102 ideas
| 14857 | The highest wisdom has the guise of simplicity [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Truth tends to reveal its highest wisdom in the guise of simplicity. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 609) |
| 22733 | Epicurus accepted God in his popular works, but not in his writings on nature [Epicurus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus in his popular exposition allows the existence of God, but in expounding the real nature of things he does not allow it. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Physicists (two books) I.58 | |
| A reaction: Plato and Aristotle also distinguished their esoteric from their exoteric writings, but this is an indication that thei popular works may always have presented safer doctrines. |
| 13291 | Slavery to philosophy brings true freedom [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: To win true freedom you must be a slave to philosophy. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 008 | |
| A reaction: A lovely idea. It is one thing to free the body, or to free one's social situation, but the challenge to 'free your mind' is either romantic nonsense or totally baffling, apart from the suggestion offered here. Reason is freedom. Very Kantian. |
| 22758 | Philosophy aims at a happy life, through argument and discussion [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is an activity which secures the happy life by arguments and discussions. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Ethicists (one book) VI.169 | |
| A reaction: Presumably this aims at the happiness of the participant. Universal happiness would need to be much more political. If this is your aim then you can't just follow the winds of the argument, but must channel it towards happiness. No nasty truths? |
| 14523 | We should come to philosophy free from any taint of culture [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: I congratulate you, sir, because you have come to philosophy free of any taint of culture. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) | |
| A reaction: [source: Athenaeus, 'Deipnosophists' 13 588b] No one nowadays thinks such an aspiration remotely possible, not least because the culture is embedded in your native language, but I find the idea very appealing. |
| 22240 | The aim of medicine is removal of sickness, and philosophy similarly removes our affections [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Just as there is no benefit to medicine if it does not heal the sicknesses [nosos] of bodies, so too there is none to philosophy unless it expels that affections of the soul. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE], fr 221), quoted by James Allen - Soul's Virtue and the Health of the Body p.78 | |
| A reaction: This sounds rather Buddhist, if the only route to happiness is to suppress the emotions. Epicurus probably refers to the more extreme desires, which only lead to harm. Galen quotes Chrysippus as endorsing this idea (see footnote 5). |
| 14854 | Deep thinkers know that they are always wrong [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Whoever thinks more deeply knows that he is always wrong, whatever his acts and judgments. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 518) |
| 14833 | Comedy is a transition from fear to exuberance [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The transition from momentary fear to short-lived exuberance is called the 'comic'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 169) |
| 1484 | We should say nothing of the whole if our contact is with the parts [Epicurus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: We should make no assertion about the whole when our contact is with the parts. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes 1109e |
| 2670 | Epicurus despises and laughs at the whole of dialectic [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus despises and laughs at the whole of dialectic. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica II.30.97 |
| 14853 | Truth finds fewest champions not when it is dangerous, but when it is boring [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The champions of truth are hardest to find, not when it is dangerous to tell it, but rather when it is boring. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 506) |
| 24075 | Convictions, more than lies, are the great enemy of truth [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 483) | |
| A reaction: Love this one. Especially in western democracies in the 2020s. If we value truth, we must be fallibilists. |
| 21668 | Epicurus rejected excluded middle, because accepting it for events is fatalistic [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus said that not every proposition is either true or false. ...Epicurus was afraid that if he admits that every proposition is true or false he will also have to admit that all events are caused by fate (if they are so from all eternity). | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 10.21 | |
| A reaction: Epicurus proposed his 'swerve' in the movements of atoms to avoid this fatalism. Epicurus is agreeing with Aristotle, who did not accept excluded middle for a future contingent sea-fight. |
| 21676 | Epicureans say disjunctions can be true whiile the disjuncts are not true [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Epicureans make the impudent assertion that disjunctions consisting of contrary propositions are true, but that the statements contained in the propositions are neither of them true. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 16.36 | |
| A reaction: Is that 'it is definitely one or the other, but we haven't a clue which one'? Seems to fit speculations about Goldbach's Conjecture. It doesn't sound terribly impudent to me. Or is it the crazy 'It's definitely one of them, but it's neither of them'? |
| 14858 | Being certain presumes that there are absolute truths, and means of arriving at them [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Conviction is the belief that in some point of knowledge one possesses absolute truth. Such a belief presumes, then, that absolute truths exists; likewise, that the perfect methods for arriving at them have been found. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 630) |
