Highest Quotes - Page 8

• A semi-civilized state of society, equally removed from the extremes of barbarity and of refinement, seems to be that particular meridian under which all the reciprocities and gratuities of hospitality do most readily flourish and abound. For it so happens that the ease, the luxury, and the abundance of the highest state of civilization, are as productive of selfishness, as the difficulties, the privations, and the sterilities of he lowest.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Civilization, Luxury, Selfishness

  Charles Caleb Colton (1821). “Lacon: or, Many things in few words”, p.227

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• It was observed of Elizabeth that she was weak herself, but chose wise counsellors; to which it was replied, that to choose wise counsellors was, in a prince, the highest wisdom.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Wise, Character, Weak

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.40

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• The eyes, like sentinels, hold the highest place in the body.
  [Lat., Oculi, tanquam, speculatores, altissimum locum obtinent.]

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Eye, Body, Sentinels

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• Censure is like the lightning which strikes the highest mountains.

  Baltasar Gracian

  Mountain, Lightning, Strikes

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• There is nothing so remote from vanity as true genius. It is almost as natural for those who are endowed with the highest powers of the human mind to produce the miracles of art, as for other men to breathe or move. Correggio, who is said to have produced some of his divinest works almost without having seen a picture, probably did not know that he had done anything extraordinary.

  William Hazlitt

  Art, Moving, Men

  William Hazlitt (1871). “The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt”, p.35

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• The highest order that was ever instituted on earth is the order of faith.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Faith, Order, Earth

  Henry Ward Beecher (1866). “Royal truths”, p.21

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• the State only aims at instilling those qualities in its public by which its demands are obeyed, and its exchequer is filled. Its highest attainment is the reduction of mankind to clockwork. In its atmosphere all those finer and more delicate liberties, which require treatment and spacious expansion, inevitably dry up and perish. The State requires a taxpaying machine in which there is no hitch, an exchequer in which there is never a deficit, and a public, monotonous, obedient, colorless, spiritless, moving humbly like a flock of sheep along a straight high road between two walls.

  Ouida

  Wall, Moving, Government

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• A man unattached and without wife, if he have any genius at all, may raise himself above his original position, may mingle with the world of fashion, and hold himself on a level with the highest; this is less easy for him who is engaged; it seems as if marriage put the whole world in their proper rank.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Fashion, Men, Wife

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• Young people are dazzled by the brilliancy of antithesis, and employ it. Matter-of-fact men, and those who like precision, naturally fall into comparisons and metaphor. Sprightly natures, full of fire, and whom a boundless imagination carries beyond all rules, and even what is reasonable, cannot rest satisfied even with hyperbole. As for the sublime, it is only great geniuses and those of the very highest order that are able to rise to its height.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Fall, Men, Order

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• High original genius is always ridiculed on its first appearance; most of all by those who have won themselves the highest reputation in working on the established lines. Genius only commands recognition when it has created the taste which is to appreciate it.

  James Anthony Froude

  Appreciate, Lines, Taste

  James Anthony Froude (2011). “Thomas Carlyle: A History of the First Forty Years of His Life, 1795-1835”, p.393, Cambridge University Press

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• To diminish envy, let us consider not what others possess, but what they enjoy; mere riches may be the gift of lucky accident or blind chance, but happiness must be the result of prudent preference and rational design; the highest happiness then can have no other foundation than the deepest wisdom; and the happiest fool is only as happy as he knows how to be.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Envy, Design, May

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.211

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• It is sufficiently humiliating to our nature to reflect that our knowledge is but as she rivulet, our ignorance as the sea. On points of the highest interest, the moment we quit the light of revelation we shall find that Platonism itself is intimately connected with Pyrrhonism, and the deepest inquiry with the darkest doubt.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Faith, Ignorance, Light

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• There are two metals, one of which is omnipotent in the cabinet, and the other in the camp--gold and iron. He that knows how to apply them both may indeed attain the highest station.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Two, Iron, Gold

  Charles Caleb Colton (1821). “Lacon: or, Many things in few words”, p.161

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• It is with nations as with individuals, those who know the least of others think the highest of themselves; for the whole family of pride and ignorance are incestuous, and mutually beget each other.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Ignorance, Pride, Thinking

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.190

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• jewels have played a colorful part in the evolution of world affairs. Because precious stones tend to inspire both admiration and greed, leaders have found convenient excuses for seeking them and have used them to impress crowds, reward friends, deprive foes, forge alliances, and justify war. Jewels may find their highest expression in the decorative arts, but they have also earned a place in the art of the possible.

  Madeleine Albright

  Art, War, Expression

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• God's highest gifts--talent, beauty, feeling, imagination, power--they carry with them the possibility of the highest heaven and the lowest hell. Be sure that it is by that which is highest in you that you may be lost.

  Frederick William Robertson

  God, Imagination, Heaven

  Frederick William Robertson (1858). “Sermons Preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton: Second Series”, p.231

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• A heart renewed--a loving heart--a penitent and humble heart--a heart broken and contrite, purified by love--that and only that is the rest of men. Spotlessness may do for angels, repentance unto life is the highest that belongs to man.

  Frederick William Robertson

  Heart, Humble, Angel

  Frederick William Robertson (1917). “Sermons on Bible subjects”

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• The highest point to which a weak but experienced mind can rise is detecting the weakness of better men.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Men, Mind, Weakness

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• There are two kinds of genius. The first and highest may be said to speak out of the eternal to the present, and must compel its age to understand it; the second understands its age, and tells it what it wishes to be told.

  James Russell Lowell

  Two, Speaks Out, Wish

  Jared Sparks, Edward Everett, James Russell Lowell, Henry Cabot Lodge (1871). “The North American Review”, p.196

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• The highest flights of charity, devotion, trust, patience, bravery to which the wings of human nature have spread themselves, have been flown for religious ideals.

  William James

  Religious, Wings, Bravery

  William James (2015). “The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature”, p.93, Xist Publishing

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• The head has the most beautiful appearance, as well as the highest station, in a human figure.

  Joseph Addison

  Beautiful, Appearance, Figures

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1824). “The Spectator: With Sketches of the Lives of the Authors, an Index, and Explanatory Notes”, p.221

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• True religion and virtue give a cheerful and happy turn to the mind, admit of all true pleasures, and even procure for us the highest.

  Joseph Addison

  Giving, Mind, Religion

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• Count it one of the highest virtues upon earth to educate faithfully the children of others, which so few, and scarcely any, do by their own.

  Martin Luther

  Children, Teaching, Earth

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• The highest historical probability can be adduced in support of the proposition that, if it were possible to annihilate the Bible, and with it all its influences, we should destroy with it the whole spiritual system of the moral world.

  Edward Everett

  Faith, Spiritual, Support

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• [On the Internet and activism:] The danger of the Internet is cocooning with the like-minded online - of sending an email or twitter and confusing that with action - while the real corporate and military and government centers of power go right on. In a way, the highest purpose of the Internet is to bring us together for empathy and action. After all, the reflector cells and empathy-producing chemicals in our brains only work when we're physically together with all five senses. You can't raise a baby online.

  Gloria Steinem

  Baby, Military, Real

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