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Voltaire
Voltaire
3 months 4 days ago
Morality is everywhere…

Morality is everywhere the same for all men, therefore it comes from God; sects differ, therefore they are the work of men.

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"Atheist", 1764
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 weeks 4 days ago
Whilst shame keeps...
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Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
1 month 5 days ago
Take provocation, for instance, which is...

Take provocation, for instance, which is the opposite and the caricature of seduction. It says: "I know that you want to be seduced, and I will seduce you." Nothing could be worse than betraying this secret rule. Nothing could be less seductive than a provocative smile or inciteful behaviour, since both presuppose that one cannot be seduced naturally and that one needs to be blackmailed into it, or through a declaration of intent: "Let me seduce you"

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(p. 67)
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
3 weeks ago
Wherever literature consoles sorrow, or assuages...

Wherever literature consoles sorrow, or assuages pain,-wherever it brings gladness to eyes which fail with wakefulness and tears, and ache for the dark house and the long sleep,-there is exhibited, in its noblest form, the immortal influence of Athens.

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p. 179
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
2 weeks 4 days ago
Even in the important matter of...

Even in the important matter of cranial capacity, Men differ more widely from one another than they do from the Apes; while the lowest Apes differ as much, in proportion, from the highest, as the latter does from Man.

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Ch.2, p. 95
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
3 months 2 days ago
It is a political axiom that...

It is a political axiom that power follows property.

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Chapter 12 (p. 113)
Philosophical Maxims
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham
3 months 5 days ago
Pleasure is in itself a good;...

Pleasure is in itself a good; nay, even setting aside immunity from pain, the only good: pain is in itself an evil; and, indeed, without exception, the only evil; or else the words good and evil have no meaning. And this is alike true of every sort of pain, and of every sort of pleasure.

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Ch. 10: Of Motives
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
3 months 4 weeks ago
Every revolutionary ends as an oppressor...

Every revolutionary ends as an oppressor or a heretic.

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Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
2 months 3 days ago
There ought to be system of...

There ought to be system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.

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Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 months 3 days ago
If you want to be respected...

If you want to be respected by others the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.

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Part III, Chapter 2
Philosophical Maxims
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
3 weeks 4 days ago
Conquered people tend to be witty....

Conquered people tend to be witty.

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Mr. Sammler's Planet, (1976), p. 98
Philosophical Maxims
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
3 months 3 days ago
The Vedas contain a sensible account...

The Vedas contain a sensible account of God." "The veneration in which the Vedas are held is itself a remarkable feat. Their code embraced the whole moral life of the Hindus and in such a case there is no other truth than sincerity. Truth is such by reference to the heart of man within, not to any standard without.

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A Tribute to Hinduism, 2008
Philosophical Maxims
Max Scheler
Max Scheler
1 month 3 weeks ago
The process of aging can only...

The process of aging can only be fruitful and satisfactory if the important transitions are accompanied by free resignation, by the renunciation of the values proper to the preceding stage of life. Those spiritual and intellectual values which remain untouched by the process of aging, together with the values of the next stage of life, must compensate for what has been lost. Only if this happens can we cheerfully relive the values of our past in memory, without envy for the young to whom they are still accessible. If we cannot compensate, we avoid and flee the "tormenting" recollection of youth, thus blocking our possibilities of understanding younger people. At the same time we tend to negate the specific values of earlier stages. No wonder that youth always has a hard fight to sustain against the ressentiment of the older generation.

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L. Coser, trans. (1973), pp. 62-63
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 3 days ago
... it may be hoped that...

... it may be hoped that the white population of the world will soon cease to increase. The Asiatic races will be longer, and the negroes still longer, before their birth rate falls sufficiently to make their numbers stable without help of war and pestilence. But it is to be hoped that the religious prejudices which have hitherto hampered the spread of birth control will die out, and that ... the whole world will learn not to be unduly prolific. Until that happens, the benefits aimed at by socialism can only be partially realized, and the less prolific races will have to defend themselves against the more prolific by methods which are disgusting even if they are necessary.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
4 months 3 days ago
Homer has taught all other poets...

Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 1 day ago
For Genet, Beauty will be the...

For Genet, Beauty will be the offensive weapon that will enable him to beat the just on their own ground: that of value.

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p. 405
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 month 2 weeks ago
The vitality of thought is in...

The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervor, live for it, and, if need be, die for it.

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p. 100; Ch. 12, April 28, 1938.
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 months 3 days ago
Russia was a slave in Europe...