| 1823 | We can't seek for things if we have no idea of them [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: We could not seek for anything if we had not some notion of it. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.21 |
| 1824 | To name something, you must already have an idea of what it is [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: We could not give names to things, if we had not a preliminary notion of what the things were. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.21 |
| 5949 | Epicurus says colours are relative to the eye, not intrinsic to bodies [Epicurus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus says that colours are not intrinsic to bodies but a result of certain arrangements and positions relative to the eye, which implies that body is no more colourless than coloured. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE], Fr 30) by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes §1110 | |
| A reaction: This seems to me such a self-evident truth that I am puzzled as to why anyone would claim that colours are real features of bodies. Epicurus points out that entering a dark room we see no colour, but then colour appears after a while. |
| 1821 | Sensations cannot be judged, because similar sensations have equal value, and different ones have nothing in common [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Sensation is out of reach of control, because one sensation cannot judge another which resembles itself, as they have equal value, and different sensations have different objects. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.20 | |
| A reaction: Scepticism about the possibility of purely empirical knowledge; an interesting comment on the question of whether perceptions contain any intrinsic knowledge. |
| 1820 | The criteria of truth are senses, preconceptions and passions [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: The criteria of truth are the senses, the preconceptions, and the passions. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.20 |
| 1822 | Reason can't judge senses, as it is based on them [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Reason cannot judge the senses, because it is based on them. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.20 |
| 14830 | Intuition only recognises what is possible, not what exists or is certain [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: 'To intuit' does not mean to recognise the existence of a thing to any extent, but rather to hold it to be possible, in that one wishes or fears it. 'Intuition' takes us not one step farther into the land of certainty. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 131) | |
| A reaction: I like this remark. I am sympathetic to the view that the actual world has modal properties (in opposition to Sider, for example). To apprehend dispositions is precisely to apprehend possibilities. Intuition is a thousand interwoven inductions. |
| 4549 | Epicurus denied knowledge in order to retain morality or hedonism as the highest values [Nietzsche on Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus denied the possibility of knowledge in order to retain moral (or hedonistic) values as the highest values. | |
| From: comment on Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - The Will to Power (notebooks) §578 | |
| A reaction: The history of philosophy suggests that this dichotomy is unnecessary. Dogmatist place a high value on multitudes of things. |
| 2668 | Epicurus says if one of a man's senses ever lies, none of his senses should ever be believed [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus says that if one sense has told a lie once in a man's life, no sense must ever be believed. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica II.25.79 |
| 1487 | When entering a dark room it is colourless, but colour gradually appears [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: On entering a dark room we see no colour, but do so after waiting a short time. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes 1110d |
| 1482 | If two people disagree over taste, who is right? [Epicurus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: If one person says the wine is dry and the other that it is sweet, and neither errs in his sensation, how is the wine any more dry than sweet? | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes 1109b |
| 1483 | Bath water is too hot for some, too cold for others [Epicurus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: In the very same bath some treat the water as too hot, others as too cold. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes 1109b |
| 14526 | The rational soul is in the chest, and the non-rational soul is spread through the body [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Democritus and Epicurus say the soul has two parts, one which is rational and is situated in the chest area, and the other which is non-rational and is spread throughout the entire compound of the body | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) | |
| A reaction: [source Aetius 4.4.6] |
| 6035 | Soul is made of four stuffs, giving warmth, rest, motion and perception [Epicurus, by Aetius] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus says the soul is a blend of fiery stuff (for bodily warmth), airy stuff (rest), breath (motion), and a nameless stuff (sense-perception). | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Aetius - fragments/reports 4.3.11 | |
| A reaction: Obviously Epicurus thought the four stuffs were different combinations of atoms, rather than being elements. Is there no stuff which gives reason? Reason must reduce to motion, presumably. |
| 20378 | Just as skin hides the horrors of the body, vanity conceals the passions of the soul [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Just as the bones, flesh, intestines, and blood vessels are enclosed with skin, which makes the sight of a man bearable, so the stirrings and passions of the soul are covered up by vanity: it is the skin of the soul. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 082) | |
