Part I, Essay 6: Of The Independency of Parliament; first line often paraphrased as "It is a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave."
Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1741-2; 1748)
Context: It is, therefore, a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave: Though at the same time, it appears somewhat strange, that a maxim should be true in politics, which is false in fact. But to satisfy us on this head, we may consider, that men are generally more honest in their private than in their public capacity, and will go greater lengths to serve a party, than when their own private interest is alone concerned. Honour is a great check upon mankind: But where a considerable body of men act together, this check is, in a great measure, removed; since a man is sure to be approved of by his own party, for what promotes the common interest; and he soon learns to despise the clamours of adversaries.
“Several particular maxims… are as powerful, although false, in carrying away belief, as those the most true.”
The Art of Persuasion
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Blaise Pascal 144
French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Chri… 1623–1662Related quotes
Quote from Tiny Surrealism: Salvador Dalí and the Aesthetics of the Small, Roger Rothman, 2012 UNP-Nebraska.
Quotes of Salvador Dali, Miscellaneous
369
Popular version of the first sentence: "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-front for the urge to rule it."
1940s–present, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)
Source: Minority Report
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Source: Leonardo's Notebooks
Letter to Allen N. Ford (11 August 1846), reported in Roy Prentice Basler, ed., Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings (1990 [1946])
1840s
“It is your false self that keeps you away from your true Self by every trick it knows.”
7 Absolute Honesty, p. 8.
The Everything and the Nothing (1963)
Context: Absolute honesty is essential in one's search for God (Truth). The subtleties of the Path are finer than a hair. The least hypocrisy becomes a wave that washes one off the Path.
It is your false self that keeps you away from your true Self by every trick it knows. In the guise of honesty this self even deceives itself. For instance your self claims, I love Baba. The fact is, if you really loved Baba you would not be your false self making the self-asserting statement!
Source: Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972), p. 494
Knowing Yourself: The True in the False (1996)