Maxims Quotes - Page 12

• The definition of definition is at bottom just what the maxim of pragmatism expresses.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Definitions, Pragmatism, Bottom

  Letter to William James, January 08, 1909.

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• From the earliest times man has been engaged in a search for general rules whereby to turn the order of natural phenomena to his own advantage, and in the long search he has scraped together a great hoard of such maxims, some of them golden and some of them mere dross. The true or golden rules constitute the body of applied science which we call the arts; the false are magic.

  James G. Frazer

  Art, Men, Order

  "The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion". Book by James G. Frazer, 1890.

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• Ladies are always of great use to the party they espouse, and never fail to win over numbers to it. Lovers, according to Sir William Petty's computation, make at least the third part of sensible men of the British nation; and it has been an uncontroverted maxim in all ages, that though a husband is sometimes a stubborn sort of a creature, a lover is always at the devotion of his mistress. By this means, it lies in the power of every fine woman, to secure at least half a dozen able-bodied men to his Majesty's service.

  Joseph Addison

  Husband, Lying, Party

  Joseph Addison (1860). “The Freeholder. Swift's notes on the Free-holder. The Plebian, by Sir Richard Steele, with The Old whig, by Mr. Addison. The Lover”, p.17

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• Hey listen -- I've proved a lot of things. That's how I pay my rent. Theories and little observations. A puckish remark now and then. Occasional maxims. It beats picking olives, but let's not get carried away.

  Woody Allen

  Hey, Littles, Pay

  Woody Allen (2007). “The Insanity Defense: The Complete Prose”, Random House Incorporated

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• People always make this totally artificial distinction between what is commercial and what is good. They quote that maxim "Nobody ever lost money underestimating the public's taste" and I think that's very wrongheaded. I like to believe the audience is actually intelligent, because it's made up of other people like yourself.

  Douglas Adams

  Believe, Intelligent, Thinking

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• Live according to Nature, runs the maxim of the West; but according to what nature, the nature of the body or the nature which exceeds the body? This first we ought to determine.

  Sri Aurobindo

  Running, Body, West

  Aurobindo Ghose, Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo Ashram (1994). “Essays divine and human with thoughts and aphorisms”, Lotus Press (WI)

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• Some have said that the clash between Catholicism and Protestantism illustrates the old maxim that religious freedom is the product of two equally pernicious fanaticisms, each cancelling the other out.

  Fareed Zakaria

  Religious, Two, Said

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• One of the central assumptions of the concept of democracy, perhaps its most central assumption, is that by and large human beings are better judges of their own interests.... The operating maxim of the democratic ideology is, "Whoever wears the shoe knows best where it pinches.

  Sidney Hook

  Power, Shoes, Judging

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• The task of the political philosopher can only be to influence public opinion, not to organize people for action. He will do so effectively only if he is not concerned with what is now politically possible but consistently defends the "general principles which are always the same." In this sense I doubt whether there can be such a thing as a conservative political philosophy. Conservatism may often be a useful practical maxim, but it does not give us any guiding principles which can influence long-range developments.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Philosophy, Guiding Principles, Often Is

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Postscript: Why I Am Not a Conservative, 1960.

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• It is hardly possible not to suspect the truth of this doctrine of atonement, when we consider that the general maxims to which it may be reduced, are nowhere laid down, or asserted, in the Scriptures, but others quite contrary to them.

  Joseph Priestley

  Doctrine, May, Scripture

  Joseph Priestley (1871). “A History of the Corruptions of Christianity”, p.52

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• We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic or perish with it; now in this situation, the first maxim of your policy ought to be to lead the people by reason and the people's enemies by terror.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  People, Enemy, Firsts

  Speech to the National Convention, February 05, 1794.

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• Buy less, choose well: that's the maxim. Quality not quantity. That's the most environmentally friendly thing you can do.