| A reaction: What a glorious analogy! None of us should underestimate our vanity. The least vain people you ever meet can reveal their vanity if you challenge them close to home. Try accusing them of vanity! Attack their essential character! (No, don't do that). |
| 6018 | Epicurus was the first to see the free will problem, and he was a libertarian [Epicurus, by Long/Sedley] |
| Full Idea: By posing the problem of determinism, Epicurus became arguably the first philosopher to recognise the philosophical centrality of what we call the Free Will Question. His strongly libertarian approach is strongly contrasted with Stoic determinism. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by AA Long / DN Sedley - Hellenic Philosophers commentary | |
| A reaction: Epicurus introduced the rather dubious 'swerve' of the atoms to make room for free will. It seems to me more consistent to stick with the determinism of Democritus. Zeno became a determinist in reaction to Epicurus. |
| 20922 | Epicurus showed that the swerve can give free motion in the atoms [Epicurus, by Diogenes of Oen.] |
| Full Idea: There is a free motion in the atoms, which Democritus did not discover, but which Epicurus brought to light, and which consists in a swerve, as he demonstrated on the basis of what is seen to be the case? | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes (Oen) - Wall inscription 54.II-III | |
| A reaction: I presume the last bit means that we see that we have freedom of choice, and infer the swerve in the atoms as the only possible explanation. The worry for libertarians is, of course, who is in charge of the swerve. |
| 14516 | There is no necessity to live with necessity [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Necessity is a bad thing, but there is no necessity to live with necessity. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE], 9) |
| 1909 | How can pleasure or judgement occur in a heap of atoms? [Sext.Empiricus on Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: If Epicurus makes the end consist in pleasure and asserts that the soul, like all else, is composed of atoms, it is impossible to explain how in a heap of atoms there can come about pleasure, or judgement of the good. | |
| From: comment on Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Outlines of Pyrrhonism III.187 | |
| A reaction: This is a nice statement of the mind-body problem. Ontologically, physics still seems to present reality as a 'heap of particles', which gives no basis for the emergence of anything as strange as consciousness. But then magnetism is pretty strange. |
| 14820 | People always do what they think is right, according to the degree of their intellect [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Socrates and Plato are right: whatever man does, he always acts for the good; that is, in a way that seems to him good (useful) according to the degree of his intellect, the prevailing measure of his rationality. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 102) | |
| A reaction: I associate this doctrine much more with Socrates than with Plato - but Nietzsche was a great classical scholar. |
| 14856 | Our judgment seems to cause our nature, but actually judgment arises from our nature [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: It seems that our thinking and judging are to be made the cause of our nature after the fact, but actually our nature causes us to think and judge one way or the other. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 608) |
| 14842 | Why are the strong tastes of other people so contagious? [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Why are likes and dislikes so contagious that one can scarcely live in proximity to a person of strong sensibilities without being filled like a vessel with pros and cons? | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 371) | |
| A reaction: I was on the receiving end of this when young, and I think it influenced me to propound stronger views about things than I could ever justify, since my natural disposition is to be cautious about all views. Nice question. Why? |
| 14835 | Artists are not especially passionate, but they pretend to be [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Artists are by no means people of great passion, but they often pretend to be. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 211) | |
| A reaction: Presumably people can gradually become what they consistently pretend to be. |
| 468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
| Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice. | |
| From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 22473 | Nietzsche said the will doesn't exist, so it can't ground moral responsibility [Nietzsche, by Foot] |
| Full Idea: Nietzsche challenged belief in free will, on the ground that will itself …is non-existent. The will is in truth nothing but a complex of sensations, as of power and resistance, and it is illusion to think of it as a basis for 'moral responsibility'. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 107) by Philippa Foot - Nietzsche's Immoralism p.153 | |
| A reaction: Modern neuroscience seems to support Nietzsche on this, though I will continue to use the concept of 'will' in philosophy, to mean the main brain events which normally combine in decision-making. That makes the will a process, not a entity. |
| 7814 | It was Epicurus who made the question of the will's freedom central to ethics [Epicurus, by Grayling] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus was responsible for the innovatory recognition that the question of the will's freedom is central to ethics. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by A.C. Grayling - What is Good? Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: Compare Ideas 7672 and 6018. Obviously ethical action needs freedom, but the idea of a 'free will' is quite different. It is a fiction, created to give some sort of arrogant ultimate responsibility to our actions, like God. |
