122 ideas
421 | Men who love wisdom must be inquirers into very many things indeed [Heraclitus] |
19608 | Wisdom is just the last gasp of a dying civilization [Cioran] |
23064 | So-called wisdom is just pondering things instead of acting [Cioran] |
19624 | Intelligence only fully flourishes at the end of a historical period [Cioran] |
19599 | Ideas are neutral, but people fill them with passion and weakness [Cioran] |
19631 | The history of ideas (and deeds) occurs in a meaningless environment [Cioran] |
19645 | Some thinkers would have been just as dynamic, no matter when they had lived [Cioran] |
19629 | A nation gives expression to its sum of values, and is then exhausted [Cioran] |
1491 | Everyone has the potential for self-knowledge and sound thinking [Heraclitus] |
18450 | Philosophy has its own mode of death, by separating soul from body [Porphyry] |
5863 | Reason is eternal, but men are foolish [Heraclitus] |
19618 | I abandoned philosophy because it didn't acknowledge melancholy and human weakness [Cioran] |
19621 | Originality in philosophy is just the invention of terms [Cioran] |
19607 | The mind is superficial, only concerned with the arrangement of events, not their significance [Cioran] |
19638 | Metaphysics is a universalisation of physical anguish [Cioran] |
19620 | Great systems of philosophy are just brilliant tautologies [Cioran] |
23072 | Systems are the worst despotism, in philosophy and in life [Cioran] |
23075 | A text explained ceases to be a text [Cioran] |
414 | Logos is common to all, but most people live as if they have a private understanding [Heraclitus] |
416 | Beautiful harmony comes from things that are in opposition to one another [Heraclitus] |
425 | A thing can have opposing tensions but be in harmony, like a lyre [Heraclitus] |
19630 | No great idea ever emerged from a dialogue [Cioran] |
19636 | Truth is just an error insufficiently experienced [Cioran] |
19642 | Eventually every 'truth' is guaranteed by the police [Cioran] |
1312 | If everything is and isn't then everything is true, and a midway between true and false makes everything false [Aristotle on Heraclitus] |
23066 | Negation doesn't arise from reasoning, but from deep instincts [Cioran] |
19632 | An axiom has no more authority than a frenzy [Cioran] |
23077 | The word 'being' is very tempting, but in fact means nothing at all [Cioran] |
23068 | People who really believe anti-realism don't bother to prove it [Cioran] |
18451 | The presence of the incorporeal is only known by certain kinds of disposition [Porphyry] |
15658 | The hidden harmony is stronger than the visible [Heraclitus] |
15034 | Are genera and species real or conceptual? bodies or incorporeal? in sensibles or separate from them? [Porphyry] |
13782 | Everything gives way, and nothing stands fast [Heraclitus] |
18459 | Diversity arises from the power of unity [Porphyry] |
11853 | A mixed drink separates if it is not stirred [Heraclitus] |
427 | It is not possible to step twice into the same river [Heraclitus] |
11091 | You can bathe in the same river twice, but not in the same river stage [Quine on Heraclitus] |
2064 | If flux is continuous, then lack of change can't be a property, so everything changes in every possible way [Plato on Heraclitus] |
23078 | Opinions are fine, but having convictions means something has gone wrong [Cioran] |
23073 | Convictions are failures to study anything thoroughly [Cioran] |
430 | Senses are no use if the soul is corrupt [Heraclitus] |
1500 | When we sleep, reason closes down as the senses do [Heraclitus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
18452 | Memory is not conserved images, but reproduction of previous thought [Porphyry] |
417 | Donkeys prefer chaff to gold [Heraclitus] |
426 | Sea water is life-giving for fish, but not for people [Heraclitus] |
431 | Health, feeding and rest are only made good by disease, hunger and weariness [Heraclitus] |
18453 | Intelligence is aware of itself, so the intelligence is both the thinker and the thought [Porphyry] |
18462 | The soul is everywhere and nowhere in the body, and must be its cause [Porphyry] |
19626 | Our instincts had to be blunted and diminished, to make way for consciousness! [Cioran] |
18463 | Successful introspection reveals the substrate along with the object of thought [Porphyry] |
23076 | If people always acted without words we would take them for robots [Cioran] |
18458 | The soul is bound to matter by the force of its own disposition [Porphyry] |
19633 | We use concepts to master our fears; saying 'death' releases us from confronting it [Cioran] |
23065 | If only we could write like a reptile, of endless sensations and no concepts! [Cioran] |
19615 | I want to suppress in myself the normal reasons people have for action [Cioran] |
23071 | We could only be responsible if we had consented before birth to who we are [Cioran] |
23070 | We morally dissolve if we spend time with excessive beauty [Cioran] |
19628 | At a civilisation's peak values are all that matters, and people unconsciously live by them [Cioran] |
429 | To God (though not to humans) all things are beautiful and good and just [Heraclitus] |
12294 | Good and evil are the same thing [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
18464 | Justice is each person fulfilling his function [Porphyry] |
