Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravitation.
Interpretation
Disregarding the notion of power is akin to ignoring the fundamental laws of nature.
In this quote, Thomas Hobbes asserts that the belief in the necessity of force is as essential as the acknowledgment of natural laws like gravity. To deny the importance of force in human affairs is to misunderstand the nature of power dynamics that govern relationships and society, similar to how one cannot ignore the physical laws that govern the universe.
In practice
In a speech on the necessity of regulation in society, I could reference Hobbes' quote to emphasize the importance of acknowledging power structures.
Baptism is the sacrament of allegiance of them that are to be received into the Kingdom of God, that is to say, into Eternal life, that is to say, to Remission of Sin. For as Eternal life was lost by the committing, so it is recovered by the remitting of men's sins.
Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.
For it is not the shape, but their use, that makes them angels.
For to accuse requires less eloquence, such is man's nature, than to excuse; and condemnation, than absolution, more resembles justice.
Scientia potentia est, sed parva; quia scientia egregia rara est, nec proinde apparens nisi paucissimis, et in paucis rebus. Scientiae enim ea natura est, ut esse intelligi non possit, nisi ab illis qui sunt scientia praediti.
The end of knowledge is power ... the scope of all speculation is the performing of some action or thing to be done.
It is impossible that had Buonaparte descended from a race of vegetable feeders that he could have had either the inclination or the power to ascend the throne of the Bourbons.
Youth loves honor and victory more than money.
not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of . . . but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take.
The world acquires value only through its extremes and endures only through moderation; extremists make the world great, the moderates give it stability.
According to my parents, I was supposed to have been a nice, churchgoing Swiss housewife. Instead I ended up an opinionated psychiatrist, author and lecturer in the American Southwest, who communicates with spirits from a world that I believe is far more loving and glorious than our own.
Where is the indignation about the fact that the US and USSR have thirty thousand pounds of destructive force for every human being in the world?
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