Sourced and curated.

I love any discourse of rivers, and fish and fishing.

The Compleat Angler · 1653

★ 1.1

In all tyrannical governments, the supreme magistracy, or the right both of making and of enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same man, or one and the same body of men; and wherever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty.

Commentaries on the Laws of England · 1769

★ 1.1

What do we perceive besides our own ideas or sensations?

George Berkeley

1710

★ 1.2

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

Whoever is responsible for another's becoming powerful ruins himself.

The Prince · 1513

★ 1.4

In architecture as in all other operative arts, the end must direct the operation. The end is to build well. Well building hath three conditions. Commodity, firmness, and delight.

Henry Wotton

1624

★ 1.8

A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.

James VI and I

1604

★ 1.9

Reason is the life of the law, nay the common law itself is nothing else but reason.

Edward Coke

1628

★ 1.9

How long soever it hath continued, if it be against reason, it is of no force in law.

Edward Coke

1628

★ 1.9

Angling may be said to be so like the mathematics, that it can never be fully learnt.

The Compleat Angler · 1653

★ 1.9

I love such mirth as does not make friends ashamed to look upon one another next morning.

The Compleat Angler · 1653

★ 1.9

The great design of art is to restore the decays that happened to human nature by the fall, by restoring order.

John Dennis

1704

★ 1.9

Our whole economy is based on planned obsolescence.

Brooks Stevens

1960

★ 1.9

I have laid aside business, and gone a-fishing.

The Compleat Angler · 1653

★ 1.9

The offense of riding or going armed, with dangerous or unusual weapons, is a crime against the public peace, by terrifying the good people of the land.

The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie.

Commentaries on the Laws of England · 1769

★ 1.9

Treatise · Economic literature

Joseph Schumpeter

1950

★ 1.9

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

Ludwig Wittgenstein

1953

★ 1.9

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

The Rod, which is the only Instrument of Government that Tutors generally know, or ever think of, is the most unfit of any to be us'd in Education.

John Locke

Some Thoughts Concerning Education · 1693

★ 2.0

Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.

David Hume

A Treatise of Human Nature · 1739

★ 2.0

That the king can do no wrong, is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution.

Man...has by nature a power...to preserve his property—that is, his life, liberty, and estate—against the injuries and attempts of other men.

Commentaries on the Laws of England · 1765

★ 2.0

Treatise · Political literature

John Locke

Two Treatises of Government · 1690

★ 2.1

Poets...tho' liars by profession, always endeavour to give an air of truth to their fictions.

David Hume

A Treatise of Human Nature · 1739

★ 2.1

Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

1922

★ 2.1

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.

Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permits.

The Prince · 1513

★ 2.2

Treatise · Political literature

Montesquieu

The Spirit of the Laws · 1748

★ 2.9

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

There are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless.

Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live; that he who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about his own ruin that his preservation.

The Prince · 1532

★ 3.0

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities... It is best to win without fighting.

The Prince · 1532

★ 3.0

Treatise · Military treatise

Sun Tzu

The Art of War · 490 BC

★ 3.3

The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy anything.

David Ogilvy

Confessions of an Advertising Man · 1963

★ 3.4

That action is best, which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.

Francis Hutcheson

An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue · 1725

★ 3.5

Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.

John Ruskin

1851

★ 3.5

Treatise · Economic literature

The market economy as such does not respect political frontiers. Its field is the world.

Ludwig von Mises

1949

★ 3.5

We may say of angling, as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries, "Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did."

The Compleat Angler · 1653

★ 3.6

No man can lose what he never had.

Words easy to be understood do often hit the mark, when high and learned ones do only pierce the air.

The Compleat Angler · 1653

★ 3.6

Treatise · Religious literature

John Bunyan

1665

★ 3.6

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

Good and Evil, Reward and Punishment, are the only Motives to a rational Creature: These are the Spur and Reins whereby all Mankind are set on Work, and guided.

John Locke

Some Thoughts Concerning Education · 1693

★ 3.6

Whence it is that in our law the goodness of a custom depends upon its having been used time out of mind; or, in the solemnity of our legal phrase, time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.

Commentaries on the Laws of England · 1765

★ 3.6

All presumptive evidence of felony should be admitted cautiously; for the law holds, that it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.

Commentaries on the Laws of England · 1769

★ 3.6

I would earnestly ask my sisters to keep clear of both the jargons now current everywhere... Of the jargon, namely about the "rights" of women, which urges women to do all that men do... Merely because men do it, and without regard to whether this is the best that women can do; and of the jargon which urges women to do nothing that men do, merely because they are women... Woman should bring the best she has, whatever that is... Without attending to either of these cries.

Florence Nightingale

1860

★ 3.6