Perpetual Quotes - Page 26

• Does it seem to you impossible to imagine anything more inextricable than the social contract, when you think of the frightful number of relations that it must regulate -- something like squaring the circle, or finding perpetual motion? That is the reason why, wearied of the struggle, you fall back on absolutism and force.

  Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

  Struggle, Fall, Thinking

  Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (2007). “General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century”, p.131, Cosimo, Inc.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• A great deal of what passes by the name of patriotism in these days consists of the merest bigotry and narrow-mindedness; exhibiting itself in national prejudice, national conceit, and national hatred. It does not show itself in deeds, but in boastings--in howlings, gesticulations, and shrieking helplessly for help--in flying flags and singing songs--and in perpetual grinding at the hurdy-gurdy of long-dead grievances and long-remedied wrongs. To be infested by such a patriotism as this is perhaps among the greatest curses that can befall any country.

  Samuel Smiles

  Country, Song, Names

  Samuel Smiles (1872). “Character”, p.27

  54 Copy quote

  Show source

• So that in the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of Power after power, that ceaseth only in Death. And the cause of this is not always that a man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has already attained to, or that he cannot be content with a moderate power: but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Mean, Men, Desire

  Leviathan pt. 1, ch. 11 (1651)

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• When men are rightly occupied, their amusement grows out of their work, as the colour-petals out of a fruitful flower; when they are faithfully helpful and compassionate, all their emotions become steady, deep, perpetual, and vivifying to the soul as the natural pulse to the body. But now, having no true business, we pour our whole masculine energy into the false business of money-making; and having no true emotion, we must have false emotions dressed up for us to play with, not innocently, as children with dolls, but guiltily and darkly.

  John Ruskin

  Children, Flower, Men

  John Ruskin, John D. Rosenberg (1964). “The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings”, p.312, University of Virginia Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In our worship of certainty we must distinguish between the sound certainty and the sham, between what is gold and what is tinsel; and then, when certainty is attained, we must remember that it is not the only good; that we can buy it at too high a price; that there is danger in perpetual quiescence as well as in perpetual motion; and that a compromise must be found in a principle of growth.

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Growth, Gold, Sound

  "The Growth of the Law". Book by Benjamin N. Cardozo, 1924.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is a conspicuous fact in our modern Christian society that as a result and cumulation of our partriarchal development, the woman does not belong to herself.... Man has made her a perpetual minor.

  Francesc Ferrer i Guardia

  Christian, Men, Atheism

  6 Copy quote

• In proportion as the people are accustomed to manage their affairs by their own active intervention, instead of leaving them to the government, their desires will turn to repelling tyranny, rather than to tyrannizing: while in proportion as all ready initiative and direction resides in the government, and individuals habitually feel and act as under its perpetual tutelage, popular institutions develop in them not the desire of freedom, but an unmeasured appetite for place and power.

  John Stuart Mill

  Government, People, Leaving

  5 Copy quote

• Kelso's proposals do promise to free us from our morbid dependency on economic health through armament manufacture; they promise a way out of the welfare mess, out of foodstamps and ship subsidies, out of perpetual inflation, and they suggest a means of doing these things without being too disruptive of the wealth of five percent of the population who own the rest of us.

  Nicholas von Hoffman

  Wisdom, Mean, Promise

  7 Copy quote

• Every moment gives birth to the next moment and influences it. Getting out of that chain of perpetual being is getting off the wheel of birth and death. That is enlightenment.

  Frederick Lenz

  Giving, Enlightenment, Next

  4 Copy quote

• This war, disguise it as they may, is virtually nothing more or less than perpetual slavery against universal freedoms.

  Frederick Douglass

  War, History, Slavery

  7 Copy quote

• A better principle than this, that "the majority shall rule," is this other, that justice shall rule. "Justice," says the code of Justinian, "is the constant and perpetual desire to render every man his due.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Men, Justice, Desire

  Christian Nestell Bovee (1862). “Intuitions and Summaries of Thought”, p.44

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The great Roman statesman Cicero observed that, 'Not to know what happened before one was born is to be always a child.' In our ignorance of the values that form part of our history and heritage, we Americans have become perpetual children.

