A man discovers what he...

A man discovers what he is actually worth in this world when he faces society as a man, without money, name, or powerful connections, stripped of all but his native potentialities. He soon finds that nothing has less weight than his human qualities. They are prized so low that the market does not even list them. Strict science, which acknowledges man only as a biological concept, reflects man’s lot in the actual world; in himself, man is nothing more than a member of a species. In the eyes of the world, the quality of humanity confers no title to existence, nay, not even a right of sojourn. Such title must be certified by special social circumstances stipulated in documents to be presented on demand.

Is it not better to...

Is it not better to use what is in thy power like a free man than to desire in a slavish and abject way what is not in thy power?

Consciousness is nature's nightmare.

Consciousness is nature's nightmare.

What I have given in...

What I have given in the second book on the nature and properties of curved lines, and the method of examining them, is, it seems to me, as far beyond the treatment in the ordinary geometry, as the rhetoric of Cicero is beyond the a, b, c of children.

a matter in regard to...

a matter in regard to which if something be not done, something will do itself one day, and in a fashion that will please nobody

If the only significant history...

If the only significant history of human thought were to be written, it would have to be the history of its successive regrets and its impotences.

But as the power of...

But as the power of Hellas grew, and the acquisition of wealth became more an objective, the revenues of the states increasing, tyrannies were established almost everywhere...

It is a sad thing...

It is a sad thing when men have neither enough intelligence to speak well, nor enough sense to hold their tongues; this is the root of all impertinence.

It is as if thinking...

It is as if thinking itself had been reduced to the level of industrial processes, subjected to a close schedule—in short, made part and parcel of production.

And finally remember that nothing...

And finally remember that nothing harms him who is really a citizen, which does not harm the state; nor yet does anything harm the state which does not harm law [order]; and of these things which are called misfortunes not one harms law. What then does not harm law does not harm either state or citizen.

Prejudice is the reason of...

Prejudice is the reason of fools.

A human being possessed by...

A human being possessed by a belief and not eager to pass it on to others is a phenomenon alien to the earth, where our mania for salvation makes life unbreathable.

We have chosen Mahomet not...

We have chosen Mahomet not as the most eminent Prophet; but as the one we are freest to speak of. He is by no means the truest of Prophets; but I do esteem him a true one. Farther, as there is no danger of our becoming, any of us, Mahometans, I mean to say all the good of him I justly can. It is the way to get at his secret: let us try to understand what he meant with the world; what the world meant and means with him, will then be a more answerable question. Our current hypothesis about Mahomet, that he was a scheming Impostor, a Falsehood incarnate, that his religion is a mere mass of quackery and fatuity, begins really to be now untenable to any one. The lies, which well-meaning zeal has heaped round this man, are disgraceful to ourselves only.

The rest of the story,...

The rest of the story, to Grand's thinking, was very simple. The common lot of married couples. You get married, you go on loving a bit longer, you work. And you work so hard that it makes you forget to love.

I have often before now...

I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire...

The suffering that animals undergo...

The suffering that animals undergo while being caught and eaten may be intense and the process by which they are killed may last for a quarter of an hour or more. Because the number of predators worldwide is enormous, and because, like us, many of them must eat with considerable frequency, the aggregate amount of suffering in the world at any time that is caused by predation is unimaginably vast.

Soon you'll be ashes or...

Soon you'll be ashes or bones. A mere name at most—and even that is just a sound, an echo. The things we want in life are empty, stale, trivial.

One dies twice: to cease...

One dies twice: to cease to live is nothing, but to cease to love and to be loved is an insupportable death.

His power to adore is...

His power to adore is responsible for all his crimes: a man who loves a god unduly forces other men to love his god, eager to exterminate them if they refuse.

The "imagination that shudders at...

The "imagination that shudders at the Hell of Dante," is not that the same faculty, weaker in degree, as Dante's own? No one but Shakspeare can embody, out of Saxo Grammaticus, the story of Hamlet as Shakspeare did: but every one models some kind of story out of it; every one embodies it better or worse. We need not spend time in defining. Where there is no specific difference, as between round and square, all definition must be more or less arbitrary. A man that has so much more of the poetic element developed in him as to have become noticeable, will be called Poet by his neighbors.

