Top Ten Aphorisms on Philosophy

The Top Ten

1 Silence is a source of great strength - Lao Tzu

2 Whatever is done from love always occurs beyond good and evil - Friedrich Nietzsche

3 Do not be afraid of beasts, but friends - as the beast will wound your body, but a friend will wound your soul. Buddha

4 Like associates with like - Marcus Tullius Cicero

5 History is the science of what never happens twice - Paul Valery

In the strictest sense, this is true (as far as is verifiable). But in a real-world sense, history repeats itself continually. The problem is ignorance of past events, and remarkably short memories of recent ones.

6 Consciousness reigns but does not rule. Paul Valery

7 Do not respond to the evil or evil will never end - Buddha

8 No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted - Aesop

9 The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance - Socrates

10 It is untrue that equality is a law of nature. Nature has no equality; its sovereign law is subordination and dependence - Luc de Clapiers de Vauvenargues

The Contenders

11 Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything - Aesop

12 We are tainted by modern philosophy which has taught us that all is good, whereas evil has polluted everything and in a very real sense all is evil, since nothing is in its proper place - Joseph de Maistre

13 Our future is based on our past - Paul Valery

14 Real life is, to most men, a long second-best, a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible - Bertrand Russell

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