“There is no occasion to trample upon the meanest reptile, nor to sneak to the greatest prince. Insolence and baseness are equally unmanly.”
The Dignity of Human Nature (1754)
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James Burgh49
British politician 1714–1775Related quotes
“The poorest ploughman is in Christ equal with the greatest prince that is.”
Hugh Latimer (1485–1555) British bishop
Sermons (1844) Cambridge University Press
Context: The poorest ploughman is in Christ equal with the greatest prince that is. Let them therefore have sufficient to maintain them…
John Donne (1572–1631) English poet
XXVI Sermons, No. 26, Death's Duel, last sermon, February 15, 1631
Matthew Henry (1662–1714) Theologician from Wales
Genesis 2:21.
Commentaries
Variant: Eve was not taken out of Adam's head to top him, neither out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected by him, and near his heart to be loved by him.
Source: Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible
Henry Giles (1809–1882) Irish minister
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 378.
Robert Burton book The Anatomy of Melancholy
born
Section 2, member 2.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part II
Michael Swanwick book Stations of the Tide
Source: Stations of the Tide (1991), Chapter 6, “Lost in the Mushroom Rain” (p. 92)
“There are occasions … when all consolation is base and it is a duty to despair.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe book Elective Affinities
Es gibt Fälle, ... wo jeder Trost niederträchtig und Verzweiflung Pflicht ist.
Bk. I, Ch. 18, R. J. Hollingdale, trans. (1971), p. 147
Elective Affinities (1809)
David Hume book Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary
Part I, Essay 15: The Epicurean
Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1741-2; 1748)
Context: It is a great mortification to the vanity of man, that his utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for beauty or value. Art is only the under-workman, and is employed to give a few strokes of embellishment to those pieces, which come from the hand of the master