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on faith, you will realize that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting and distorting the minds of the young in what is called "education". This last is particularly dastardly, since it takes advantage of the defencelessness of immature minds. Unfortunately it is practiced in greater or less degree in the schools of every civilised country.

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p. 220
Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1 day ago
People often become scholars for the...

People often become scholars for the same reason they become soldiers: simply because they are unfit for any other station. Their right hand has to earn them a livelihood; one might say they lie down like bears in winter and seek sustenance from their paws.

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B 41
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
1 month 3 weeks ago
A father would do well, as...

A father would do well, as his son grows up, and is capable of it, to talk familiarly with him; nay, ask his advice, and consult with him about those things wherein he has any knowledge or understanding. By this, the father will gain two things, both of great moment. The sooner you treat him as a man, the sooner he will begin to be one; and if you admit him into serious discourses sometimes with you, you will insensibly raise his mind above the usual amusements of youth, and those trifling occupations which it is commonly wasted in. For it is easy to observe, that many young men continue longer in thought and conversation of school-boys than otherwise they would, because their parents keep them at that distance, and in that low rank, by all their carriage to them.

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Sec. 95
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
1 month 3 weeks ago
The violence of love is as...

The violence of love is as much to be dreaded as that of hate. When it is durable, it is serene and equable. Even its famous pains begin only with the ebb of love, for few are indeed lovers, though all would fain be.

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Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 158
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
Just now
The first consequence of the principle...

The first consequence of the principle of bounded rationality is that the intended rationality of an actor requires him to construct a simplified model of the real situation in order to deal with it. He behaves rationally with respect to this model, and such behavior is not even approximately optimal with respect to the real world. To predict his behavior we must understand the way in which this simplified model is constructed, and its construction will certainly be related to his psychological properties as a perceiving, thinking, and learning animal.

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p. 198; Cited in P. Slovic (1972, p. 2).
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 weeks 1 day ago
Magnanimity in politics is not seldom...

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
2 months ago
Lying and guile need only to...

Lying and guile need only to be revealed and recognized to be undone. When once lying is recognized as such, it needs no second stroke; it falls of itself and vanishes in shame.

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p. 60
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
2 weeks ago
Institutionalized desublimation thus appears to be...

Institutionalized desublimation thus appears to be an aspect of the "conquest of transcendence" achieved by the one-dimensional society. Just as this society tends to reduce, and even absorb opposition (the qualitative difference!) in the realm of politics and higher culture, so it does in the instinctual sphere. The result is the atrophy of the mental organs for grasping the contradictions and the alternatives and, in the one remaining dimension of technological rationality, the Happy Consciousness comes to prevail.

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p. 79
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
1 month 4 weeks ago
The art of dining well is...

The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
3 weeks 6 days ago
They that endeavour to abolish vice...

They that endeavour to abolish vice destroy also virtue, for contraries, though they destroy one another, are yet the life of one another.

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Section 4
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
1 month 3 weeks ago
Among human beings, the subjection of...

Among human beings, the subjection of women is much more complete at a certain level of civilization than it is among savages. And the subjection is always reinforced by morality.

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Ch. 15: Power and moral codes
Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
1 month 3 weeks ago
No longer enslaved or made dependent...

No longer enslaved or made dependent by force of law, the great majority are so by force of poverty; they are still chained to a place, to an occupation, and to conformity with the will of an employer, and debarred, by the accident of birth both from the enjoyments, and from the mental and moral advantages, which others inherit without exertion and independently of desert. That this is an evil equal to almost any of those against which mankind have hitherto struggled, the poor are not wrong in believing.

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John Stuart Mill, Chapters On Socialism, London, 1879, 'Introductory'
Philosophical Maxims
Ptahhotep
Ptahhotep
1 month 1 week ago
Truth is great and its effectiveness...

Truth is great and its effectiveness endures. 

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Maxim no. 5. Cf. 1 Esdras 4:41
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
3 weeks ago
Speculative philosophy as the realisation of...

