Thoughts are to the Desires as Scouts and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired.
Interpretation
Our thoughts serve as guides to help us achieve our desires.
In this quote, Thomas Hobbes likens thoughts to scouts and spies that explore and navigate towards our desires. It suggests that our mental processes are essential in identifying and pursuing what we truly want, as they assess and determine the best paths to achieve those desires.
In practice
Motivational talks about the power of positive thinking.
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.
If we go on to cast a look at the fate of these World-Historical persons, whose vocation it was to be the agents of the World-Spirit, we shall find it to have been no happy one. They attained no calm enjoyment; their whole life was labour and trouble; their whole nature was nought else but their master—passion. When their object is attained they fall off like empty hulls from the kernel. They die early, like Alexander; they are murdered, like Caesar.
Under international law, the responsibility for protecting civilians in conflict falls on the belligerents. Under military occupation, responsibility for the welfare of the population falls on the occupiers.
The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy.
What does it mean to regret when you have no choice? It's what you can bear. And there it is... It was death. I chose life.
All real fantasy is serious. Only faked fantasy is not serious. That is why it is so wrong to impose faked fantasy on children.
Government means always coercion and compulsion and is by necessity the opposite of liberty.
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