  Ilana Mercer

  Children, Ignorance, Heritage

  "A Burning Dilemma Among America's Dhimma". American Daily Herald (americandailyherald.com), May 10, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Talent has the four seasons: spring, that is to say, the sowing of the seeds; summer, growth; autumn, the harvest; winter, intellectual death. But there is now and then a genius who has no winter, and, no matter how many years he may live, on the blossom of his thought no snow falls. Genius has the climate of perpetual growth.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Summer, Spring, Fall

  Robert Green Ingersoll, Clinton P. Farrell (1900). “The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll: Tributes and miscellany”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I believe in perpetual art, no matter if there are not many artists like me on this earth.

  Jeet Aulakh

  Art, Believe, Matter

  7 Copy quote

• Cats are narcissistic. Their needs come before ours. They don't understand the word "No." They carry themselves with that aloof, arrogant sense of perpetual entitlement, they will jump up and insinuate themselves wherever they please--on your lap, on your newspaper, on your computer keyboard--and they really couldn't care less how their behavior affects the people in their lives. I've had boyfriends like this; who needs such behavior in a housepet?

  Caroline Knapp

  Cat, People, Needs

  24 Copy quote

• American life, in large cities, is a perpetual assault on the senses and the nerves; it is out of asceticism, out of unworldliness, precisely, that we bear it.

  Joseph McCarthy

  Cities, Nerves, Asceticism

  150 Copy quote

• The question of perpetual copyright is, in my judgement, entitled to the full and favorable consideration of the Congress of an enlightened republic. There would seem to be every reason for the equitable protection, without limit as to time, of the unquestioned property rights of its citizens.

  Florence Earle Coates

  Rights, Judgement, Republic

  The Literary World, October 28, 1899.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Perpetual revolutions in technology can mean the devaluation of fixed capital on an extensive scale.

  David Harvey

  Mean, Technology, Revolution

  "The Limits To Capital". Book by David Harvey, 1982.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• All is a miracle. The stupendous order of nature, the revolution of a hundred millions of worlds around a million of stars, the activity of light, the life of all animals, all are grand and perpetual miracles.

  Voltaire

  Inspirational, Life, Nature

  55 Copy quote

• Childhood, at its best, is a perpetual adventure, in the truest sense of that overtaxed word: a setting forth into trackless lands that might have come to existence the instant before you first laid eyes on them.

  Michael Chabon

  Adventure, Eye, Land

  Michael Chabon (2012). “Maps and Legends”, p.21, HarperCollins UK

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives

  Francis Bacon

  Thinking, Errors, Understanding

  Francis Bacon (2016). “Novum Organum”, p.14, Jazzybee Verlag

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Capitals are increased by parsimony, and diminished by prodigalityand misconduct. By what a frugal man annually saves he not onlyaffords maintenance to an additional number of productive hands?but?he establishes as it were a perpetual fund for the maintenance of an equal number in all times to come.

  Adam Smith

  Men, Hands, Numbers

  1776 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, bk.2, ch.3.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• But the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation.

  Francis Bacon

  Book, Men, Renovation

  Francis Bacon, Robert Leslie Ellis, William Rawley (1861). “The philosophical works of Francis Bacon, with prefaces and notes by the late Robert Leslie Ellis, together with English translations of the principal Latin pieces”, p.318

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The world is full of men and women who work too much, sleep too little, hardly ever exercise, eat poorly, and are always struggling or failing to find adequate time with their families. We are in a perpetual hurry-constantly rushing from one activity to another, with little understanding of where all this activity is leading us. . . . The world has gone and got itself in an awful rush, to whose benefit I do not know. We are too busy for our own good. We need to slow down. Our lifestyles are destroying us. The worst part is, we are rushing east in search of a sunset.

  Matthew Kelly

  Struggle, Sunset, Sleep

  78 Copy quote

• Dilbert: I'm obsessed with inventing a perpetual motion machine. Most scientists think it's impossible, but I have something they don't. Dogbert: A lot of spare time? Dilbert: Exactly.

  Scott Adams

  Science, Thinking, Machines

  4 Copy quote