| 14807 | The history of morality rests on an error called 'responsibility', which rests on an error called 'free will' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The history of moral feelings is the history of an error, an error called 'responsibility', which in turn rests on an error called 'freedom of the will'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 039) | |
| A reaction: I totally agree with this, though I think the term 'responsible' is useful in ethics, though only in the sense that the lightning was responsible for the thunder. Nietzsche appears to have anticipated Mackie's error theory about morality. |
| 14823 | Ceasing to believe in human responsibility is bitter, if you had based the nobility of humanity on it [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Man's complete lack of responsibility, for his behaviour and for his nature, is the bitterest drop which the man of knowledge must swallow, if he had been in the habit of seeing responsibility and duty as humanity's claim to nobility. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 107) | |
| A reaction: If you were seeing humanity as little transient angels, living a moral life that was an echo of God's, then you needed cutting down to size. But if you ask if there is anything 'noble' in the universe, it will still be the fine deeds of humanity. |
| 14824 | It is absurd to blame nature and necessity; we should no more praise actions than we praise plants or artworks [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Man may no longer praise, no longer blame, for it is nonsensical to praise and blame nature and necessity. Just as he loves a work of art (or a plant) but does not praise it, because it can do nothing about itself, so he must regard human actions. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 107) | |
| A reaction: But humans can 'do something about themselves'. They can read the works of Nietzsche. He overestimates the importance of the loss of free will, when we grasp that there is no such thing. |
| 14812 | Intellect is tied to morality, because it requires good memory and powerful imagination [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises one has given. One must have strong powers of imagination to be able to have pity. So closely is morality bound to the quality of the intellect. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 059) | |
| A reaction: Nice to see him say that strong powers of imagination are an 'intellectual' quality, which I think is not properly understood by the more geeky sort of intellectual. |
| 14810 | Originally it was the rulers who requited good for good and evil for evil who were called 'good' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: In the soul of the original ruling clans and castes, the man who has the power to requite goodness with goodness, evil with evil, and really does practice requital by being grateful and vengeful, is called 'good'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 045) | |
| A reaction: The idea that evil should indeed repay evil was very much a feature of goodness until the philosophers came in on the act. In those days no one else had any power, so they had no scope for goodness. |
| 14831 | No one has ever done anything that was entirely for other people [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Never has a man done anything that was only for others and without any personal motivation. …How could the ego act without ego? | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 133) | |
| A reaction: This is only a denial of the purest of 'pure' altruism. It is hard to imagine anyone performing an altruistic action which permanently shamed the reputationof its performer - though it might be possible in a nicely contrived fiction. |
| 14855 | Simultaneous love and respect are impossible; love has no separation or rank, but respect admits power [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible to be loved and respected by the same person. For the man who respects another acknowledges his power; his condition is one of awe. But love acknowledges no power, nothing that separates, differentiates, ranks higher or subordinates. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 603) | |
| A reaction: Depends what you mean by 'respect', but this looks like nonsense. Do we 'respect' someone because they point a gun at us? I would say love and respect are inseparable. |
| 14815 | We get enormous pleasure from tales of noble actions [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: How much pleasure we get from morality! Just think what a river of agreeable tears has flowed at tales of noble, generous actions. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 091) | |
| A reaction: How can anyone not adore Nietzsche? The pleasure of a noble deed is the most piercing and the deepest pleasure known to us. It isn't 'just' a pleasure. |
| 3562 | Fine things are worthless if they give no pleasure [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: I spit on the fine and those who emptily admire it, when it doesn't make any pleasure. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Julia Annas - The Morality of Happiness Ch.16 | |
| A reaction: in Athenaeus |
| 1840 | Pleasure is the chief good because it is the most natural, especially for animals [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Pleasure is the chief good, because all animals from the moment of their birth are delighted with pleasure and offended by pain by their natural instinct, without the employment of reason. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.29 | |
| A reaction: The highest pleasure of predators is likely to be the killing of weaker animals. What all animals do isn't much of a criterion for the natural chief good. They also breathe. |
| 14849 | We can only achieve happy moments, not happy eras [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The destiny of men is designed for happy moments (every life has those), but not for happy eras. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 471) | |
