Adam Smith (June 5, 1723 – July 17, 1790) was a Scottish philosopher and economist who is widely considered to be one of the fathers of capitalism and economics. He was also a key figure of the Scottish Enlightenment.

Below we list some words of wisdom from Adam Smith.

“The first thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer.”

“On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.”

“Nothing is more graceful than habitual cheerfulness.”

“Never complain of that of which it is at all times in your power to rid yourself.”

“Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good.”

“Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.”

“Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse.”

“What can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is out of debt, and has a clear conscience?”

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow citizens.”

“Men of the most robust make, observe that in looking upon sore eyes they often feel a very sensible soreness in their own, which proceeds from the same reason; that organ being in the strongest man more delicate, than any other part of the body is in the weakest.”

“To feel much for others and little for ourselves, that to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our benevolent affections, constitutes the perfection of human nature.”

“In ease of body, peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level and the beggar who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.”

“The man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to be… The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough.”

“The discipline of colleges and universities is in general contrived, not for the benefit of the students, but for the interest, or more properly speaking, for the ease of the masters. Its object is, in all cases, to maintain the authority of the master, and whether he neglects or performs his duty, to oblige the students in all cases to behave toward him as if he performed it with the greatest diligence and ability.”

“We are delighted to find a person who values us as we value ourselves, and distinguishes us from the rest of mankind, with an attention not unlike that with which we distinguish ourselves.”

“Though our brother is upon the rack, as long as we ourselves are at ease, our senses will never inform us of what he suffers. They never did and never can carry us beyond our own persons, and it is by the imagination only that we form any conception of what are his sensations…His agonies, when they are thus brought home to ourselves, when we have this adopted and made them our own, begin at last to affect us, and we then tremble and shudder at the thought of what he feels.”

“Resentment seems to have been given us by nature for a defense, and for a defense only! It is the safeguard of justice and the security of innocence.”

“Problems worthy of attacks, prove their worth by hitting back.”

“This is one of those cases in which the imagination is baffled by the facts.”

Our FREE Spiritual Detox Script can help you get rid of toxic energy and help you make the most of your life. http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/script/

Learn more about spiritual myths, meditation and how to use it to your advantage, and much more with our Direct Your Destiny e-Package: http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/directyourdestiny/

Copyright © 2024 Scott Petullo, Stephen Petullo

Soren Kierkegaard (May 5th, 1813 – November 11th, 1855) was a Danish philosopher, theologian, social critic, poet, and religious author who many consider to be the first existentialist philosopher. He wrote critical works on organized religion, morality, ethics, psychology, and the philosophy of religion.

Below we list some words of wisdom by Soren Kierkegaard.

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

“It is better to try something and fail than to try nothing and succeed. The result may be the same, but you won’t be. We always grow more through defeats than victories.”

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”

“People settle for a level of despair they can tolerate and call it happiness.”

“I found I had less and less to say, until finally, I became silent, and began to listen. I discovered in the silence, the voice of God”

“The most common form of despair is not being who you are.”

“In a theatre it happened that a fire started off stage. The clown came out to tell the audience. They thought it was a joke and applauded. He told them again, and they became still more hilarious. This is the way, I suppose, that the world will be destroyed-amid the universal hilarity of wits and wags who think it is all a joke.”

“Geniuses are like thunderstorms: they go against the wind, terrify people, clear the air.”

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”

“It’s better to get lost in the passion than to lose the passion”

“Take a chance and you may lose. Take not a chance and you have lost already.”

“Christ was crucified because he would have nothing to do with the crowd (even though he addressed himself to all). He did not want to form a party, an interest group, a mass movement, but wanted to be what he was, the truth, which is related to the single individual. Therefore everyone who will genuinely serve the truth is by that very fact a martyr. To win a crowd is no art; for that only untruth is needed, nonsense, and a little knowledge of human passions. But no witness to the truth dares to get involved with the crowd.”

“It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand.”

“If I could prescribe only one remedy for all the ills of the modern world, I would prescribe silence.”

“The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you’ll never have.”

“The unhappy person is never present to themself because they always live in the past or the future.”

“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.”

“The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.”

“Who am I? How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted?”

“The door to happiness opens outward.”

“Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.”

“Wherever there is a crowd there is untruth.”

“The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.”

