Skip to main content
4 months 1 week ago

It is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the State to effect, and on a general plan.

0
0
Source
source
Letter to George Washington
4 months 1 week ago

We may say with truth and meaning that governments are more or less republican, as they have more or less of the element of popular election and control in their composition; and believing, as I do, that the mass of the citizens is the safest depository of their own rights, and especially, that the evils flowing from the duperies of the people are less injurious than those from the egoism of their agents, I am a friend to that composition of government which has in it the most of this ingredient. And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

0
0
Source
source
Letter to John Taylor (28 May 1816) ME 15:23
6 months 4 weeks ago

Without doubt, if we are to go back to that ultimate, integral experience, unwarped by the sophistications of theory, that experience whose elucidation is the final aim of philosophy, the flux of things is one ultimate generalization around which we must weave our philosophical system.

0
0
Source
source
Pt. II, ch. 10, sec. 1.
8 months 1 day ago

Valour, however unfortunate, commands great respect even from enemies: but the Romans despise cowardice, even though it be prosperous.

0
0
Source
source
Aemilius Paulus 26 (Tr. Stewart and Long)
5 months 1 week ago

In order to properly understand the big picture, everyone should fear becoming mentally clouded and obsessed with one small section of truth.

0
0
Source
source
Quoted in: Joan Klostermann-Ketels (2011) HumaniTrees, p. 96
5 months 1 week ago

In a free society the state does not administer the affairs of men. It administers justice among men who conduct their own affairs.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. XII: "The Political Principles of Liberalism", §6, p. 267
8 months 1 week ago

If life becomes hard to bear we think of improvements. But the most important and effective improvement, in our own attitude, hardly occurs to us, and we can decide on this only with the utmost difficulty.

0
0
Source
source
p. 60e
9 months 3 days ago

Cornered vessel without corners, strange cornered vessel, strange cornered vessel.

0
0
7 months 1 week ago

Pursued by our origins...we all are.

0
0
8 months 2 weeks ago

We have just seen that, apart from money-capital, circulating capital is only another name for commodity-capital. But to the extent that labour power circulates in the market,it is not capital, no form of commodity-capital. It is not capital at all; the labourer is not a capitalist, although he brings a commodity to market, namely his own skin.

0
0
Source
source
Vol. II, Ch. X, p. 211.
4 months 3 weeks ago

The creative imagination of the Hindus has conceived no loftier and holier character than Sita; the literature of the world has not produced a higher ideal of womanly love, womanly truth, and womanly devotion.

0
0
Source
source
The Wisdom Of China And India by ) Lin Yutang
5 months 6 days ago

The concept of original sin gives us a penetrating insight into human destiny.

0
0
Source
source
On the Dilemmas of the Christian Legacy
8 months 4 weeks ago

It is no advantage to be near the light if the eyes are closed.

0
0
Source
source
p. 607
8 months 4 days ago

Count all wickedness foreign and alien.

0
0
Source
source
§ 5
8 months 2 weeks ago

We are apt to imagine that this hubbub of Philosophy, Literature, and Religion, which is heard in pulpits, lyceums, and parlors, vibrates through the universe, and is as catholic a sound as the creaking of the earth's axle. But if a man sleeps soundly, he will forget it all between sunset and dawn.

0
0
Source
source
January 6, 1842
6 months 3 weeks ago

The freedom of the 'everyday mind' consists rather in not kneeling down in awe. Its mental attitude is better expressed as sitting unmoveable like an object.

0
0
9 months 2 weeks ago
He who thinks a great deal is not suited to be a party man: he thinks his way through the party and out the other side too soon.
0
0
5 months 3 weeks ago

The gradual spread of sterility in seeding plants would result in a global catastrophe that could eventually wipe out higher life forms, including humans, from the planet.

0
0
Source
source
On the terminator gene, from the book "Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply" (2001), p.83
5 months 6 days ago

Before a man can do things there must be things he will not do.

0
0
Source
source
Eugene H. Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction (IVP, 1980), Ch 2
8 months 2 weeks ago

Things added to things, as statistics, civil history, are inventories. Things used as language are inexhaustibly attractive.

