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Robert Owen
Robert Owen
2 months 2 weeks ago
Eight hours daily labour is enough...

Eight hours daily labour is enough for any human being, and under proper arrangements sufficient to afford an ample supply of food, raiment and shelter, or the necessaries and comforts of life, and for the remainder of his time, every person is entitled to education, recreation and sleep.

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"Foundation Axioms" of Society for Promoting National Regeneration
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
3 months 2 weeks ago
At the present time a serious,...

At the present time a serious, strong state can have but one sound foundation - military and bureaucratic centralization. Between a monarchy and the most democratic republic there is only one essential difference: in the former, the world of officialdom oppresses and robs the people for the greater profit of the privileged and propertied classes, as well as to line its own pockets, in the name of the monarch; in the latter, it oppresses and robs the people in exactly the same way, for the benefit of the same classes and the same pockets, but in the name of the people's will. In a republic a fictitious people, the "legal nation" supposedly represented by the state, smothers the real, live people. But it will scarcely be any easier on the people if the cudgel with which they are beaten is called the people's cudgel.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 2 weeks ago
The miracles in fact are a...

The miracles in fact are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see. Of that larger script part is already visible, part is still unsolved. In other words, some of the miracles do locally what God has already done universally: others do locally what He has not yet done, but will do. In that sense, and from our human point of view, some are reminders and others prophecies.

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"Miracles" (1942), p. 29
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
4 months 2 weeks ago
Nicias, do you think you can...

Nicias, do you think you can erase with good deeds the wrongs you committed against your mother? What good deed will ever reach her? Her soul is a scorching noon time, without a single breath of a breeze, nothing moves, nothing changes, nothing lives there; a great emaciated sun, an immobile sun eternally consumes her.

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King Aegistheus, Act 2
Philosophical Maxims
Mozi
Mozi
4 weeks 1 day ago
When feudal lords love one another...

When feudal lords love one another there will be no more war; when heads of houses love one another there will be no more mutual usurpation; when individuals love one another there will be no more mutual injury. When ruler and ruled love each other they will be gracious and loyal; when father and son love each other they will be affectionate and filial; when older and younger brothers love each other they will be harmonious. When all the people in the world love one another, then the strong will not overpower the weak, the many will not oppress the few, the wealthy will not mock the poor, the honoured will not disdain the humble, and the cunning will not deceive the simple. And it is all due to mutual love that calamities, strife, complaints, and hatred are prevented from arising. Therefore the benevolent exalt it.

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Book 4; Universal Love II
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
4 months 4 weeks ago
Let all the 'free-will' in the...

Let all the 'free-will' in the world do all it can with all its strength; it will never give rise to a single instance of ability to avoid being hardened if God does not give the Spirit, or of meriting mercy if it is left to its own strength.

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p. 202
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
1 week 4 days ago
I am enough of an...

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

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Philosophical Maxims
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han
3 months 4 days ago
Sabbath rest does not follow creation;...

Sabbath rest does not follow creation; it brings creation to completion.

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Philosophical Maxims
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
2 weeks 3 days ago
In the history of bourgeois society,...

In the history of bourgeois society, legislative reform served to strengthen progressively the rising class till the latter was sufficiently strong to seize political power, to suppress the existing juridical system and to construct itself a new one.

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Ch.8
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
4 months 1 week ago
Agesilaus was very fond of his...

Agesilaus was very fond of his children; and it is reported that once toying with them he got astride upon a reed as upon a horse, and rode about the room; and being seen by one of his friends, he desired him not to speak of it till he had children of his own.

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Of Agesilaus the Great
Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
3 months 1 week ago
It is the aim of public...

It is the aim of public life to arrange that all forms of power are entrusted, so far as possible, to men who effectively consent to be bound by the obligation towards all human beings which lies upon everyone, and who understand the obligation. Law is the quality of the permanent provisions for making this aim effective.

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Philosophical Maxims
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
2 months 3 weeks ago
Understand then all of you, especially...