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”

“In order to help another effectively, I must understand what he understands. If I do not know that, my greater understanding will be of no help to him… instruction begins when you put yourself in his place so that you may understand what he understands and in the way he understands it.”

“And this is the simple truth – that to live is to feel oneself lost. He who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look around for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce.”

“It is not the path which is the difficulty; rather, it is the difficulty which is the path.”

“The greatest danger to Christianity is, I contend, not heresies, not heterodoxies, not atheists, not profane secularism – no, but the kind of orthodoxy which is cordial drivel, mediocrity served up sweet. There is nothing that so insidiously displaces the majestic as cordiality.”

“The minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion.”

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

Our FREE Spiritual Detox Script can help you get rid of toxic energy and help you make the most of your life. http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/script/

Learn more about spiritual myths, meditation and how to use it to your advantage, and much more with our Direct Your Destiny e-Package: http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/directyourdestiny/

Copyright © 2024 Stephen Petullo, Scott Petullo

Charles Babbage (December 26, 1791 – October 18 1871) was an English philosopher, inventor, mechanical engineer, and mathematician. He is known for inventing the first mechanical computer and is considered the “father of the computer.”

Below we list some words of wisdom from Charles Babbage.

“If we define a miracle as an effect of which the cause is unknown to us, then we make our ignorance the source of miracles! And the universe itself would be a standing miracle. A miracle might be perhaps defined more exactly as an effect which is not the consequence or effect of any known laws of nature.”

“Miracles may be, for anything we know to the contrary, phenomena of a higher order of God’s laws, superior to, and, under certain conditions, controlling the inferior order known to us as the ordinary laws of nature.”

“There are few circumstances which so strongly distinguish the philosopher, as the calmness with which he can reply to criticisms he may think undeservedly severe.”

“Scientific knowledge scarcely exists amongst the higher classes of society. The discussion in the Houses of Lords or of Commons, which arise on the occurrence of any subjects connected with science, sufficiently prove this fact.”

“Remember that accumulated knowledge, like accumulated capital, increases at compound interest: but it differs from the accumulation of capital in this; that the increase of knowledge produces a more rapid rate of progress, whilst the accumulation of capital leads to a lower rate of interest. Capital thus checks it own accumulation: knowledge thus accelerates its own advance. Each generation, therefore, to deserve comparison with its predecessor, is bound to add much more largely to the common stock than that which it immediately succeeds.”

“The true value of the Christian religion rests, not upon speculative views of the Creator, which must necessarily be different in each individual, according to the extent of the knowledge of the finite being, who employs his own feeble powers in contemplating the infinite: but it rests upon those doctrines of kindness and benevolence which that religion claims and enforces, not merely in favour of man himself but of every creature susceptible of pain or of happiness.”

“The triumph of the industrial arts will advance the cause of civilization more rapidly than its warmest advocates could have hoped, and contribute to the permanent prosperity and strength of the country far more than the most splendid victories of successful war.”

“Unless there exist peculiar institutions for the support of such inquirers, or unless the Government directly interfere, the contriver of a thaumatrope may derive profit from his ingenuity, whilst he who unravels the laws of light and vision, on which multitudes of phenomena depend, shall descend unrewarded to the tomb.”

“In mathematical science, more than in all others, it happens that truths which are at one period the most abstract, and apparently the most remote from all useful application, become in the next age the bases of profound physical inquiries, and in the succeeding one, perhaps, by proper simplification and reduction to tables, furnish their ready and daily aid to the artist and the sailor.”

“The first steps in the path of discovery, and the first approximate measures, are those which add most to the existing knowledge of mankind.”

“Perhaps it would be better for science, that all criticism should be avowed.”

“Whenever a man can get hold of numbers, they are invaluable: if correct, they assist in informing his own mind, but they are still more useful in deluding the minds of others. Numbers are the masters of the weak, but the slaves of the strong.”

Our FREE Spiritual Detox Script can help you get rid of toxic energy and help you make the most of your life. http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/script/

Learn more about spiritual myths, meditation and how to use it to your advantage, and much more with our Direct Your Destiny e-Package: http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/directyourdestiny/

Copyright © 2024 Scott Petullo, Stephen Petullo

George Berkeley (March 12, 1685 – January 14, 1753) was known as Bishop Berkeley (Bishop of Cloyne of the Anglican Church of Ireland) and was an Anglo-Irish philosopher. His primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called “immaterialism”, which says material substances are ideas perceived by the mind and cannot exist without being perceived.

Berkeley published his first major work in 1709 called An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision, which says objects of sight are not material objects, but light and color.

Berkeley argued against Isaac Newton’s doctrine of absolute space, time and motion in De Motu (On Motion), which led to the views of Ernst Mach and Albert Einstein. His book The Analyst, a critique of the foundations of calculus, which was influential in the development of mathematics.

Below we list words of wisdom from George Berkeley.

“The same principles which at first view lead to skepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common sense.”

“Whatever is immediately perceived is an idea: and can any idea exist out of the mind?”

“To be is to be perceived (Esse est percipi).” Or, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?”

“Truth is the cry of all, but the game of few.”

“Few men think, yet all will have opinions.”

“What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind.”

“It is impossible that a man who is false to his friends and neighbours should be true to the public.”

“All the choir of heaven and furniture of earth – in a word, all those bodies which compose the frame of the world – have not any subsistence without a mind.”

“To be is to be perceived”

“We have first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see.”

“A ray of imagination or of wisdom may enlighten the universe, and glow into remotest centuries.”

“The most ingenious men are now agreed, that [universities] are only nurseries of prejudice, corruption, barbarism, and pedantry.”

“Of all men living [priests] are our greatest enemies. If it were possible, they would extinguish the very light of nature, turn the world into a dungeon, and keep mankind for ever in chains and darkness.”

“This perceiving, active being is what I call mind, spirit, soul, or myself. By which words I do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived; for the existence of an idea consists in being perceived.”

“Our youth we can have but to-day, We may always find time to grow old.”

“The world is like a board with holes in it, and the square men have got into the round holes, and the round into the square.”

“Others indeed may talk, and write, and fight about liberty, and make an outward pretense to it but the free-thinker alone is truly free.”

“God is a being of transcendent and unlimited perfections: his nature therefore is incomprehensible to finite spirits.”

“A mind at liberty to reflect on its own observations, if it produce nothing useful to the world, seldom fails of entertainment to itself.”

“He who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave.”

“Where the people are well educated, the art of piloting a state is best learned from the writings of Plato.”

“Casting an eye on the education of children, from whence I can make a judgment of my own, I observe they are instructed in religious matters before they can reason about them, and consequently that all such instruction is nothing else but filling the tender mind of a child with prejudices.”

“A man needs no arguments to make him discern and approve what is beautiful: it strikes at first sight, and attracts without a reason. And as this beauty is found in the shape and form of corporeal things, so also is there analogous to it a beauty of another kind, an order, a symmetry, and comeliness in the moral world. And as the eye perceive the one, so the mind doth by a certain interior sense perceive the other, which sense, talent, or faculty, is ever quickest and purest in the noblest minds.”

“That the discovery of this great truth, which lies so near and obvious to the mind, should be attained to by the reason of so very few, is a sad instance of the stupidity and inattention of men, who, though they are surrounded with such clear manifestations of the Deity, are yet so little affected by them, that they seem as it were blinded with excess of light.”

“That food nourishes, sleep refreshes, and fire warms us; that to sow in the seed-time is the way to reap in the harvest, and, in general, that to obtain such or such ends, such or such means are conducive, all this we know, not by discovering any necessary connection between our ideas, but only by the observation of the settled laws of nature, without which we should be all in uncertainty and confusion, and a grown man no more know how to manage himself in the affairs of life than an infant just born.”

“So long as I confine my thoughts to my own ideas divested of words, I do not see how I can be easily mistaken.”

Our FREE Spiritual Detox Script can help you get rid of toxic energy and help you make the most of your life: http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/script/

Learn more about spiritual myths, meditation and how to use it to your advantage, and much more with our Direct Your Destiny e-Package: http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/directyourdestiny/

Copyright © 2024 Stephen Petullo, Scott Petullo

Herbert Spencer (April 27, 1820 – December 8, 1903) was an English philosopher, biologist, and anthropologist. He coined the phrase “survival of the fittest,” yet his concept of evolution included ethical human progression. In the late 1800s he was one of the most influential European intellectuals and is one of the only philosophers to sell over a million copies of his works during his own lifetime.

Below we list some words of wisdom from Herbert Spencer.

“The wise man must remember that while he is a descendant of the past, he is a parent of the future.”

“The defects of the children mirror the defects of the parents.”

“We all decry prejudice, yet are all prejudiced.”

“That feelings of love and hate make rational judgments impossible in public affairs, as in private affairs, we can clearly enough see in others, though not so clearly in ourselves.”

‘The white light of truth, in traversing the many-sided transparent soul of the poet, is refracted into iris-hued poetry.”

“Regarding language as an apparatus of symbols for the conveyance of thought, we may say that, as in a mechanical apparatus, the more simple and the better arranged its parts, the greater will be the effect produced.”

“Love is life’s end, but never ending. Love is life’s wealth, never spent, but ever spending. Love’s life’s reward, rewarded in rewarding.”

“Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect.”

“The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.”

“Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations.”

“Science is organized knowledge.”

“Only when Genius is married to Science can the highest results be produced.”

“Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man.”

“The most important attribute of man as a moral being is the faculty of self-control.”

“No place, no company, no age, no person is temptation-free; let no man boast that he was never tempted, let him not be high-minded, but fear, for he may be surprised in that very instant wherein he boasteth that he was never tempted at all.”

“Marriage: A word which should be pronounced ‘mirage’.”

“Objects we ardently pursue bring little happiness when gained; most of our pleasures come from unexpected sources.”

“What, then, do they want a government for? Not to regulate commerce; not to educate the people; not to teach religion, not to administer charity; not to make roads and railways; but simply to defend the natural rights of man — to protect person and property — to prevent the aggressions of the powerful upon the weak — in a word, to administer justice. This is the natural, the original, office of a government. It was not intended to do less: it ought not to be allowed to do more.”

“All socialism involves slavery.”

“Feudalism, serfdom, slavery — all tyrannical institutions, are merely the most vigorous kinds of rule, springing out of, and necessary to, a bad state of man. The progress from these is in all cases the same — less government.”

“Reading is seeing by proxy.”

“As there must be moderation in other things, so there must be moderation in self-criticism. Perpetual contemplation of our own actions produces a morbid consciousness, quite unlike that normal consciousness accompanying right actions spontaneously done; and from a state of unstable equilibrium long maintained by effort, there is apt to be a fall towards stable equilibrium, in which the primitive nature reasserts itself. Retrogression rather than progression may hence result.”

“Mother, when your children are irritable, do not make them more so by scolding and fault-finding, but correct their irritability by good nature and mirthfulness. Irritability comes from errors in food, bad air, too little sleep, a necessity for change of scene and surroundings; from confinement in close rooms, and lack of sunshine.”

“Mental power cannot be got from ill-fed brains.”

“Of all the knowledge, that most worth having is knowledge about health! The first requisite of a good life is to be a healthy person.”

Our FREE Spiritual Detox Script can help you get rid of toxic energy and help you make the most of your life: http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/script/

Learn more about spiritual myths, meditation and how to use it to your advantage, and much more with our Direct Your Destiny e-Package: http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/directyourdestiny/

Copyright © 2024 Scott Petullo, Stephen Petullo

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (May 3, 1469 – June 21, 1527) lived during the Renaissance and was a Florentine diplomat, philosopher, historian, and author. He served as a senior official in the Florentine Republic for many years. He is most known for his political treatise The Prince (Il Principe) and he also wrote comedies, carnival songs, and poetry.

Below we list some words of wisdom from Niccolo Machiavelli.

“It is better to act and repent than not to act and regret.”

“The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.”

“I desire to go to Hell and not to Heaven. In the former I shall enjoy the company of popes, kings and princes, while in the latter are only beggars, monks and apostles.”

“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.”

“A sign of intelligence is an awareness of one’s own ignorance.”

“Always assume incompetence before looking for conspiracy.”

“The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.”

“Make no small plans for they have no power to stir the soul.”

“Men are of three different capacities: one understands intuitively; another understands so far as it is explained; and a third understands neither of himself nor by explanation. The first is excellent, the second, commendable, and the third, altogether useless.”

“The vulgar crowd always is taken by appearances, and the world consists chiefly of the vulgar.”

“There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making men understand that telling you the truth will not offend you.”

“The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.”

“One should never fall in the belief that you can find someone to pick you up.”

“Everyone who wants to know what will happen ought to examine what has happened: everything in this world in any epoch has their replicas in antiquity.”

