Sourced and curated.

The Prince · 1532

★ 7.9

Where-ever Law ends, Tyranny begins.

Two Treatises of Government · 1690

★ 7.2

Man is a social animal.

What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem?

Ethics · 1677

★ 7.1

Treatise · Religious literature

Tertullian

220

★ 7.1

The most perfect of all works of art is true political freedom.

Friedrich Schiller

1794

★ 7.0

It therefore comes to pass that everyone is fond of relating his own exploits and displaying the strength both of his body and his mind, and that men are on this account a nuisance one to the other.

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.

Ethics · 1677

★ 6.9

Treatise · Military treatise

Sun Tzu

The Art of War · 490 BC

★ 5.7

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.

The Prince · 1532

★ 5.5

God and all the attributes of God are eternal.

Ethics · 1677

★ 5.5

The end of law is not to abolish or restrain but to preserve and enlarge freedom.

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.

Second Treatise of Civil Government · 1690

★ 5.5

Treatise · Scientific literature

Isaac Newton

Opticks: or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light · 1704

★ 5.4

Treatise · Legal writing

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

Commentaries on the Laws of England · 1765

★ 5.3

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

A Treatise of Human Nature · 1739

★ 5.2

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

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.

The Prince · 1532

★ 4.7

Pride is therefore pleasure arising from a man's thinking too highly of himself.

Ethics · 1677

★ 4.5

He who would distinguish the true from the false must have an adequate idea of what is true and false.

To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.

Ethics · 1677

★ 4.5

Treatise · Military treatise

Sun Tzu

The Art of War · 500 BC

★ 4.0

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

It is much safer to be feared than loved.

Among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised.

The Prince · 1527

★ 4.0

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

He [the prince] holds to what is right when he can but knows how to do wrong when he must.

The Prince · 1532

★ 4.0

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

So long as the great majority of men are not deprived of either property or honour, they are satisfied.

The Prince · 1532

★ 4.0

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

This 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.

The Prince · 1532

★ 4.0

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

The Prince · 1532

★ 3.9

Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.

Ethics · 1677

★ 3.8

God, or in other words, Nature.

Ethics · 1677

★ 3.8

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

A Treatise of Human Nature · 1739

★ 3.8

Treatise · Legal writing

Man was formed for society.

William Blackstone

Commentaries on the Laws of England · 1765

★ 3.8

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

1922

★ 3.8

The 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.

Two Treatises of Government · 1690

★ 3.7

Man 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.

Two Treatises of Government · 1690

★ 3.7

The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property.

Virtue is harder to be got, than a Knowledge of the World; and, if lost in a young Man, is seldom recover'd.

Two Treatises of Government · 1690

★ 3.7

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

He that will have his Son have a Respect for him and his Orders, must himself have a great Reverence for his Son.

Some Thoughts Concerning Education · 1693

★ 3.7

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

Whence 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.

Some Thoughts Concerning Education · 1693

★ 3.7

Treatise · Scientific literature

Isaac Newton

Opticks: or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light · 1704

★ 3.7

Treatise

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

The Compleat Angler · 1653

★ 3.6

Treatise

No man can lose what he never had.

Izaak Walton

The Compleat Angler · 1653

★ 3.6

Treatise · Religious literature

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

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.