Speculative philosophy as the realisation of God is the positing of God, and at the same time his cancellation or negation; theism and at the same time atheism: for God - in the sense of theology - is God only as long as he is taken to be a being distinguished from and independent of the being of man as well as of nature. The theism that as the positing of God is simultaneously his negation or, conversely, as the negation of God equally his affirmation, is pantheism. Theological theism - that is, theism properly speaking - is nothing other than imaginary pantheism which itself is nothing other than real and true theism.

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Part I, Section 14
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
4 days ago
It repudiates, as something vile and...

It repudiates, as something vile and sinful, our deepest feelings; but being absolutely ignorant as to the real functions of human emotions, Puritanism is itself the creator of the most unspeakable vices.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
1 month ago
He who thinks....
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Main Content / General
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 week 2 days ago
Not without reason did he who...

Not without reason did he who had the right to do so speak of the foolishness of the cross. Foolishness, without a doubt, foolishness. And the American humorist, Oliver Wendell Holmes, was not altogether wide of the mark in making one of the characters in his ingenious conversations say that he thought better of those who were confined in a lunatic asylum on account of religious mania than of those who, while professing the same religious principles, kept their wits and appeared to enjoy life very well outside the asylums. But those who are at large, are they not really, thanks to God, mad too? Are there not mild madnesses, which not only permit us to mix with our neighbors without danger to society, but which rather enable us to do so, for by means of them we are able to attribute a meaning and finality to life and society?

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Philosophical Maxims
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
1 month 4 weeks ago
As all those have shown who...

As all those have shown who have discussed civil institutions, and as every history is full of examples, it is necessary to whoever arranges to found a Republic and establish laws in it, to presuppose that all men are bad and that they will use their malignity of mind every time they have the opportunity; and if such malignity is hidden for a time, it proceeds from the unknown reason that would not be known because the experience of the contrary had not been seen, but time, which is said to be the father of every truth, will cause it to be discovered.

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Book 1, Ch. 3
Philosophical Maxims
Heraclitus
Heraclitus
2 months 1 week ago
The many are mean..

The many are mean; only the few are noble.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 3 weeks ago
Thus heaven I've forfeited, I know...

Thus heaven I've forfeited, I know it full well. My soul, once true to God, is chosen for hell.

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"The Pale Maiden" (1837) ballad
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
1 month 4 weeks ago
There must then be something that...

There must then be something that is better, and that must be God. When you see a stately and stupendous edifice, though you do not know who is the owner of it, you would yet conclude it was not built for rats. And this divine structure, that we behold of the celestial palace, have we not reason to believe that it is the residence of some possessor, who is much greater than we?

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Ch. 12, tr. Cotton, rev. W. Carew Hazlitt, 1877
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
1 month 4 weeks ago
At the very beginning of my...

At the very beginning of my fevers and sicknesses that cast me down, whilst still entire, and but little, disordered in health, I reconcile myself to Almighty God by the last Christian, offices, and find myself by so doing less oppressed and more easy, and have got, methinks, so much the better of my disease. And I have yet less need of a notary or counsellor than of a physician.

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Ch. 9
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
2 months 2 weeks ago
Now any dogma, based primarily on...

Now any dogma, based primarily on faith and emotionalism, is a dangerous weapon to use on others, since it is almost impossible to guarantee that the weapon will never be turned on the user.

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Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
6 days ago
The fierce willingness to repudiate domination...

The fierce willingness to repudiate domination in a holistic manner is the starting point for progressive cultural revolution.

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Women, Art, and Society: Fourth Edition (2007) by Whitney Chadwick ISBN 0-500-20393-8
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
1 month 3 weeks ago
Maybe this world is another planet's...

Maybe this world is another planet's Hell.

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As quoted in Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1979) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 239 Point Counter Point (New York: The Modern Library, 1928), Chapter XVII, p. 263
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
1 month 3 weeks ago
Aeschylus had a clear eye for...

