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Men's first thoughts in this matter are generally better than their second; their natural notions better than those refin'd by study, or consultation with casuists.

— Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury

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Mind

More quotes by Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury

'Tis the hardest thing in the world to be a good Thinker, without being a strong Self-Examiner.

Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711)

Truth is the most powerful thing in the world, since even fiction itself must be governed by it, and can only please by its resemblance.

Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711)

How comes it to pass then, that we appear such Cowards in reasoning, and are so afraid to stand the Test of Ridicule?

Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711)

Through certain humors or passions, and from temper merely, a man may be completely miserable, let his outward circumstances be ever so fortunate.

Day's Collacon : An Encyclopaedia of Prose Quotations (1884)

Gravity is of the very Essence of Imposture. It does not only make us mistake other Things, but is apt perpetually almost to mistake it-self.

Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711)

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

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Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.

Kenneth Boulding to Kenneth Boulding in: United States. Congress. House (1973)

The greater part of humanity is too much harassed and fatigued by the struggle with want, to rally itself for a new and sterner struggle with error.

Friedrich Schiller On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

George Bernard Shaw Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.