
“The weakness of a soul is proportionate to the number of truths that must be kept from it.”
Section 61
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)
Letter of Instructions to the Captains of the Virginia Regiments (29 July 1759)
1750s
“The weakness of a soul is proportionate to the number of truths that must be kept from it.”
Section 61
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)
Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century
Source: Defeat Into Victory (1961), p. 447
“That Action is best, which procures the greatest Happiness for the greatest Numbers”
An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725) Treatise II, Section 3
Context: That Action is best, which procures the greatest Happiness for the greatest Numbers; and that worst, which, in like manner, occasions Misery.
Essays or Counsels Civil and Moral (1597), XXIX: "Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates."
As quoted in It Has Been 50 Years Since Che Guevara Was Murdered http://www.thenation.com/article/archive/it-has-been-50-years-since-che-guevara-was-murdered/, by Bill Ayers and Michael Steven Smith
“In other to be a successful leader you must be heartless, heart makes you weak”
Frag. B 1, quoted in John Burnet's Early Greek Philosophy, (1920), Chapter 6.
This is also sometimes quoted as "The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty".
1770s, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" (1775)
Context: They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?
Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of Liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.