Aeschylus had a clear eye for the commonest things. His genius was only an enlarged common sense. He adverts with chaste severity to all natural facts. His sublimity is Greek sincerity and simpleness, naked wonder which mythology had not helped to explain... Whatever the common eye sees at all and expresses as best it may, he sees uncommonly and describes with rare completeness. The multitude that thronged the theatre could no doubt go along with him to the end... The social condition of genius is the same in all ages. Aeschylus was undoubtedly alone and without sympathy in his simple reverence for the mystery of the universe.

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January 29, 1840
Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
2 weeks 5 days ago
Fate and temperament are the names...

Fate and temperament are the names of a concept.

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As quoted in Demian (1972) by Hermann Hesse, trans. W.J. Strachan
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
2 weeks ago
And in these foure things, Opinion...

And in these foure things, Opinion of Ghosts, Ignorance of second causes, Devotion towards what men fear, and Taking of things Casuall for Prognostics, consisteth the Natural seed of Religion; which by reason of the different Fancies, Judgements, and Passions of severall men, hath grown up into ceremonies so different, that those which are used by one man, are for the most part ridiculous to another.

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The First Part, Chapter 12, p. 54
Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
1 month 3 weeks ago
When He died in the Wounded...

When He died in the Wounded World He died not for men, but for each man. If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no less. Each thing, from the single grain of Dust to the strongest eldil, is the end and the final cause of all creation and the mirror in which the beam of His brightness comes to rest and so returns to Him. Blessed be He!

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
1 month 3 weeks ago
Everybody knows that the same sum...

Everybody knows that the same sum of money is of much greater value to a poor man that to a rich one. Give £10 a year to the man who has but £10 a year, you double his income, and you nearly double his enjoyments. Add £10 more, you do not add to his enjoyments so much as you did by the first £10. The third £10 is less valuable than the second, and the fourth less valuable than the third. To the possessor of £1,000 a year the addition of £10 would be scarcely perceptible; to the possessor of £10,000 it would not be worth slooping for.The richer a man is the less he is benefited by any further addition to his income. The man of £4,000 a year has four times the income of the man who has but £1,000; but does anybody suppose that he has four times the happiness?

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John Stuart Mill, Primogeniture, in The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Toronto, 1988, vol. 26, p. 336
Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
2 weeks 3 days ago
I have never seen a class...

I have never seen a class so deeply demoralised, so incurably debased by selfishness, so corroded within, so incapable of progress, as the English bourgeoisie; and I mean by this, especially the bourgeoisie proper, particularly the Liberal, Corn Law repealing bourgeoisie. For it nothing exists in this world, except for the sake of money, itself not excluded. It knows no bliss save that of rapid gain, no pain save that of losing gold. In the presence of this avarice and lust of gain, it is not possible for a single human sentiment or opinion to remain untainted.

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p. 275
Philosophical Maxims
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
1 month 2 weeks ago
In writing what he does not...

In writing what he does not speak, what he would never say and, in truth, would probably never even think, the author of the written speech is already entrenched in the posture of the sophist; the man of non-presence and non-truth. Writing is thus already on the scene. The incompatibility between written and the true is clearly announced at the moment Socrates starts to recount the way in which men are carried out themselves by pleasure, become absent from themselves, forget themselves and die in the thrill of song.

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Plato's Pharmacy, Pharmacia
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
1 month 3 weeks ago
These numerous points at which money...

These numerous points at which money is withdrawn from circulation and accumulated in numerous individual hoards or potential money-capitals appears as so many obstacles to circulation, because they immobilise the money and deprive it of its capacity to circulate for a certain time.

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Vol. II, Ch. XXI, p. 497.
Philosophical Maxims
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
1 week 1 day ago
Nothing is lost, nothing wholly passes...

Nothing is lost, nothing wholly passes away, for in some way or another everything is perpetuated; and everything, after passing through time, returns to eternity.

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1 month 3 weeks ago
It makes a great difference in...

It makes a great difference in the force of a sentence whether a man be behind it or no.

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p. 261
Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
1 month 3 weeks ago
A company of….

A company of solemn tyrants is impervious to all seductions.

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"Tyranny", 1764
Philosophical Maxims
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