“Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law.”
Tetrachordon (1644–1645)
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John Milton 190
English epic poet 1608–1674Related quotes

Source: The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science (1962), Chapter 5: On Some Popular Errors Concerning the Scope and Method of Economics, § 10 : The Concept of a Perfect System of Government
Context: It is a double-edged makeshift to entrust an individual or a group of individuals with the authority to resort to violence. The enticement implied is too tempting for a human being. The men who are to protect the community against violent aggression easily turn into the most dangerous aggressors. They transgress their mandate. They misuse their power for the oppression of those whom they were expected to defend against oppression. The main political problem is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all the struggles for liberty.

“The most incisive, passionate and transgressive vibration begins with your kiss.”
Original: (it) La vibrazione più incisiva, passionale e trasgressiva inizia con il tuo bacio.
Source: prevale.net

Sec. 116
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
Context: All the entertainment and talk of history is nothing almost but fighting and killing: and the honour and renown that is bestowed on conquerers (who for the most part are but the great butchers of mankind) farther mislead growing youth, who by this means come to think slaughter the laudible business of mankind, and the most heroick of virtues. By these steps unnatural cruelty is planted in us; and what humanity abhors, custom reconciles and recommends to us, by laying it in the way to honour. Thus, by fashioning and opinion, that comes to be a pleasure, which in itself neither is, nor can be any.

Life of Alexander
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)

“It is not society's fault that most men seem to miss their vocation. Most men have no vocation.”
Source: The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress (1905-1906), Vol. II, Reason in Society, Ch. IV: The Aristocratic Ideal

“Sometimes the most preposterous lies are the most believable.”
Source: Rise of the Evening Star

Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1615)
Context: Nature … is inexorable and immutable; she never transgresses the laws imposed upon her, or cares a whit whether her abstruse reasons and methods of operation are understandable to men. For that reason it appears that nothing physical which sense-experience sets before our eyes, or which necessary demonstrations prove to us, ought to be called in question (much less condemned) upon the testimony of biblical passages which may have some different meaning beneath their words. For the Bible is not chained in every expression to conditions as strict as those which govern all physical effects; nor is God any less excellently revealed in Nature's actions than in the sacred statements of the Bible.<!-- ¶18