Hegel on Right and Wrong

"Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights."

-Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Adorno on Society

"An emancipated society, on the other hand, would not be a unitary state, but the realization of universality in the reconciliation of differences."

-Theodor Adorno

The Unreal Universe

http://www.thulasidas.com/2010-09/the-unreal-universe.htm

Jeremy Bentham on Evil

"As to the evil which results from a censorship, it is impossible to measure it, for it is impossible to tell where it ends."

-Jeremy Bentham

Jean Jacques Rousseau

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rousseau/

Friedrich Engels on Civilization

"From the first day to this, sheer greed was the driving spirit of civilization."

-Friedrich Engels 

Principle of Sufficient Reason

Principle of Sufficient Reason

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

[New Entry by Yitzhak Melamed and Martin Lin on September 14, 2010.] The Principle of Sufficient Reason is a powerful and controversial philosophical principle stipulating that everything must have a reason or cause. This simple demand for thoroughgoing intelligibility yields some of the boldest and most challenging theses in the history of metaphysics and epistemology. In this entry we begin with explaining the Principle, and then turn to the history of the debates around it. A section on recent discussions of the Principle will be added in...

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Epicurus on the Study of Philosophy

"Let no one delay the study of philosophy while young nor weary of it when old."

-Epicurus

Now On Facebook

von Walland Writing Services is now on Facebook! Check it out http://tinyurl.com/2977mjs

 

Anaximenes and the Material Monism of Water

Most only know Anaximenes for his doctrine of air as the fundamental, metaphysical substance.  Air, Anaximenes argued, is found everywhere. Natural forces acted on the air to transform the substance into new materials.

Ancient Greek literature often correlated air with the soul. Anaximenes articulates, “Air differs in essence in accordance with its rarity or density. The material change in the world moves along a continuum of air density. The earth and other heavenly bodies arose by a “felting” of air, a compression of air into other materials. 

Read the rest of the article here. 

Aristotle on Democracy and Freedom

"Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal."

-Aristotle

Francis Bacon on Certainty

"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties."

 

-Francis Bacon

Jaspers on Philosophical Practice

"If philosophy is practice, a demand to know the manner in which its history is to be studied is entailed: a theoretical attitude toward it becomes real only in the living appropriation of its contents from the texts."

-Karl Jaspers

Plato on the Philosopher King

"There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands."

-Plato

Heidegger on Freedom

"If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life - and only then will I be free to become myself."

-Martin Heidegger

Ludwig Wittgenstein on Philosophy

"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language."

-Ludwig Wittgenstein

Spinoza on New Ideas

"Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many."

-Baruch Spinoza

The Subjective Universe

Check this article out: http://tinyurl.com/29xrrb2

 

BBC - Ethics: Guide to moral and ethical issues

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/guide/

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide." One of the most appropriate quotes about the question that keeps me awake at nights.

http://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/dc4ke/there_is_but_one_truly_seri...

Nietzsche on Writing

A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends. 

 

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Plato on Prosperity

"Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation."

-Plato

Justice as a Virtue

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-virtue/

Einstein On Philosophy

"When I study philosophical works I feel I am swallowing something which I don't have in my mouth."

Albert Einstein

Pascal on Creatio ex Nihilo

All things have sprung from nothing and are borne forward to infinity. Who can follow out such an astonishing career? The Author of these wonders, and He alone, can comprehend them.

-Blaise Pascal

Benjamin Franklin on Liberty

"Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security."

 

Karl Marx on Commodity

"A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties." 

Derrida on Language

"No one gets angry at a mathematician or a physicist whom he or she doesn't understand, or at someone who speaks a foreign language, but rather at someone who tampers with your own language."