The best state for human...

The best state for human nature is that in which, while no one is poor, no one desires to be richer, nor has any reason to fear being thrust back by the efforts of others to push themselves forward.

The aim of this Socratic...

The aim of this Socratic parrhesiastic activity... is to lead the interlocutor to the choice of that kind of life (bios) that will be in Dorian-harmonic accord with, logos, virtue, courage, and truth.

Either knowledge is not to...

Either knowledge is not to be attained at all, or if at all, after death. For then, and not til then, the soul will be in herself alone and without the body.

Modern technology is not simply...

Modern technology is not simply an extension of human making through the power of a perfected science, but is a new account of what it is to know and to make in which both activities are changed by their co-penetration.

Though they may think the...

Though they may think the proof incomplete that the universe is a work of design, and though they assuredly disbelieve that it can have an Author and Governor who is absolute in power as well as perfect in goodness, they have that which constitutes the principal worth of all religions whatever, an ideal conception of a Perfect Being, to which they habitually refer as the guide of their conscience; and this ideal of Good is usually far nearer to perfection than the objective Deity of those, who think themselves obliged to find absolute goodness in the author of a world so crowded with suffering and so deformed by injustice as ours.

The direction of society has...

The direction of society has been taken over by a type of man who is not interested in the principles of civilisation. Not of this or that civilisation but — from what we can judge to-day — of any civilisation. …The type of man dominant to-day is a primitive one, a Naturmensch rising up in the midst of a civilised world.

And I rejoiced to think...

And I rejoiced to think that I has found in Anaxagoras a teacher of the causes of existence such as I desired, and I imagined that he would tell me first whether the earth is flat or round; and then he would further explain that this position was the best, and I should be satisfied... and not want any other sort of cause. And I thought that I would then go and ask him about the sun and moon and stars, and he would explain to me their comparative swiftness, and their returnings and various states, and how their several affections, active and passive, were all for the best. For I could not imagine that when he spoke of mind as the disposer of them, he would give any other account of their being as they are, except that this was best; and I thought when he had explained to me in detail the cause of each and the cause of all, he would go on to explain to me what was best for me and what was best for all. ...I seized the books and read them as fast as I could in my eagerness to know the better and the worse.

There's no need to fear...

There's no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons.

I want to be free...

I want to be free from freedom. Free.

The enjoyments of life (such...

The enjoyments of life (such was now my theory) are sufficient to make it a pleasant thing, when they are taken en passant, without being made a principal object. Once make them so, and they are immediately felt to be insufficient. They will not bear a scrutinizing examination. Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life. Let your self-consciousness, your scrutiny, your self-interrogation, exhaust themselves on that; and if otherwise fortunately circumstanced you will inhale happiness with the air you breathe, without dwelling on it or thinking about it, without either forestalling it in imagination, or putting it to flight by fatal questioning. This theory now became the basis of my philosophy of life. And I still hold to it as the best theory for all those who have but a moderate degree of sensibility and of capacity for enjoyment; that is, for the great majority of mankind.

Whether he be an original...

Whether he be an original or a plagiarist, man is the novelist of himself.

You could leave life right...

You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.

Oh, what idiots we all...

Oh, what idiots we all have been. This is just as it must be.

It is a disgrace to...

It is a disgrace to grow old through sheer carelessness before seeing what manner of man you may become by developing your bodily strength and beauty to their highest limit. But you cannot see that, if you are careless; for it will not come of its own accord.

How many times has Fascism...

How many times has Fascism been accused with obtuse malevolence of barbarity? Well yes: once you understand the true significance of this barbarity we will boast of it, as the expression of the healthy energies which shatter false and baleful idols, and restore the health of the nation within the power of a State conscious of its sovereign rights which are its duties.

I have learned to seek...

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

Think on this doctrine,—that reasoning...

Think on this doctrine,—that reasoning beings were created for one another's sake; that to be patient is a branch of justice, and that men sin without intending it.

The goal of maximizing the...

The goal of maximizing the welfare of all may be better achieved by an ethic that accepts our inclinations and harnesses them so that, taken as a whole, the system works to everyone's advantage.

I would trade all of...

I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates.

I have never felt any...

I have never felt any inward assurance of genius, or any presentiment of glory or of happiness. I have never seen myself in imagination great or famous, or even a husband, a father, an influential citizen. This indifference to the future, this absolute self-distrust, are, no doubt, to be taken as signs. What dreams I have are all vague and indefinite; I ought not to live, for I am now scarcely capable of living.

Man is always something more...