Understand then all of you, especially the young, that to want to impose an imaginary state of government on others by violence is not only a vulgar superstition, but even a criminal work. Understand that this work, far from assuring the well-being of humanity is only a lie, a more or less unconscious hypocrisy, camouflaging the lowest passions we possess.

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Passage written for for The Law of Love and the Law of Violence (1908), released in 1917
Philosophical Maxims
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
3 months 2 weeks ago
A jealous lover...

A jealous lover of human liberty, deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that, if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him. Ch. II; Variants or variant translations of this statement have also been attributed to Bakunin: The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth. A boss in Heaven is the best excuse for a boss on earth, therefore If God did exist, he would have to be abolished.

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Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
5 months 3 weeks ago
The world is rejuvenated, but as...

The world is rejuvenated, but as Heine so wittily remarked, it was rejuvenated by romanticism to such a degree that it became a baby again.

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Philosophical Maxims
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
4 months 3 weeks ago
Did you not read our articles...

Did you not read our articles about the June revolution, and was not the essence of the June revolution the essence of our paper? Why then your hypocritical phrases, your attempt to find an impossible pretext? We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror. But the royal terrorists, the terrorists by the grace of God and the law, are in practice brutal, disdainful, and mean, in theory cowardly, secretive, and deceitful, and in both respects disreputable.

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The final issue of Neue Rheinische Zeitung (18 May 1849)''Marx-Engels Gesamt-Ausgabe, Vol. VI, p. 503
Philosophical Maxims
John Dewey
John Dewey
3 months 1 week ago
Democracy means the belief that humanistic...

Democracy means the belief that humanistic culture should prevail.

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Democracy and Human Nature, Freedom and Culture
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
1 week 4 days ago
No one can read the...

No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.

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Philosophical Maxims
Novalis
Novalis
3 months 2 weeks ago
I was still blind, but twinkling...

I was still blind, but twinkling stars did dance Throughout my being's limitless expanse, Nothing had yet drawn close, only at distant stages I found myself, a mere suggestion sensed in past and future ages.

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As quoted in Romantic Vision, Ethical Context: Novalis and Artistic Autonomy (1987) by Géza von Molnár, p. 2
Philosophical Maxims
Will Durant
Will Durant
1 month 1 week ago
The death of Alexander (323 BC)...

The death of Alexander (323 BC) quickened this process of decay. The boy-emperor, barbarian though he remained after all of Aristotle's tutoring, had yet learned to revere the rich culture of Greece, and had dreamed of spreading that culture through the Orient in the wake of his victorious armies.... But he had underrated the inertia and resistance of the Oriental mind, and the mass and depth of Oriental culture. It was only a youthful fancy, after all, to suppose that so immature and unstable a civilization as that of Greece could be imposed upon a civilization immeasurably more widespread, and rooted in the most venerable traditions. The quantity of Asia proved too much for the quality of Greece.

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Philosophical Maxims
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
3 months 2 weeks ago
It is in applied psychology, if...

It is in applied psychology, if anywhere, that today we should be modest and grant validity to a number of apparently contradictory opinions; for we are still far from having anything like a thorough knowledge of the human psyche, that most challenging field of scientific enquiry. For the present we have merely more or less plausible opinions that defy reconciliation.

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p. 57
Philosophical Maxims
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
3 months 4 weeks ago
I understand Being in all and...

I understand Being in all and over all, as there is nothing without participation in Being, and there is no being without Essence. Thus nothing can be free of the Divine Presence.

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As quoted in "Giordano Bruno" - Theosophy Vol. 26, No. 8
Philosophical Maxims
William Whewell
William Whewell
3 weeks ago
A Natural Group is steadily fixed,...

A Natural Group is steadily fixed, though not precisely limited; it is given in position, though not circumscribed; it is determined, not by a boundary without, but by a central point within; -not by what it strictly excludes, but by what it eminently includes; - by a Type, not by a Definition.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
3 months 2 weeks ago
To live one's love and hatred,...

