There is a Western world. There is America. There is Great Britain and Germany and France and Russia and China and other nations. I doubt that there is one country amongst those I mentioned which has a desire to see Iran with its fundamentalist Islamic extremist government possessing nuclear weapons.
If indeed a firearm were more dangerous to its possessors than to potential aggressors would it not make sense for the government to arm all criminals and let them accidentally shoot themselves? Is this absurd? Yes and yet the government of course is arming criminals.
The three great ends which a statesman ought to propose to himself in the government of a nation are one Security to possessors two facility to acquirers and three hope to all.
In order to acquire a growing and lasting respect in society it is a good thing if you possess great talent to give early in your youth a very hard kick to the right shin of the society that you love. After that be a snob.
No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess and no matter how good one's sentiments may be if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.
Go to foreign countries and you will get to know the good things one possesses at home.
Good nature is worth more than knowledge more than money more than honor to the persons who possess it.
A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.
God hates violence. He has ordained that all men fairly possess their property not seize it.
The will is a beast of burden. If God mounts it it wishes and goes as God wills if Satan mounts it it wishes and goes as Satan wills Nor can it choose its rider... the riders contend for its possession.
I have held many things in my hands and I have lost them all but whatever I have placed in God's hands that I still possess.
Someday in the distant cyborg future when our internal and external memories fully merge we may come to possess infinite knowledge. But that's not the same thing as wisdom.
Cambodia possesses now the rights to look far into the future and everything for making a future construction is waiting for the Cambodian own efforts.
The law of humanity ought to be composed of the past the present and the future that we bear within us whoever possesses but one of these terms has but a fragment of the law of the moral world.
To love someone is to isolate him from the world wipe out every trace of him dispossess him of his shadow drag him into a murderous future. It is to circle around the other like a dead star and absorb him into a black light.
Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence but of those who have already taken possession of their future.
They took their meals together and it was remarked on such occasions when the friendship of animals is put to a hard test that they never quarrelled or disputed the possession of a favourite fruit with each other.
I understand by this passion the union of desire friendship and tenderness which is inflamed by a single female which prefers her to the rest of her sex and which seeks her possession as the supreme or the sole happiness of our being.
Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy much the greatest is the possession of friendship.
Freedom of choice is more to be treasured than any possession earth can give.
Their poverty secured their freedom since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.
For you who no longer posses it freedom is everything for us who do it is merely an illusion.
Back then I didn't think a woman like that or a relationship like that could exist with complete freedom and no jealousy or possessiveness. I thought it sounded too good to be true and I was certainly convinced it wasn't the life for me!
Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens. If you have them you have to take care of them! There is great freedom in simplicity of living. It is those who have enough but not too much who are the happiest.