Thomas More

If a lion knew his own strength, it were hard for any man to rule him.

The most part of all your princes have more delight in warlike matters and the feats of hunting than in the good arts of peace.

I am not bound to believe the Bishop of Rome, no more than I am bound to believe the Bishop of Canterbury.

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.

For in Utopia, where every man hath a right to everything, they all know that if care is taken to develop the public stores, no private man can want anything.

I die the King's good servant, but God's first.

The commonwealth of Utopia is governed by very few laws; and these are so plain, that every man may understand them.

For they think it a very unjust thing to make a great company of thieves because a man happens to be in want.

They wonder much to hear that in this island, and in all the countries that are about it, there are so many who love to be idle, and yet live with luxury and splendor.

They count it a great reproach that so many men should be kept idle, as if the wealth of the whole country lay in the number of its beggars.

As for the women, they are not suffered to be idle, but are kept to their work, and that is to spin and to weave.

They think that no man ought to be punished for his religion, nor for any other opinion whatsoever, provided that he does not stir up sedition.

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

They think that the chief happiness of life consists in pleasure.

They have but few laws, and those are plain and easily understood.

They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters.

They have a great scorn of gold and silver, and use it for the vilest purposes.

They have no distinction of apparel, but all wear the same fashion.

They have no private property among them, but all things are common.

They think that the enjoyment of the pleasures of life is the end of all our actions.