  Vivienne Westwood

  Quality Not Quantity, Friendly, Wells

  Source: www.elle.com

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• When the great religious and philosophical conceptions were alive, thinking people did not extol humility and brotherly love, justice and humanity because it was realistic to maintain such principles and odd and dangerous to deviate from them, or because these maxims were more in harmony with their supposedly free tastes than others. They held to such ideas because they saw in them elements of truth, because they connected them with the idea of logos, whether in the form of God or of a transcendental mind, or even of nature as an eternal principle.

  Max Horkheimer

  Religious, Philosophical, Humility

  "Eclipse of Reason" by Max Horkheimer, (p. 34), 1947.

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• Every man who has seen the world knows that nothing is so useless as a general maxim.

  Nathan Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild

  Men, Useless, World

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• That the system of morals propounded in the New Testament contained no maxim which had not been previously enunciated, and that some of the most beautiful passages in the apostolic writings are quotations from Pagan authors, is well known to every scholar... To assert that Christianity communicated to man moral truths previously unknown, argues on the part of the asserted either gross ignorance or wilful fraud.

  Henry Thomas Buckle

  Beautiful, Ignorance, Writing

  Henry Thomas Buckle (1865). “History of Civilization in England: In Five Volumes”, p.166

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• When the Church obtained the direction of the civil power, she soon modified or abandoned the tolerant maxims she had formerly inculcated; and, in the course of a few years, restrictive laws were enacted, both against the Jews and against the heretics.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Years, Law, Atheism

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1865). “History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe”, p.29

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• There's a very old recording maxim that goes, 'Distance makes depth.' I've used that a hell of a lot-whether it's tracking guitars or the whole band. People are used to close-miking amps, but I'd have a mic out around the back, as well, and then balance the two. Also, you shouldn't have to use EQ in the studio if the instruments sound right. You should be able to get the right tones simply with the science of microphone placement.

  Jimmy Page

  Distance, Guitar, Two

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• I set it down as a maxim, that it is good for a man to live where he can meet his betters, intellectual and social.

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Men, Intellectual, Social

  William Makepeace Thackeray (1869). “Miscellanies: The book of snobs. Sketches and travels in London. Denis Duval”, p.119

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• A magazine editor recently asked me to sit down on my 40th birthday and write an article on the most important things I had learned in my first 40 years. I told him that the chief thing I had learned was that the copybook maxims are true, but that too many people forget this once they go out into the heat and hustle and bustle of the battle of life and only realize their truth once one foot is beginning to slip into the grave. The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure.

  B. C. Forbes

  Writing, Men, Years

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• There never was a sounder logical maxim of scientific procedure than Ockham's razor: Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. That is to say; before you try a complicated hypothesis, you should make quite sure that no simplification of it will explain the facts equally well.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Simplicity, Trying, Razors

  Charles Sanders Peirce, Patricia Ann Turrisi (1997). “Pragmatism as a Principle and Method of Right Thinking: The 1903 Harvard Lectures on Pragmatism”, p.162, SUNY Press

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• If you read many contemporary literary novels today, you may notice that regardless of the subject matter there's a 'sameness' about them, the way in which thoughts are expressed and ideas, conveyed, the sometimes dogmatic application of what are, at best, useful maxims such as, 'less is more', the narrative techniques utilised, even the same, irritating, stylistic devices scattered like pepper all over the pages.

  Suhayl Saadi

  Ideas, Technique, May

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• It is a maxim that no man was ever enslaved by influence while he was fit to be free.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Influence, Fit

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• It is a maxim of wise government to treat people not as they should be but as they actually are.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Wise, Government, People

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• I think I have learned, in some degree at least, to disregard the old maxim ""Do not get others to do what you can do yourself."" My motto on the other hand is; ""Do not do that which others can do as well.

  Booker T. Washington

  Business, Thinking, Hands

  Booker T. Washington (2006). “Up from Slavery: Easyread Comfort Edition”, p.240, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Where one is hopelessly undecided as to what to say, there (as Confucius would have said, if they had given him the opportunity) silence is golden.

  Lewis Carroll

  Opportunity, Silence, Golden

  Lewis Carroll (1979). “The Letters of Lewis Carroll: ca. 1837-1885”

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