Admirable Quotes - Page 12

• It is admirable to consider how many millions of people come into, and go out of the world, ignorant of themselves and of the world they have lived in.

  William Penn

  People, Ignorant, Earth

  Benjamin Franklin, William Penn (2012). “Franklin's Way to Wealth and Penn's Maxims”, p.19, Courier Corporation

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• Still, even the most admirable of atheists is nothing more than a moral parasite, living his life based on borrowed ethics. This is why, when pressed, the atheist will often attempt to hide his lack of conviction in his own beliefs behind some poorly formulated utilitarianism, or argue that he acts out of altruistic self-interest. But this is only post-facto rationalization, not reason or rational behavior.

  Theodore Beale

  Atheist, Self, Religion

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• Misanthropes have some admirable if paradoxical virtues. It is no exaggeration to say that we are among the nicest people you are likely to meet. Because good manners build sturdy walls, our distaste for intimacy makes us exceedingly cordial "ships that pass in the night." As long as you remain a stranger we will be your friend forever.

  Florence King

  Friendship, Relationship, Wall

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• Saints are what they are not because their sanctity makes them admirable to others, but because the gift of sainthood makes it possible for them to admire everyone else.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Saint, Sanctity

  Thomas Merton (2002). “Seeds”

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• Allow me to offer my congratulations on the truly admirable skill you have shown in keeping clear of the mark. Not to have hit once in so many trials, argues the most splendid talents for missing.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Congratulations, Skills, Missing

  Thomas De Quincey (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Thomas De Quincey (Illustrated)”, p.1655, Delphi Classics

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• I agree today that a man has no business trying to tell women what their characteristics are, which ones are inborn, which are more admirable, which will be best utilized by what occupations.

  Benjamin Spock

  Women, Trying, Occupation

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• Confidence, of course is an admirable asset to a golfer, but it should be an unspoken confidence. It is perilous to put it into speech. The gods of golf lie in wait to chasten the presumptious.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Lying, Golf, Waiting

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• My friend is not perfect-no more than I am-and so we suit each other admirable.

  Alexander Smith

  Friendship, Perfect, Suits

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• A Fox entered the house of an actor and, rummaging through all his properties, came upon a Mask, an admirable imitation of a human head. He placed his paws on it and said, "What a beautiful head! Yet it is of no value, as it entirely lacks brains."

  Aesop

  Beautiful, House, Brain

  Aesop (2013). “Aesop's Fables (Illustrated & Annotated Edition)”, p.14, Jazzybee Verlag

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• As to sagacity, I should say that his judgement respecting the warmest place and the softest cushion in a room is infallible, his punctuality at meal times is admirable, and his pertinacity in jumping on people's shoulders till they give him some of the best of what is going, indicates great firmness.

  Thomas Huxley

  Cat, Jumping, People

  Thomas Henry Huxley, Leonard Huxley (1900). “Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley”

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• The ingenuities we practice in order to appear admirable to ourselves would suffice to invent the telephone twice over on a rainy summer morning.

  Brendan Gill

  Summer, Morning, Order

  BRENDAN GILL (1975). “HER AT THE NEW YORKER”

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• Humility counts for much, but it may be that vanity does not dispossess that admirable quality.

  Walter J. Phillips

  Humility, Pride, Vanity

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• One of the things particularly admirable in the public utterances of President Lincoln is a certain tone of familiar dignity, which, while it is perhaps the most difficult attainment of mere style, is also no doubtful indication of personal character. There must be something essentially noble in an elective ruler who can descend to the level of confidential ease without forfeiting respect, something very manly in one who can break through the etiquette of his conventional rank and trust himself to the reason and intelligence of those who have elected him.

  James Russell Lowell

  Character, Break Through, Style

  James Russell Lowell (2015). “Abraham Lincoln”, p.22, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• Effort is admirable. Achievement is valuable.

