If I had had more...

If I had had more time, this letter would have been shorter.

A heart without music is...

A heart without music is like beauty without melancholy.

Mr. Clerselier has written me...

Mr. Clerselier has written me that you are expecting from him my Meditations... in order to present them to the queen of the land. ...If I had only been as wise as they say the savages persuaded themselves that the monkeys were, I never would have become known as a maker of books: Since it is said that they imagined that the monkeys could indeed speak, if they wanted to, but that they chose not to so lest they be forced to work. And since I had not the same prudence to abstain from writing, I now have neither as much liesure nor as much peace as I would have had if I had kept quiet. But since the mistake has already been made, and since I am now known by an infinity of people at the academy, who look askance at my writings and scour them for means of harming me, I do have great hope of being known to persons of great merit, whose power and virtue could protect me.

Democracy is, by the nature...

Democracy is, by the nature of it, a self-canceling business; and it gives in the long run a net result of zero.

The actor's realm is that...

The actor's realm is that of the fleeting.

We hope that you, instead...

We hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

Happy the heart to whom...

Happy the heart to whom God has given enough strength and courage to suffer for Him, to find happiness in simplicity and the happiness of others.

The more ideas have become...

The more ideas have become automatic, instrumentalized, the less does anybody see in them thoughts with a meaning of their own. They are considered things, machines. Language has been reduced to just another tool in the gigantic apparatus of production in modern society.

Often injustice lies in what...

Often injustice lies in what you aren't doing, not only in what you are doing.

The Devil and Love are...

The Devil and Love are but one.

In every man sleeps a...

In every man sleeps a prophet, and when he wakes there is a little more evil in the world

Much has been said of...

Much has been said of Mahomet's propagating his Religion by the sword. It is no doubt far nobler what we have to boast of the Christian Religion, that it propagated itself peaceably in the way of preaching and conviction. Yet withal, if we take this for an argument of the truth or falsehood of a religion, there is a radical mistake in it. The sword indeed: but where will you get your sword! Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one. In one man's head alone, there it dwells as yet. One man alone of the whole world believes it; there is one man against all men. That he take a sword, and try to propagate with that, will do little for him. You must first get your sword! On the whole, a thing will propagate itself as it can. We do not find, of the Christian Religion either, that it always disdained the sword, when once it had got one.

'I'm glad to know he's...

'I'm glad to know he's [Paneloux] better than his sermon.'

'T is lack of kindly...

'T is lack of kindly warmth they are not kind.

He submits to be seen...

He submits to be seen through a microscope, who suffers himself to be caught in a fit of passion.

Illusion is the first of...

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

Your suffering like your fate...

Your suffering like your fate is without motive. To suffer, truly to suffer, is to accept the invasion of ills without the excuse of causality, as a favor of demented nature, as a negative miracle...

Paganism we recognized as a...

Paganism we recognized as a veracious expression of the earnest awe-struck feeling of man towards the Universe; veracious, true once, and still not without worth for us. But mark here the difference of Paganism and Christianism; one great difference. Paganism emblemed chiefly the Operations of Nature; the destinies, efforts, combinations, vicissitudes of things and men in this world; Christianism emblemed the Law of Human Duty, the Moral Law of Man. One was for the sensuous nature: a rude helpless utterance of the first Thought of men,—the chief recognized virtue, Courage, Superiority to Fear. The other was not for the sensuous nature, but for the moral. What a progress is here, if in that one respect only—!

In every rebellion is to...

In every rebellion is to be found the metaphysical demand for unity, the impossibility of capturing it, and the construction of a substitute universe.

A person should not be...

A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and honest people are screwed first.

I would like to metamorphose...

I would like to metamorphose into a mouse-mountain.

You need to know enough...

You need to know enough of the natural sciences so that you are not a stranger in the world.

The Spanish Civil War shaped...

The Spanish Civil War shaped the political consciousness of a whole generation, which overwhelmingly saw it as representing heroic resistance to Fascism. Goldman and J.C. Powys did not belong to that generation – they belonged to the generation of its parents or, even, grandparents. And rather than resistance to Fascism, it was the social achievements of the Spanish Revolution that inspired them. In that they stand alone, among figures of the front rank, with Read and Orwell…

Cherish those who seek the...

Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.

Nothing is indefensible — from...

Nothing is indefensible — from the absurdest proposition to the most monstrous crime.

Now I am about to...

Now I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.

This Burns appeared under every...

This Burns appeared under every disadvantage: uninstructed, poor, born only to hard manual toil; and writing, when it came to that, in a rustic special dialect, known only to a small province of the country he lived in. Had he written, even what he did write, in the general language of England, I doubt not he had already become universally recognized as being, or capable to be, one of our greatest men.

I think my life is...

I think my life is of great importance, but I also think it is meaningless.

If your desires are not...

If your desires are not great, a little will seem much to you; for small appetite makes poverty equivalent to wealth.

In the fields with which...

In the fields with which we are concerned knowledge exists only in lightning flashes. The text is the thunder rolling long afterwards.

To Principal Caird... imaging of...

