17 quotes
Jean Bodin is, next to Machiavelli, the most important political writer of the sixteenth century.
Studies of Political Thought from Gershon to Grotius, 1414–1625 (1907)
In the struggle between liberty and authority the possession of a hostile printing press becomes of capital importance.
Studies of Political Thought from Gershon to Grotius, 1414–1625 (1907)
Political liberty is the residuary legatee of ecclesiastical animosities.
Studies of Political Thought from Gershon to Grotius, 1414–1625 (1907)
Machiavelli was always considering the practical problem, how is Italy to be saved?
Studies of Political Thought from Gershon to Grotius, 1414–1625 (1907)
How far are unjust laws to be obeyed? Need they be considered laws at all, if we understand St Thomas aright? Can any government exist or claim rights apart from the consent of the governed?
Studies of Political Thought from Gershon to Grotius, 1414–1625 (1907)
It is not to revive of the corpse of past erudition that I have any desire, but rather to make more vivid the life of to-day, and to help us to envisage its problems with a more accurate perspective.
Studies of Political Thought from Gershon to Grotius, 1414–1625 (1907)
The object of Grotius was not to make men perfect or treat them as such, but to see whether there were not certain common duties generally felt as binding, if not always practised, and to set forth an ideal.
Studies of Political Thought from Gershon to Grotius, 1414–1625 (1907)
It is the transformation of the desire to persecute into the claim of an inherent right to exist on the part of religious bodies that historically produces those limitations upon State actual which are the securities of freedom.
Studies of Political Thought from Gershon to Grotius, 1414–1625 (1907)
The gulf between the Christian ideal of Love, and the ideals of Buddha, Schopenhauer and Tolstoi, which mean the destruction of the individual, is at bottom irreconcilable; yet both by adversaries and believers, the mistake of confounding the one with the other is often made.
Studies of Political Thought from Gershon to Grotius, 1414–1625 (1907)
If ideas in politics more than elsewhere are the children of practical needs, none the less is it true, that the actual world is the result of men's thoughts.
Studies of Political Thought from Gershon to Grotius, 1414–1625 (1907)
The despots of Italy were, in fact, in the Greek sense, tyrants, and Machiavelli did little more than say so. What gives him his importance is that what was true of the small despots of Italy was going to become true of the national monarchs of Europe.
Studies of Political Thought from Gershon to Grotius, 1414–1625 (1907)
It would be impossible to gain any adequate notion of the intellectual forces, that made up the mind of the average European statesman from 1600–1800 if we altogether omitted a consideration of the influence of Machiavelli.
Studies of Political Thought from Gershon to Grotius, 1414–1625 (1907)
Lastly we come to the toleration of the Politiques. Their theory asserts definitely that the State is in fact indifferent to religious unity and gives up the entire attempt to identify Church with State, never abandoned in England till 1688, and not altogether even then.
Studies of Political Thought from Gershon to Grotius, 1414–1625 (1907)
The ideal of Christendom as a whole, with Pope and Emperor at its head, gave way to the notion of the godly prince; and potent in some respects as was Luther's nationalist influence, it was not so much the German people as the sovereign territorial prince that reaped the benefit.
Studies of Political Thought from Gershon to Grotius, 1414–1625 (1907)
Our generation has seen one further step taken in the extension of the principles of Machiavelli. The doctrines associated with the name of Nietzsche are exactly similar to those of Machiavelli, except that they are now purely limited to individual ends ...
Studies of Political Thought from Gershon to Grotius, 1414–1625 (1907)
In the days of their triumph the Netherlands became the University of Europe; if we remove from the first half of the seventeenth century the thinkers, publicists, theologians, men of science, artists and gardeners who were Dutch, and take away their influence upon other nations, the record would be barren instead of fertile, despite the great name of Bacon.
Studies of Political Thought from Gershon to Grotius, 1414–1625 (1907)
From the Monarchomachi we naturally pass to the Jesuits, the real agents of the Counter-Reformation, and partly also of Spanish aggression. Nearly all of the Jesuit writers of importance in the earlier years of their existence are Spaniards, or Philo-Spaniards. We must regard their attitude as partly, at least, determined by national feeling—even in spite of their professed aims.
Studies of Political Thought from Gershon to Grotius, 1414–1625 (1907)