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Political theory15 quotes
Where-ever Law ends, Tyranny begins. — John Locke · 1690During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man. — Thomas Hobbes · 1651The 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 · 1690For forms of government let fools contest;
Whate'er is best administered is best. — Alexander Pope · 1733All 15 quotes →Politics15 quotes
Where-ever Law ends, Tyranny begins. — John Locke · 1690A state without some means of change is without the means of its own conservation. — Edmund Burke · 1790During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man. — Thomas Hobbes · 1651The 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 15 quotes →Human nature12 quotes
Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made. — Immanuel Kant · 1784For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes. — Francis Bacon · 1620The heart of man is made to reconcile contradictions. — David Hume · 1741I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death. — Thomas Hobbes · 1651How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it. — Adam Smith · 1759Do you believe that men have always massacred each other as they do to-day, that they have always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, brigands, idiots, thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunkards, misers, envious, ambitious, bloody-minded, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools? — Voltaire · 1759All 12 quotes →Law10 quotes
Where-ever Law ends, Tyranny begins. — John Locke · 1690Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind. — Edward Gibbon · 1776Laws, like houses, lean on one another. — Edmund Burke · 1760Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen. — George Savile, Lord Halifax · 1750Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law. — Oliver Goldsmith · 1764All 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 · 1769All 10 quotes →Reason9 quotes
The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of. — Blaise Pascal · 1662Reason 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 · 1739The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience. — David Hume · 1748If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning, concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. — David Hume · 1748Sapere aude! Have the courage to use your own reason! This is the motto of the Enlightenment. — Immanuel Kant · 1784It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. — Blaise Pascal · 1662All 9 quotes →Freedom8 quotes
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. — Benjamin Franklin · 1755The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion. — Edmund Burke · 1784In all ages of the world, priests have been enemies to liberty. — David Hume · 1741Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist. — Edmund Burke · 1777Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself; and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all its combinations of skill and force, can do in his favor. — Edmund Burke · 1790If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil. — Baruch Spinoza · 1677All 8 quotes →Morality8 quotes
Censorship is crucial for preserving morals but useless for restoring them. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau · 1762By hating vices too much, they come to love men too little. — Edmund Burke · 1790Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery. — Edward Gibbon · 1781Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist. — Edmund Burke · 1777There is but one law for all, namely, that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity, — the Law of Nature and of Nations. — Edmund Burke · 1794Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails,
And honour sinks where commerce long prevails. — Oliver Goldsmith · 1764All 8 quotes →The human condition8 quotes
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 · 1739All human misfortune comes from this one thing: man's being unable to sit still in a room. — Blaise Pascal · 1662Do you believe that men have always massacred each other as they do to-day, that they have always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, brigands, idiots, thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunkards, misers, envious, ambitious, bloody-minded, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools? — Voltaire · 1759How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! — Oliver Goldsmith · 1765O Life! thou art a galling load,
Along a rough, a weary road,
To wretches such as I! — Robert Burns · 1786Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the skeptic side,
With too much weakness for the stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a god or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little or too much;
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused, or disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled;
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! — Alexander Pope · 1733All 8 quotes →God5 quotes
God is, or He is not. But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separates us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager?... If you win, you win everything; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. — Blaise Pascal · 1662This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being... This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont, to be called Lord God παντοκρατωρ or Universal Ruler. — Isaac Newton · 1713I could not possibly exist with the nature I actually have, that is, one endowed with the idea of God, unless there really is a God; the very God, I mean, of whom I have an idea. — Rene Descartes · 1641I think it was a generous thought, and one that flowed from an exalted mind, that it was not improbable but God might be delighted with the various methods of worshipping him, which divided the whole world. — Alexander Pope · 1716It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. — Blaise Pascal · 1662Government5 quotes
In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain... And the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. — Thomas Hobbes · 1651During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man. — Thomas Hobbes · 1651For forms of government let fools contest;
Whate'er is best administered is best. — Alexander Pope · 1733How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! — Oliver Goldsmith · 1765In 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 · 1769Legal theory5 quotes
Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. — Adam Smith · 1759Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind. — Edward Gibbon · 1776Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen. — George Savile, Lord Halifax · 1750All 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 · 1765Natural law5 quotes
There are two sorts of laws, those of absolute equity and universality, and the bizarre ones which owe their autonomy only to blindness or to the force of circumstance. The latter merely cover the man who is breaking them with a passing disgrace, which time then transfers to the judges and the nations, on whom it remains forever. — Denis Diderot · 1805There is but one law for all, namely, that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity, — the Law of Nature and of Nations. — Edmund Burke · 1794Man...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 · 1690Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more seriously reflection concentrates upon them: the starry heaven above me and the moral law within me. — Immanuel Kant · 1788The slave trade is contrary to the laws of God and to the rights of men. — David Hartley (the Younger) · 1776Reason and emotion5 quotes
