Salomon saith, There is no new thing upon the earth. So that as Plato had an imagination, that all knowledge was but remembrance; so Salomon giveth his sentence, that all novelty is but oblivion.
Francis BaconRead
It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.
Interpretation
Being a genuine politician requires a level of integrity and difficulty comparable to that of being a moral person.
This quote by Francis Bacon highlights the challenge of authenticity in both politics and morality. It suggests that true politicians must navigate complex ethical landscapes, similar to the moral dilemmas faced by individuals striving to live ethically and upright. Hence, it points out how both roles demand resilience, commitment, and a strong sense of duty, often against significant odds.
In practice
In a debate about ethical leadership, one might quote Bacon to emphasize the difficulties in politics.
Salomon saith, There is no new thing upon the earth. So that as Plato had an imagination, that all knowledge was but remembrance; so Salomon giveth his sentence, that all novelty is but oblivion.
Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.
Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.
Great art is always a way of concentrating, reinventing what is called fact, what we know of our existence- a reconcentration… tearing away the veils, the attitudes people acquire of their time and earlier time. Really good artists tear down those veils
Wise men make more opportunities than they find.
Knowledge and human power are synonymous.
We stand on the threshold of a twilight-whether morning or evening we do not know. One is followed by the night, the other heralds the dawn.
When evil acts in the world it always manages to find instruments who believe that what they do is not evil but honorable.
Knot the tie and go to work, unknot the tie and go to sleep. I sleep. I dream. I wake. I sing. I get out the hammer and start knocking in the wooden pegs that affix the meaning to the landscape, the inner life to the body, the names to the things. I float too much to wander, like you, in the real world. I envy it but that’s the dealio—you’re a train and I’m a trainstation and when I try to guess your trajectory I end up telling my own story.
My soul, be satisfied with flowers, with fruit, with weeds even; but gather them in the one garden you may call your own.
Fur is not luxury: it is an industry of death and suffering.
Of course God is endlessly multi-dimensional so every religion that exists on earth represents some face, some side of God.
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