19646 | Values don't accumulate; they are ruthlessly replaced [Cioran] |
419 | If one does not hope, one will not find the unhoped-for, since nothing leads to it [Heraclitus] |
18448 | We should avoid the pleasures of love, or at least, should not enact our dreams [Porphyry] |
19614 | Lovers are hateful, apart from their hovering awareness of death [Cioran] |
415 | If happiness is bodily pleasure, then oxen are happy when they have vetch to eat [Heraclitus] |
5155 | It is hard to fight against emotion, but harder still to fight against pleasure [Heraclitus] |
18444 | Civil virtues make us behave benevolently, and thereby unite citizens [Porphyry] |
18445 | Civil virtues control the passions, and make us conform to our nature [Porphyry] |
18446 | Purificatory virtues detach the soul completely from the passions [Porphyry] |
433 | For man character is destiny [Heraclitus] |
18447 | There are practical, purificatory, contemplative, and exemplary virtues [Porphyry] |
19634 | Man is never himself; he always aims at less than life, or more than life [Cioran] |
19619 | To live authentically, we must see that philosophy is totally useless [Cioran] |
19622 | The pointlessness of our motives and irrelevance of our gestures reveals our vacuity [Cioran] |
19617 | Evidence suggests that humans do not have a purpose [Cioran] |
19612 | The universe is dirty and fragile, as if a scandal in nothingness had produced its matter [Cioran] |
19604 | Unlike other creatures, mankind seems lost in nature [Cioran] |
19606 | We can only live because our imagination and memory are poor [Cioran] |
19601 | Life is now more dreaded than death [Cioran] |
23074 | In anxiety people cling to what reinforces it, because it is a deep need [Cioran] |
19640 | No one is brave enough to say they don't want to do anything; we despise such a view [Cioran] |
19602 | You are stuck in the past if you don't know boredom [Cioran] |
23069 | Fear cures boredom, because it is stronger [Cioran] |
19644 | History is the bloody rejection of boredom [Cioran] |
19641 | If you lack beliefs, boredom is your martyrdom [Cioran] |
23062 | It is better to watch the hours pass, than trying to fill them [Cioran] |
19613 | It is pointless to refuse or accept the social order; we must endure it like the weather [Cioran] |
19627 | Opportunists can save a nation, and heroes can ruin it [Cioran] |
422 | The people should fight for the law as if for their city-wall [Heraclitus] |
19625 | The ideal is to impose a religion by force, and then live in doubt about its beliefs [Cioran] |
19605 | Despite endless suggestions, no one has found a goal for history [Cioran] |
19637 | History is wonderfully devoid of meaning [Cioran] |
19610 | Religions see suicide as insubordination [Cioran] |
19611 | No one has ever found a good argument against suicide [Cioran] |
19609 | If you have not contemplated suicide, you are a miserable worm [Cioran] |
23067 | Suicide is pointless, because it always comes too late [Cioran] |
19639 | We all need sexual secrets! [Cioran] |
18456 | Unified real existence is neither great nor small, though greatness and smallness participate in it [Porphyry] |
614 | Heraclitus said sometimes everything becomes fire [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
424 | Reason tells us that all things are one [Heraclitus] |
5096 | Heraclitus says that at some time everything becomes fire [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
17539 | The sayings of Heraclitus are still correct, if we replace 'fire' with 'energy' [Heraclitus, by Heisenberg] |
3054 | Heraclitus said fire could be transformed to create the other lower elements [Heraclitus, by Diog. Laertius] |
15660 | Logos is the source of everything, and my theories separate and explain each nature [Heraclitus] |
12269 | All things are in a state of motion [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
18454 | Time is the circular movement of the soul [Porphyry] |
18455 | Some think time is seen at rest, as well as in movement [Porphyry] |
420 | The cosmos is eternal not created, and is an ever-living and changing fire [Heraclitus] |
18460 | God is nowhere, and hence everywhere [Porphyry] |
1499 | Heraclitus says intelligence draws on divine reason [Heraclitus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
18461 | Everything existing proceeds from divinity, and is within divinity [Porphyry] |
19603 | Why is God so boring, and why does God resemble humanity so little? [Cioran] |
15659 | Purifying yourself with blood is as crazy as using mud to wash off mud [Heraclitus] |
19616 | As the perfect wisdom of detachment, philosophy offers no rivals to Taoism [Cioran] |
19600 | When man abandons religion, he then follows new fake gods and mythologies [Cioran] |
19643 | A religion needs to motivate killings, and cannot tolerate rivals [Cioran] |
1501 | In their ignorance people pray to statues, which is like talking to a house [Heraclitus] |
18449 | Nature binds or detaches body to soul, but soul itself joins and detaches soul from body [Porphyry] |
18457 | Individual souls are all connected, though distinct, and without dividing universal Soul [Porphyry] |
23063 | The first man obviously found paradise unendurable [Cioran] |
19623 | Circles of hell are ridiculous; all that matters is to be there [Cioran] |