Thus, all unknown quantities can...

Thus, all unknown quantities can be expressed in terms of a single quantity, whenever the problem can be constructed by means of circles and straight lines, or by conic sections, or even by some other curve of degree not greater than the third or fourth.But I shall not stop to explain this in more detail, because I should deprive you of the pleasure of mastering it yourself, as well as of the advantage of training your mind by working over it, which is in my opinion the principal benefit to be derived from this science. Because, I find nothing here so difficult that it cannot be worked out by anyone at all familiar with ordinary geometry and with algebra, who will consider carefully all that is set forth in this treatise.

But the thing a man...

But the thing a man does practically believe (and this is often enough without asserting it even to himself, much less to others); the thing a man does practically lay to heart, and know for certain, concerning his vital relations to this mysterious Universe, and his duty and destiny there, that is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively determines all the rest. That is his religion; or, it may be, his mere scepticism and no-religion: the manner it is in which he feels himself to be spiritually related to the Unseen World or No-World; and I say, if you tell me what that is, you tell me to a very great extent what the man is, what the kind of things he will do is.

Homer tells us also that...

Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains. Pluto could not endure the sight of his deserted, silent empire. He dispatched the god of war, who liberated Death from the hands of her conqueror.

Concessions to adversaries only end...

Concessions to adversaries only end in self reproach, and the more strictly they are avoided the greater will be the chance of security.

The United States is the...

The United States is the only country where these revolutions are simultaneously in progress and organically linked in such a way as to constitute a single revolution.

The more the concept of...

The more the concept of reason becomes emasculated, the more easily it lends itself to ideological manipulation and to propagation of even the most blatant lies. … Subjective reason conforms to anything.

In contemplating thyself never include...

In contemplating thyself never include the vessel which surrounds thee, and these instruments which are attached about it. For they are like an ax, differing only in this, that they grow to the body. For indeed there is no more use in these parts without the cause which moves and checks them than in the weaver's shuttle, and the writer's pen, and the driver's whip.

Whoever is suspicious incites treason.

Whoever is suspicious incites treason.

Life creates itself in delirium...

Life creates itself in delirium and is undone in ennui.

His Religion is not an...

His Religion is not an easy one: with rigorous fasts, lavations, strict complex formulas, prayers five times a day, and abstinence from wine, it did not "succeed by being an easy religion." As if indeed any religion, or cause holding of religion, could succeed by that! It is a calumny on men to say that they are roused to heroic action by ease, hope of pleasure, recompense, — sugar-plums of any kind, in this world or the next! In the meanest mortal there lies something nobler.

...there are more things to...

...there are more things to admire in men than to despise.

You can now, if you...

You can now, if you choose, employ your present success to advantage, so as to keep what you have got and gain honour and reputation besides, and you can avoid the mistake of those who meet with an extraordinary piece of good fortune, and are led on by hope to grasp continually at something further, through having already succeeded without expecting it.

If only I was as...

If only I was as eloquent as Demosthenes, I would have to do no more than repeat a single word three times. Reason is language — Logos; I gnaw on this marrowbone and will gnaw myself to death over it. It is still always dark over these depths for me: I am still always awaiting an apocalyptic angel with a key to this abyss.

Shame on the soul, to...

Shame on the soul, to falter on the road of life while the body still perseveres.

O love! only a few...

O love! only a few rays of thy sacred fire radiate in this exhausted world!

Life inspires more dread than...

Life inspires more dread than death — it is life which is the great unknown.

I cannot call this Shakspeare...

I cannot call this Shakspeare a "Sceptic," as some do; his indifference to the creeds and theological quarrels of his time misleading them. No: neither unpatriotic, though he says little about his Patriotism; nor sceptic, though he says little about his Faith. Such "indifference" was the fruit of his greatness withal: his whole heart was in his own grand sphere of worship (we may call it such); these other controversies, vitally important to other men, were not vital to him.

