This may be derived from lines in the movie Gandhi (1982); such statements have not been located among published sources.
Disputed
Quoted in [Richard C. Reuben, Man in the Middle, California Lawyer, October 1992, 35]
Source: What Is Life? with Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches
Tumblr postings
Context: Then of course I recall the incident which I think had some form of deep, psychological impact on me. The time where I was compelled to read out the most insincere, hypocritical ‘apology’ out loud to my fellow peers, that was written by teachers, for a video that should be more abhorred for its stupidity than for its supposed racism, that was absolutely non-existent. I witnessed firsthand, things that were completely beyond my level of comprehension at that time, that was completely beyond my preconceptions of how a school worked, where rules of an official institution was dictated by the unreliable stupidity of the public, and where punishment was dictated not by logic, or by an understanding of a scenario, but because, a book says so. That ‘apology’ given two years ago, and the subsequent deletion of my first Youtube account was not a sign that I knew my ‘mistakes’ and wanted to ‘change for the better’, it was a sign that other people effectively made me say so. Never have I felt so much anger, unjust, and indignation for how things are, how people are and how it affected me and probably many others too. Before that I was passive, soft-spoken and enjoyed the supposed goodness of the world. Never again would I be the same.
(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Five: Refiner’s Fire. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1985, 78).
Editorial (1956) on importance of preservation rather than breaches of world peace.
Saturday Review
Speech in London, as quoted in Memorial Life of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant (1889) Edited by y Stephen Merrill Allen, p. 95.
1880s
Remarks made at the meeting of the German warlords at Advanced General Headquarters at Avesnes (11 August 1918), quoted in John Terraine, To Win A War: 1918 The Year of Victory (London: Cassell, 2003), p. 121
1910s
A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (1831)
Context: We must never forget that it is principles, not phenomena, — laws not insulated independent facts, — which are the objects of inquiry to the natural philosopher. As truth is single, and consistent with itself, a principle may be as completely and as plainly elucidated by the most familiar and simple fact, as by the most imposing and uncommon phenomenon. The colours which glitter on a soapbubble are the immediate consequence of a principle the most important, from the variety of phenomena it explains, and the most beautiful, from its simplicity and compendious neatness, in the whole science of optics. If the nature of periodical colours can be made intelligible by the contemplation of such a trivial object, from that moment it becomes a noble instrument in the eye of correct judgment; and to blow a large, regular, and durable soap-bubble may become the serious and praise-worthy endeavour of a sage, while children stand round and scoff, or children of a larger growth hold up their hands in astonishment at such waste of time and trouble. To the natural philosopher there is no natural object unimportant or trifling. From the least of nature's works he may learn the greatest lessons. The fall of an apple to the ground may raise his thoughts to the laws which govern the revolutions of the planets in their orbits; or the situation of a pebble may afford him evidence of the state of the globe he inhabits, myriads of ages ago, before his species became its denizens.
And this, is, in fact, one of the great sources of delight which the study of natural science imparts to its votaries. A mind which has once imbibed a taste for scientific inquiry, and has learnt the habit of applying its principles readily to the cases which occur, has within itself an inexhaustible source of pure and exciting contemplations. One would think that Shakspeare had such a mind in view when he describes a contemplative man as finding