| A reaction: The vicissitudes of life (my favourite word!) are such that even the most serene and well-adjusted person is going to be perturbed on several days of the week, even if only by the unhappiness of the people around them. |
| 1839 | Pains of the soul are worse than pains of the body, because it feels the past and future [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: The pains of the soul are worst, for the flesh is only sensible of present affliction, but the soul feels the past, present and future. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.29 | |
| A reaction: I don't think feeling extended across time is very relevant. What matters is that pains of the soul usually endure far longer than physical suffering. |
| 1842 | Pleasures only differ in their duration and the part of the body affected [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: If every pleasure lasted long, and affected the whole body, then there would be no difference between one pleasure and another | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.31.08 | |
| A reaction: This seems to miss out on intensity, which is of great importance to most pleasure seekers. Also it is a pleasure to be alive, which is lifelong, but we barely notice it. |
| 3557 | The end for Epicurus is static pleasure [Epicurus, by Annas] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus identifies our final end with what he calls tranquillity or 'ataraxia', which is static pleasure. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Julia Annas - The Morality of Happiness Ch.7 | |
| A reaction: I don't recall any Greek ever spotting that boredom is a problem. But then they didn't have privacy, so other people always hold their attention. Maybe this is a dream of privacy. |
| 1845 | Justice has no independent existence, but arises entirely from keeping contracts [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Justice has no independent existence; it results from mutual contracts, and establishes itself wherever there is a mutual engagement to guard against doing or sustaining mutual injury. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.31.35 |
| 14818 | First morality is force, then custom, then acceptance, then instinct, then a pleasure - and finally 'virtue' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Force precedes morality; for a time morality itself is force, to which others acquiesce. Later it becomes custom, and then free obedience, and finally almost instinct; then it is coupled to pleasure, like all habitual things, and is now called 'virtue'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 099) | |
| A reaction: How few philosophers delve into the history of the concepts they work with, and yet how revealing it can be. Richard Taylor was wonderful on 'duty'. You will never grasp the 'problem of free will' if you don't examine its history. |
| 20103 | You are mastered by your own virtues, but you must master them, and turn them into tools [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: You had to become your own master, and also the master of your own virtues. Previously, your virtues were your master; but they must be nothing more than your tools. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 006) | |
| A reaction: What on earth would Aristotle make of that? Nietzsche offers a sort of metatheory for virtues. I take this to be a form of particularism - that you live by your virtues, but occasionally you can discard a virtue if it seems right. Lie, steal... |
| 1841 | We choose virtue because of pleasure, not for its own sake [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: We choose the virtues for the sake of pleasure, and not on their own account. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.30 |
| 14817 | The 'good' man does the moral thing as if by nature, easily and gladly, after a long inheritance [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We call 'good' the man who does the moral thing as if by nature, after a long history of inheritance - that is, easily, and gladly, whatever it is. …He is called 'good' because he is good 'for' something. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 096) | |
| A reaction: I am amazed at the brief and rather disrespectful remarks that Nietzsche makes about Aristotle's ethics, given how close this idea is to the ideal of Aristotle (though the latter who not emphasise 'inheritance'!). |
| 14809 | All societies of good men give a priority to gratitude [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Every society of good men (that is, originally, of powerful men) places gratitude among its first duties. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 044) | |
| A reaction: His reason here is that gratitude is a way of displaying the power of the powerful! |
| 14816 | Justice (fairness) originates among roughly equal powers (as the Melian dialogues show) [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Justice (fairness) originates among approximately equal powers, as Thucydides (in the horrifying conversation between the Athenian and Melian envoys) rightly understood. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 092) | |
| A reaction: The moral position of the powerless is a notorious problem for social contract theories of morality. They have nothing to offer in a mere contract. |
| 20112 | Pity consoles those who suffer, because they see that they still have the power to hurt [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The pity that the spectators express consoles the weak and suffering, inasmuch as they see that , despite all their weakness, they still have at least one power: the power to hurt. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 050) | |
| A reaction: This pinpoints how the will to power led to the inversion of values. |
| 14821 | Apart from philosophers, most people rightly have a low estimate of pity [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Aside from a few philosophers, men have always placed pity rather low in the hierarchy of moral feelings - and rightly so. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 103) | |
| A reaction: Presumably this includes Jesus among the 'philosophers'. |
