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.
Interpretation
Knowledge is powerful, but rare. True understanding is not easily recognized and is typically held by a few.
The quote by Thomas Hobbes suggests that while knowledge has the potential to empower individuals, it is often scarce and not readily apparent to most people. True knowledge requires a deep comprehension that can only be attained by those specially equipped with the ability to grasp it. This highlights the rarity of profound understanding and the selectivity of those who actually possess significant knowledge.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of education, one could say, 'As Hobbes noted, knowledge is powerful yet rare.'
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.
The end of knowledge is power ... the scope of all speculation is the performing of some action or thing to be done.
They that approve a private opinion, call it opinion; but they that dislike it, heresy; and yet heresy signifies no more than private opinion.
If self-knowledge is the road to virtue, so is virtue still more the road to self-knowledge.
Our own self-love draws a thick veil between us and our faults.
To wish to be well is a part of becoming well.
In building a path through the self to the far shore of awareness, we have to carefully pick our way through our own wilderness. If we can put our minds into a place of surrender, we will have an easier time feeling the contours of the land. We do not have to break our way through as much as we have to find our way around the major obstacles. We do not have to cure every neurosis, we just have to learn how not to be caught by them.
Do not forget that the value and interest of life is not so much to do conspicuous things...as to do ordinary things with the perception of their enormous value.
Every great man is always being helped by everybody, for his gift is to get good out of all things and all persons.
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