Doubtful Quotes - Page 10

• There is no such thing as education. The thing is merely a loose phrase for the passing on to others of whatever truth or virtue we happen to have ourselves. It is typical of our time that the more doubtful we are about the value of philosophy, the more certain we are about the value of education. That is to say, the more doubtful we are about whether we have any truth, the more certain we are (apparently) that we can teach it to our children.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Children, Philosophy, Passing On

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• (Was he talking about a polar expedition, or marriage?) -Jorge Men Wanted: For hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.

  Ernest Shackleton

  Journey, Men, Talking

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• Men have various subjects in which they may excel, or at least would be thought to excel, and though they love to hear justice done to them where they know they excel, yet they are most and best flattered upon those points where they wish to excel and yet are doubtful whether they do or not.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Love, Men, Justice

  Lord Chesterfield (1998). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.100, OUP Oxford

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• They say of me, and so they should, It's doubtful if I come to good.

  Dorothy Parker

  Should, Parlor Games, Ifs

  Dorothy Parker (1936). “Not So Deep as a Well”, Macmillan Company of Canada

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• It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Hurt, Pain, Men

  "The Root of the Righteous". Book by Aiden Wilson Tozer, 1955.

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• In the life of a man, his time is but a moment, his being an incessant flux, his sense a dim rushlight, his body a prey of worms, his soul an unquiet eddy, his fortune dark, his fame doubtful. In short, all that is body is as coursing waters, all that is of the soul as dreams and vapors.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Dream, Dark, Men

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• They say of me, and so they should, It's doubtful if I come to good. I see acquaintances and friends Accumulating dividends And making enviable names In science, art and parlor games. But I, despite expert advice, Keep doing things I think are nice, And though to good I never come Inseparable my nose and thumb.

  Dorothy Parker

  Art, Nice, Thinking

  Dorothy Parker (1936). “Not So Deep as a Well”, Macmillan Company of Canada

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• Everything is false, everything is possible, everything is doubtful.

  Guy de Maupassant

  Doubt

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• Sam:"Okay, what words would you use then?" I leaned back in the seat, thinking, as Sam looked at me doubtfully. He was right to look doubtful. My head didn't work with words very well- at least not in this abstract, descriptive sort of way. Grace:"Sensitive" I tried. Sam translated: "Squishy" Grace:"Creative" Sam:"Dangerously emo" Grace:"Thoughtful" Sam:"Feng shui." I laughed so hard I snorted. Grace:"How did you get feng shui out of thoughtful?" Sam:"You know, because in feng shui, you arrange funiture and plants and stuff in thoughtful ways.

  Maggie Stiefvater

  Emo, Thoughtful, Thinking

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• It is doubtful whether anyone who has travelled widely has found anywhere in the world regions more ugly than in the human face.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  World, Ugly, Faces

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• In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it: they must not do too much of it: and they must have a sense of success in it - not a doubtful sense, such as needs some testimony of others for its confirmation, but a sure sense, or rather knowledge, that so much work has been done well, and fruitfully done, whatever the world may say or think about it.

  W. H. Auden

  Success, Work, Thinking

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• Some years ago I was struck by the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood, and by the highly doubtful nature of the whole edifice that I had subsequently based on them. I realized that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last.

  Rene Descartes

  Numbers, Years, Childhood

  Meditationes "Meditation I" (1641)

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• It should be borne in mind that there is nothing more difficult to arrange, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes. The innovator makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old order, and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who would prosper under the new. Their support is lukewarm ... partly because men are generally incredulous, never really trusting new things unless they have tested them by experience.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Change, Men, Order

  "The Prince". Book by Niccolo Machiavelli, www.theguardian.com. 1532.

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• ...America has enjoyed the doubtful blessing of a single-track mind. We are able to accommodate, at a time, only one national hero; and we demand that that hero shall be uniform and invincible. As a literate people we are preoccupied, neither with the race nor the individual, but with the type. Yesterday, we romanticized the "tough guy;" today, we are romanticizing the underprivileged, tough or tender; tomorrow, we shall begin to romanticize the pure primitive.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Hero, Thoughtful, Thinking

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• The love of action is a principle of a much stronger and more doubtful nature. It often leads to anger, to ambition, and to revenge; but when it is guided by the sense of propriety and benevolence, it becomes the parent of every virtue, and, if those virtues are accompanied with equal abilities, a family, a state, or an empire may be indebted for their safety and prosperity to the undaunted courage of a single man.

  Edward Gibbon

  Revenge, Ambition, Men

  Edward Gibbon (1846). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.488

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• ... the economic advantages of sobriety have never been doubtful.

  Ida Tarbell

  Sobriety, Economic, Advantage

  Ida Minerva Tarbell (1916). “New Ideals in Business, an Account of Their Practice and Their Effects Upon Men and Profits”

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• In cases of doubtful morality, it is usual to say is there any harm in doing this? This question may sometimes be best answered by asking ourselves another; is there any harm in letting it alone?

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Asking, May, Usual

  Charles Caleb COLTON (1849). “L.P.”, p.238

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• [T]he true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law is the intention of the law-makers. This is most safely gathered from the words, but may be sought also in extraneous circumstances provided they do not contradict the express words of the law.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Keys, Law, May

  Thomas Jefferson (1853). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private”, p.291

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• What I loved in the man was his health, his unity with himself; all people and all things seemed to find their quite peaceable adjustment with him, not a proud domineering one, as after doubtful contest, but a spontaneous-looking peaceable, even humble one.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Humble, Men, People

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