0
0
Source
source
Plato; or, The Philosopher
7 months 3 weeks ago

Cut not fire with a sword. Symbol 9 Variant translation: Poke not the fire with a sword.

0
0
Source
source
As quoted in Short Sayings of Great Men: With Historical and Explanatory Notes‎ (1882) by Samuel Arthur Bent, p. 455
7 months 2 weeks ago

Boldness formerly was not the character of Atheists as such. ... But of late they are grown active, designing, turbulent, and seditious.

0
0
Source
source
"Thoughts on French Affairs" (December 1791), in Three Memorials on French Affairs (1797), p. 53
6 months 1 week ago

The individual selectionist would admit that groups do indeed die out, and that whether or not a group goes extinct may be influenced by the behaviour of the individuals in that group. He might even admit that if only the individuals in a group had the gift of foresight they could see that in the long run their own best interests lay in restraining their selfish greed, to prevent the destruction of the whole group. How many times must this have been said in recent years to the working people of Britain? But group extinction is a slow process compared with the rapid cut and thrust of individual competition. Even while the group is going slowly and inexorably downhill, selfish individuals prosper in the short term at the expense of altruists. The citizens of Britain may or may not be blessed with foresight, but evolution is blind to the future.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. 1. Why Are People?
8 months 3 weeks ago

Let all the 'free-will' in the world do all it can with all its strength; it will never give rise to a single instance of ability to avoid being hardened if God does not give the Spirit, or of meriting mercy if it is left to its own strength.

0
0
Source
source
p. 202
7 months 2 weeks ago

In all persuasions the bigots are persecutors; the men of a cool and reasonable piety are favourers of toleration; because the former sort of men not taking the pains to be acquainted with the grounds of their adversaries tenets, conceive them to be so absurd and monstrous, that no man of sense can give into them in good earnest. For which reason they are convinced that some oblique bad motive induces them to pretend to the belief of such doctrines, and to the maintaining of them with obstinacy. This is a very general principle in all religious differences, and it is the corner stone of all persecution.

0
0
Source
source
Volume II, p. 148
6 months 1 week ago

Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have a chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. 1. Why Are People?
8 months 1 week ago

If a false thought is so much as expressed boldly and clearly, a great deal has already been gained.

0
0
Source
source
p. 86e
8 months 1 week ago

If good music has charms to soothe the savage breast, bad music has no less powerful spells for filling the mildest breast with rage, the happiest with horror and disgust. Oh, those mammy songs, those love longings, those loud hilarities! How was it possible that human emotions intrinsically decent could be so ignobly parodied.

0
0
Source
source
"Silence is Golden," p. 59
5 months 5 days ago

Consider, for example, the state of Science generally, in Europe, at this period. It is admitted, on all sides, that the Metaphysical and Moral Sciences are falling into decay, while the Physical are engrossing, every day, more respect and attention. In most of the European nations there is now no such thing as a Science of Mind; only more or less advancement in the general science, or the special sciences, of matter.

0
0
7 months 1 week ago

It is impossible for any man, when the most favourable circumstances concur, to acquire sufficient knowledge and strength of mind to discharge the duties of a king, entrusted with uncontrolled power; how then must they be violated when his very elevation is an insuperable bar to the attainment of either wisdom or virtue; when all the feelings of a man are stifled by flattery, and reflection shut out by pleasure! Surely it is madness to make the fate of thousands depend on the caprice of a weak fellow creature, whose very station sinks him NECESSARILY below the meanest of his subjects! But one power should not be thrown down to exalt another--for all power intoxicates weak man; and its abuse proves, that the more equality there is established among men, the more virtue and happiness will reign in society.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. 1
6 months 4 weeks ago

Any physical object which by its influence deteriorates its environment, commits suicide.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. 6: "The Nineteenth Century", p. 155
6 months 3 weeks ago

Yet it must be acknowledged that there is a fundamental difference between the sexual impulse in men and women. Her need is for a lover, a protector, a father for her children. His desire is for mastery, conquest, to be allowed to use her body for his own satisfaction. He feels like a bee, burying itself in a flower, apparently doing nothing for the flower but taking its sweetness. If he loves her, then his desire is mixed with a kind of pity.

