15 MAR 2017 by ideonexus

 Forage on the Enemy

作戰: 故不盡知用兵之害者,則不能盡知用兵之利也。善用兵者,役不再籍,糧不三載,取用于國,因糧于敵,故軍食可足也。國之貧于師者遠輸,遠輸則百姓貧,近于師者貴賣,貴賣則百姓財竭,財竭則急于丘役,力屈財殫,中原內虛于家,百姓之費,十去其七,公家之費,破車罷馬,甲冑矢弩,戟楯蔽櫓,丘牛大車,十去其六。 Waging War: It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted...
Folksonomies: war strategy wargaming
Folksonomies: war strategy wargaming
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04 JAN 2012 by ideonexus

 Chemists Live More Sweetly Than Persian Kings

The chemists are a strange class of mortals, impelled by an almost insane impulse to seek their pleasures amid smoke and vapour, soot and flame, poisons and poverty; yet among all these evils I seem to live so sweetly that may I die if I were to change places with the Persian king.
Folksonomies: knowledge wealth
Folksonomies: knowledge wealth
  1  notes

Knowledge for its own sake is more satisfying than immense wealth.

23 JUL 2011 by ideonexus

 The Difference Between Society and Government

Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, bu...
  1  notes

"Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness..." Paine argues that government is put in place to protect us from our baser selves.

19 MAY 2011 by ideonexus

 Opening Text from the Declaration of Independence

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endo...
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Affirming equality according to the laws of nature.