Thoughts are to the Desires as Scouts and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired.
Interpretation
Our thoughts serve as guides to help us achieve our desires.
In this quote, Thomas Hobbes likens thoughts to scouts and spies that explore and navigate towards our desires. It suggests that our mental processes are essential in identifying and pursuing what we truly want, as they assess and determine the best paths to achieve those desires.
In practice
Motivational talks about the power of positive thinking.
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.
People until I was 60 would always say they thought I looked younger, which I think, without flattering myself, I did, but I think I certainly have, as George Orwell says people do after a certain age, the face they deserve.
We tend to think of philosophies as produced by professional philosophers. Traditionally, this has meant people who have written dissertations on obscure subjects or who spend most of their day in libraries. But every human is, in an important sense, a carrier of an implicit philosophy - evident in their choices, pronouncements and commitments.
Could I be assured that America would remain virtuous, I would venture to defy the utmost Efforts of Enemies to subjugate her.
Power was my weakness and my temptation.
What does the earth look like in the places where people commit atrocities? Is there a bad smell, a genius loci, something about the landscape that might incriminate?
Purity of mind and conduct is the first glory of a woman.
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