Utopia quotes

… I fear that the testimony of a friend will be suspected, but rather because his learning and virtues are too great for me to do them justice, and so well known, that they need not my commendations, unless I would, according to the proverb, “

Show the sun with a lantern.

” Those that were appointed by the Prince to treat with us, met us at Bruges, according to agreement; they were all worthy men. The Margrave of Bruges was their head, and the chief man among them;

‘No, my lord,’ answered he, ‘that were not wisely done, for Solomon, the wisest of men, said, “

Answer a Fool according to his folly

,” which I now do, and show him the ditch into which he will fall, if he is not aware of it;

It is also certain that they are much mistaken that think the poverty of a nation is a means of the public safety.

Who quarrel more than beggars?

who does more earnestly long for a change than he that is uneasy in his present circumstances? and who run to create confusions with so desperate a boldness as those who, having nothing to lose, hope to gain by them?

but Nature has marked out no use for the other metals so essential as not easily to be dispensed with. The folly of men has enhanced the value of gold and silver because of their scarcity; whereas, on the contrary, it is their opinion that

Nature, as an indulgent parent, has freely given us all the best things in great abundance, such as water and earth, but has laid up and hid from us the things that are vain and useless.

“If these metals were laid up in any tower in the kingdom it would raise a jealousy of the Prince and Senate, and give birth to that foolish mistrust into which the people are apt to fall—a jealousy of their intending to sacrifice the interest …

… were ashamed of all that glory for which they had formed valued themselves, and accordingly laid it aside—a resolution that they immediately took when, on their engaging in some free discourse with the Utopians, they discovered their sense of such things and their other customs.

The Utopians wonder how any man should be so much taken with the glaring doubtful lustre of a jewel or a stone, that can look up to a star or to the sun himself

; or how any should value himself because his cloth is made of a finer thread;

It is also a great folly to be taken with outward marks of respect, which signify nothing; for what true or real pleasure can one man find in another’s standing bare or making legs to him?

Will the bending another man’s knees give ease to yours? and will the head’s being bare cure the madness of yours?

And yet it is wonderful to see how this false notion of pleasure bewitches many who delight themselves with the fancy of their nobility, and are pleased with this conceit—that they are descended from ancestors who have been held for some successions rich, and who …

They detest war as a very brutal thing, and which, to the reproach of human nature, is more practised by men than by any sort of beasts.

They, in opposition to the sentiments of almost all other nations, think that there is nothing more inglorious than that glory that is gained by war;

“Thus have I described to you, as particularly as I could, the Constitution of that commonwealth, which I do not only think the best in the world, but indeed the only commonwealth that truly deserves that name.

In all other places it is visible that, while people talk of a commonwealth, every man only seeks his own wealth

;

for this vice does not measure happiness so much by its own conveniences, as by the miseries of others; and would not be satisfied with being thought a goddess, if none were left that were miserable, over whom she might insult.

Pride thinks its own happiness shines the brighter, by comparing it with the misfortunes of other persons

; that by displaying its own wealth they may feel their poverty the more sensibly. This is that infernal serpent that creeps into the breasts of mortals, and possesses them too much to be easily drawn out;