Utopia

“For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their education had disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them?”

— Hythloday criticizing the English justice system's approach to theft.

“They wonder much to hear that gold, which in itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere had in such estimation, that even among the rudest and barbarous nations it is looked upon as a very valuable thing, and that for it men daily commit so many crimes.”

— Utopian perspective on the value of gold and other precious metals.

“They account it a sign of gross stupidity to be carried away with the glittering of a jewel, or the shining of gold; to which man by his own nature can add no ornament, and which, by its own nature, is as liable to be corrupted, as the meanest thing.”

— Utopian disdain for outward displays of wealth.

“They detest war as a very brutal thing; and, to the reproach of human nature, they think there is no sort of wild beasts so fierce as man, when he is engaged in fighting with one another.”

— Utopian views on warfare.

“They wonder at the folly of those who make a great show with their clothes, and admire themselves in them, because they are made of a finer sort of thread, or spun with more art.”

— Utopian critique of vanity in clothing and fashion.

“For what justice is there in this: that a nobleman, a goldsmith, or a usurer, or any other man, that either does nothing at all, or at best is employed in things that are of no use to the public, should live in great luxury and splendor, while in the mean time a laborer, a carter, or a carpenter, by so great and continual toil, as being almost beasts of burden, can scarce earn their bread?”

— Hythloday's critique of social and economic inequality in Europe.

“They have but few laws, and such is their constitution, that they need not many.”

— Description of the Utopian legal system.

“They think it is an unreasonable thing to make a man suffer for the fault of another, and that a man ought not to be punished for what he could not help.”

— Utopian principles of justice and responsibility.

“They define virtue to be living according to nature, and think that we are made by God for that end.”

— Utopian definition of virtue and its relation to nature and God.

“But a man of a noble mind will not give up his life for a thing that is of no value.”

— Utopian perspective on the value of life versus material possessions.

“For they think that all pleasures are lawful, that do no harm.”

— Utopian approach to pleasure and morality.

“They are of opinion that no man ought to be punished for his religion.”

— Utopian principle of religious tolerance.

“They account idleness a disease, and think it is a great injustice that some should be worn out with perpetual labour, and others live in idleness and luxury.”

— Utopian view on work ethic and the distribution of labor.

“They eat and drink out of earthen ware, and they have no other sort of vessels; but they have some of gold and silver, which serve for no other use than to be chamber-pots, and other vile uses.”

— Utopian use of precious metals for ignoble purposes to discourage avarice.

“They live merrily together, and are a great comfort to one another.”

— Description of the communal and harmonious life in Utopia.