If any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies.
Interpretation
Conflicting desires can lead to enmity when two people want the same thing but cannot both have it.
This quote by Thomas Hobbes reflects the fundamental nature of human conflict, suggesting that when two individuals desire the same goal or object that is in limited supply, the inevitable competition for that desire can breed hostility and animosity. It highlights the idea that human relationships are often dictated by the struggle for resources, recognition, or power, and that this competition can turn friends into foes if their interests clash.
In practice
In a discussion about workplace rivalry, you could use this quote to illustrate how competing for the same promotion can create tension among colleagues.
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 the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.
In a well-functioning democracy, the state constitution is considered more important than God's holy book, whichever holy book that may be, and God matters only in your private life.
Have an earnestness for death and you will have life.
While a modicum of consciousness may have had survivalist properties during an immemorial chapter of our evolution β so one theory goes β this faculty soon enough became a seditious agent working against us β¦ we need to hamper our consciousness for all we are worth or it will impose upon us a too clear vision of what we do not want to see β¦ Consciousness has forced us into the paradoxical position of striving to be unself-conscious of what we are β hunks of spoiling flesh on disintegrating bones
Neither a Fortress nor a Maidenhead will hold out long after they begin to parley.
You first parents of the human race...who ruined yourself for an apple, what might you have done for a truffled turkey?
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