COLLECTION OF
QUOTATIONS
ON THE INTERNET
|
|
THE MOST EXTENSIVE COLLECTION OF QUOTATIONS ON THE INTERNET |
| Home | Biographical Index | Reading List | Search | Site Notes | Varying Hare Books | | |||
| GIGA Quotes | Quotes by Topic | Authors by Date | | |||
Instead of saying that man is the creature of circumstances, it would be nearer the mark to say that man is the architect of circumstance. It is character which builds an existence out of circumstance. Our strength is measured by our plastic power. From the same material one man builds palaces, another hovels; one warehouses, another villas. - also attributed to Thomas Carlyle [Circumstance] It is not true that a man can believe or disbelieve what he will. But it is certain that an active desire to find any proposition true will unconsciously tend to that result by dismissing importunate suggestions which run counter to the belief, and welcoming those which favor it. The psychological law, that we only see what interests us, and only assimilate what is adapted to our condition, causes the mind to select its evidence. - [Evidence] No deeply rooted tendency was ever extirpated by adverse judgment. Not having originally been founded on argument, it cannot be destroyed by logic. - [Argument] Not only the individual experience slowly acquired, but the accumulated experience of the race, organized in language, condensed in instruments and axioms, and in what may be called the inherited intuitions--these form the multiple unity which is expressed in the abstract term "experience." - [Experience] The great desire of this age is for a doctrine which may serve to condense our knowledge, guide our researches, and shape our lives, so that conduct may really be the consequence of belief. - [Belief] The history of the race is but that of the individual "writ large." - [Man] Murder, like talent, seems occasionally to run in families. - Physiology of Common Life (ch. XII) [Murder] Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed. - Spanish Drama--Life of Lope De Vega (ch. II) [Genius] We must never assume that which is incapable of proof. - The Physiology of Common Life (ch. XIII) [Law] And to some men popularity is always suspicious. Enjoying none themselves, they are prone to suspect the validity of those attainments which command it. - The Spanish Drama (ch. III) [Popularity] To write much, and to write rapidly, are empty boasts. The world desires to know what you have done, and not how you did it. - The Spanish Drama (ch. III) [Authorship] The only cure for grief is action. - The Spanish Drama--Life of Lope De Vega (ch. II) [Grief]
|
|
