Skip to main content
5 months 3 weeks ago

Phenomena of the external sense are examined and set forth in physics; those of the internal sense in empirical psychology. Pure mathematics considers space in geometry and time in pure mechanics. To these is to be added a certain concept, intellectual to be sure in itself, but whose becoming actual in the concrete requires the auxiliary notions of time and space in the successive addition and simultaneous juxtaposition of separate units, which is the concept of number treated in arithmetic.

0
0
2 months 3 weeks ago

Before Christianity suicide was not in any way troubling. Our lives were our own, and when we tired of them we were at liberty to end them. One might think that as Christianity has declined, this freedom would be reclaimed. Instead secular creeds have sprung up, in which each person's life belongs to everyone else. To hand back the gift of life because it does not please is still condemned as a kind of blasphemy, though the offended deity is now humanity instead of God.

0
0
Source
source
Sweet Morality (p. 231-2)
4 months 1 week ago

Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

0
0
Source
source
26:64 (KJV) Said to Caiaphas, the high priest.
2 months 3 weeks ago

Hayek's blind spot with regard to politics was clear in the early 1980s when the first Thatcher government, in an attempt to reduce inflation and bring the public finances closer to a balanced budget, was raising interest rates and cutting public spending. As he had done during the 1930s, Hayek attacked these policies as not being severe enough. It would be better, he told me in a conversation we had around this time, if Thatcher imposed a more drastic contraction on the economy so that the wage-setting power of the trade unions could be broken. He appeared unfazed by unemployment, which was already higher (more than three million people) than at any time since the 1930s, and would rise much further if his recommendations were accepted.

0
0
3 months 2 weeks ago

He doubly benefits the needy who gives quickly. Maxim 6

0
0
6 months 3 weeks ago
If each us had a different kind of sense perception — if we could only perceive things now as a bird, now as a worm, now as a plant, or if one of us saw a stimulus as red, another as blue, while a third even heard the same stimulus as a sound, then no one would speak of such a regularity of nature, rather, nature would be grasped only as a creation which is subjective in the highest degree. After all, what is a law of nature as such for us? We are not acquainted with it in itself, but only with its effects, which means in its relation to other laws of nature which, in turn, are known to us only as sums of relations. Therefore all these relations always refer again to others and are thoroughly incomprehensible to us in their essence.
0
0
5 months 3 weeks ago

Even the best things are not equal to their fame.

0
0
Source
source
Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 87
3 months 1 week ago

No realistic, sane person goes around Chicago without protection.

0
0
Source
source
Humboldt's Gift (1975), p. 452
5 months 2 weeks ago

Bad times have a scientific value. [...] We learn geology the morning after the earthquake, on ghastly diagrams of cloven mountains, upheaved plains, and the dry bed of the sea.

0
0
Source
source
Considerations by the Way
4 months 2 weeks ago

Religion comforts us for the defeat of our will to power. It adds new worlds to ours, and thus brings us hope of new conquests and new victories. We are converted to religion out of fear of suffocating within the narrow confines of this world.

0
0
5 months 2 weeks ago

A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood.Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.

0
0
Source
source
Vol. I, Ch. 1, Section 4, pg. 81.
5 months 3 weeks ago

A merchant, it has been said very properly, is not necessarily the citizen of any particular country.

0
0
Source
source
Chapter IV, p. 456.
5 months 2 weeks ago

"Everything is both a trap and a display; the secret reality of the object is what the Other makes of it."

0
0

In general, the form and the structure of the brains of quadrupeds are almost the same as those of the brain of man...

0
0
5 months 3 weeks ago

There are various, nay, incredible faiths; why should we be alarmed at any of them? What man believes, God believes.

0
0
1 month 2 weeks ago

In the case of all things which have a certain constitution, whatever harm may happen to any of them, that which is affected becomes consequently worse; but in like case, a man becomes both better... and more worthy of praise, by making the right use of these accidents.

0
0
Source
source
X, 33
4 months 2 weeks ago

The voice in my soul in which I will have faith, and for the sake of which I have faith in all else, does not merely command me generally to act, but in every particular situation it declares what I shall do and what leave undone; it accompanies me through every event of my life, and it is impossible for me to contend against it. To listen to it and obey it honestly and impartially, without fear or equivocation, is the business of my existence. My life is no longer an empty I play without truth or significance. It is appointed that what I conscience ordains me shall be done, and for this purpose am I here. I have understanding to know, and power to execute it. By conscience alone comes truth and reality into my representations.

0
0
Source
source
Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 77
4 months 1 week ago

Animals are born and bred in litters. Solitude grows blessed and peaceful only in old age.