L'homme enfin n'est pas entièrement...

L'homme enfin n'est pas entièrement coupable — il n'a pas commencé l'histoire — ni tout à fait innocent, puisqu'il la continue.

Skills are called hidden treasure...

Skills are called hidden treasure as they save like a mother in a foreign country.

When we for recompense have...

When we for recompense have prais'd the vile, It stains the glory in that happy verse Which aptly sings the good.

Just acquiring this amount of...

Just acquiring this amount of "education" will not, by itself, make you an educated person, even less will it give you what Oakeshott calls "judgment." But if the manner of instruction is adequate, the student should be able to acquire this much knowledge in a way that combines intellectual openness, critical scrutiny, and logical clarity. If so, learning will not stop when the student leaves the university.

Let none turn over books,...

Let none turn over books, or roam the stars in quest of God, who sees him not in man.

When you arise in the...

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

God is a comedian playing...

God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

I thought that the only...

I thought that the only action a man could perform without shame was to take his life; that he had no right to diminish himself in the succession of days and the inertic of misery. No elect, I kept telling myself, but those who committed suicide.

If this superstitious fear of...

If this superstitious fear of Spirits were taken away, and with it, Prognostiques from Dreams, false Prophecies, and many other things depending thereon, by which, crafty ambitious persons abuse the simple people, men would be much more fitted then they are for civill Obedience.

All that Mankind has done,...

All that Mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of Books.

As a writer Camus maintained...

As a writer Camus maintained his independence from both friends and enemies in the political and philosophical movements that attempted to subvert his writing to their own ends. ... Camus combines a taut writing style, as well as profound insights on society, with the courage to report back from the abyss of despair, unblinking.

Man should know from this...

Man should know from this rule that he is cut off from truth.

Empirical laws ... have only...

Empirical laws ... have only slight or even no value beyond the limits within which they have been observed to be true.

Sudden Glory, is the passion...

Sudden Glory, is the passion which maketh those Grimaces called LAUGHTER.

Truly it is a sad...

Truly it is a sad thing for a people, as for a man, to fall into Scepticism, into dilettantism, insincerity; not to know Sincerity when they see it. For this world, and for all worlds, what curse is so fatal?

Repentance for one's evil deeds...

Repentance for one's evil deeds is the safeguard of life.

Mechanical reproduction emancipates the work...

Mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. To an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility. From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the “authentic” print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics.

Parnenides: When there is a...

Parnenides: When there is a number of things which seem to you to be great, you may think, as you look at them all, that there is one and the same idea in them, and hence you think the great is one. But if with your mind's eye you regard the absolute great and these many great things in the same way, will not another great appear beyond, by which all these must appear to be great?

The United States—bounded on the...

The United States—bounded on the north by the Aurora Borealis, on the south by the precession of the equinoxes, on the east by the primeval chaos, and on the west by the Day of Judgment.

I believe in the salvation...

I believe in the salvation of humanity, in the future of cyanide . . .

From whence it follows, that...

From whence it follows, that were the publique and private interest are most closely united, there is the publique most advanced.

And yet I will venture...

And yet I will venture to believe that in no time, since the beginnings of Society, was the lot of those same dumb millions of toilers so entirely unbearable as it is even in the days now passing over us. It is not to die, or even to die of hunger, that makes a man wretched; many men have died; all men must die,—the last exit of us all is in a Fire-Chariot of Pain. But it is to live miserable we know not why; to work sore and yet gain nothing; to be heart-worn, weary, yet isolated, unrelated, girt in with a cold universal Laissez-faire: it is to die slowly all our life long, imprisoned in a deaf, dead, Infinite Injustice, as in the accursed iron belly of a Phalaris' Bull! This is and remains forever intolerable to all men whom God has made. Do we wonder at French Revolutions, Chartisms, Revolts of Three Days? The times, if we will consider them, are really unexampled.

