Lean P

“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

“If only human beings were not
masks behind masks behind masks.

If only this world was
a clean board of lines and intersections.

If only time was
a sequence of considered moves
and not a chaos of slippages and blunders.”
― David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

“24. O sancta simplicitas! In what strange simplification and falsification man lives! One can never cease wondering when once one has got eyes for beholding this marvel! How we have made everything around us clear and free and easy and simple!”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

“When pain is vivid, when decisions are keen-edged,
we believe that we are the surgeons.

But time passes, and one sees the whole more clearly,
and now I perceive us as surgical instruments used by the world.”
― David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet