Leslie Stephen: Doing

Leslie Stephen was British author, literary critic, and first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography. Explore interesting quotes on doing.

Leslie Stephen: 22 quotes 1 like

“The doctrine of toleration requires a positive as well as a negative statement. It is not only wrong to burn a man on account of his creed, but it is right to encourage the open avowal and defence of every opinion sincerely maintained. Every man who says frankly and fully what he thinks is so far doing a public service. We should be grateful to him for attacking most unsparingly our most cherished opinions.”

Leslie Stephen

The Nineteenth Century, vol. 13 (1883) p. 665

Thinking , Sincerity

“If you wish at once to do nothing and to be respectable now-a-days, the best pretext is to be at work on some profound study.”

Leslie Stephen

Sketches from Cambridge http://books.google.com/books?id=mjA4AAAAMAAJ&q=%22If+you+wish+at+once+to+do+nothing+and+to+be+respectable+now-a-days+the+best+pretext+is+to+be+at%22+%22work+on+some+profound+study%22&pg=PA5#v=onepage (1865)

Study

“Why, when no honest man will deny in private that every ultimate problem is wrapped in the profoundest mystery, do honest men proclaim in pulpits that unhesitating certainty is the duty of the most foolish and ignorant? Is it not a spectacle to make the angels laugh?”

Leslie Stephen

The Fortnightly Review, vol. 25 (1876) p. 859

Men , Angels , Problem

“The division between faith and reason is a half-measure, till it is frankly admitted that faith has to do with fiction, and reason with fact.”

Leslie Stephen

Fraser's Magazine, New Series, vol. 5 (1872) p. 160

Faith