The artist reconstructs the world...

The artist reconstructs the world to his plan.

Ravana, unwilling under the influence...

Ravana, unwilling under the influence of vanity to restore a stranger's wife, as well as Duryodhana to part with a portion of his kingdom.

Their swaying bodies reflected the...

Their swaying bodies reflected the agitation of their minds, and they suffered the worst agony of all, ever just within the reach of safety or just on the point of destruction.

I cannot recall a time...

I cannot recall a time when American education was not in a "crisis." We have lived through Sputnik (when we were "falling behind the Russians"), through the era of "Johnny can't read," and through the upheavals of the Sixties. Now a good many books are telling us that the university is going to hell in several different directions at once. I believe that, at least in part, the crisis rhetoric has a structural explanation: since we do not have a national consensus on what success in higher education would consist of, no matter what happens, some sizable part of the population is going to regard the situation as a disaster. As with taxation and relations between the sexes, higher education is essentially and continuously contested territory. Given the history of that crisis rhetoric, one's natural response to the current cries of desperation might reasonably be one of boredom.

Him, who incessantly laughs in...

Him, who incessantly laughs in the street, you may commonly hear grumbling in his closet.

Everything is in a state...

Everything is in a state of metamorphosis. Thou thyself art in everlasting change and in corruption to correspond; so is the whole universe.

Anything that is too stupid...

Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.

History shows that the thinkers...

History shows that the thinkers who mounted on the top of the ladder of questions, who set their foot on the last rung, that of the absurd, have bequeathed to posterity only an example of sterility.

...in statu naturae Mensuram juris...

...in statu naturae Mensuram juris esse Utilitatem.

Great souls are always loyally...

Great souls are always loyally submissive, reverent to what is over them.

We all have a weakness...

We all have a weakness for beauty.

To a wise man, the...

To a wise man, the whole earth is open; for the native land of a good soul is the whole earth.

It is a known fact...

It is a known fact that almost all revolutions have been the work, not of the common people, but of the aristocracy, and especially of the decayed part of the aristocracy.

One of the curious psychological...

One of the curious psychological facts, in connection with the various ways in which various minds function, is the fact that when in these days we seek to visualize, in some pictorial manner, our ultimate view of life, the images which are called up are geometrical or chemical rather than anthropomorphic. It is probable that even the most rational and logical among us as soon as he begins to philosophize at all is compelled by the necessity of things to form in the mind some vague pictorial representation answering to his conception of the universe. Most minds see the universe of their mental conception as something quite different from the actual stellar universe upon which we all gaze. Even the most purely rational minds who find the universe in "pure thought" are driven against their rational will to visualize this "pure thought" and to give it body and form and shape and movement.

Neither perception nor true opinion,...

Neither perception nor true opinion, nor reason or explanation combined with true opinion could be knowledge… Then our art of midwifery declare to us that all the offspring that have been born are mere wind-eggs and not worth rearing… and if you remain barren, you will be less harsh and gentler to your associates, for you will have the wisdom not to think you know that which you do not know.

I live only because it...

I live only because it is in my power to die when I choose to: without the idea of suicide, I'd have killed myself right away.

And this Feare of things...

And this Feare of things invisible, is the naturall Seed of that, which every one in himself calleth Religion; and in them that worship, or feare that Power otherwise than they do, Superstition.

Blessed is he who has...

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.

Making money is not without...

Making money is not without its value, but nothing is baser than to make it by wrong-doing.

Nothing that has ever happened...

Nothing that has ever happened should be regarded as lost for history. To be sure, only a redeemed mankind receives the fullness of its past — which is to say, only a redeemed mankind has its past become citable in all its moments. Each moment it has lived becomes a citation à l'ordre du jour — and that day is Judgement Day.

When mons. Descartes's philosophical Romance,...

