Marxism is a revolutionary worldview...

Marxism is a revolutionary worldview that must always struggle for new revelations. Marxism must abhor nothing so much as the possibility that it becomes congealed in its current form. It is at its best when butting heads in self-criticism, and in historical thunder and lightning, it retains its strength.

The bad thing about all...

The bad thing about all religions is that, instead of being able to confess their allegorical nature, they have to conceal it; accordingly, they parade their doctrines in all seriousness as true sensu proprio, and as absurdities form an essential part of these doctrines we have the great mischief of a continual fraud. Nay, what is worse, the day arrives when they are no longer true sensu proprio, and then there is an end of them; so that, in that respect, it would be better to admit their allegorical nature at once. But the difficulty is to teach the multitude that something can be both true and untrue at the same time. Since all religions are in a greater or less degree of this nature, we must recognise the fact that mankind cannot get on without a certain amount of absurdity, that absurdity is an element in its existence, and illusion indispensable; as indeed other aspects of life testify.

For a long time —...

For a long time — always, in fact — I have known that life here on earth is not what I needed and that I wasn't able to deal with it; for this reason and for this reason alone, I have acquired a touch of spiritual pride, so that my existence seems to me the degradation and the erosion of a psalm.

If they be inhabited, what...

If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly; if they be un-inhabited, what a waste of space.

You must learn all things,...

You must learn all things, both the unshaken heart of persuasive truth, and the opinions of mortals in which there is no true warranty.

That persons have opposing interests...

That persons have opposing interests and seek to advance their own conception of the good is not at all the same thing as their being moved by envy and jealousy.

If any person, discouraged by...

If any person, discouraged by these difficulties, should think to relieve himself by rejecting all religion, natural and revealed, he will find, if he reflect at all, that he has miserably deceived himself, and that he is involved in greater perplexity than ever; the scheme he has adopted not only filling his mind with great darkness and distress, but being contrary to some of the plainest appearances in nature, and therefore manifestly irrational and absurd.

Granting, as Lenin wants, such...

Granting, as Lenin wants, such absolute powers of a negative character to the top organ of the party, we strengthen, to a dangerous extent, the conservatism inherent in such an organ.

We, on the contrary, now...

We, on the contrary, now send to the Brahmans English clergymen and evangelical linen-weavers, in order out of sympathy to put them right, and to point out to them that they are created out of nothing, and that they ought to be grateful and pleased about it. But it is Just the same as if we fired a bullet at a cliff. " In India, our religions wIll never at any time take root; the ancient wisdom of the human race will not be supplanted by the events in Galilee. On the contrary, Indian Wisdom flows back to Europe, and will produce a fundamental change in our knowledge and thought.

It's not worth the bother...

It's not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.

I always felt the force...

I always felt the force of his [John Stuart Mill's] distrust of "thunderings" after an hour with Carlyle. You walked away from Chelsea stirred to the depths by a torrent of humour. But then it was splendid caricature: words and images infinitely picturesque and satiric, marvellous collocations and antitheses, impassioned railing against all the human and even superhuman elements in our blindly misguided universe. But of direction, of any sign-post or way out, not a trace was to be discovered, any more than a judicial page, or sense of any wisdom in the judicial, is to be found in his greatest pieces of history. After the grand humorist's despair was over, it was a healthy restorative in passing homeward along the Embankment to fling oneself into the arms of any statistician, politician, political economist, sanitary authority, poor-law reformer, prisoner-reformer, drainage enthusiast, or other practical friend of improvement, whom genial accident might throw in one's way.

The end of living, or...

The end of living, or the ultimate good, which is to be sought for its own sake, according to the universal opinion of mankind, is happiness; yet men, for the most part, fail in the pursuit of this end, either because they do not form a right idea of the nature of happiness, or because they do not make use of proper means to attain it.

Parmenides was... the first philosopher...

Parmenides was... the first philosopher to expound his system in metrical language. ...[T]he only Greeks who ...wrote philosophy in verse were ...Parmenides and Empedokles; for Xenophanes was not primarily a philosopher... The fragments of Parmenides are preserved for the most part by Simplicius...

Hatred, slavery's inevitable aftermath.

Hatred, slavery's inevitable aftermath.

… necessitating the unilateral choice...

… necessitating the unilateral choice of one of three orientation, I would summarize the disjointed temporal multiple which organizes our site in the following manner:

The brain may be regarded...

The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body.

The mind that puts everything...

The mind that puts everything in question, reaches, after a thousand interrogations, an almost total inertia, a situation which the inert, in fact, knows from the start, by instinct. For what is inertia but a congenital perplexity?

I know that when the...

I know that when the world surrenders, pallid, to repose, the murmur of a tranquil stream through the deep silence flows.

It's gravity is the cause;...

It's gravity is the cause; and that which is heavy abides in the middle, and the earth is in the middle: in like manner also, the infinite will abide in itself, through some other cause... and will itself support itself. ...The places of the whole and the part are of the same species; as of the whole earth and a clod, the place is downward; and of the whole of fire, and a spark, the place is upward. So that if the place of the infinite is in itself, there will be the same place also of a part of the infinite.

Much of the time, the...

Much of the time, the question goes unasked in prosperous liberal democracies like Britain or the United States, because most of us see political equality as exhausted by “one person, one vote” and dig no deeper; we know that one person, one vote coexists with the better-off and better-organized buying influence through lobbying, campaign contributions, and use of the mass media, but we find ourselves puzzled to balance a belief that everyone has the right to use his or her resources to influence government—which is certainly one form of political equality—with our sense that excessive inequality of political resources undermines democracy.

