Government (1820)
Context: The end of Government has been described in a great variety of expressions. By Locke it was said to be "the public good;" by others it has been described as being " the greatest happiness of the greatest number." These, and equivalent expressions, are just; they are only defective, inasmuch as the particular ideas which they embrace are indistinctly announced; and different combinations are by means of them raised indifferent minds, and even in the same mind on different occasions.
It is immediately obvious, that a wide and difficult field is opened, and that the whole science of human nature must be explored to lay a foundation for the science of Government. To understand what is included in the happiness of the greatest number, we must understand what is included in the happiness of the individuals of whom it ii composed.
That dissection of human nature which would be necessary to show, on proper evidence, the primary elements into which human happiness may be resolved, it is not compatible with the present design to undertake. We must content ourselves with assuming certain results.
We may allow, for example, in general terms, that the lot of every human being is determined by his pains and pleasures; and that his happiness corresponds with the degree in which his pleasures are great, and his pains are small.
Human pains and pleasures are derived from two sources :—They are produced, either by our fellow-men, or by causes independent of other men.
We may assume it as another principle, that the concern of Government is with the former of these two sources; and that its business is to increase to the utmost the pleasures, and diminish to the utmost the pains which men derive from one another.
Charles Darwin book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
Source: The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), chapter XIV: "Concluding Remarks and Summary", page 352 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=380&itemID=F1142&viewtype=image
“To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
20 December 1822
1820s, Journals (1822–1863)
Jan Mankes (1889–1920) Dutch painter
translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek<br><br>(original Dutch: citaat van Jan Mankes, in het Nederlands:) Schilderen is.. ..nooit een afbeelding geven der stoffelijke zaken, maar een psychische functie, een uiten hoe zijn geest [van de kunstenaar] reageert ten opzichte der dingen. Dat is dus een heel verschil met: schilderen is de schoonheid der dingen laten zien.<br><br>Quote of Jan Mankes in a letter to his maceneas A.A.M. Pauwels in The Hague; as cited by J.R. de Groot in 'De bekoring van het gewone - Het werk van Jan Mankes https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_ons003199001_01/_ons003199001_01_0014.php', p. 102 <br class="br">undated quotes
David Hume book Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary
Part I, Essay 23: Of The Standard of Taste
Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1741-2; 1748)
Source: Of the Standard of Taste and Other Essays
Context: Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. One person may even perceive deformity, where another is sensible of beauty; and every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to regulate those of others.
“There is a great difference between the Idols of the human mind and the Ideas of the divine.”
Francis Bacon book Novum Organum
Aphorism 23
Novum Organum (1620), Book I
Context: There is a great difference between the Idols of the human mind and the Ideas of the divine. That is to say, between certain empty dogmas, and the true signatures and marks set upon the works of creation as they are found in nature.
Jean-Baptiste Biot (1774–1862) French scientist
Les esprits partagés, s'égarant dans des routes différentes, perdent l'immense avantage qui résulterait de leurs forces réunies.
[Jean-Baptiste Biot, Traité de physique expérimentale et mathématique, volume I, Deterville, 1816, http://books.google.com/books?id=J6QIAAAAIAAJ, ii]
Herbert Read (1893–1968) English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art
Form in Modern Poetry(1932)
Maddox (1978) American internet writer
"Embrace diversity," and other bullshit phrases that don't mean anything. http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=embrace <br class="br">The Best Page in the Universe
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist
The Law of Mind (1892)
Context: We are accustomed to speak of ideas as reproduced, as passed from mind to mind, as similar or dissimilar to one another, and, in short, as if they were substantial things; nor can any reasonable objection be raised to such expressions. But taking the word "idea" in the sense of an event in an individual consciousness, it is clear that an idea once past is gone forever, and any supposed recurrence of it is another idea. These two ideas are not present in the same state of consciousness, and therefore cannot possibly be compared.
