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Philosophy Bits @philosophybits.com · 1h

“Great nature herself, whether viewed in connection or apart from man, is in its manifold operations a picture of progress and a constant rebuke to the moral stagnation of conservatism.”

— Frederick Douglass, "Lecture on Pictures (1861)"

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Suli Qyre @suliqyre.com · 2h

“We all have a need for greater awareness, as it is through awareness that we discover how to break free from our suffering and create joy in its place. Every creative act is therefore also an act of compassion, because it helps to expand our awareness.”

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“Creativity Is Compassion”, etc. (191-195)

Every creative act makes explicit something that was previously unseen, and in doing so it helps those who encounter it see more of their own self and the world.

suliqyre.substack.com

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Philosophy Bits @philosophybits.com · 5h

“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.”

— Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace

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Philosophy Bits @philosophybits.com · 19h

“Now I knew: things are entirely what they appear to be — and behind them... there is nothing.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

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Suli Qyre @suliqyre.com · 22h

“Existence as entirety remains beyond any one meaning— and it is the conscious presence of humanness in the world inasmuch as this is nonmeaning, having nothing to do other than be what it is, no longer able to go beyond itself or give itself some kind of meaning through action.”

— Georges Bataille

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Philosophy Bits @philosophybits.com · 1d

“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”

— Henry David Thoreau, Walden

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Suli Qyre @suliqyre.com · 1d

“An artist is always the most original and creative when they lean into their own style as much as possible. Doing this requires great honesty and courage, for it means revealing the self, and there is always a chance that an artwork expressing a unique self will be rejected by others.”

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190. The Search For Style

The artist’s concern is always style. It is the style of an artwork that most grants it aesthetic value, and it is this value that we most appreciate. The artist wants to develop a style that is beaut...

suliqyre.com

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Philosophy Bits @philosophybits.com · 1d

“Humanity may endure the loss of everything: all its possessions may be torn away without infringing its true dignity — all but the possibility of improvement.”

— Johann Gottlieb Fichte, The Vocation of the Scholar

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Philosophy Bits @philosophybits.com · 1d

“It is easy to imagine something perfect, and difficult to achieve it. Imagination marries desire, and conceives much more than things really are.”

— Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom

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Suli Qyre @suliqyre.com · 1d

“Every gain has to be paid for: The automatic machine is fool-proof; but just because it is fool-proof it is also grace-proof. The man who tends such a machine is impervious to every form of aesthetic inspiration, whether of human or of genuinely spiritual origin.”

— Aldous Huxley

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Philosophy Bits @philosophybits.com · 2d

“It is exclusively among the goods of the mind that the value of philosophy is to be found; and only those who are not indifferent to these goods can be persuaded that the study of philosophy is not a waste of time.”

— Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy

#philosophy #philsky

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Suli Qyre @suliqyre.com · 2d

“You keep thinking and imagining, visualizing alternative lives that don't exist, ones where you'd have the thing that's now missing. You realize this exercise is pointless. It's pointless because you can't change the past.”

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suliqyre.com/posts/stuck-...

189. Stuck In The Past

You can’t stop replaying past events. You keep wondering if there might have been a better way, if you could have done something differently. Perhaps if you’d made a different choice, you might be in ...

suliqyre.com

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Philosophy Bits @philosophybits.com · 2d

we choose to will our existence in its finiteness, a finiteness which is open on the infinite.”

— Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity

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Philosophy Bits @philosophybits.com · 2d

“Regardless of the staggering dimensions of the world about us, the density of our ignorance, the risks of catastrophes to come, and our individual weakness within the immense collectivity, the fact remains that we are absolutely free today if

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Philosophy Bits @philosophybits.com · 2d

“I love those who yearn for the impossible.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust

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Suli Qyre @suliqyre.com · 2d

“Now, under the neoliberal regime of auto-exploitation, people are turning their aggression against themselves. This auto-aggressivity means that the exploited are not inclined to revolution so much as depression.”

— Byung-chul Han, Psychopolitics

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Philosophy Bits @philosophybits.com · 3d

“There is room for words on subjects other than last words.”

— Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia

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Suli Qyre @suliqyre.com · 7d

“Our words come out sounding like a solemn declaration of fact, as though the emotions we're describing are substantial, permanent, and unchanging, when they might be none of these things.”

Read more:
suliqyre.substack.com/p/words-say-...

“Words Say Too Much”, etc. (186-190)

The task of accuracy is never an easy one. It's a fight with language itself, a battle we must wage merely to communicate, and it often goes awry.

suliqyre.substack.com

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Philosophy Bits @philosophybits.com · 3d

a far smaller volume that has been abundantly and repeatedly thought over.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer, Counsels and Maxims

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Philosophy Bits @philosophybits.com · 3d

“Just as the largest library, badly arranged, is not so useful as a very moderate one that is well arranged, so the greatest amount of knowledge, if not elaborated by our own thoughts, is worth much less than

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Philosophy Bits @philosophybits.com · 3d

“There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.”

— William James, Memories and Studies

#philosophy #philsky

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Philosophy Bits @philosophybits.com · 4d

“We shall understand the world when we understand ourselves, because we and it are integral halves.”

— Novalis, Logological Fragments I

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Suli Qyre @suliqyre.com · 4d

“She wants to expand, to be always growing. She wants to be unpredictable, to be always more than anyone can define. Being no one seems to supply the emptiness that fits her needs.”

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suliqyre.com/posts/to-be-...

188. To Be Always More

She is standing alone when a man approaches and says hello. He looks altogether harmless, so she returns the greeting. They’re at a social event and meeting new people is what you’re supposed to do. H...

suliqyre.com

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Philosophy Bits @philosophybits.com · 4d

“To divine in advance how ordinary people will act one has to assume that, when they are in an unpleasant situation, they always seek to get out of it with the smallest expenditure of intelligence.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human

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Philosophy Bits @philosophybits.com · 4d

“To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.”

— John Dewey, Democracy and Education

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