  Morton Blackwell

  Achievement, Effort, Valuable

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• But I was thinking about this, the Obamas want to adopt a stray dog from the pound. And I think that is admirable. I believe the last president to bring a stray dog into the White House got impeached.

  David Letterman

  Dog, Believe, Thinking

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• Feeble and timid minds . . . consider the use of dilatory and ambiguous measures as the most admirable efforts of consummate prudence.

  Edward Gibbon

  Effort, Mind, Use

  Edward Gibbon (2016). “The Collected Works of Edward Gibbon: Historical Works, Autobiographical Writings and Private Letters, Including The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.1228, e-artnow

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• Courage is perhaps our most admirable trait. The man, or woman, who possesses it is able to plunge ahead, despite dangers, despite warnings, despite hazards of all kinds, to attack the task at hand. Often, it is indistinguishable from stupidity.

  Jack McDevitt

  Men, Hands, Stupidity

  Jack McDevitt (2013). “Odyssey (Academy - Book 5): Academy -”, p.251, Hachette UK

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• I respect so many people, but I guess I'd have to say Madonna. Not being cliché or anything because she and I don't share a similar sound, but I truly respect how she's been in the game so long and developed so much over time and really did it her way. It's admirable. I want something like that.

  Kat Dahlia

  Long, People, Share

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• Don't assume that your personal moral compass, however admirable it may be, will always give you the right answer to complicated questions that require in-depth analysis.

  Joseph Badaracco

  Giving, Moral, Assuming

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• You could conceive spirituality as the study of the immeasurable, of the qualitative. But that's very different from the way we typically use the word. A spiritual person, in the popular conception, is somebody who's kind of aloof from the world, introspective, meditating, communing with non-material beings. That's the spiritual realm, and we elevate it above the material realm. What's more worthy, what's more admirable? Who's the one who has done this hard work on the self, and has done a lot of "practice"? That's the spiritual person.

  Charles Eisenstein

  Spiritual, Hard Work, Different

  Source: www.mindfulnessbell.org

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• Is it stupidity or is it moral cowardice which leads men to continue professing a creed that makes self-sacrifice a cardinal principle, while they urge the sacrificing of others, even to the death, when they trespass against us? Is it blindness, or is it an insance inconsistency, which makes them regard as most admirable the bearing of evil for the benefit of others, while they lavish admiration on those who, out of revenge, inflict great evils in return for small ones suffered? Surely our barbarian code of right needs revision, and our barbarian standard of honour should be somewhat changed.

  Herbert Spencer

  Revenge, Sacrifice, Men

  Herbert Spencer (1910). “Works: The study of sociology”

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• Sundry manifestations of nature in men and women, are greatly perverted by existing social conventions upheld by both. There are feelings which, under our predatory régime, with its adapted standard of propriety, it is not considered manly to show; but which, contrariwise, are considered admirable in women. Hence repressed manifestations in the one case, and exaggerated manifestations in the other; leading to mistaken estimates.

  Herbert Spencer

  Men, Feelings, Social

  HERBERT SPENCER (1874). “THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY”, p.421

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• As you know, the Inquisition is an admirable and wholly Christian invention to make the pope and the monks more powerful and turn a whole kingdom into hypocrites.

  Voltaire

  Christian, Powerful, Hypocrite

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• I have read all of Daniel Aaron's books, and admired them, but in The Americanist I believe he has composed an intellectual and social memoir for which he will be remembered. His self-portrait is marked by personal tact and admirable restraint: he is and is not its subject. The Americanist is a vision of otherness: literary and academic friends and acquaintances, here and abroad. Eloquently phrased and free of nostalgia, it catches a lost world that yet engendered much of our own.

  Harold Bloom

  Believe, Book, Self

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• The labeling of nociceptors as pain fibers was not an admirable simplification, but an unfortunate trivialization under the guise of simplification.

  Patrick David Wall

  Pain, Fiber, Injury

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