0
0
Source
source
p. 61
6 months 2 weeks ago

Rhetoric is the counterpart of Dialectic. Both alike are concerned with such things as come, more or less, within the general ken of all men and belong to no definite science. Accordingly, all men make use, more or less, of both; for to a certain extent all men attempt to discuss statements and to maintain them, to defend themselves and to attack others.

0
0
5 months 2 weeks ago

Yet a man may love a paradox, without losing either his wit or his honesty.

0
0
Source
source
"Walter Savage Landor", from The Dial, xii, 1841
5 months 4 weeks ago

For I find that even those that have sought knowledge for itself and not for benefit, or ostentation, or any practical enablement in the course of their life, have nevertheless propounded to themselves a wrong mark, namely, satisfaction, which men call truth, and not operation. For as in the courts and services of princes and states, it is a much easier matter to give satisfaction than to do the business; so in the inquiring of causes and reasons it is much easier to find out such causes as will satisfy the mind of man, and quiet objections, than such causes as will direct him and give him light to new experiences and inventions.

0
0
Source
source
Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature (ca. 1603), in Works, Vol. 1; The Works of Francis Bacon (1857), Vol. 3, p. 232
5 months 2 weeks ago

The gesture that divides madness is the constitutive one, not the science that grows up in the calm that returns after the division has been made.

0
0
Source
source
Preface to 1961 edition
4 months 1 week ago

And hereby it comes to passe, that Intemperance, is naturally punished with Diseases; Rashness, with Mischance; Injustice; with Violence of Enemies; Pride, with Ruine; Cowardice, with Oppression; Negligent government of Princes, with Rebellion; and Rebellion with Slaughter.

0
0
Source
source
The Second Part, Chapter 31, p. 194
1 month 2 weeks ago

Every bureaucracy, therefore, in accord with the peculiar emphasis on its own position, tends to generalize its own experience and to overlook the fact that the realm of administration and of smoothly functioning order represents only a part of the total political reality. Bureaucratic thought does not deny the possibility of the science of politics, but regards it as identical with the science of administration. Thus irrational factors are overlooked, and when these nevertheless force themselves to the fore, they are treated as "routine matters of state."

0
0
5 months 4 weeks ago

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.

0
0
Source
source
Of Studies
6 months 2 weeks ago

Of all the cultural aspects of humanity, the only one which is not broken up into national or regional splinters is science. Different nations have different languages, they may have different religions, may have different dietaries, may have different holidays, different ways of thinking, but here's only one science. 

0
0
Source
source
Interview by Richard Heffner on The Open Mind (19 June 1988); video (25:31)
1 month 4 weeks ago

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.

0
0
Source
source
As quoted in Pearls of Wisdom: A Harvest of Quotations From All Ages (1987) by Jerome Agel and Walter D. Glanze, p. 46.
5 months 3 weeks ago

It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. 12: Free Thought and Official Propaganda
5 months 2 weeks ago

Each pursues his private interest and only his private interest; and thereby serves the private interests of all, the general interest, without willing it or knowing it. The real point is not that each individual's pursuit of his private interest promotes the totality of private interests, the general interest. One could just as well deduce from this abstract phrase that each individual reciprocally blocks the assertion of the others' interests, so that, instead of a general affirmation, this war of all against all produces a general negation.

0
0
Source
source
Notebook I, The Chapter on Money, p. 76.
2 months 5 days ago

Worse than war is the very fear of war.

0
0
Source
source
line 572 (Chorus).
5 months 2 weeks ago

What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like, "What does it matter so long as they are contented?" We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven - a senile benevolence who, as they say, "liked to see young people enjoying themselves" and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, "a good time was had by all".

0
0

Opinion considers the opposition of what is true and false quite rigid, and, confronted with a philosophical system, it expects agreement or contradiction. And in an explanation of such a system, opinion still expects to find one or the other.

0
0
Source
source
Preface, § 2
4 months 1 week ago

Pragmatism ... reflects with almost disarming candor the spirit of the prevailing business culture, the very same attitude of 'being practical' as counter to which philosophical meditation as such was conceived.

0
0
Source
source
p. 52.
1 month 4 weeks ago

It is the season of the Kronia, during which the god allows us to make merry. But, my dear friend, as I have no talent for amusing or entertaining I must methinks take pains not to talk mere nonsense." "But, Caesar, can there be anyone so dull and stupid as to take pains over jesting? I always thought that such pleasantries were a relaxation of the mind and a relief from pains and cares." "Yes, and no doubt your view is correct, but that is not how the matter strikes me. For by nature I have no turn for raillery, or parody, or raising a laugh."