0
0
7 months 4 days ago

It would be wrong to suppose that the man of any particular period always looks upon past times as below the level of his own, simply because they are past. It is enough to recall that to the seeming of Jorge Manrique, "Any time gone by was better."... From A.D. 150 on, this impression of a shrinking of vitality, of a falling from position, of decay and loss of pulse shows itself increasingly in the Roman Empire. Had not Horace already sung: "Our fathers, viler than our grandfathers, begot us who are even viler, and we shall bring forth a progeny more degenerate still"?

0
0
Source
source
Horace, Odes, III.6] Chap. III: The Height Of The Times
4 months 1 week ago

There is perhaps nothing more interesting than to listen to a superior man talk of what he does not know. He advances slowly, and scarcely puts his foot down without knowing if the ground is solid; he looks for plausible analogies; he tries to attach his ideas to higher and incontestable principles; he always has the tone of looking, never that of teaching; and it often happens that, even if he is mistaken, he leaves a great enough idea of his mental honesty.

0
0
Source
source
p. 43
1 month 2 weeks ago

It's a context in the way that reality itself is context....

0
0
7 months 2 weeks ago

You talk of Paine with more respect than he deserves: He is utterly incapable of comprehending his subject. He has not even a moderate portion of learning of any kind. He has learnd the instrumental part of literature, a style, and a method of disposing his ideas, without having ever made a previous preparation of Study or thinking-for the use of it. ... [Paine] possesses nothing more than what a man whose audacity makes him careless of logical consequences, and his total want of honour and morality makes indifferent as to political consequences, may very easily write. They indeed who seriously write upon a principle of levelling ought to be answerd by the Magistrate-and not by the Speculatist.

0
0
Source
source
Letter to William Cusac Smith (22 July 1791), quoted in Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VI: July 1789-December 1791 (1967), pp. 303-304
7 months 1 week ago

Abolish competition and replace it with association.

0
0
8 months 2 weeks ago

Great men, great nations, have not been boasters and buffoons, but perceivers of the terror of life, and have manned themselves to face it.

0
0
Source
source
Fate
8 months 2 weeks ago

All honour to those who can abnegate for themselves the personal enjoyment of life, when by such renunciation they contribute worthily to increase the amount of happiness in the world; but he who does it, or professes to do it, for any other purpose, is no more deserving of admiration than the ascetic mounted on his pillar. He may be an inspiriting proof of what men can do, but assuredly not an example of what they should.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. 2
8 months 2 weeks ago

A great man quotes bravely, and will not draw on his invention when his memory serves him with a word just as good.

0
0
Source
source
Quotation and Originality
7 months 1 week ago

By capitulating to life, this world has betrayed nothingness. . . . I resign from movement, and from my dreams. Absence! You shall be my sole glory. . . . Let "desire" be forever stricken from the dictionary, and from the soul! I retreat before the dizzying farce of tomorrows. And if I still cling to a few hopes, I have lost forever the faculty of hoping.

0
0
8 months 3 weeks ago

If they have entered into the spirit if these rules, and if the rules have made sufficient impression on them to become rooted and established in their minds, they will feel how much difference there is between what is said here and what a few logicians may perhaps have written by chance approximating to it in a few passages of their works.

0
0
9 months 3 days ago

Pleasure, or pain, is not only good, or evil, in itself, but the measure of what is good or evil, in every object of desire or aversion; for the ultimate reason why we pursue one thing, and avoid another, is because we expect pleasure from the former, and apprehend pain from the latter. If we sometimes decline a present pleasure, it is not because we are averse to pleasure itself, but because we conceive, that in the present instance, it will be necessarily connected with a greater pain. In like manner, if we sometimes voluntarily submit to a present pain, it is because we judge that it is necessarily connected with a greater pleasure.

0
0

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia