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Oh wearisome Condition of Humanity!
Born under one law, to another bound:
Vainly begot and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound:
What meaneth Nature by these diverse laws?
Passion and reason, self-division cause.
Is it the mark, or Majesty of Power
To make offences that it may forgive?

— Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke Mustapha (1609)

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Philosophy

More quotes by Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke

Three things there be in man's opinion dear,
Fame, many friends, and fortune's dignities:
False visions all, which in our sense appear,
To sanctify desire's idolatry.

Caelica (1633)

Knowing as "the man in the street" (as we call him at Newmarket) always does, the greatest secrets of kings, and being the confidant of their most hidden thoughts.

O wearisome condition of humanity!
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot and yet forbidden vanity;
Created sick, commanded to be sound.

Lord Brooke, Mustapha (1609)

There is an unfortunate disposition in a man to attend much more to the faults of his companions which offend him, than to their perfections which please him.

Love is no true-made looking-glass
Which perfect yields the shape we bring;
It ugly shows us all that was,
And flatters every future thing.

Caelica (1633)

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

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There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

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Every morning
I shall concern myself anew about the boundary
Between the love-deed-Yes and the power-deed-No
And pressing forward honor reality.

Martin Buber Power and Love (1926)

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended.

John C. Lilly The Human Biocomputer (1974)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.