The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of. — Blaise Pascal · 1662Reason 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 · 1739The ruling passion, be it what it will,
The ruling passion conquers reason still. — Alexander Pope · 1733It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. — Blaise Pascal · 1662Let us work without reasoning, it is the only way to make life endurable. — Voltaire · 1759Criminal law4 quotes
Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen. — George Savile, Lord Halifax · 1750All 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 · 1769Wherever a knave is not punished, an honest man is laughed at. — George Savile, Lord Halifax · 1750The 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 · 1769Custom and convention4 quotes
Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. — David Hume · 1748Custom reconciles us to everything. — Edmund Burke · 1757There are two sorts of laws, those of absolute equity and universality, and the bizarre ones which owe their autonomy only to blindness or to the force of circumstance. The latter merely cover the man who is breaking them with a passing disgrace, which time then transfers to the judges and the nations, on whom it remains forever. — Denis Diderot · 1805The law touches us but here and there, and now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. — Edmund Burke · 1796Moral theory4 quotes
Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. — Adam Smith · 1759Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery. — Edward Gibbon · 1781Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind. — Edward Gibbon · 1776There is but one law for all, namely, that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity, — the Law of Nature and of Nations. — Edmund Burke · 1794Science4 quotes
Moreover, in a system of two bodies mutually acting upon each other, since the differences between their centres and the common centre of gravity of both are reciprocally as the bodies, the relative motions of those bodies, whether of approaching to or of receding from that centre, will be equal junong themselves. Therefore since the changes which happen to motions are equal and directed to contrary parts. — Isaac Newton · 1687Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition. — Adam Smith · 1776Errors are not in the art, but in the artificers. — Isaac Newton · 1687The great advantage of the mathematical sciences above the moral consists in this, that the ideas of the former, being sensible, are always clear and determinate. — David Hume · 1748Change3 quotes
All that is human must retrograde if it do not advance. — Edward Gibbon · 1789Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better. — Samuel Johnson · 1755Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. — Alexander Pope · 1711Death3 quotes
Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. — Samuel Johnson · 1777How often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? In every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part. — Alexander Pope · 1732O Death! the poor man's dearest friend,
The kindest and the best! — Robert Burns · 1784Empathy3 quotes
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it. — Adam Smith · 1759Teach me to feel another's wo,
To hide the fault I see:
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me. — Alexander Pope · 1738Though our brother is upon the rack, as long as we ourselves are at our ease, our senses will never inform us of what he suffers. They never did, and never can, carry us beyond our own person, and it is by the imagination only that we can form any conception of what are his sensations... His agonies, when they are thus brought home to ourselves, when we have thus adopted and made them our own, begin at last to affect us, and we then tremble and shudder at the thought of what he feels. — Adam Smith · 1759Ignorance3 quotes
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again. — Alexander Pope · 1711Men blaspheme what they do not know. — Blaise Pascal · 1662There’s none so blind as they that won’t see. — Jonathan Swift · 1738Liars3 quotes
He who tells a lie, is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one. — Alexander Pope · 1727Whoever would lie usefully should lie seldom. — Lord Hervey · 1743A known liar should be outlawed in a well-ordered government. — George Savile, Lord Halifax · 1750Lies3 quotes
He who tells a lie, is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one. — Alexander Pope · 1727Whoever would lie usefully should lie seldom. — Lord Hervey · 1743True and False are attributes of speech, not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither Truth nor Falsehood. — Thomas Hobbes · 1651Love3 quotes
With love, you see, even too much is not enough. — Pierre Beaumarchais · 1784But to see her, was to love her;
Love but her, and love for ever. — Robert Burns · 1791Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves. — Oliver Goldsmith · 1768Man and animals3 quotes
The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster. — David Hume · 1776Drinking when we are not thirsty and making love all year round madam; that is all there is to distinguish us from other animals. — Pierre Beaumarchais · 1784Histories are more full of Examples of the Fidelity of dogs than of Friends. — Alexander Pope · 1709Man as social animal3 quotes
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it. — Adam Smith · 1759Though our brother is upon the rack, as long as we ourselves are at our ease, our senses will never inform us of what he suffers. They never did, and never can, carry us beyond our own person, and it is by the imagination only that we can form any conception of what are his sensations... His agonies, when they are thus brought home to ourselves, when we have thus adopted and made them our own, begin at last to affect us, and we then tremble and shudder at the thought of what he feels. — Adam Smith · 1759The social, friendly, honest man,
Whate'er he be,
'Tis he fulfills great Nature's plan,
An' none but he! — Robert Burns · 1785Marriage3 quotes
They dream in Courtship, but in Wedlock wake. — Alexander Pope · 1704Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures. — Samuel Johnson · 1759It is so far from being natural for a man and woman to live in a state of marriage, that we find all the motives which they have for remaining in that connection, and the restraints which civilized society imposes to prevent separation, are hardly sufficient to keep them together. — Samuel Johnson · 1772Moral decline3 quotes
Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist. — Edmund Burke · 1777Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails,
And honour sinks where commerce long prevails. — Oliver Goldsmith · 1764Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay;
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made:
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied. — Oliver Goldsmith · 1770Nature of man3 quotes
I think, therefore I am. — Rene Descartes · 1637Man 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 · 1690Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the skeptic side,
With too much weakness for the stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a god or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little or too much;
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused, or disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled;
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! — Alexander Pope · 1733Power3 quotes
Riches, knowledge and honour are but several sorts of power. — Thomas Hobbes · 1651I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death. — Thomas Hobbes · 1651The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse. — Edmund Burke · 1771