Man is always something more than what he knows of himself. He is not what he is simply once and for all, but is a process...

Thou art a little soul...

Thou art a little soul bearing about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.

It is no small pity,...

It is no small pity, and should cause us no little shame, that, through our own fault, we do not understand ourselves, or know who we are. Would it not be a sign of great ignorance, my daughters, if a person were asked who he was, and could not say, and had no idea who his father or mother was, or from what country he came? Though that is a great stupidity, our own is incomparably greater if we make no attempt to discover what we are, and only know that we are living in these bodies and have a vague idea, because we have heard it, and because our faith tells us so, that we possess souls. As to what good qualities there may be in our souls, or who dwells within them, or how precious they are — those are things which seldom consider and so we trouble little about carefully preserving the soul's beauty. All our interest is centred in the rough setting of the diamond and in the outer wall of the castle – that is to say in these bodies of ours.

You may observe yourself...what a...

You may observe yourself...what a difference there is between the true strength of this nation and the fictitious one of the Whigs. How much time, how many lucky incidents, how many strains of power, how much money must go to create a majority of the latter; on the other hand, take but off the opinion that the Crown is another way inclined, the church interest rises with redoubled force, and by its natural genuine strength.

Just that you do the...

Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn't matter. Cold or warm. Tired or well-rested. Despised or honored. Dying . . . or busy with other assignments. (Hays translation)

For love is ever the...

For love is ever the beginning of Knowledge, as fire is of light.

The encouragement of light-mindedness about...

The encouragement of light-mindedness about traditional philosophical topics serves the same purposes as does the encouragement of light-mindedness about traditional theological topics. Like the rise of large market economies, the increase in literacy, the proliferation of artistic genres, and the insouciant pluralism of contemporary culture, such philosophical superficiality and light-mindedness helps along the disenchantment of the world. It helps make the world’s inhabitants more pragmatic, more tolerant, more liberal, more receptive to the appeal of instrumental rationality.

I now inquire into your...

I now inquire into your opinion, (to see) from what source you usurp this right to “the Church.”If, because the Lord has said to Peter, “Upon this rock will I build My Church,” “to thee have I given the keys of the heavenly kingdom;” or, “Whatsoever thou shalt have bound or loosed in earth, shall be bound or loosed in the heavens,” you therefore presume that the power of binding and loosing has derived to you, that is, to every Church akin to Peter, what sort of man are you, subverting and wholly changing the manifest intention of the Lord, conferring (as that intention did) this (gift) personally upon Peter? “On thee,” He says, “will I build My Church;” and, “I will give to thee the keys,” not to the Church; and, “Whatsoever thou shalt have loosed or bound,” not what they shall have loosed or bound.

There are limitations indeed that...

There are limitations indeed that would destroy the essential form of monarchy: or, in other words, a monarchical constitution may be changed, under pretence of limiting the monarch. This happened among us in the last century, when the vilest usurpation, and the most infamous tyranny, were established over our nation, by some of the worst and some of the meanest men in it. I will not say, that the essential form of monarchy should be preserved, tho the preservation of it were to cause the loss of liberty. Salus reipsuprema lex esto, is a fundamental law: and sure I am, the safety of a commonwealth is ill provided for, if the liberty be given up. But this I presume to say, and can demonstrate, that all the limitations necessary to preserve liberty, as long as the spirit of it subsists, and longer than that, no limitations of monarchy, nor any other form of government, can preserve it, are compatible with monarchy.

Direct thy attention to what...

Direct thy attention to what is said. Let thy understanding enter into the things that are doing and the things which do them.

Not the external and physical...

Not the external and physical alone is now managed by machinery, but the internal and spiritual also. Here too nothing follows its spontaneous course, nothing is left to be accomplished by old natural methods. Everything has its cunningly devised implements, its preestablished apparatus; it is not done by hand, but by machinery.

Don't let them tell us...

Don't let them tell us stories. Don't let them say of the man sentenced to death "He is going to pay his debt to society," but: "They are going to cut off his head." It looks like nothing. But it does make a little difference. And then there are people who prefer to look their fate in the eye.

We worship unity in trinity,...

We worship unity in trinity, and trinity in unity; neither confounding the person nor dividing the substance. There is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost; but the Godhead of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one; the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal.

Were I to assume an...

