The Quotes canon

Sourced and curated.

Every quote has been curated by hand and carefully authenticated.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Where-ever Law ends, Tyranny begins. — John Locke · 1690The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms; and as there cannot be good laws where the state is not well armed, it follows that where they are well armed they have good laws. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532He [the prince] holds to what is right when he can but knows how to do wrong when he must. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty and puts on the bonds of civil society is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community. — John Locke · 1690Man being...by nature all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate and subjected to the political power of another without his own consent. — John Locke · 1690The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property. — John Locke · 1690All 8 quotes →
Politics6 quotes
Where-ever Law ends, Tyranny begins. — John Locke · 1690It is much safer to be feared than loved. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1527The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty and puts on the bonds of civil society is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community. — John Locke · 1690Man being...by nature all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate and subjected to the political power of another without his own consent. — John Locke · 1690The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property. — John Locke · 1690In 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. — William Blackstone · 1769
Fishing5 quotes
We may say of angling, as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries, "Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did." — Izaak Walton · 1653I have laid aside business, and gone a-fishing. — Izaak Walton · 1653Angling may be said to be so like the mathematics, that it can never be fully learnt. — Izaak Walton · 1653I love any discourse of rivers, and fish and fishing. — Izaak Walton · 1653You will find angling to be like the virtue of humility, which has a calmness of spirit, and a world of other blessings attending upon it. — Izaak Walton · 1653
Law5 quotes
Where-ever Law ends, Tyranny begins. — John Locke · 1690The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms; and as there cannot be good laws where the state is not well armed, it follows that where they are well armed they have good laws. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532All 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. — William Blackstone · 1769Reason is the life of the law, nay the common law itself is nothing else but reason. — Edward Coke · 1628How long soever it hath continued, if it be against reason, it is of no force in law. — Edward Coke · 1628
Legal theory4 quotes
The king, moreover, is not only incapable of doing wrong, but even of thinking wrong: he can never mean to do an improper thing: in him is no folly or weakness. — William Blackstone · 1765Whence 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. — William Blackstone · 1765All 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. — William Blackstone · 1769That the king can do no wrong, is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution. — William Blackstone · 1765
Government3 quotes
The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms; and as there cannot be good laws where the state is not well armed, it follows that where they are well armed they have good laws. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532Many 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. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532In 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. — William Blackstone · 1769
Man is a social animal. — Baruch Spinoza · 1677Man was formed for society. — William Blackstone · 1765Man being...by nature all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate and subjected to the political power of another without his own consent. — John Locke · 1690
Philosophy3 quotes
What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? — Tertullian · 220Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous. — David Hume · 1739Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. — Ludwig Wittgenstein · 1953
Reason3 quotes
Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them. — David Hume · 1739Reason is the life of the law, nay the common law itself is nothing else but reason. — Edward Coke · 1628How long soever it hath continued, if it be against reason, it is of no force in law. — Edward Coke · 1628
Art2 quotes
The most perfect of all works of art is true political freedom. — Friedrich Schiller · 1794The great design of art is to restore the decays that happened to human nature by the fall, by restoring order. — John Dennis · 1704
Criminal law2 quotes
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. — William Blackstone · 1769The 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. — William Blackstone · 1769
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. — William Blackstone · 1765How long soever it hath continued, if it be against reason, it is of no force in law. — Edward Coke · 1628
Freedom2 quotes
The most perfect of all works of art is true political freedom. — Friedrich Schiller · 1794Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permits. — Montesquieu · 1748
God, or in other words, Nature. — Baruch Spinoza · 1677Whence is it that Nature does nothing in vain: and whence arises all that Order and Beauty which we see in the World?... does it not appear from Phenomena that there is a Being incorporeal, living, intelligent, omnipresent, who in infinite Space, as it were in his Sensory, sees the things themselves intimately, and throughly perceives them, and comprehends them wholly. — Isaac Newton · 1704
Language2 quotes
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. — Ludwig Wittgenstein · 1922Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. — Ludwig Wittgenstein · 1953
Leadership2 quotes
It is much safer to be feared than loved. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1527This leads to a debate: is it better to be loved than feared, or the reverse? The answer is that it is desirable to be both, but because it is difficult to join them together, it is much safer for a prince to be feared than loved, if he is to fail in one of the two. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532
Man is a social animal. — Baruch Spinoza · 1677Man was formed for society. — William Blackstone · 1765
Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate. — Sun Tzu · 490 BCTo fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting. — Sun Tzu · 500 BC
Monarchy2 quotes
The king, moreover, is not only incapable of doing wrong, but even of thinking wrong: he can never mean to do an improper thing: in him is no folly or weakness. — William Blackstone · 1765That the king can do no wrong, is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution. — William Blackstone · 1765
Nature2 quotes
Nature abhors a vacuum. — Baruch Spinoza · 1677Whence is it that Nature does nothing in vain: and whence arises all that Order and Beauty which we see in the World?... does it not appear from Phenomena that there is a Being incorporeal, living, intelligent, omnipresent, who in infinite Space, as it were in his Sensory, sees the things themselves intimately, and throughly perceives them, and comprehends them wholly. — Isaac Newton · 1704
God and all the attributes of God are eternal. — Baruch Spinoza · 1677God, or in other words, Nature. — Baruch Spinoza · 1677
The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property. — John Locke · 1690Man...has by nature a power...to preserve his property—that is, his life, liberty, and estate—against the injuries and attempts of other men. — John Locke · 1690
Religion2 quotes
What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? — Tertullian · 220Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous. — David Hume · 1739
Tyranny2 quotes
Where-ever Law ends, Tyranny begins. — John Locke · 1690In 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. — William Blackstone · 1769
Of all the animals, with which this globe is peopled, there is none towards whom nature seems, at first sight, to have exercis'd more cruelty than towards man, in the numberless wants and necessities, with which she has loaded him, and in the slender means, which she affords to the relieving these necessities. — David Hume · 1739
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 · 1963
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
Athens1 quote
What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? — Tertullian · 220
What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? — Tertullian · 220
Atomism1 quote
God in the Beginning form'd Matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, moveable Particles, of such Sizes and Figures, and with such other Properties, and in such Proportion to Space, as most conduced to the End for which he form'd them. — Isaac Newton · 1704