And therefore in geometry (which is the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind), men begin at settling the significations of their words; which settling of significations, they call definitions, and place them in the beginning of their reckoning.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the importance of definitions as foundational to understanding geometry and, by extension, all knowledge.
In this quote, Thomas Hobbes emphasizes that geometry, as a science, starts with the establishment of clear definitions for the terms used within it. This process of defining terms is crucial because it allows for a common understanding and a basis upon which further knowledge can be built. Hobbes suggests that this practice of defining terminology is not only applicable to geometry but is also fundamental to the pursuit of knowledge in general.
In practice
In a lecture on geometry, one could use this quote to highlight the importance of understanding foundational concepts.
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.
So virtue is a purposive disposition, lying in a mean that is relative to us and determined by a rational principle, and by that which a prudent man would use to determine it. It is a mean between two kinds of vice, one of excess and the other of deficiency.
What I'm dealing with is so vast and great that it can't be called the truth. It's above the truth.
I am the angel of Reality, Seen for a moment standing in the door.
The bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and we might say that the former is refuted by the latter; in the same way when the fruit comes, the blossom may be explained to be a false form of the plant's existence, for the fruit appears as its true nature in place of the blossom.
You say that you are just a body, but inside of you is something greater than the Universe.
We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
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