Endure > Endure's Quotes

“Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

“The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

“People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage they will get their revenge; but if you cripple them there is nothing they can do. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance.”
― Niccolo Machiavelli

“All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it's impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.”
― Niccolo Machiavelli

“Curiosity is the lust of the mind.”
― Thomas Hobbes

“Scientia potentia est.

Knowledge is power.”
― Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

“Life is nasty, brutish, and short”
― Thomas Hobbes

“Leisure is the mother of Philosophy”
― Thomas Hobbes

“Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.”
― Thomas Hobbes

“So that in the nature of man,
we find three principal causes of quarrel:

First, Competition;
Secondly, Dissidence;
Thirdly, Glory.

The first, maketh men invade for Gain;
the second, for Safety;
and the third, for Reputation.

The first use Violence, to make themselves Masters of other men's persons, wives, children and cattle;
the second, to defend them;
the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their Persons, or by reflexion in their Kindred, their Friends, their Nation, their Profession, or their Name.”
― Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

“Words are the counters of wise men, and the money of fools. ”
― Thomas Hobbes

“Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”
― John Locke, Second Treatise of Government

“Men being, as has been said, 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, Second Treatise of Government

“I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.”
― Jean Jacques Rousseau

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“I know the feelings of my heart, and I know men. I am not made like any of those I have seen; I venture to believe that I am not made like any of those who are in existence. If I am not better, at least I am different. Whether Nature has acted rightly or wrongly in destroying the mould in which she cast me, can only be decided after I have been read.”
― Jean Jacques Rousseau, Confessions

“I would rather be a man of paradoxes than a man of prejudices.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, or On Education

“To be sane in a world of madman is in itself madness.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“Or, rather, let us be more simple and less vain.”
― Rousseau Jean-Jacques

“I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
― James Madison, Federalist Papers

“Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.”
― Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers

“It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country to decide, by their conduct and example, the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.”
― Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers

“The greatest evil that can oppress civilized peoples derives from wars, not, indeed, so much from actual present or past wars, as from the never-ending and constantly increasing arming for future war.”
― Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace and Other Essays

“Since the human race's natural end is to make steady cultural progress, its moral end is to be conceived as progressing toward the better. And this progress may well be occasionally interrupted, but it will never be broken off.”
― Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace and Other Essays

“The history of nature . . . begins with good, for it is God's work; the history of freedom begins with badness, for it is man's work.”
― Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace and Other Essays

“I express the principle of one's freedom as a human being in this formula: No one can compel me (in accordance with his beliefs about the welfare of others) to be happy after his fashion.”
― Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace and Other Essays

“Under a nonrepublican constitution, where subjects are not citizens, the easiest thing in the world to do is to declare war. Here the ruler is not a fellow citizen, but the nation's owner, and war does not affect his table, his hunt, his places of pleasure, his court festivals, and so on. Thus, he can decide to go to war for the most meaningless of reasons, as if it were a kind of pleasure party...”
― Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace and Other Essays

“A league of a special sort must . . . be established, one that we can call a league of peace, which will be distinguished from a treaty of peace because the latter seeks merely to stop one war, while the former seeks to end all wars forever.”
― Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace and Other Essays