Proportion Quotes - Page 30

• Though there is a benevolence due to all mankind, none can question but a superior degree of it is to be paid to a father, a wife, or child. In the same manner, though our love should reach to the whole species, a greater proportion of it should exert itself towards that community in which Providence has placed us. This is our proper sphere of action, the province allotted us for the exercise of our civil virtues, and in which alone we have opportunities of expressing our goodwill to mankind.

  Joseph Addison

  Children, Father, Exercise

  Joseph Addison (1839). “Essays Moral and Humorous: Also Essays on Imagination and Taste”, p.187

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• I have read a great deal about what animals dream, but none of it has ever really satisfied me. I believe they dream exactly the way we dream, and about everything in their lives--that they have good dreams and bad dreams in almost direct proportion, as we do, to whether their lives have been more good than bad. Unfortunately, because the majority of animals have it so much tougher than we do, I believe that the majority of dreams, except in the most fortunate petdom, are bad.

  Cleveland Amory

  Dream, Believe, Animal

  Cleveland Amory (2002). “The cat who came for Christmas ; The cat and the curmudgeon ; The best cat ever”

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• Under the natural course of things each citizen tends towards his fittest function. Those who are competent to the kind of work they undertake, succeed, and, in the average of cases, are advanced in proportion to their efficiency; while the incompetent, society soon finds out, ceases to employ, forces to try something easier, and eventually turns to use.

  Herbert Spencer

  Average, Trying, Citizens

  Herbert Spencer (1858). “Essays--scientific, political and speculative”, p.324

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• As Attraction is stronger in small Magnets than in great ones in proportion to their Bulk, and Gravity is greater in the Surfaces of small Planets than in those of great ones in proportion to their bulk, and small Bodies are agitated much more by electric attraction than great ones; so the smallness of the Rays of Light may contribute very much to the power of the Agent by which they are refracted.

  Isaac Newton

  Light, Stronger, Rays

  Sir Isaac Newton (1718). “Opticks: Or, A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light. ...”, p.326

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• I don't really agree that most academics frown when they hear Wikipedia. Most academics I find quite passionate about the concept of Wikipedia and like it quite a bit. The number of academics who really really don't like Wikipedia is really quite small and we find that they get reported on in the media far out of proportion to the amount they actually exist.

  Jimmy Wales

  Media, Numbers, Wikipedia

  Press conference at Wikimania 2008, August 2008.

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• If nature has been frugal in her gifts and endowments, there is the more need of art to supply her defects. If she has been generous and liberal, know that she still expects industry and application on our part, and revenges herself in proportion to our negligent ingratitude. The richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds; and instead of vines and olives for the pleasure and use of man, produces, to its slothful owner, the most abundant crop of poisons.

  David Hume

  Weed, Art, Revenge

  David Hume (1817). “Philosophical Essays: On Morals, Literature, and Politics”, p.166

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• The good bodybuilders have the same mind ... that a sculptor has. If you analyze it, you look in the mirror and you say, okay, I need a bit more deltoids ... so that the proportion's right, and ... you exercise and put those deltoids on, whereas an artist would just slap on some clay on each side.

  Arnold Schwarzenegger

  Exercise, Artist, Mirrors

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• You will see the mercy of God toward His creatures, how He has provided that which is required, in proper proportions, and treated all individual beings of the same species with perfect equality. ...for it is an act of great and perfect goodness that He gave us existence; and the creation of the controlling faculty in animals is a proof of His mercy towards them, as has been shown by us.

  Maimonides

  Animal, Mercy Of God, Perfect

  "Guide for the Perplexed". Book by Maimonides, Ch.12, 1190.

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• The first impression and a natural one is, that the fine arts have risen or declined in proportion as patronage has been given to them or withdrawn, but it will be found that there has often been more money lavished on them in their worst periods than in their best, and that the highest honours have frequently been bestowed on artists whose names are scarcely now known.

  John Constable

  Art, Names, First Impression

  John Constable (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of John Constable (Illustrated)”, p.599, Delphi Classics

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• The twentieth century saw an amazing development of scholarship and criticism in the humanities, carried out by people who were more intelligent, better trained, had more languages, had a better sense of proportion, and were infinitely more accurate scholars and competent professional men than I. I had genius. No one else in the field known to me had quite that.

  Northrop Frye

  Intelligent, Men, People

  Northrop Frye, Robert D. Denham (2004). “Northrop Frye unbuttoned: wit and wisdom from the notebooks and diaries”, Gnomon Distribution

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• The idea of putting old Browborough into prison for conduct which habit had made second nature to a large proportion of the House was distressing to Members of Parliament generally.

  Anthony Trollope

  Ideas, House, Prison

  Anthony Trollope (2015). “Anthony Trollope: The Chronicles of Barsetshire & The Palliser Novels: The Warden + The Barchester Towers + Doctor Thorne + Framley Parsonage + The Small House at Allington + The Last Chronicle of Barset + Can You Forgive Her? + The Prime Minister + Eustace Diamonds…”, p.4600, e-artnow

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• Market value is irrelevant to intrinsic value. ... Unqualified judgment can at most claim to decide the market-value - a value that can be in inverse proportion to the intrinsic value.

