Multitudes Quotes

• Live for today. Multitudes of people have failed to live for today.... What they have had within their grasp today they have missed entirely, because only the future has intrigued them.

  William Allen White

  People, Live For Today, Intrigued

  "Forbes", Forbes Incorporated, p. 42, 1953.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• The multitude which is not brought to act as a unity, is confusion. That unity which has not its origin in the multitude is tyranny.

  Blaise Pascal

  Confusion, Unity, Tyranny

  Blaise Pascal (1829). “Thoughts on Religion and Other Subjects”, p.226

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Great minds are to make others great. Their superiority is to be used, not to break the multitude to intellectual vassalage, not to establish over them a spiritual tyranny, but to rouse them from lethargy, and to aid them to judge for themselves.

  William Ellery Channing

  Spiritual, Judging, Mind

  William Ellery Channing (1840). “Lectures on the elevation of the labouring portion of the community”, p.35

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in the worth and choice.

  Ben Jonson

  Friendship, Positive, Happiness

  'Cynthia's Revels' (1600) act 3, sc. 2

  63 Copy quote

  Show source

• In science, as in art, and, as I believe, in every other sphere of human activity, there may be wisdom in a multitude of counsellors, but it is only in one or two of them.

  Thomas Huxley

  Art, Believe, Two

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Collected Essays”, p.57, Cambridge University Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.

  Edmund Burke

  Tyrants, Tyranny

  George Croly, Edmund Burke (1840). “A Memoir of the Political Life of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke: With Extracts from His Writings”, p.11

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Any unity which doesn't have its origin in the multitudes is tyranny.

  Blaise Pascal

  Unity, Tyranny

  15 Copy quote

• Charity creates a multitude of sins.

  Oscar Wilde

  Charity, Sin

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Soul of Man under Socialism”, p.4, Oscar Wilde

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• A multitude of books distracts the mind.

  Socrates

  Book, Reading, Mind

  16 Copy quote

• You can say what you like about long dresses, but they cover a multitude of shins.

  Mae West

  Funny, Fashion, Women

  "The Wit and Wisdom of Mae West".

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The multitude of books is making us ignorant.

  Voltaire

  Book, Beer, Ignorant

  8 Copy quote

• A multitude of causes unknown to former times are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor.

  William Wordsworth

  Stupid, Mind, Acting

  William Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth (1815). “Poems”, p.370

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Those who have wrought great changes in the world never succeeded by gaining over chiefs; but always by exciting the multitude. The first is the resource of intrigue and produces only secondary results, the second is the resort of genius and transforms the universe.

  Martin Van Buren

  Genius, World, Firsts

  29 Copy quote

• I am large, I contain multitudes

  Walt Whitman

  Stewardship

  "Song of Myself " l. 1324 (written 1855)

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• But a multitude of people, even the two hundred million of the Chinese empire, cannot subsist without civil government.

  Ezra Stiles

  Government, Two, People

  7 Copy quote

• Mr. Darwin refers to the multitude of the individual of every species, which, from one cause or another, perish either before, or soon after attaining maturity.

  Richard Owen

  Maturity, Causes, Individual

  7 Copy quote

• Words will not be able to ever express how sorry I am for this, and I have profound regret and sorrow for the multitude of mistakes and harm I have caused.

  Jack Abramoff

  Im Sorry, Regret, Mistake

  "Lobbyist Abramoff Pleads Guilty to Fraud Charges". "All Things Considered" with Michele Norris, www.npr.org. January 3, 2006.

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are many whose tongues might govern multitudes, if they could govern their tongues.

  Jim Prentice

  Discipline, Self Control, Might

  9 Copy quote

• Knowledge is the consequence of time, and multitude of days are fittest to teach wisdom.

  Jeremy Collier

  Teaching, Teach, Consequence

  Jeremy Collier (1722). “Essays Upon Several Moral Subjects: In Two Parts. ...”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The definition of the individual was: a multitude of one million divided by one million.

  Arthur Koestler

  Individuality, Definitions, Divided

  Darkness at Noon (1941) (translation by Daphne Hardy)

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Reformers, therefore, as instruments in the hands of God, in delivering the Church from bondage to prelates, did not make it a tumultuous multitude, in which every man was a law to himself, free to believe, and free to do what he pleased.

  Charles Hodge

  Believe, Men, Hands

  Charles Hodge (1855). “What is Presbyterianism?: An Address Delivered Before the Presbyterian Historical Society at Their Anniversary Meeting in Philadelphia, on Tuesday Evening, May 1, 1855”, p.13

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• My sense of divine brings with it a strange sound of music with its glories, a marvellous melody sounding like a multitude of flutes.

  Paul Twitchell

  Sound, Flutes, Strange

  14 Copy quote

• To write regular verses destroys an infinite number of fine possibilities, but at the same time it suggests a multitude of distant and totally unexpected thoughts.

  Paul Valery

  Writing, Numbers, Unexpected

  9 Copy quote

• Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Sarcastic, Inspiration

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.257, Courier Corporation

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Political, Majority, United States

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1840). “Democracy in America”, p.18

  62 Copy quote

  Show source