Russia was a slave in Europe but would be a master in Asia.

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As quoted in "Dilemmas of Empire 1850-1918: Power, Territory, Identity" by Dominic Livien in Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 34, No.2 (April 1999), pp. 180
Philosophical Maxims
St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine of Hippo
3 months 2 weeks ago
Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their...

Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.

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As quoted in Spirituality and Liberation: Overcoming the Great Fallacy (1988) by Robert McAfee Brown, p. 136
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 months 3 days ago
It was not only that I...

It was not only that I could not become spiteful, I did not know how to become anything; neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. Now, I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot become anything seriously, and it is only the fool who becomes anything.

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Part 1, Chapter 1
Philosophical Maxims
William James
William James
3 months 2 days ago
Real culture lives by sympathies and...

Real culture lives by sympathies and admirations, not by dislikes and disdain - under all misleading wrappings it pounces unerringly upon the human core.

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The Social Value of the College-Bred
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 4 weeks ago
Except for music, everything is a...

Except for music, everything is a lie, even solitude, even ecstasy. Music, in fact, is the one and the other, only better.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 4 weeks ago
We should, out of decency, choose...

We should, out of decency, choose for ourselves the moment to disappear.

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Philosophical Maxims
Plato
Plato
4 months ago
The orators

The orators and the despots have the least power in their cities since they do nothing that they wish to do, practically speaking, though they do whatever they think to be best.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 4 weeks ago
Crime in full glory consolidates authority...

Crime in full glory consolidates authority by the sacred fear it inspires.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
1 month 3 weeks ago
A new commandment I give unto...

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

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13:34-35 KJV
Philosophical Maxims
Antisthenes
Antisthenes
2 months 3 weeks ago
You want a new book….

Antisthenes ... said once to a youth from Pontus who was on the point of coming to him to be his pupil, and was asking him what things he wanted, "You want a new book, and a new pen, and a new tablet;"

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meaning a new mind. § 4
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month ago
The young today cannot follow narrative...

The young today cannot follow narrative but they are alert to drama. They cannot bear description but they love landscape and action.

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Letter to Harold Adam Innis (14 March 1951), published in Essential McLuhan (1995), edited by Eric McLuhan and Frank Zingrone, p. 74
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
2 months 2 days ago
That the uneducated and the ill-educated...

That the uneducated and the ill-educated should think the hypothesis that all races of beings, man inclusive, may in process of time have been evolved from the simplest monad, a ludicrous one, is not to be wondered at. But for the physiologist, who knows that every individual being is so evolved-who knows, further, that in their earliest condition the germs of all plants and animals whatever are so similar, "that there is no appreciable distinction amongst them, which would enable it to be determined whether a particular molecule is the germ of a Conferva or of an Oak, of a Zoophyte or of a Man";-for him to make a difficulty of the matter is inexcusable.

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Spencer here references William Benjamin Carpenter, Principles of Comparative Physiology see p. 473
Philosophical Maxims
Susan Neiman
Susan Neiman
3 weeks 2 days ago
Whenever you say anything good about...

Whenever you say anything good about East Germany, immediately somebody jumps up and says, "My God, you're a Stalinist..." I'm not defending everything about it, of course. But I laboured on the chapter that talks about the east. I fact-checked it; I had somebody else fact-check it. I knew that I was going to get a lot of flak for that. But in the beginning, East Germany did a better job. They just did.

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From an interview with Alex Clark, as cited in "Nazism, slavery, empire: can countries learn from national evil?", The Guardian
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
1 month ago
The magic of the cave image...

The magic of the cave image lies in its being, not in its being seen. The symbolic does not refer. It is.

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(p. 350)
Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
2 months 3 weeks ago
This is the moment when it...

This is the moment when it becomes clear that the images of madness are nothing but dream and error, and that if the unfortunate sufferer who is blinded by them invokes them, it is the better to disappear with them into the annihilation for which they are destined.

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Part Two: 2. The Transcendence of Delirium
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
4 weeks ago
We don't need fossils - the...

We don't need fossils - the case for evolution is watertight without them; so it is paradoxical to use gaps in the fossil record as though they were evidence against evolution.

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The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (2009) (p. 164)
Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 month ago
A fair exterior is a silent...

A fair exterior is a silent recommendation.

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Maxin 267
Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
1 month 2 weeks ago
Poems are magic ceremonies of language.