| 1829 | A wise man would be happy even under torture [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Even if the wise man were put to the torture, he would still be happy. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.26 |
| 14841 | Many people are better at having good friends than being a good friend [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: In many people the gift of having good friends is much greater than the gift of being a good friend. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 368) |
| 14843 | Women can be friends with men, but only some physical antipathy will maintain it [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Women can very well enter into a friendship with a man, but to maintain it - a little physical antipathy must help out. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 390) |
| 1843 | Friendship is by far the most important ingredient of a complete and happy life [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Of all the things which wisdom provides for the happiness of the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friendship. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.31.28 |
| 14811 | In Homer it is the contemptible person, not the harmful person, who is bad [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: In Homer, both the Trojan and the Greek are good. Not the man who inflicts harm on us, but the man who is contemptible, is bad. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 045) |
| 20111 | We could live more naturally, relishing the spectacle, and not thinking we are special [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I can imagine a life much more simple...than the present one. ...One would live among men and with oneself as in nature, without praise, reproach, overzealousness, delighting in things as in a spectacle. One would no longer feel one was more than nature. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 034) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Safranski says this passage is a big turning point for Nietzsche, replacing his earlier idea that art could be salvation. Eternal Recurrence puts a seal on this new view. Nietzsche adds that this life needs to be 'cheerful'. |
| 14844 | People do not experience boredom if they have never learned to work properly [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Many people, especially women, do not experience boredom, because they have never learned to work properly. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 391) | |
| A reaction: It certainly seems right that boredom is a response to expectations and past habits. Life in a medieval village looks like boredom verging on torture for your busy modern urban sophisticate, but I daresay it was quite absorbing. |
| 14808 | Over huge periods of time human character would change endlessly [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: If a man eighty thousand years old were conceivable, his character would in fact be absolutely variable. …The brevity of human life misleads us… | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 041) | |
| A reaction: This would be one of my many exhibits for claiming Nietzsche as an existentialist. I think he is largely right, and we do detect slow shifts in our characters over long periods of time. They may be as much a response to culture as a personal matter. |
| 14822 | If self-defence is moral, then so are most expressions of 'immoral' egoism [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: If we accept self-defense as moral, then we must also accept nearly all expressions of so-called immoral egoism. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 104) | |
| A reaction: I find this idea rather disconcerting, because I have always thought that the clearest possible 'natural right' was that of self-defence - but this implication (if it be so) had never struck me. Hm. |
| 14838 | The state aims to protect individuals from one another [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The state is a clever institution for protecting individuals from one another. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 235) | |
| A reaction: This is Nietzsche allying with Hobbes, and presumably aiming this remark at Hegel. |
| 14852 | Culture cannot do without passions and vices [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Culture absolutely cannot do without passions, vices and acts of malice. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 477) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure how you test the truth of that aphorism, given that humanity is perpetually doomed to live with such things. If those qualities disappeared, I suppose we would drift apart. We are 'dependent' beings, as MacIntyre says. |
| 14846 | If we want the good life for the greatest number, we must let them decide on the good life [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: If the business of politics is to make life tolerable for the greatest number, this greatest number may also determine what they understand by a tolerable life. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 438) |
| 14819 | Slavery cannot be judged by our standards, because the sense of justice was then less developed [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The injustice of slavery, the cruelty in subjugating persons and peoples, cannot be measured by our standards. For the instinct for justice was not so widely developed then. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 101) | |
| A reaction: Why do we value the instinct for justic which we have subsequently developed? Why do we think it is important, and battle to preserve it? This is the sort of creepy relativism that Nietzsche drifted into, and for the worse. |
| 14847 | Laws that are well thought out, or laws that are easy to understand? [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Lawyers argue whether that law which is most thoroughly thought out, or that which is easiest to understand, should prevail in a people. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 459) | |
