86 ideas
| 13786 | Wisdom is called 'beautiful', because it performs fine works [Plato] |
| 13780 | Good people are no different from wise ones [Plato] |
| 19608 | Wisdom is just the last gasp of a dying civilization [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] |
| 19635 | Hegel produced modern optimism; he failed to grasp that consciousness never progresses [Hegel, by Cioran] |
| 8215 | Hegel was the last philosopher of the Book [Hegel, by Derrida] |
| 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] |
| 16011 | Hegel doesn't storm the heavens like the giants, but works his way up by syllogisms [Kierkegaard on Hegel] |
| 19638 | Metaphysics is a universalisation of physical anguish [Cioran] |
| 5433 | For Hegel, things are incomplete, and contain external references in their own nature [Hegel, by Russell] |
| 19620 | Great systems of philosophy are just brilliant tautologies [Cioran] |
| 3301 | On the continent it is generally believed that metaphysics died with Hegel [Benardete,JA on Hegel] |
| 19661 | Making sufficient reason an absolute devalues the principle of non-contradiction [Hegel, by Meillassoux] |
| 13778 | A dialectician is someone who knows how to ask and to answer questions [Plato] |
| 19630 | No great idea ever emerged from a dialogue [Cioran] |
| 20952 | Rather than in three stages, Hegel presented his dialectic as 'negation of the negation' [Hegel, by Bowie] |
| 19636 | Truth is just an error insufficiently experienced [Cioran] |
| 19642 | Eventually every 'truth' is guaranteed by the police [Cioran] |
| 13776 | Truths say of what is that it is, falsehoods say of what is that it is not [Plato] |
| 21777 | Negation of negation doubles back into a self-relationship [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 13777 | A name is a sort of tool [Plato] |
| 13790 | A name-giver might misname something, then force other names to conform to it [Plato] |
| 13791 | Things must be known before they are named, so it can't be the names that give us knowledge [Plato] |
| 13789 | Anyone who knows a thing's name also knows the thing [Plato] |
| 19632 | An axiom has no more authority than a frenzy [Cioran] |
| 5645 | The dialectical opposition of being and nothing is resolved in passing to the concept of becoming [Hegel, by Scruton] |
| 5646 | Hegel gives an ontological proof of the existence of everything [Hegel, by Scruton] |
| 2063 | How can beauty have identity if it changes? [Plato] |
| 13775 | We only succeed in cutting if we use appropriate tools, not if we approach it randomly [Plato] |
| 21755 | For Hegel, categories shift their form in the course of history [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 21754 | Our concepts and categories disclose the world, because we are part of the world [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 22079 | Hegel said Kant's fixed categories actually vary with culture and era [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 13787 | Doesn't each thing have an essence, just as it has other qualities? [Plato] |
| 13774 | Things don't have every attribute, and essence isn't private, so each thing has an essence [Plato] |
| 13772 | Is the being or essence of each thing private to each person? [Plato] |
| 13788 | If we made a perfect duplicate of Cratylus, there would be two Cratyluses [Plato] |
| 9225 | Hegel reputedly claimed to know a priori that there are five planets [Hegel, by Field,H] |
| 13792 | There can't be any knowledge if things are constantly changing [Plato] |
| 13781 | Soul causes the body to live, and gives it power to breathe and to be revitalized [Plato] |
| 19626 | Our instincts had to be blunted and diminished, to make way for consciousness! [Cioran] |
| 19633 | We use concepts to master our fears; saying 'death' releases us from confronting it [Cioran] |
| 19615 | I want to suppress in myself the normal reasons people have for action [Cioran] |
| 19628 | At a civilisation's peak values are all that matters, and people unconsciously live by them [Cioran] |
| 19646 | Values don't accumulate; they are ruthlessly replaced [Cioran] |
| 19614 | Lovers are hateful, apart from their hovering awareness of death [Cioran] |
| 13785 | 'Arete' signifies lack of complexity and a free-flowing soul [Plato] |
| 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] |
| 21758 | Humans have no fixed identity, but produce and reveal their shifting identity in history [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 19644 | History is the bloody rejection of boredom [Cioran] |
| 19641 | If you lack beliefs, boredom is your martyrdom [Cioran] |
| 20414 | Hegel's Absolute Spirit is the union of human rational activity at a moment, and whatever that sustains [Hegel, by Eldridge] |
| 19613 | It is pointless to refuse or accept the social order; we must endure it like the weather [Cioran] |
| 3909 | Society isn’t founded on a contract, since contracts presuppose a society [Hegel, by Scruton] |
| 19627 | Opportunists can save a nation, and heroes can ruin it [Cioran] |
| 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] |
| 19639 | We all need sexual secrets! [Cioran] |
| 4347 | When man wills the natural, it is no longer natural [Hegel] |
| 13779 | The natural offspring of a lion is called a 'lion' (but what about the offspring of a king?) [Plato] |
| 13783 | Even the gods love play [Plato] |
| 4188 | Hegel's entire philosophy is nothing but a monstrous amplification of the ontological proof [Schopenhauer on Hegel] |
| 19603 | Why is God so boring, and why does God resemble humanity so little? [Cioran] |
| 6686 | Hegel said he was offering an encyclopaedic rationalisation of Christianity [Hegel, by Graham] |
| 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] |
| 19623 | Circles of hell are ridiculous; all that matters is to be there [Cioran] |