0
0
4 months 2 weeks ago

I suddenly stopped and looked out at the sea and thought, my God, how beautiful this is ... for 26 years I had never really looked at it before.

0
0
Source
source
On his greater appreciation of the scenery of the world, after his near-death experience, as quoted in "Did atheist philosopher see God when he 'died'?" by William Cash, in National Post (3 March 2001).
4 months 1 week ago

As in the presence of the Master, the Servants are equall, and without any honour at all; So are the Subjects, in the presence of the Soveraign. And though they shine some more, some lesse, when they are out of his sight; yet in his presence, they shine no more than the Starres in presence of the Sun.

0
0
Source
source
The Second Part, Chapter 18, p. 93
5 months 1 day ago

Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing.

0
0
Source
source
As quoted in Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, I, 36 Cf. Golden Rule
2 months 1 day ago

The way to true mysticism leads up through rational thought to deep experience of the world and of our will-to-live. We must all venture once more to be "thinkers," so as to reach mysticism, which is the only direct and the only profound world-view. We must all wander in the field of knowledge to the point where knowledge passes over into experience of the world. We must all, through thought, become religious.This rational thought must become the prevailing force among us, for all the valuable ideas that we need develop out of it. In no other fire than that of the mysticism of reverence for life can the broken sword of idealism be forged anew.

0
0
4 months 2 weeks ago

The more I think about it, the more obvious it becomes to me that the Poles are une nation foutue [a finished nation] who can only continue to serve a purpose until such time as Russia herself becomes caught up into the agrarian revolution. From that moment Poland will have absolutely no raison d'étre any more. The Poles' sole contribution to history has been to indulge in foolish pranks at once valiant and provocative. Nor can a single moment be cited when Poland, even if only by comparison with Russia, has successfully represented progress or done anything of historical significance.

0
0
Source
source
Letter to Karl Marx
5 months 2 weeks ago

In justice as fairness society is interpreted as a cooperative venture for mutual advantage.

0
0
Source
source
Chapter II, Section 14, pg. 84
5 months 3 weeks ago

The plea is, in a great measure, false; they had no permission to catch and enslave people who never injured them.

0
0
5 months 2 weeks ago

Modern transcendental idealism, Emersonianism, for instance, also seems to let God evaporate into abstract Ideality. Not a deity in concreto, not a superhuman person, but the immanent divinity in things, the essentially spiritual structure of the universe, is the object of the transcendentalist cult. In that address of the graduating class at Divinity College in 1838 which made Emerson famous, the frank expression of this worship of mere abstract laws was what made the scandal of the performance.

0
0
Source
source
Lecture II, "Circumscription of the Topic"
5 months 3 weeks ago

All mortals are equal; it is not their birth,But virtue itself that makes the difference.

0
0
Source
source
Ériphyle Act II, scene I (1732); these lines were also later used in Voltaire's Mahomet, Act I, scene IV (1741)
4 months 2 weeks ago

Mankind will never be, in an eminent degree, virtuous and happy till each man shall possess that portion of distinction and no more, to which he is entitled by his personal merits. The dissolution of aristocracy is equally the interest of the oppressor and the oppressed. The one will be delivered from the listlessness of tyranny, and the other from the brutalizing operation of servitude.

0
0
Source
source
Book V, Chapter 11, "Moral Effects of Aristocracy"
4 months 1 week ago

Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?

0
0
Source
source
21:16 (KJV)
5 months 2 weeks ago

There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.

0
0
5 months 2 weeks ago

God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first love.

0
0
2 months 1 week ago

To all Christian governments Christianity was not a rule of means but a means of rule; Christ was for the people, Machiavelli was preferred by the kings. The state in some measure had civilized man, but who would civilize the state?

0
0
Source
source
Chapter 6, p. 229
2 months ago

All the future of socialism resides in the autonomous development of workers' syndicates.

0
0
Source
source
As quoted in Essays in Political Philosophy, Vidya Dhar Mahajan, Doaba House, Lahore, 1943 p. 41
4 months 2 weeks ago

This education, therefore, results at the very outset in knowledge which transcends all experience, which is abstract, absolute, and strictly universal, and which includes within itself beforehand all subsequently possible experience. On the other hand, the old education was concerned, as a rule, only with the actual qualities of things as they are and as they should be believed and rioted, without anyone being able to assign a reason for them. It aimed, therefore, at purely passive reception by means of the power of memory, which was completely at the service of things. It was, therefore, impossible to have any idea of the mind as an independent original principle of things themselves.

0
0
Source
source
General Nature of New Eduction p. 28

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia