In one sense it is evident that the art of kingship does include the art of lawmaking. But the political ideal is not full authority for laws but rather full authority for a man who understands the art of kingship and has kingly ability.
This man has conquered the world! What have you done?" The philosopher replied without an instant's hesitation, "I have conquered the need to conquer the world.
People who have never had an ideal may hope to find one; they are in a better state than the people who allow the circumstances of life to break their ideal. To fall beneath one's ideal is to lose one's track in life; then confusion rises in the mind, and that light which one should hold high becomes covered and obscured, so that it cannot shine out to light one's path.
The effort to create a work of art that is true and potentially lasting, that is the very best work of art you can create at that point in your life - a book that may only reach or move a few people but will seem to those people somehow transformative. That's the ideal; that's always the motivation.
For authority proceeds from true reason, but reason certainly does not proceed from authority. For every authority which is not upheld by true reason is seen to be weak, whereas true reason is kept firm and immutable by her own powers and does not require to be confirmed by the assent of any authority.
When we conquer ourselves, then everything will be conquered: oneself, others, and all the sense objects as well, coming in by way of the eyes, ears, nose, tongue and body -- it will all get conquered like this.
Art and nature shall always be wrestling until they eventually conquer one another so that the victory is the same stroke and line: that which is conquered, conquers at the same time.
I want the traditional family upheld, but I don't want it upheld to the detriment of other people.
For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories... The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.
Popular success is a wonderful gift if it happens, but like money, it's not the motivation. The effort to create a work of art that is true and potentially lasting, that is the very best work of art you can create at that point in your life - a book that may only reach or move a few people but will seem to people somehow transformative. That's the ideal; that's always the motivation.
Making art is dealing with people on your own terms. The ideal way of using people is using them like clay, but that being out of the question, except for lunatics and leaders, art is a good alternative.
What We want is to make it possible for our unfortunate people to live a life of industry for it is by steady work alone that we hope for our physical and moral rehabilitation. For this reason above all we have undertaken to rally our people around our ideal.
Conquered, we conquer.
Conquer or be conquered.
I'm trying to conquer swimming. I'm getting there. I've gotta conquer it. I had a fear of drowning and tunnels and flying. I started flying and got my pilot's license, so I conquered that. Now, I'm onto swimming and tunnels.
I simply contend that the middle-class ideal which demands that people be affectionate, respectable, honest and content, that they avoid excitements and cultivate serenity is the ideal that appeals to me, it is in short the ideal of affectionate family life, of honorable business methods.