Poems are magic ceremonies of language.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 4 weeks ago
Always to have lived with the...

Always to have lived with the nostalgia to coincide with something, but not really knowing with what - it is easy to shift from unbelief to belief, or conversely. But what is there to convert to, and what is there to abjure, in a state of chronic lucidity?

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Philosophical Maxims
Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus
1 month ago
Solitude is the mother of anxieties....

Solitude is the mother of anxieties.

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Maxim 222
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 1 week ago
For a desperate disease a desperate...

For a desperate disease a desperate cure.

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Book II, Ch. 3. The Custom of the Isle of Cea
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 3 days ago
A spectre is haunting Europe; the...

A spectre is haunting Europe; the spectre of Communism.

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Preamble, paragraph 1, line 1.
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
1 month 2 weeks ago
No human being escapes the necessity...

No human being escapes the necessity of conceiving some good outside himself towards which his thought turns in a movement of desire, supplication, and hope. consequently, the only choice is between worshipping the true God or an idol. Every atheist is an idolater - unless he is worshipping the true God in his impersonal aspect. The majority of the pious are idolaters.

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Last Notebook (1942) p. 308
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
3 months 5 days ago
Complete ignorance with regard to certain...

Complete ignorance with regard to certain matters is perhaps the best thing for children; but let them learn very early what it is impossible to conceal from them permanently. Either their curiosity must never be aroused, or it must be satisfied before the age when it becomes a source of danger. Your conduct towards your pupil in this respect depends greatly on his individual circumstances, the society in which he moves, the position in which he may find himself, etc. Nothing must be left to chance; and if you are not sure of keeping him in ignorance of the difference between the sexes till he is sixteen, take care you teach him before he is ten.

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Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
3 months 1 week ago
Mother Mary, like us, was born...

Mother Mary, like us, was born in sin of sinful parents, but the Holy Spirit covered her, sanctified and purified her so that this child was born of flesh and blood, but not with sinful flesh and blood. The Holy Spirit permitted the Virgin Mary to remain a true, natural human being of flesh and blood, just as we. However, he warded off sin from her flesh and blood so that she became the mother of a pure child, not poisoned by sin as we are. For in that moment when she conceived, she was a holy mother filled with the Holy Spirit and her fruit is a holy pure fruit, at once God and truly man, in one person.

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The Precious and Sacred Writings of Martin Luther (1905) edited by John Nicholas Lenker; republished as Sermons of Martin Luther (1996), p. 291
Philosophical Maxims
John Searle
John Searle
1 month 5 days ago
An utterance can have Intentionality, just...

An utterance can have Intentionality, just as a belief has Intentionality, but whereas the Intentionality of the belief is intrinsic the Intentionality of the utterance is derived.

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P. 27.
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
3 months 3 weeks ago
Sincerity becomes apparent. From being apparent,...

Sincerity becomes apparent. From being apparent, it becomes manifest. From being manifest, it becomes brilliant. Brilliant, it affects others. Affecting others, they are changed by it. Changed by it, they are transformed. It is only he who is possessed of the most complete sincerity that can exist under heaven, who can transform.

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Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
1 month 3 weeks ago
In proportion as a man's interests...

In proportion as a man's interests become humane and his efforts rational, he appropriates and expands a common life, which reappears in all individuals who reach the same impersonal level of ideas.

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Ch. VIII: Ideal Society
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
3 months 3 days ago
In fact of course, this 'productive'...

In fact of course, this 'productive' worker cares as much about the crappy shit he has to make as does the capitalist himself who employs him, and who also couldn't give a damn for the junk.

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Notebook II, The Chapter on Capital, p. 193.
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
1 month 2 weeks ago
We must leave on one side...

We must leave on one side the beliefs which fill up voids and sweeten what is bitter. The belief in immortality. The belief in the utility of sin: etiam peccata. The belief in the providential ordering of events - in short the "consolations" which are ordinarily sought in religion.

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p. 258
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
1 month 2 weeks ago
A general definition of civilization: a...

A general definition of civilization: a civilized society is exhibiting the five qualities of truth, beauty, adventure, art, peace.

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p. 353.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 3 days ago
The fundamental concept in social science...

The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics.

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Ch. 1: The Impulse to Power
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
1 month 4 weeks ago
In the torments of the intellect,...

In the torments of the intellect, there is a certain bearing which is to be sought in vain among those of the heart. Skepticism is the elegance of anxiety.

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Philosophical Maxims
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