
“To prevent the recurrence of misery is, alas! beyond the power of man.”
Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter V, paragraph 25, lines 4-5
I'd be a Butterfly, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“To prevent the recurrence of misery is, alas! beyond the power of man.”
Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter V, paragraph 25, lines 4-5
Appendix VI : A few principal rituals – Liber Reguli.
Magick Book IV : Liber ABA, Part III : Magick in Theory and Practice (1929)
Context: The Magician must be wary in his use of his powers; he must make every act not only accord with his Will, but with the properties of his position at the time. It might be my Will to reach the foot of a cliff; but the easiest way — also the speediest, most direct least obstructed, the way of minimum effort — would be simply to jump. I should have destroyed my Will in the act of fulfilling it, or what I mistook for it; for the True Will has no goal; its nature being To Go.
“Happiness and Misery must inevitably increase with increasing Power and Knowledge”
Letter to Lewis Campbell (9 November 1851) in Ch. 6 : Undergraduate Life At Cambridge October 1850 to January 1854 — ÆT. 19-22, p. 158
The Life of James Clerk Maxwell (1882)
Context: I believe, with the Westminster Divines and their predecessors ad Infinitum that "Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever."
That for this end to every man has been given a progressively increasing power of communication with other creatures.
That with his powers his susceptibilities increase. That happiness is indissolubly connected with the full exercise of these powers in their intended direction. That Happiness and Misery must inevitably increase with increasing Power and Knowledge. That the translation from the one course to the other is essentially miraculous, while the progress is natural. But the subject is too high. I will not, however, stop short, but proceed to Intellectual Pursuits.
April 17, 1778, p. 396
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III
Source: Helen Craig McCullough's translations, Kokin Wakashū: The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry (1985), p. 35
“Those who make laws, appropriate wealth in order to secure power.”
Source: The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832), p. 49
“Power and wealth must be in the hands of all, this occurrence needs capable and just managers.”
Twitter 21 Aug 2018
2018
The Village, Book 1, line 136 (1783).