Were I to assume an hypothesis, it should be this, if propounded more generally, so as not to assume what light is further than that it is something or other capable of exciting vibrations of the ether. First, it is to be assumed that there is an ethereal medium, much of the same constitution as air, but far rarer, subtiller, and more strongly elastic. ...In the second place, it is to be supposed that the ether is a vibrating medium, like air, only the vibrations much more swift and minute; those of air made by a man's ordinary voice succeeding at more than half a foot or a foot distance, but those of ether at a less distance than the hundredth-thousandth part of an inch. And as in air the vibrations are some larger than others, but yet all equally swift... so I suppose the ethereal vibrations differ in bigness but not in swiftness. ...In the fourth place, therefore, I suppose that light is neither ether nor its vibrating motion, but something of a different kind propagated from lucid bodies. They that will may suppose it an aggregate of various peripatetic qualities. Others may suppose it multitudes of unimaginable small and swift corpuscles of various sizes springing from shining bodies at great distances one after the other, but yet without any sensible interval of time. ...To avoid dispute and make this hypothesis general, let every man here take his fancy; only whatever light be, I would suppose it consists of successive rays differing from one another in contingent circumstances, as bigness, force, or vigour, like as the sands on the shore... and, further, I would suppose it diverse from the vibrations of the ether. ...Fifthly, it is to be supposed that light and ether mutually act upon one another. ...æthereal vibrations are therefore the best means by which such a subtile agent as light can shake the gross particles of solid bodies to heat them.

In so far as we...

In so far as we are individuals, each of us is a fragment of a species, a part of this universe, a single dot in the immense network of forces and influences, cosmic, ethnic, historic, whose laws we obey. We are subject to the determination of the physical world. But each man is also a person, he is not subject to the stars and atoms; for he subsists entirely with the very subsistence of his spiritual soul, and the latter is in him a principle of creative unity, of independence and of freedom.

Short-lived are both the praiser...

Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered: and all this in a nook of this part of the world; and not even here do all agree, no, not any one with himself: and the whole earth too is a point.

There are questions which, once...

There are questions which, once approached, either isolate you or kill you outright.

The Book had in a...

The Book had in a high degree excited us to self-activity, which is the best effect of any book.

But in the end one...

But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.

Ignorance gave this release the...

Ignorance gave this release the name of death, but properly it is the soul's birth and a charter that makes for her liberty.

It has never been recommended...

It has never been recommended to confuse "loving" with "seeking to please"… ...Salome pleased Herod's guests; I can hardly believe she was burning with love for them. As for poor John the Baptist... ...she certainly did not envelop him in her love.

And you can also commit...

And you can also commit injustice by doing nothing. (Hays translation)

I have no ideas, only...

I have no ideas, only obsessions. Anybody can have ideas. Ideas have never caused anybody’s downfall.

Do nothing, only keep agitating,...

Do nothing, only keep agitating, debating; and things will destroy themselves.

"My field," said Goethe, "is...

"My field," said Goethe, "is time." That is indeed the absurd speech. What, in fact, is the Absurd Man? He who, without negating it, does nothing for the eternal. Not that nostalgia is foreign to him. But he prefers his courage and his reasoning. The first teaches him to live without appeal and to get along with what he has; the second informs him of his limits. Assured of his temporally limited freedom, of his revolt devoid of future, and of his mortal consciousness, he lives out his adventure within the span of his lifetime.

Thus, Reader, have I published...

Thus, Reader, have I published that knowledge which God gave me "to the fruit of a good conscience." I have not bushelled my light nor buried my talent in the ground. I will now withdraw and leave the stage to the next actor some Peripatetic perhaps, whose sic probo shall serve me for a comedy. I have seen scolds laughed at but never admired: so he that multiplies discourses makes a serious cause ridiculous.

The secret belief that the...

The secret belief that the Lord of conscience loves and accepts each faithful sacrifice is the ultimate and sufficient support of all goodness; dispensing with the chorus of approving voices; replacing all vain self-reliance with a Divine strength; and with the peace of a reconciled nature consoling the inevitable sorrows of a devoted life.

The inversion of external compulsion...

The inversion of external compulsion into the compulsion of conscience … produces the machine-like assiduity and pliable allegiance required by the new rationality.

Acquire the contemplative way of...

Acquire the contemplative way of seeing how all things change into one another, and constantly attend to it, and exercise thyself about this part [of philosophy]. For nothing is so much adapted to produce magnanimity. ...But as to what any man shall say or think about him, or do against him, he never even thinks of it, being himself contented with these two things: with acting justly in what he now does, and being satisfied with what is now assigned to him; and he lays aside all distracting and busy pursuits, and desires nothing else than to accomplish the straight course through the law, and by accomplishing the straight course to follow God.

Let us cultivate our garden.

Let us cultivate our garden.