“Ability and perseverance are the weapons of weakness.”

“Men are so stupid and concerned with their present needs, they will always let themselves be deceived.”

“All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it’s impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.”

“Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results.”

“Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results.”

“Never was anything great achieved without danger.”

“There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.”

“Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.”

“Appear as you may wish to be.”

“There is nothing as likely to succeed as what the enemy believes you cannot attempt.”

“A government which does not trust its citizens to be armed is not itself to be trusted.”

“The end justifies the means.”

Our FREE Spiritual Detox Script can help you get rid of toxic energy and help you make the most of your life. http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/script/

Learn more about spiritual myths, meditation and how to use it to your advantage, and much more with our Direct Your Destiny e-Package: http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/directyourdestiny/

Copyright © 2024 Stephen Petullo, Scott Petullo

John Stuart Mill (May 20, 1806 – May 7, 1873) was an English economist, philosopher, politician and civil servant. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy called him “the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century.” He greatly influenced classical liberalism and championed the freedom of the individual.

Below we list some words of wisdom from John Stuart Mill.

“In the long-run, the best proof of a good character is good actions.”

“There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home.”

“Truths are known to us in two ways: some are known directly, and of themselves; some through the medium of other truths. The former are the subject of Intuition, or Consciousness; the latter, of Inference; the latter of Inference. The truths known by Intuition are the original premises, from which all others are inferred.”

“All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.”

“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.”

“There is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides.”

“I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.”

“Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness.”

“Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life.”

“Most persons have but a very moderate capacity of happiness. Expecting…in marriage a far greater degree of happiness than they commonly find, and knowing not that the fault is in their own scanty capability of happiness.”

“Solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur is the cradle of thought and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society can ill do without.”

“Strong impulses are but another name for energy. Energy may be turned to bad uses; but more good may always be made of an energetic nature, than of an indolent and impassive one.”

“So Long as we do not harm others we should be free to think, speak, act, and live as we see fit, without molestation from individuals, law, or government.”

“Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom or never the whole truth.”

“All attempts by the State to bias the conclusions of its citizens on disputed subjects, are evil.”

“The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection…The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.”

“Persons of genius, it is true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow.”

“The love of power and the love of liberty are in eternal antagonism.”

“The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.”

“All ideas need to be heard, because each idea contains one aspect of the truth. By examining that aspect, we add to our own idea of the truth. Even ideas that have no truth in them whatsoever are useful because by disproving them, we add support to our own ideas.”

“Whatever crushes individuality is despotism.”

Our FREE Spiritual Detox Script can help you get rid of toxic energy and help you make the most of your life. http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/script/

Learn more about spiritual myths, meditation and how to use it to your advantage, and much more with our Direct Your Destiny e-Package: http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/directyourdestiny/

Copyright © 2024 Scott Petullo, Stephen Petullo

David Hume (May 7th, 1711 – August 25th 1776) was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, economist, historian, essayist, and librarian. He is best known for his system of philosophical empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism.

Below we list some words of wisdom from David Hume.

“There is no such thing as freedom of choice unless there is freedom to refuse.”

“A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.”

“The difference between a man who is led by opinion or emotion and one who is led by reason. The former, whether he will or not, performs things of which he is entirely ignorant; the latter is subordinate to no one, and only does those things which he knows to be of primary importance in his life, and which on that account he desires the most; and therefore I call the former a slave, but the latter free.”

“It is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause.”

“When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken.”

“All knowledge degenerates into probability.”

“Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.”

“Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.”

“A little philosophy makes a man an Atheist: a great deal converts him to religion”

“To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see; all this is nothing but to perceive.”

“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”

“I do not have enough faith to believe there is no god.”

“Human happiness seems to consist in three ingredients: action, pleasure and indolence.”

“It’s when we start working together that the real healing takes place… it’s when we start spilling our sweat, and not our blood.”

“The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.”

“Mankind are so much the same, in all times and places, that history informs us of nothing new or strange in this particular. Its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature.”

“Anticipation of pleasure is, in itself, a very considerable pleasure.”

“No amount of observations of white swans can allow the inference that all swans are white, but the observation of a single black swan is sufficient to refute that conclusion.”

“Eloquence, when in its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection.”

“Truth springs from argument amongst friends.”

