Multitudes Quotes - Page 24

• The beginning, middle, and end of the birth, growth, and perfection of whatever we behold is from contraries, by contraries, and to contraries; and whatever contrariety is, there is action and reaction, there is motion, diversity, multitude, and order, there are degrees, succession and vicissitude.

  Giordano Bruno

  Order, Opposites, Diversity

  Giordano Bruno (1962). “Cause, Principle, and Unity: Five Dialogues”

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• TELESCOPE, n. A device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless details. Luckily it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Eye, Sacrifice, Science

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2526, Delphi Classics

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• Common sense is not a simple thing. Instead, it is an immense society of hard-earned practical ideas - of multitudes of life-learned rules and exceptions, dispositions and tendencies, balances and checks.

  Marvin Minsky

  Simple, Ideas, Common Sense

  Marvin Minsky (1988). “Society Of Mind”, p.22, Simon and Schuster

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• But what most astonishes me in the United States, is not so much the marvelous grandeur of some undertakings, as the innumerable multitude of small ones.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  America, United States, Grandeur

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1840). “Democracy in America”, p.157

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• Were the judgments of mankind correct, custom would be regulated by the good. But it is often far otherwise in point of fact; for, whatever the many are seen to do, forthwith obtains the force of custom. But human affairs have scarcely ever been so happily constituted as that the better course pleased the greater number. Hence the private vices of the multitude have generally resulted in public error, or rather that common consent in vice which these worthy men would have to be law.

  John Calvin

  Men, Law, Numbers

  John Calvin (2012). “The Institutes Of The Christian Religion (Annotated Edition)”, p.27, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Dar'st thou amid the varied multitude To live alone, an isolated thing?

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Isolated

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Illustrated)”, p.216, Delphi Classics

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• Religion is the only metaphysic that the multitude can understand and adopt.

  Joseph Joubert

  Religion

  Joseph Joubert (1867). “Some of the "Thoughts" of Joseph Joubert”, p.98

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• Will covers a multitude of flaws, just as love covers a multitude of sins.

  Brent Weeks

  Sin, Flaws

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• Everywhere the sky is blue. There are a multitude of cuisines and dishes. I think of them as the languages and dialects of food.

  Ferran Adria

  Thinking, Blue, Sky

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• Maybe solitude is best had in the midst of multitudes.

  William Goyen

  Solitude, Midst

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• The first and most important thing for me is that people feel how beautiful fashion can be and that it is not just a case of well-made and expensive clothes. Fashion is so rich and it is such an amazing occupation because we can draw on so many different sources of inspiration - just as a hummingbird feeds on a multitude of flowers.

  Dries van Noten

  Beautiful, Fashion, Flower

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• The hossanas of the multitude can never bring satisfaction to the discerning. Yet there exist those chamaleons of popularity who find their joy, not in the sweet breath of Apollo, but in the smell of the crowd. And not in mind: Do not be taken in by what are miracles to the populace, for the ignorant do not rise above marveling. Thus the stupidity of a crowd is lost in admiration, even as the brain of an individual uncovers the trick.

  Baltasar Gracian

  Sweet, Taken, Smell

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• For centuries before Google, MIT, and IDEO, modern hotbeds of innovation, we struggled to explain any kind of creation, from the universe itself to the multitudes of ideas around us. While we can make atomic bombs, and dry-clean silk ties, we still don't have satisfying answers for simple questions like: Where do songs come from? Are there an infinite variety of possible kinds of cheese? How did Shakespeare and Stephen King invent so much, while we're satisfied watching sitcom reruns? Our popular answers have been unconvincing, enabling misleading, fantasy-laden myths to grow strong.

  Scott Berkun

  Song, Strong, Kings

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• A mighty wind of resolution sets in strong upon him and freshens the whole atmosphere of his soul, sweeping down before it the light flakes of difficulty, till they vanish like snow upon the sea. He is imprisoned no more in a small compartment of time, but belongs to an eternity which is now and here. The isolation of his separate spirit passes away; and with the countless multitude of souls akin to God, he is but a wave of his unbounded deep. He is at one with Heaven, and hath found the secret place of the Almighty.

  James Martineau

  Strong, Light, Secret Places

  James Martineau (1843). “Endeavours After the Christian Life: Discourses”, p.260

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• I was an infant when my mother went To see an atheist burned. She took me there. The dark-robed priests were met around the pile; The multitude was gazing silently; And as the culprit passed with dauntless mien, Tempered disdain in his unaltering eye, Mixed with a quiet smile, shone calmly forth; The thirsty fire crept round his manly limbs; His resolute eyes were scorched to blindness soon; His death-pang rent my heart! the insensate mob Uttered a cry of triumph, and I wept. Weep not, child! cried my mother, for that man Has said, 'There is no God.'

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Mother, Atheist, Children

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (2004). “The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.429, JHU Press

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• If there were a reason for preferring the Christian religion to natural religion, it would be because the former offers us, on the nature of God and man, enlightenment that the latter lacks. Now, this is not at all the case; for Christianity, instead of clarifying, gives rise to an infinite multitude of obscurities and difficulties.

  Denis Diderot

  Christian, Men, Giving

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• In his lonely solitude, the solitary man feeds upon himself; in the thronging multitude, the many feed upon him. Now choose.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Lonely, Loneliness, Men

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• Him who trembles before the flame and the flood,
  And the winds that blow through the starry ways,
  Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood
  Cover over and hide, for he has no part
  With the lonely, majestical multitude.

  William Butler Yeats

  Lonely, Nature, Fear

  William Butler Yeats (2008). “COLLECTED POEMS OF W.B. YEATS”, p.58, Simon and Schuster

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• In a multitude of acquaintances is less security, than in one faithful friend.

  Herman Melville

  Friendship, Faithful, Acquaintance

  Herman Melville (2012). “Mardi: And A Voyage Thither (Annotated Complete Edition)”, p.149, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Let us waive that agitated national topic, as to whether such multitudes of foreign poor should be landed on our American shores;let us waive it, with the one only thought, that if they can get here, they have God's right to come.

  Herman Melville

  Topics, Poor, Should

  Herman Melville (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)”, p.1380, Delphi Classics

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• In a free and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude. Every man will speak as he thinks, or, more properly, without thinking, and consequently will judge of effects without attending to their causes.

  George Washington

  Men, Thinking, Voice

  George Washington (1839). “Life”, p.303

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• When (an advocate) is not thoroughly acquainted with the real strength and weakness of his cause, he knows not where to choose the most impressive argument. When the mark is shrouded in obscurity, the only substitute for accuracy in the aim is in the multitude of the shafts.

  John Quincy Adams

  Real, Weakness, Obscurity

  John Quincy Adams (1810). “Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory: Delivered to the Classes of Senior and Junior Sophisters in Harvard University”, p.99

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• There is also a doubt as to what is to be the supreme power in the state: - Is it the multitude? Or the wealthy? Or the good? Or the one best man? Or a tyrant?

  Aristotle

  Men, Tyrants, Doubt

  Aristotle (2016). “Politics”, p.98, Aristotle

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• Mankind might be divided between multitude who hate to be kept waiting because they get bored and the happy few who rather like it because it gives them time for thought.

  Ernest Dimnet

  Hate, Giving, Bored

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• All these stupendous objects are daily around us; but because they are constantly exposed to our view, they never affect our minds, so natural is it for us to admire new, rather than grand objects. Therefore the vast multitude of stars which diversify the beauty of this immense body does not call the people together; but when any change happens therein, the eyes of all are fixed upon the heavens.

  Saint Basil

  Stars, Eye, Views

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