| A reaction: Our system of speed limits is radically simplified, to save money on road signs, and facilitate enforcement. But then its inflexibility brings it into disrepute. |
| 14814 | Execution is worse than murder, because we are using the victim, and really we are the guilty [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Why does execution offend us more than murder? It is the coldness of the judges, the painful preparation, the use of a man to deter others. For guilt is not being punished, which lies in the educators, parents, environment, in us, not in the murderer. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 070) | |
| A reaction: Someone was stabbed to death in Oxford Street yesterday (26 Dec 11), and we all feel horribly that London is responsible for producing this event, even if we try and load all the blame onto one youth with a knife. Oscar Wilde endorsed this idea. |
| 14836 | People will enthusiastically pursue an unwanted war, once sacrifices have been made [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: All things for which we have made sacrifices are in the right. This explains why, just as soon as sacrifices are made, people continue with enthusiasm a war that was begun against their wishes. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 229) |
| 14845 | Don't crush girls with dull Gymnasium education, the way we have crushed boys! [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: For heaven's sake, do not pass our Gymnasium education on to girls too! For it often turns witty, inquisitive, fiery youths - into copies of their teachers! | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 409) |
| 14848 | Education in large states is mediocre, like cooking in large kitchens [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The educational system in large states will always be mediocre at best, for the same reason that the cooking in large kitchens is at best mediocre. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 467) | |
| A reaction: I wish he had said what that 'same reason' is. Something to do with too many cooks, I suppose. Nothing seems harder than reaching a wide concensus on how the young should be educated. Like interior design by a committee. |
| 14839 | Interest in education gains strength when we lose interest in God [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Interest in education will gain great strength only at the moment when belief in a God and his loving care is given up. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 242) | |
| A reaction: This remark may well sum up the motivation of my entire life. What effect would it have had if I had read it when I was twenty? |
| 14834 | Teachers only gather knowledge for their pupils, and can't be serious about themselves [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: A teacher is incapable of doing anything of his own for his own good. He always thinks of the good of his pupils, and all new knowledge gladdens him only to the extent that he can teach it. He is a thoroughfare for learning, and has lost seriousness. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 200) | |
| A reaction: Oh dear. I look in the mirror. Do I only delight in finding all these quotations so that I can stick them in the database and pass them on to someone else? Are they actually impingeing on my life? Could I meet an idea that made me abandon this project? |
| 1831 | Wise men should partake of life even if they go blind [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Even though he lose his eyes, a wise man should still partake of life. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.26 |
| 12044 | Only Epicurus denied purpose in nature, for the whole world, or for its parts [Epicurus, by Annas] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus alone among the ancient schools denies that in nature we find any teleological explanations. Nothing in nature is for anything, neither the world as a whole nor anything in it. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Julia Annas - Ancient Philosophy: very short introduction | |
| A reaction: This may explain the controversial position that epicureanism held in the seventeenth century, as well as its incipient atheism. |
| 20907 | Democritus says atoms have size and shape, and Epicurus added weight [Epicurus, by Ps-Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Democritus said that the properties of the atoms are in number two, magnitude and shape, but Epicurus added to these a third one, weight. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Pseudo-Plutarch - On the Doctrine of the Philosophers 1.3.18 | |
| A reaction: The addition of Epicurus seems very sensible, and an odd omission by Democritus. He seems to think that atoms have a uniform density, so that volume indicates weight. |
| 21669 | Atoms don't swerve by being struck, because they move in parallel, so the swerve is uncaused [Cicero on Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: The swerve of Epicurus takes place without a cause; it does not take place in consequence of being struck by another atom, since how can that take place if they are indivisible bodies travelling perpendicularly in straight lines by the force of gravity? | |
| From: comment on Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 10.22 | |
| A reaction: The swerve is the most ad hoc proposal in the history of theoretical physics. This is interesting for spelling out that the travel in vertical parallels. What's that all about, then? |
| 21680 | What causes atomic swerves? Do they draw lots? What decides the size or number of swerves? [Cicero on Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: What fresh cause exists in nature to make the atom swerve (or do the atoms cast lots among them which is to swerve and which not?), or to serve as the reason for making a very small swerve and not a large one, or one swerve, and not two or three swerves? | |
| From: comment on Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 20.46 | |
| A reaction: This is an appeal to the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which seems to be the main ground for rejecting the swerve. The only reason to accept the swerve is reluctance to accept determinism or fatalism. |
