Tao Te Ching

The Power of Goodness, the Wisdom Beyond Words
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Thomas More

1478 – 1535 CE

Thomas Moore (1478 – 1535)

Christian humanist, Henry VIII confidant, ascetic, Lord High Chancellor of England, brave psychological explorer; Moore both embraced and went beyond his time and culture. On one hand opposing Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, he also protested against Henry VIII’s appropriation of the title, Supreme Head of the Church of England and was beheaded for his efforts. Living at a time of deep cultural transition when idle noblemen raised rents, created land enclosures, caused extreme poverty, starvation, and 72,000 English thieves were hanged; he helped revive a radical interest in Lucretius and Epicureanism. His book Utopia envisioned a society based on the pursuit of collective happiness and included universal health care, public housing, child care centers and a 6-hour work day rather than the prevalent materialism, nepotistic, personal advantage and power. G. K. Chesterton, Jonathan Swift, and many others considered him the greatest Englishman.

Eras

Sources

Utopia

Unlisted Sources

A Man For All Seasons

Quotes by Thomas More (15 quotes)

“A pretty face may be enough to catch a man, but it takes character and good nature to hold him.”

from Utopia

Themes: Beauty Marriage

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“Kindness and good nature unite men more effectually and with greater strength than any agreements”

from Utopia

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“There is nothing more inglorious than that glory that is gained by war.”

from Utopia

Chapters: 30. No War

Themes: War Power

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“What greater wealth can there be than cheerfulness, peace of mind, and freedom from anxiety?”

from Utopia

Themes: Wealth Happiness

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“Pride thinks it's own happiness shines the brighter by comparing it with the misfortunes of others.”

from Utopia

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“The way to heaven is the same from all places.”

from Utopia

Chapters: 1. The Unnamed

Themes: Wu Wei

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“For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted… what else is to be concluded but that you first make thieves and then punish them.”

from Utopia

Chapters: 75. Greed

Themes: Law and Order

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“Anyone who campaigns for public office becomes disqualified for holding any office at all.”

from Utopia

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“Instead of inflicting these horrible punishments, it would be far more to the point to provide everyone with some means of livelihood, so that nobody's under the frightful necessity of becoming first a thief and then a corpse.”

from Utopia

Themes: Punishment

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“Nor can they understand why a totally useless substance like gold should now, all over the world, be considered far more important than human beings, who gave it such value as it has, purely for their own convenience.”

from Utopia

Themes: Money Poverty

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“Personal prejudice and financial greed are the two great evils that threaten courts of law, and once they get the upper hand they immediately hamstring society, by destroying all justice.”

from Utopia

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“Personal prejudice and financial greed are the two great evils that threaten courts of law, and once they get the upper hand they immediately hamstring society, by destroying all justice.”

from Utopia

Themes: Greed Justice

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“You neither desire wealth nor greatness; and, indeed, I value and admire such a man much more than I do any of the great men in the world.”

from Utopia

Themes: Desire Wealth

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“Every modern society seems to me to be nothing but a conspiracy of the rich, who while protesting their interest in the common good pursue their own interests and stop at no trick and deception to secure their ill-gotten possessions, to pay as little as possible for the labor that produces their wealth and so force its makers to accept the nearest thing to nothing. They contrive rules for securing and assuring these tidy profits for the rich in the name of the common good, including of course the poor, and call them laws!”

from Utopia

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“It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world... but for Wales?”

from A Man For All Seasons

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Quotes about Thomas More (4 quotes)

“If the founding Fathers could come back, they would be amazed at the degree to which we have reduced poverty, drudgery, illiteracy, and governmental tyranny. a large part of the utopias described by Thomas More, Samuel Butler, Edward Bellamy, and H. G. Wells has been materially realized, along with the universal education, adult suffrage, freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion which were among the hopes and dreams of 18th century philosophers.”

Will Durant 1885 – 1981 CE
Philosophy apostle and popularizer of history's lessons
from Fallen Leaves

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“the renewed study of the Greek classics was bringing the creative and fertilizing spirit of Plato to pear upon the Western mind. In England, Sir Thomas More produced a quaint imitation of Plato's Repbulic in his Utopia, setting out a sort of autocratic communism”

H. G. Wells 1866 – 1946 CE
A father of science fiction and One World Government apostle
from Outline of History

Themes: Shambhala

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“[a man] whose soul was more pure than any snow.”

Erasmus 1466 – 1536 CE
(Desiderius Roterodamus)
"Greatest scholar of the northern Renaissance"

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“the greatest Englishman, or at least the greatest historical character in English history.”

G. K. Chesterton 1874 – 1936 CE

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