To Principal Caird... imaging of the Unseen is of inestimable value. It furnishes an objective counterpart to religious emotion, permanent but plastic—capable of indefinite change and purification in response to the changing thoughts and aspirations of mankind.

Those who purge the soul...

Those who purge the soul believe that the soul can receive no benefit from any teachings offered to it until someone by cross-questioning reduces him who is cross-questioned to an attitude of modesty, by removing the opinions that obstruct the teachings, and thus purges him and makes him think that he knows only what he knows, and no more.

I must confess (sayes Eleutherius)...

I must confess (sayes Eleutherius) I have, in the reading of Paracelsus and other Chymical Authors, been troubled to find, that such hard Words and Equivocal Expressions, as You justly complain of, do even when they treat of Principles, seem to be studiously affected by those Writers; whether to make themselves to be admir'd by their Readers, and their Art appear more Venerable and Mysterious, or, (as they would have us think) to conceal from them a Knowledge themselves judge inestimable.

Of all calumnies the worst...

Of all calumnies the worst is the one which attacks our indolence, which contests its authenticity.

And in these foure things,...

And in these foure things, Opinion of Ghosts, Ignorance of second causes, Devotion towards what men fear, and Taking of things Casuall for Prognostics, consisteth the Natural seed of Religion; which by reason of the different Fancies, Judgements, and Passions of severall men, hath grown up into ceremonies so different, that those which are used by one man, are for the most part ridiculous to another.

Genius is 'the inspired gift...

Genius is 'the inspired gift of God.' It is the clearer presence of God Most High in a man. Dim, potential in all men; in this man it has become clear, actual.

False men and shams talk...

False men and shams talk big and do nothing.

The fact is that man’s...

The fact is that man’s mind is limited, and his understanding only partial. The biblical narrative makes this point unequivocally with respect to Moses, in reporting that he could not see God’s face, but only his back. And it was no less true of the other prophets of Israel, who saw things in different ways because each of them was limited in his understanding, and to his own point of vantage.

A 'popular libertarianism' might ......

A 'popular libertarianism' might ... feel all that needs to be done to bring the world to justice is to institute the minimal state now, starting as it were from present holdings. On this view, then, libertarianism starts tomorrow, and we take the present possession of property for granted.

Such was the vast power...

Such was the vast power which the god settled in the lost island of Atlantis; and this he afterwards directed against our land for the following reasons, as tradition tells: For many generations, as long as the divine nature lasted in them, they were obedient to the laws, and well-affectioned towards the god, whose seed they were; for they possessed true and in every way great spirits, uniting gentleness with wisdom in the various chances of life, and in their intercourse with one another.

He prepared by the distillation...

He prepared by the distillation of the s of lead and lime; and he isolated methyl alcohol from the products of the of wood.

Tolerance — the function of...

Tolerance — the function of an extinguished ardor — tolerance cannot seduce the young.

And whereas many men, by...

And whereas many men, by accident unevitable, become unable to maintain themselves by their labour; they ought not to be left to the Charity of private persons; but to be provided for, (as far-forth as the necessities of Nature require,) by the Lawes of the Common-wealth. For as it is Unchariablenesse in any man, to neglect the impotent; so it is in the Soveraign of a Common-wealth, to expose them to the hazard of such uncertain Charity.

In all cases, therefore, we...

In all cases, therefore, we will agree with the judicious Mrs. Glass: 'First catch your hare!' First get your man; all is got: he can learn to do all things, from making boots, to decreeing judgments, governing communities; and will do them like a man.

If we already lived in...

If we already lived in a cruelty-free world, the notion of re-introducing suffering, exploitation and creatures eating each other would seem not so much frightful as unimaginable – no more seriously conceivable than reverting to surgery without anaesthesia today.

Marcus Aurelius appoints personal character...

Marcus Aurelius appoints personal character and conscience the ultimate refuge of happiness-seekers: the only place where dreams of happiness, doomed to die childless and intestate anywhere else, are not bound to be frustrated.

He who knows does not...

He who knows does not feel wonder. It could not be said that God experiences wonder, for God knows in the most absolute and perfect way.

You want to know whether...

You want to know whether I can make a long speech, such as you are in the habit of hearing; but that is not my way.

Tyranny is just what one...

Tyranny is just what one can develop a taste for, since it so happens that man prefers to wallow in fear rather than to face the anguish of being himself.

In all European countries, especially...

In all European countries, especially in England, one class of Captains and commanders of men, recognizable as the beginning of a new real and not imaginary "Aristocracy," has already in some measure developed itself: the Captains of Industry;—happily the class who above all, or at least first of all, are wanted in this time. In the doing of material work, we have already men among us that can command bodies of men. And surely, on the other hand, there is no lack of men needing to be commanded: the sad class of brother-men whom we had to describe as "Hodge's emancipated horses," reduced to roving famine,—this too has in all countries developed itself; and, in fatal geometrical progression, is ever more developing itself, with a rapidity which alarms every one. On this ground, if not on all manner of other grounds, it may be truly said, the "Organization of Labor" (not organizable by the mad methods tried hitherto) is the universal vital Problem of the world.