| 14825 | In religious thought nature is a complex of arbitrary acts by conscious beings [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: In the mind of religious men, all nature is the sum of actions of conscious and intentioned beings, an enormous complex of arbitrary acts. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 111) | |
| A reaction: This is the beginning of the process, I think, which then sees the gods as dictating through laws, and then the laws themselves doing the dictating, then seeing the laws as inhering in nature - and finally realising there aren't any laws! |
| 14826 | Modern man wants laws of nature in order to submit to them [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: In present times, man wishes to understand the lawfulness of nature in order to submit to it. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 111) | |
| A reaction: They don't make philosophers like Nietzsche any more (or at least, in the analytic tradition I am following!). No one who is trying to give an analysis of the laws of nature has any interest in why we are so keen to find them. Stoics 'live by nature'. |
| 14525 | Stoics say time is incorporeal and self-sufficient; Epicurus says it is a property of properties of things [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Stoics posited that time is an incorporeal which is conceived of all by itself, while Epicurus thinks that it is an accident of certain things, ...and he called in a property of properties. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) | |
| A reaction: [Source Sextus 'Adversus Mathematicos' 10.219-227] |
| 2637 | For Epicureans gods are made of atoms, and are not eternal [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: For Epicureans the gods are made of atoms, so in that case they are not eternal. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') I.68 |
| 2633 | Epicurus saw that gods must exist, because nature has imprinted them on human minds [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus alone saw that gods must exist because nature herself has imprinted an idea of them in the minds of all mankind. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') I.43 |
| 2639 | Some say Epicurus only pretended to believe in the gods, so as not to offend Athenians [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Some believe that Epicurus gave lip-service only to the gods, so as not to offend the Athenians, but in fact did not believe in them. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') I.84 |
| 14827 | The Greeks saw the gods not as their masters, but as idealised versions of themselves [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The Greeks did not see the Homeric gods above them as masters and themselves below them as servants, as did the Jews. They saw, as it were, only the reflection of the most successful specimens of their own caste - an ideal, not a contrast. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 114) |
| 14813 | Science rejecting the teaching of Christianity in favour of Epicurus shows the superiority of the latter [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We can determine whether Christianity or Greek philosophy has the greater truth by noting that the awakening sciences have carried on point for point with the philosophy of Epicurus, but have rejected Christianity point for point. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 068) |
| 14832 | The Sermon on the Mount is vanity - praying to one part of oneself, and demonising the rest [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: This shattering of oneself, this scorn of one's own nature, is actually a high degree of vanity. The whole morality of the Sermon on the Mount belongs here; in ascetic morality man prays to one part of himself as a god, and has to diabolify the rest. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 137) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the core of Nietzsche's objection to Christian teaching - that it doesn't provide a direction of life for the whole human being. The modern rejection of religions agrees with Nietzsche, especially in disputes over the place of sex. |
| 14850 | Christ was the noblest human being [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Christ was the noblest human being. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 475) | |
| A reaction: That one will come as a surprise to those who only know of Nietzsche's religion that 'God is dead'! |
| 14837 | Christ seems warm hearted, and suppressed intellect in favour of the intellectually weak [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Christ, whom we like to imagine as having the warmest of hearts, furthered men's stupidity, took the side of the intellectually weak, and kept the greatest intellect from being produced: and this was consistent. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 235) | |
| A reaction: Thomas Aquinas was a stupendous intellect. The surest way to be swept forward on a wave of popularity is to find some reason why the uneducated are superior to the educated. |
| 14527 | If god answered prayers we would be destroyed, because we pray for others to suffer [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: If god acted in accordance with the prayers of men, all men would rather quickly be destroyed, since they constantly pray for many sufferings to befall each other. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) | |
| A reaction: [source Maximus the Abbott 'Gnom.' 14] |
| 14828 | Religion is tempting if your life is boring, but you can't therefore impose it on the busy people [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: People who think their daily lives too empty and monotonous easily become religious: this is understandable and forgivable; however, they have no right to demand religiosity from those whose daily life does not pass in emptiness and monotony. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 115) | |
| A reaction: Well wicked, that Nietzsche. Richard Dawkins and the hated new atheists are a right bunch of wimps in comparison. |