To live one's love and hatred, to live that which one is means defeat, resignation, and death. The crimes of society, the hell that man has made or man become unconquerable cosmic forces.

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p. 61
Philosophical Maxims
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
5 months 2 weeks ago
I recognize the necessity of animal...

I recognize the necessity of animal experiments with my mind but not with my heart.

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Philosophical Maxims
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
4 months 2 weeks ago
All mortals tend to turn into...

All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be.

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Letter X
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
3 months 3 weeks ago
To study the meaning of man...

To study the meaning of man and of life - I am making significant progress here. I have faith in myself. Man is a mystery: if you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man.

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Personal correspondence (1839), as quoted in Dostoevsky: His Life and Work (1971) by Konstantin Mochulski, as translated by Michael A. Minihan, p. 17
Philosophical Maxims
Hermann Weyl
Hermann Weyl
1 month 1 day ago
To gaze up from the ruins...

To gaze up from the ruins of the oppressive present towards the stars is to recognise the indestructible world of laws, to strengthen faith in reason, to realise the "harmonia mundi" that transfuses all phenomena, and that never has been, nor will be, disturbed.

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From the Author's Preface to Third Edition
Philosophical Maxims
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
1 month 2 days ago
Ivanov came to quite the same...

Ivanov came to quite the same conclusion, though life supplied him with quite different material to think about. He puts it like this: many lives have a mystical sense, but not everyone reads it right; more often than not it is given to us in cryptic form, and when we fail to decipher it we despair because our lives seem meaningless... the secret of a great life is often a man's success in deciphering the mysterious symbols vouchsafed to him, understanding them, and so learning to walk in the true path.

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Philosophical Maxims
Aristotle
Aristotle
5 months 3 weeks 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
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
4 months 2 weeks ago
A text is not a text...

A text is not a text unless it hides from the first comer, from the first glance, the law of its composition and the rules of its game. A text remains, moreover, forever imperceptible. Its law and its rules are not, however, harbored in the inaccessibility of a secret; it is simply that they can never be booked, in the present, into anything that could rigorously be called a perception.

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Plato's Pharmacy, intro
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
3 weeks ago
If the present Congress errs in...

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and to talk by the hour?

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1782, reported in Henry Brougham, Baron Brougham and Vaux, Historical Sketches of Statesmen who Flourished in the Time of George III (1845), Vol. II, p. 62.
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 2 weeks ago
Ask, and it will be given...

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

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Matthew 7:7-8 (NKJV) (Also Luke 11:9-13)
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
4 months 3 weeks ago
If the slavery of the parents...

If the slavery of the parents be unjust, much more is their children's; if the parents were justly slaves, yet the children are born free; this is the natural, perfect right of all mankind; they are nothing but a just recompense to those who bring them up: And as much less is commonly spent on them than others, they have a right, in justice, to be proportionably sooner free.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
3 months 4 days ago
The motto should not be: Forgive...

The motto should not be: Forgive one another; rather, Understand one another.

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Philosophical Maxims
Friedrich Schlegel
Friedrich Schlegel
3 months 3 weeks ago
The most important subject, and the...

The most important subject, and the first problem of philosophy, is the restoration in man of the lost image of God; so far as this relates to science.Should this restoration in the internal consciousness be fully understood, and really brought about, the object of pure philosophy is attained.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
3 months 2 weeks ago
Unto whomsoever much is given, of...

Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.

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12:48
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
4 months 2 weeks ago
Don't get involved in partial problems,...

Don't get involved in partial problems, but always take flight to where there is a free view over the whole single great problem, even if this view is still not a clear one.

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Journal entry
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
5 months 3 weeks ago
In the Church which was founded...