When mons. Descartes's philosophical Romance, by the Elegance of its Style and the plausible Accounts of natural Phænomena, had overthrown the Aristotelian Physics, the World received but little Advantage by the Change: For instead of a few Pedants, who, most of them, being conscious of their Ignorance, concealed it with hard Words and pompous Terms; a new Set of Philosophers started up, whose lazy Disposition easily fell in with a Philosophy, that required no Mathematicks to understand it, and who taking a few Principles for granted, without examining their Reality or Consistence with each other, fancied they could solve all Appearances mechanically by Matter and Motion; and, in their smattering Way, pretended to demonstrate such things, as perhaps Cartesius himself never believed ; his Philosophy (if he bad been in earnest) being unable to stand the test of the Geometry which he was Master of.

The wisdom which knows what...

The wisdom which knows what are and are not dangers is opposed to the ignorance of them

Not that I at all...

Not that I at all disallow the use of reasoning upon experiments, or the endeavouring to discern as early as we can the confederations, and differences, and tendencies of things: for such an absolute suspension of the exercise of reasoning were exceeding troublesome, if not impossible. And, as in that rule of arithmetic, which is commonly called ' by proceeding upon a conjecturally-supposed number, as if it were that, which we inquire after, we are wont to come to the knowledge of the true number sought for; so in physiology it is sometimes conducive to the discovery of truth, to permit the understanding to make an hypothesis, in order to the explication of this or that difficulty, that by examining how far the phænomena are, or are not, capable of being solved by that hypothesis, the understanding may, even by its own errors, be instructed.

Pursued by our origins...we all...

Pursued by our origins...we all are.

The office of the sovereign,...

The office of the sovereign, be it a monarch or an assembly, consisteth in the end for which he was trusted with the sovereign power, namely the procuration of the safety of the people, to which he is obliged by the law of nature, and to render an account thereof to God, the Author of that law, and to none but Him. But by safety here is not meant a bare preservation, but also all other contentments of life, which every man by lawful industry, without danger or hurt to the Commonwealth, shall acquire to himself. And this is intended should be done, not by care applied to individuals, further than their protection from injuries when they shall complain; but by a general providence, contained in public instruction, both of doctrine and example; and in the making and executing of good laws to which individual persons may apply their own cases.

The manner of men's Hero-worship,...

The manner of men's Hero-worship, verily it is the innermost fact of their existence, and determines all the rest,—at public hustings, in private drawing-rooms, in church, in market, and wherever else. Have true reverence, and what indeed is inseparable therefrom, reverence the right man, all is well; have sham-reverence, and what also follows, greet with it the wrong man, then all is ill, and there is nothing.

My own view of the...

My own view of the risks and uncertainties is that there is a critical distinction between trying to abolish suffering exclusively via social reform and abolishing suffering directly via biotechnology. As we know, utopian social experiments typically go wrong, sometimes hideously wrong, and end up causing a lot of suffering instead. The abolitionist project of eradicating the biological substrates of suffering sounds like just another utopian scheme, whether it's touted as a grandiose species-project or simply as a byproduct of the Reproductive Revolution explored here. Although the abolition of psychological pain is arguably no more utopian in principle than pain-free surgery, it could presumably go wrong in unanticipated ways too. Perhaps we'll unwittingly create a fool's paradise. But if and when we ever abolish the molecular underpinning of unpleasant experience, and it becomes physiologically impossible for any sentient being to suffer, we thereby change the very meaning of what it is for anything to "go wrong". Unwelcome surprises where no one gets hurt are very different from unwelcome surprises where they do. For what it's worth, I think the abolition of involuntary suffering is the precondition of any civilised posthuman society; and therefore a risk worth taking.

The essential freedom, the ultimate...

The essential freedom, the ultimate and final freedom that cannot be taken from a man, is to say No. This is the basic premise in Sartre's view of human freedom: freedom is in its very essence negative, though the negativity is also creative.

That there were 'weeds' in...

That there were 'weeds' in the Bible requiring to be kept out of sight was to me... a new revelation. I take little pleasure in dwelling upon the errors and blemishes of a book rendered venerable to me by intrinsic wisdom and imperishable associations. But...when its passages are invoked to justify the imposition of a yoke, irksome because unnatural, we are driven in self-defence to be critical.

My love, Alcibiades, which I...

My love, Alcibiades, which I hardly like to confess, would long ago have passed away, as I flatter myself, if I saw you loving your good things, or thinking that you ought to pass life in the enjoyment of them.