“Do not imagine that it is less an accident by which you find yourself master of the wealth which you possess”
Discourses on the Condition of the Great
Context: Do not imagine that it is less an accident by which you find yourself master of the wealth which you possess, than that by which this man found himself king.
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Blaise Pascal144
French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Chri… 1623–1662Related quotes
“The more you like yourself, the less you are like anyone else, which makes you unique.”
Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman
Muhammad al-Baqir (677–733) fifth of the Twelve Shia Imams
Ibn Shu’ba al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'Uqul, p. 287
François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs
Reflections on Various Subjects (1665–1678), II. On Difference of Character
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Essay Do We Survive Death? (1936)
1930s
Context: It is only when we think abstractly that we have such a high opinion of man. Of men in the concrete, most of us think the vast majority very bad. Civilized states spend more than half their revenue on killing each other's citizens. Consider the long history of the activities inspired by moral fervour: human sacrifices, persecutions of heretics, witch-hunts, pogroms leading up to wholesale extermination by poison gases … Are these abominations, and the ethical doctrines by which they are prompted, really evidence of an intelligent Creator? And can we really wish that the men who practised them should live for ever? The world in which we live can be understood as a result of muddle and accident; but if it is the outcome of a deliberate purpose, the purpose must have been that of a fiend. For my part, I find accident a less painful and more plausible hypothesis.
Philip K. Dick book Clans of the Alphane Moon
Source: Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964), Chapter 4 (p. 47)