In the Church which was founded at Corinth, St. Paul had special difficulties of the kind I have mentioned. In that flourishing commercial city, which through its shipping and situation, maintained a vital connexion between East and West, numerous crowds of people flocked together from all quarters, different in speech and in culture. As they mingled with the inhabitants, they produced, by contacts and contrasts, new and ever new differences. Even in the Church this differentiation endeavoured to make itself felt in sects and parties; and a kind of pagan wisdom made a special attempt to force itself forward as a teacher of truth. In his first letter to this church, from which the text I read is taken, St. Paul strongly combats this tendency.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Gray
John Gray
1 month 4 weeks ago
In a traditional reading eating the...

In a traditional reading eating the apple was the original sin; but, as Gnostics understood the story, the two primordial humans were right to eat the apple. The God that commanded them not to do so was not the true God but only a demiurge, a tyrannical underling exulting in its power, while the serpent came to free them from slavery. True, when they ate the apple Adam and Eve fell from grace. This was indeed the Fall of Man - a fall into the dim world of everyday consciousness. But the Fall need not be final. Having eaten its fill from the Tree of Knowledge, humankind can then rise into a state of conscious innocence. When this happens, Herr C. declares, it will be 'the final chapter in the history of the world'.

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The Faith of Puppets: The Freedom of the Marionette (p. 8)
Philosophical Maxims
Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson
3 months 2 weeks ago
Toute notre civilisation est aphrodisiaque Sex-appeal...

Sex-appeal is the keynote of our whole civilization.

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Chapter IV
Philosophical Maxims
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 3 weeks ago
Tyrants seldom want pretexts.

Tyrants seldom want pretexts.

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Philosophical Maxims
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
3 months 3 weeks ago
Education has for its object the...

Education has for its object the formation of character. To curb restive propensities, to awaken dormant sentiments, to strengthen the perceptions, and cultivate the tastes, to encourage this feeling and repress that, so as finally to develop the child into a man of well proportioned and harmonious nature - this is alike the aim of parent and teacher.

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Pt. II, Ch. 17 : The Rights of Children
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 month 1 week ago
They have their belief, these poor...

They have their belief, these poor Thibet people, that Providence sends down always an Incarnation of Himself into every generation. At bottom some belief in a kind of Pope! At bottom still better, belief that there is a Greatest Man; that he is discoverable; that, once discovered, we ought to treat him with an obedience which knows no bounds! This is the truth of Grand Lamaism; the "discoverability" is the only error here.

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Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
4 months 1 week ago
Cato requested old men not to...

Cato requested old men not to add the disgrace of wickedness to old age, which was accompanied with many other evils.

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Cato the Elder
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 months 2 days ago
Universality is....
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Main Content / General
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
3 months 3 weeks ago
France had endeavoured under the specious...

France had endeavoured under the specious pretext of an enlarged benevolence, to sow the seeds of enmity among nations, and destroy all local attachments, calling them narrow and illiberal-thereby to dissever the people from their governors.

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Speech in the House of Commons on the Traitorous Correspondence Bill (9 April 1793)
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
2 months 2 weeks ago
It is the poets and painters...

It is the poets and painters who react instantly to a new medium like radio or TV.

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(p. 53)
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
2 months 3 weeks ago
The world is not dialectical --...

The world is not dialectical -- it is sworn to extremes, not to equilibrium, sworn to radical antagonism, not to reconciliation or synthesis. This is also the principle of evil.

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Jean Baudrillard in: Eldon Taylor What Does That Mean?: Exploring Mind, Meaning, and Mysteries, Hay House, Inc, 15 January 2010, p. 171
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
3 months 2 weeks ago
An aphorism? Fire without flames. Understandable...

An aphorism? Fire without flames. Understandable that no one tries to warm himself at it.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
3 months 3 weeks ago
Darkness and light divide the course...

Darkness and light divide the course of time, and oblivion shares with memory, a great part even of our living beings; we slightly remember our felicities, and the smartest strokes of affliction leave but short smart upon us. Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroy us or themselves. To weep into stones are fables.

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Chapter V
Philosophical Maxims
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