  Arnold Schoenberg

  Unqualified, Judgment, Claims

  Arnold Schoenberg, Leonard Stein (1975). “Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg”, p.190, Univ of California Press

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• I had used my sense of humor; I had called it proportion, perspective. But perspective is distance.

  Bel Kaufman

  Distance, Perspective, Sense Of Humor

  BEL KAUFMAN (1964). “UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE”

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• For, until the wisdom of men bear some proportion to the wisdom of God, their attempts to find out the structure of his works, by the force of their wit and genius, will be vain.

  Thomas Reid

  Men, Genius, Bears

  Thomas Reid (1827). “Essays on the powers of the human mind: An essay on quantity. An analysis of Aristotl's logic”, p.23

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• A high proportion of the population enjoys many of the 'luxuries' which until recently were considered the prerogative of the rich; and the ordinary worker lives at what even two decades ago would have been considered in Britain a middle-class standard of life.

  Anthony Crosland

  Class, Two, Luxury

  "The Future of Socialism". Book by Anthony Crosland, 1956.

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• Meanwhile, the U.S. debt remains, as it has been since 1790, a war debt; the United States continues to spend more on its military than do all other nations on earth put together, and military expenditures are not only the basis of the government's industrial policy; they also take up such a huge proportion of the budget that by many estimations, were it not for them, the United States would not run a deficit at all.

  David Graeber

  Running, Military, War

  "Debt: The First 5000 Years". Book by David Graeber, 2011.

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• The question of crime is one of concern to everybody. But the position is that the security forces in our country for the last four decades did not concentrate on suppressing crime. Their main objective was to suppress, to crush political activity. And in the process, crime grew to unacceptable proportions. And criminals were able to form powerful syndicates, and they virtually took over the control of the life of the community in certain areas.

  Nelson Mandela

  Crush, Country, Powerful

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• I see Professionalism as a spreading disease of the present-day world, a sort of poly-oligarchy by which various groups (subway conductors, social workers, bricklayers) can bring things to a halt if their particular demands are not met. (Meanwhile, the irrelevance of each profession increases, in proportion to its increasing rigidity.) Such lucky groups demand more in each go-round - but meantime, the number who are permanently unemployed grows and grows.

  Ted Nelson

  Numbers, Irrelevance, World

  "Computer Lib/Dream Machines". Book by Ted Nelson, 1974.

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• Neither machines, nor the commodities made by them, rise in real value, but all commodities made by machines fall, and fall in proportion to their durability.

  David Ricardo

  Real, Fall, Durability

  David Ricardo, John Ramsay McCulloch (1852). “The Works of David Ricardo. With a notice of the life and writings of the author: by J. R. McCulloch”, p.27

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• The opinions that the price of commodities depends solely on the proportion of supply and demand, or demand to supply, has become almost an axiom in political economy, and has been the source of much error in that science.

  David Ricardo

  Errors, Political, Demand

  David Ricardo, John Ramsay McCulloch (1852). “The Works of David Ricardo. With a notice of the life and writings of the author: by J. R. McCulloch”, p.232

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• The language of the internet is English, and an overwhelming proportion of the global computer chatter also originates from America, influencing the content of global conversation.

  Zbigniew Brzezinski

  America, Language, Computer

  Zbigniew Brzezinski (1998). “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives”, p.25, Basic Books

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• Christ has lifted woman to a new place in the world. And just in proportion as Christianity has sway, will she rise to a higher dignity in human life. What she has now, and what she shall have, of privilege and true honor, she owes to that gospel which took those qualities peculiarly and which had been counted weak and unworthy, and gave them a Divine glory in Christ.

  Herrick Johnson

  Women, Honor, Quality

  Herrick Johnson (1881). “Christianity's Challenge and Some Phases of Christianity Submitted for Candid Consideration”

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• But what must be the character of that policy, which aims at national prosperity through the impoverishment of a large proportion of the home producers, with a view to supply foreigners at a cheaper rate, and give them all the benifet of the national privation and self denial?

  Jean-Baptiste Say

  Character, Home, Self

  Jean Baptiste Say (1834). “A Treatise on Political Economy: Or, The Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth”, p.344

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• The government has, in all countries, a vast influence, in determining the character of the national consumption; not only because it absolutely directs the consumption of the state itself, but because a great proportion of the consumption of individuals is gained by its will and example.

  Jean-Baptiste Say

  Country, Character, Government

  Adam Smith, Jean-Baptiste Say, J.R. McCulloch (2013). “History of Economic Theory: The Selected Writings of Adam Smith, Jean-Baptiste Say, and J.R. McCulloch”, p.106, Coventry House Publishing

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• Paradoxically, the simpler poetry is, the more difficult it becomes for a critic to discuss intelligently. Trained to explicate, the critic often loses the ability to evaluate literature outside the critical act. A work is good only in proportion to the richness and complexity of interpretations it provokes.

  Dana Gioia

  Literature, Interpretation, Difficult

  Dana Gioia (2002). “Can Poetry Matter?: Essays on Poetry and American Culture”, Graywolf Pr

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