Obstinacy is the result of...

Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect.

Philosophers write for professors; thinkers...

Philosophers write for professors; thinkers for writers.

The wise and virtuous man...

The wise and virtuous man is at all times willing that his own private interests should be sacrificed to the public interest of his own particular society--that the interests of this order of society be sacrificed to the greater interest of the state. He should therefore he equally willing that all those inferior interests should be sacrificed to the greater society of all sensible and intelligent beings.

Women becoming, consequently weaker, in...

Women becoming, consequently weaker, in mind and body, than they ought to be...have not sufficient strength to discharge the first duty of a mother; and sacrificing to lasciviousness the parental affection...either destroy the embryo in the womb, or cast if off when born. Nature in every thing demands respect, and those who violate her laws seldom violate them with impunity.

Scientific revolutions are inaugurated by...

Scientific revolutions are inaugurated by a growing sense... that an existing paradigm has ceased to function adequately in the exploration of an aspect of nature to which that paradigm itself had previously led the way.

The British state has defaulted...

The British state has defaulted on its core functions while attempting to remake society.

You can choose whatever name...

You can choose whatever name you like for the two types of government. I personally call the type of government which can be removed without violence "democracy", and the other "tyranny".

Government is violence, Christianity is...

Government is violence, Christianity is meekness, non-resistance, love. And, therefore, government cannot be Christian, and a man who wishes to be a Christian must not serve government.

It is the duty of...

It is the duty of man to raise up man. One is guilty of all abjection that one does not help to relieve. Only those who spread treachery, fire, and death out of hatred for the prosperity of others are undeserving of pity.

Now the mass of mankind...

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

A view of the unseemly...

A view of the unseemly actions of drunken men is the most effectual dissuasive from wine.

Because people have no thoughts...

Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another’s money. Idiots!

Everyone is mistaken, everyone lives...

Everyone is mistaken, everyone lives in illusion. At best, we can admit a scale of fictions, a hierarchy of unrealities, giving preference to one rather than to another; but to choose, no, definitely not that...

The liberal reward of labour,...

The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as it is the affect of increasing wealth, so it is the cause of increasing population. To complain of it, is to lament over the necessary effect and cause of the greatest public prosperity.

Those who deny the first...

Those who deny the first principle should be flogged or burned until they admit that it is not the same thing to be burned and not burned, or whipped and not whipped.

Lamachus chid a captain for...

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.'"

Contrary to the cartoon history...

Contrary to the cartoon history of ideas that prevails today, Darwinism’s threat to religion did not come principally from challenging the biblical account of creation. Until a few centuries ago the Genesis story was known to be a myth – a poetic way of rendering truths that would otherwise be inaccessible. At the beginning of the Christian religion, Augustine warned against the dangers of literalism. The Jewish scholars who preceded him always viewed the Genesis story as a metaphor for truths that could not be accessed in any other way. It was only with the rise of modern science that the Genesis myth came to be misunderstood as an explanatory theory. Yet Darwinism was still a major threat to religion, for it confronted Victorians with the prospect of their final mortality. Darwin forced them to ask why their lives should not end like those of other animals, in nothingness. If this was so, how could human existence have meaning? How could human values be maintained if human personality was destroyed at death?

In speaking of sociological laws...

In speaking of sociological laws or natural laws of social life I have in mind such laws as are formulated by modern economic theories, for instance, the theory of international trade, or the theory of the trade cycle. These and other important sociological laws are connected with the functioning of social institutions. These laws play a role in our social life corresponding to the role played in mechanical engineering by, say, the principle of the lever. For institutions, like levers, are needed if we want to achieve anything which goes beyond the power of our muscles. Like machines, institutions multiply our power for good or evil. Like machines, they need intelligent supervision by someone who understands their way of functioning and, most of all, their purpose, since we cannot build them so that they work entirely automatically.

You will die — and...

You will die — and it will all be over. You will die and find out everything — or cease asking.

I feel that we are...

I feel that we are all philosophers, and that those who describe themselves as a ‘philosopher’ simply do not have a day job to go to.

For well-being and health, again,...

For well-being and health, again, the homestead should be airy in summer, and sunny in winter. A homestead possessing these qualities would be longer than it is deep; and its main front would face the south.

To different minds, the same...

To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.

Birth control - individual choice,...

Birth control - individual choice, safe contraceptive methods, as well as abortions when necessary - is a fundamental prerequisite for the emancipation of women.

This morning I thought, hence...

This morning I thought, hence lost my bearings, for a good quarter of an hour.

All for ourselves, and nothing...

All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.

Love one another. My final...

Love one another. My final lesson of history is the same as that of Jesus. You may think that's a lot of lollipop but just try it. Love is the most practical thing in the world. If you take an attitude of love toward everybody you meet, you'll eventually get along.

And when the physician said,...

And when the physician said, "Sir, you are an old man," "That happens," replied Pausanias, "because you never were my doctor."

Many people today hold to...

Many people today hold to a Gnostic view of things without realizing the fact. Believing that human beings can be fully understood in the terms of scientific materialism, they reject any idea of free will. But they cannot give up hope of being masters of their destiny. So they have come to believe that science will somehow enable the human mind to escape the limitations that shape its natural condition. Throughout much of the world, and particularly in western countries, the Gnostic faith that knowledge can give humans a freedom no other creature can possess has become the predominant religion.

Always remember that it is...

Always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood: there will always be some who misunderstand you.

One can insult an honest...

One can insult an honest man or an honest woman, but to tell a thief that he is a thief is merely la constation d'un fait [The establishing of a fact.]