99 ideas
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 23066 | Negation doesn't arise from reasoning, but from deep instincts [Cioran] |
| 19632 | An axiom has no more authority than a frenzy [Cioran] |
| 16588 | I prefer a lack of form to mean non-existence, than to think of some quasi-existence [Augustine] |
| 23077 | The word 'being' is very tempting, but in fact means nothing at all [Cioran] |
| 22979 | Three main questions seem to be whether a thing is, what it is, and what sort it is [Augustine] |
| 23068 | People who really believe anti-realism don't bother to prove it [Cioran] |
| 23073 | Convictions are failures to study anything thoroughly [Cioran] |
| 23078 | Opinions are fine, but having convictions means something has gone wrong [Cioran] |
| 3912 | I must exist in order to be mistaken, so that even if I am mistaken, I can't be wrong about my own existence [Augustine] |
| 22167 | Our images of bodies are not produced by the bodies, but by our own minds [Augustine, by Aquinas] |
| 22117 | Our minds grasp reality by direct illumination (rather than abstraction from experience) [Augustine, by Matthews] |
| 22981 | Mind and memory are the same, as shown in 'bear it in mind' or 'it slipped from mind' [Augustine] |
| 22980 | Memory contains innumerable principles of maths, as well as past sense experiences [Augustine] |
| 22983 | We would avoid remembering sorrow or fear if that triggered the emotions afresh [Augustine] |
| 22977 | I can distinguish different smells even when I am not experiencing them [Augustine] |
| 22982 | Why does joy in my mind make me happy, but joy in my memory doesn't? [Augustine] |
| 22978 | Memory is so vast that I cannot recognise it as part of my mind [Augustine] |
| 19626 | Our instincts had to be blunted and diminished, to make way for consciousness! [Cioran] |
| 22984 | Without memory I could not even speak of myself [Augustine] |
| 23076 | If people always acted without words we would take them for robots [Cioran] |
| 5982 | If the future does not exist, how can prophets see it? [Augustine] |
| 6683 | The contact of spirit and body is utterly amazing, and incomprehensible [Augustine] |
| 22976 | Memories are preserved separately, according to category [Augustine] |
| 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] |
| 22118 | Augustine created the modern concept of the will [Augustine, by Matthews] |
| 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] |
| 19646 | Values don't accumulate; they are ruthlessly replaced [Cioran] |
| 4348 | Love, and do what you will [Augustine] |
| 19614 | Lovers are hateful, apart from their hovering awareness of death [Cioran] |
| 7821 | Pagans produced three hundred definitions of the highest good [Augustine, by Grayling] |
| 22985 | Everyone wants happiness [Augustine] |
| 22119 | Augustine said (unusually) that 'ought' does not imply 'can' [Augustine, by Matthews] |
| 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] |
| 23069 | Fear cures boredom, because it is stronger [Cioran] |
| 19644 | History is the bloody rejection of boredom [Cioran] |
| 19602 | You are stuck in the past if you don't know 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] |
| 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] |
| 1868 | The world was made as much for animals as for man [Celsus] |
| 5984 | Maybe time is an extension of the mind [Augustine] |
| 22888 | To be aware of time it can only exist in the mind, as memory or anticipation [Augustine, by Bardon] |
| 5980 | How can ten days ahead be a short time, if it doesn't exist? [Augustine] |
| 5979 | If the past is no longer, and the future is not yet, how can they exist? [Augustine] |
| 5981 | The whole of the current year is not present, so how can it exist? [Augustine] |
| 5978 | I know what time is, until someone asks me to explain it [Augustine] |
| 5983 | I disagree with the idea that time is nothing but cosmic movement [Augustine] |
| 5977 | Heaven and earth must be created, because they are subject to change [Augustine] |
| 22887 | If God existed before creation, why would a perfect being desire to change things? [Augustine, by Bardon] |
| 5976 | If God is outside time in eternity, can He hear prayers? [Augustine] |
| 16702 | All things are in the present time to God [Augustine] |
| 19603 | Why is God so boring, and why does God resemble humanity so little? [Cioran] |
| 1867 | Christians presented Jesus as a new kind of logos to oppose that of the philosophers [Celsus] |
| 22116 | Augustine identified Donatism, Pelagianism and Manicheism as the main heresies [Augustine, by Matthews] |
| 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] |
| 23063 | The first man obviously found paradise unendurable [Cioran] |
| 19623 | Circles of hell are ridiculous; all that matters is to be there [Cioran] |
| 19338 | Augustine said evil does not really exist, and evil is a limitation in goodness [Augustine, by Perkins] |