“The sweetest path of life leads through the avenues of learning, and whoever can open up the way for another, ought, so far, to be esteemed a benefactor to mankind.”

“Be a philosopher but, amid all your philosophy be still a man.”

“The unhappy of all men is he who believes himself to be so.”

“The mind is a kind of theater, where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations.”

“Men often act knowingly against their interest.”

“I never asserted such an absurd thing as that things arise without a cause.”

“The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.”

“The greater part of mankind may be divided into two classes; that of shallow thinkers who fall short of the truth; and that of abstruse thinkers who go beyond it.”

“What a peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call ‘thought’.”

“Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason.”

“When we reflect on the shortness and uncertainty of life, how despicable seem all our pursuits of happiness.”

“Examine the religious principles which have, in fact, prevailed in the world. You will scarcely be persuaded that they are other than sick men’s dreams.”

“He is happy whom circumstances suit his temper; but he Is more excellent who suits his temper to any circumstance.”

Our FREE Spiritual Detox Script can help you get rid of toxic energy and help you make the most of your life. http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/script/

Learn more about spiritual myths, meditation and how to use it to your advantage, and much more with our Direct Your Destiny e-Package: http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/directyourdestiny/

Copyright © 2024 Stephen Petullo, Scott Petullo

Claude Monet (November 14, 1840 – December 5, 1926) was a French painter and originator of impressionist painting. The term “Impressionism” stems from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant. His early works of seascapes, landscapes, and portraits didn’t attract much attention, but he eventually became successful. By the late 20th century, he was one of the world’s most famous painters. He was so devoted to his method of painting the same scene multiple times to capture changes in light and the seasons that he spent the final 20 years of his life focused on paintings of water lilies in his garden.

Below we list some words of wisdom from Claude Monet.

“The light constantly changes, and that alters the atmosphere and beauty of things every minute.”

“To see we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at.”

“These landscapes of water and reflection have become an obsession.”

“Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.”

“It is a tragedy that we live in a world where physical courage is so common, and moral courage is so rare.”

“I want the unobtainable. Other artists paint a bridge, a house, a boat, and that’s the end. They are finished. I want to paint the air which surrounds the bridge, the house, the boat, the beauty of the air in which these objects are located, and that is nothing short of impossible.”

“Everything changes, even stone.”

“Listening only to my instincts, I discovered superb things.”

“The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.”

“I’m not performing miracles, I’m using up and wasting a lot of paint.”

“My only desire is an intimate infusion with nature, and the only fate I wish is to have worked and lived in harmony with her laws.”

“My eyes were finally opened and I understood nature. I learned at the same time to love it.”

“Nature won’t be summoned to order and won’t be kept waiting. It must be caught, well caught.”

“My work is always better when I am alone and follow my own impressions.”

“It’s the hardest thing to be alone in being satisfied with what one’s done.”

“It was at home I learned the little I know. Schools always appeared to me like a prison, and never could I make up my mind to stay there, not even for four hours a day, when the sunshine was inviting, the sea smooth, and when it was joy to run about the cliffs in the free air, or to paddle in the water.”

“I haven’t many years left ahead of me and I must devote all my time to painting, in the hope of achieving something worthwhile in the end, something if possible that will satisfy me.”

“Colors pursue me like a constant worry. They even worry me in my sleep.”

“What can be said about a man who is interested in nothing but his painting? It’s a pity if a man can only interest himself in one thing. But I can’t do any thing else. I have only one interest.”

“Think of me getting up before 6, I’m at work by 7 and I continue until 6.30 in the evening, standing up all the time, nine canvases. It’s murderous.”

“What is it that’s taken hold of me, for me to carry on like this in relentless pursuit of something beyond my powers?”

“I have once more taken up things that can’t be done: water with grasses weaving on the bottom. But I’m always tackling that sort of thing!”

“I insist upon ‘doing it alone’… I have always worked better alone and from my own impressions.”

“As for myself, I met with as much success as I ever could have wanted. In other words, I was enthusiastically run-down by every critic of the period.”


Our FREE Spiritual Detox Script can help you get rid of toxic energy and help you make the most of your life. http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/script/

Learn more about spiritual myths, meditation and how to use it to your advantage, and much more with our Direct Your Destiny e-Package: http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/directyourdestiny/

Copyright © 2024 Scott Petullo, Stephen Petullo