Throw moderation to the winds,...

Throw moderation to the winds, and the greatest pleasures bring the greatest pains.

When Bernard Marx tells the...

When Bernard Marx tells the Savage he will try to secure permission for him and his mother to visit the Other Place, John is initially pleased and excited. Echoing Miranda in The Tempest, he exclaims: "O brave new world that has such people in it." Heavy irony. Like innocent Miranda, he is eager to embrace a way of life he neither knows nor understands. And of course he comes unstuck. Yet if we swallow such fancy literary conceits, then ultimately the joke is on us. It is only funny in the sense there are "jokes" about Auschwitz. For it is Huxley who neither knows nor understands the glory of what lies ahead. A utopian society in which we are sublimely happy will be far better than we can presently imagine, not worse. And it is we, trapped in the emotional squalor of late-Darwinian antiquity, who neither know nor understand the lives of the god-like super-beings we are destined to become.

Journalism has become a great...

Journalism has become a great god of the period, and gods have a way of ruthlessly and demonically taking over their servitors.

Since those who rule in...

Since those who rule in the city do so because they own a lot, I suppose they're unwilling to enact laws to prevent young people who've had no discipline from spending and wasting their wealth, so that by making loans to them, secured by the young people's property, and then calling those loans in, they themselves become even richer and more honored.

Christian love was not the...

Christian love was not the feeling which long animated the respective followers of Peter and Paul.We who have been born into a settled state of things can hardly realise the commotion out of which this tranquillity has emerged. We have, for example, the canon of Scripture already arranged for us. But to sift and select these writings from the mass of spurious documents afloat at the time of compilation was a work of vast labour, difficulty, and responsibility. The age was rife with forgeries. Even good men lent themselves to these pious frauds, believing that true Christian doctrine, which of course was their doctrine, would be thereby quickened and promoted. There were gospels and counter-gospels; epistles and counter-epistles—some frivolous, some dull, some speculative and romantic, and some so rich and penetrating, so saturated with the Master's spirit, that, though not included in the canon, they enjoyed an authority almost equal to that of the canonical books.

But for my part (Continues...

But for my part (Continues Carneades) what my Indignation at this Un-philosophical way of teaching Principles has now extorted from me, is meant chiefly to excuse my self, if I shall hereafter oppose any Particular Opinion or assertion, that some Follower of Paracelsus or any Eminent Artist may pretend not to be his Masters. For, as I told you long since, I am not Oblig'd to examine private mens writings, (which were a Labour as endless as unprofitable) being only engag'd to examine those Opinions about the Tria Prima, which I find those Chymists I have met with to agree in most: And I Doubt not but my Arguments against their Doctrine will be in great part easily enough applicable ev'n to those private Opinions, which they do not so directly and expresly oppose.

I foresee the day when...

I foresee the day when we shall read nothing but telegrams and prayers.

It is a remarkable fact...

It is a remarkable fact that, in a history extending over nearly twenty-five hundred years, a considerable part of the most significant writing on political philosophy was done in two periods of only about fifty years each and in two places of quite restricted area. … The Second place was England, and the period was the half century between 1640 and 1690, which produced the works of Hobbes and Locke, together with the works of a host of lesser figures.

Nature admits no lie.

Nature admits no lie.

One might naively suppose that...

One might naively suppose that a negative utilitarian would welcome human extinction. But only (trans)humans - or our potential superintelligent successors - are technically capable of phasing out the cruelties of the rest of the living world on Earth. And only (trans)humans - or rather our potential superintelligent successors - are technically capable of assuming stewardship of our entire Hubble volume.

The nationalism I grew up...

The nationalism I grew up with is a principled standpoint that regards the world as governed best when nations are able to chart their own independent course, cultivating their own traditions and pursuing their own interests without interference. This is opposed to imperialism, which seeks to bring peace and prosperity to the world by uniting mankind, as much as possible, under a single political regime.