The power of a man is his present means to obtain some future apparent good.
Interpretation
A man's strength lies in his ability to leverage current resources for future benefits.
Thomas Hobbes' quote emphasizes the importance of utilizing one's present capabilities and resources to secure future advantages. It suggests that power is not merely a static attribute but is inherently tied to one's potential to innovate, strategize, and act in pursuit of future gains. This perspective reinforces the idea that foresight and planning are integral to personal and societal strength.
In practice
Use this quote in a leadership seminar to illustrate the importance of planning for success.
Baptism is the sacrament of allegiance of them that are to be received into the Kingdom of God, that is to say, into Eternal life, that is to say, to Remission of Sin. For as Eternal life was lost by the committing, so it is recovered by the remitting of men's sins.
Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.
For it is not the shape, but their use, that makes them angels.
For to accuse requires less eloquence, such is man's nature, than to excuse; and condemnation, than absolution, more resembles justice.
Scientia potentia est, sed parva; quia scientia egregia rara est, nec proinde apparens nisi paucissimis, et in paucis rebus. Scientiae enim ea natura est, ut esse intelligi non possit, nisi ab illis qui sunt scientia praediti.
The end of knowledge is power ... the scope of all speculation is the performing of some action or thing to be done.
The way you eat is inseparable from your core beliefs about being alive. Your relationship with food is an exact mirror of your feelings about love, fear, anger, meaning and transformation.
Being for every man the touchstone of faith and love, the Eucharist, like on the Cross, divided the minds as soon as it was announced... Nothing engages a man as much as does the Eucharist
He who learns death unlearns slavery.
No matter what the world thinks about religious experience, the one who has it possesses a great treasure, a thing that has become for him a source of life, meaning, and beauty, and that has given a new splendor to the world and to mankind.
Human history began with an act of disobedience and it is not unlikely that it will be terminated by an act of obedience.
Trying to exhaust himself, Vaughan devised an endless almanac of terrifying wounds and insane collisions: The lungs of elderly men punctured by door-handles; the chests of young women impaled on steering-columns; the cheek of handsome youths torn on the chromium latches of quarter-lights. To Vaughan, these wounds formed the key to a new sexuality, born from a perverse technology. The images of these wounds hung in the gallery of his mind, like exhibits in the museum of a slaughterhouse.
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