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The Story of Philosophy
The Story of Philosophy | Will Durant
Examines the history of speculative thought by focusing on such dominant personalities as Plato, Bacon, Spinoza, Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche
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swopnil
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When genius speaks to us we feel a ghostly reminiscence of having ourselves, in our distant youth, had vaguely this self-same thought which genius now speaks, but we had not art or courage to clothe with form and utterance.
-Emerson

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Cayuse
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#phil5 - Who helped you build your worldview?

From top left, clockwise:

- Sherwin Wine
- Mark Twain
- Carl Sagan
- Laozi
- Auguste Comte

As always, tagging anyone who wants to play along.

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GoneFishing
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#phil5 who guides your philosophy of life?

1 Kierkegaard
2 Thomas Aquinas
3 Epicurus
4 John Stuart Mill
5 Confucius

@smrloomis
@batsy
@rubyslippersreads
@readingsusan
@jess7
@shemac77
@suet624
@imabisybee
@bekahb
@miralunasbooknook
@monkeygirlsmama
@mrozzz

Jess7 Oh my! Such a tough question for 11 pm at night! I'll have to think on this and get back to you! 7y
monkeygirlsmama Oooh that‘s tough. I was all prepared with poets if I got tagged on that one, but philosophers is gonna take me a bit to ponder. Haha 7y
Shemac77 That's a toughie! I'd have to say: Hippocrates, Plato, and Herodotus (not sure if he qualifies as a philosopher though. Can I add daVinci? Because I think he qualifies as a philosopher as well. 7y
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GoneFishing @monkeygirlsmama consider yourself tagged for the poets! 7y
GoneFishing @Shemac77 ah yes, the Hippocratic oath 7y
monkeygirlsmama Haha Awesome! 😁 7y
JoeStalksBeck I love 1&2! 7y
mrozzz I would not have 5 to pick!!! But I appreciate the tag. Camus would be my one and only 🤓 7y
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GoneFishing

Plato complains that whereas in simpler matters—like shoe-making—we think only a specially-trained person will serve our purpose, in politics we presume that every one who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state.

Cathythoughts Well said 👍 7y
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GoneFishing

Protestantism and beer have dulled German wit.

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GoneFishing

the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.

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GoneFishing

A disintegrating individualism had weakened the Athenian character, and left the city a prey at last to the sternly-nurtured Spartans.

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GoneFishing

Radicalism is a luxury of stability; we may dare to change things only when things lie steady under our hands.

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GoneFishing

Morality, said Jesus, is kindness to the weak; morality, said Nietzsche, is the bravery of the strong; morality, says Plato, is the effective harmony of the whole.

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GoneFishing

Men are not content with a simple life: they are acquisitive, ambitious, competitive, and jealous; they soon tire of what they have, and pine for what they have not; and they seldom desire anything unless it belongs to others.

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GoneFishing

The qualities of character can be arranged in triads, in each of which the first and last qualities will be extremes and vices, and the middle quality a virtue or an excellence. So between cowardice and rashness is courage; between stinginess and extravagance is liberality; between sloth and greed is ambition; between humility and pride is modesty; between secrecy and loquacity, honesty; between moroseness and buffoonery, good humor...

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GoneFishing

No doubt we have grown faster than nations usually have grown; and the disorder of our souls is due to the rapidity of our development.We are like youths disturbed and unbalanced, for a time, by the sudden growth and experiences of puberty. But soon our maturity will come; our minds will catch up with our bodies, our culture with our possessions.Perhaps there are greater souls than Shakespeare's, and greater minds than Plato's, waiting to be born.

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GoneFishing

In its youth a people produce mythology and poetry; in its decadence, philosophy and logic.

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GoneFishing

The constant steaming in of thoughts of others paralyzes the power of thought...The inclination of most scholars is a fuga vacui (ie vacuum suction) from the poverty of their own mind, which draws in the thoughts of others…It is dangerous to read about a subject before we have thought about it ourselves…When we read, another person thinks for us...if anybody spends almost the whole day in reading, he gradually loses the capacity for thinking.

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GoneFishing

Science tells us how to heal and how to kill; it reduces the death rate in retail and then kills us wholesale in war; but only wisdom—desire coordinated in the light of all experience—can tell us when to heal and when to kill.

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GoneFishing

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have these because we have acted rightly; these virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions; we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit;

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GoneFishing

A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within

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GoneFishing

In philosophy, as in politics, the longest distance between two points is a straight line.

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GoneFishing

And last are the few whose delight is in meditation and understanding; who yearn not for goods, nor for victory, but for knowledge; who leave both market and battlefield to lose themselves in the quiet clarity of secluded thought; whose will is a light rather than a fire, whose haven is not power but truth: these are the men of wisdom, who stand aside unused by the world.

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GoneFishing

How much more suffering is caused by the thought of death than by death itself.

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smccallum
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Making another attempt at a solid introduction to philosophy

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JoeStalksBeck
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Score! 1.98$ when it was published in hardback. 75$ used. I got it for 50 cents! Thanks for all the great comments you guys share!!

LeahBergen Yay!! I am SUCH a book hunter and this gives me a major thrill. 👍🏼 8y
Faibka Awesome! 8y
quirkyreader You never know what you are going to find when book shopping time rolls around. 🐸🐙 8y
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