“We shall be less apt to admire what this World calls Great, shall nobly despise those Trifles the generality of Men set their Affections on, when we know that there are a multitude of such Earths inhabited and adorned as Well as our own.”

Book 1, p. 11
Cosmotheoros (1695; publ. 1698)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We shall be less apt to admire what this World calls Great, shall nobly despise those Trifles the generality of Men set…" by Christiaan Huygens?
Christiaan Huygens photo
Christiaan Huygens 16
Dutch mathematician and natural philosopher 1629–1695

Related quotes

Johannes Kepler photo
Nicholas of Cusa photo

“Of the inhabitants then of worlds other than our own we can know still less having no standards by which to appraise them.”

Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) German philosopher, theologian, jurist, and astronomer

ibid.

Teresa of Ávila photo

“We shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavoring to know God; for, beholding His greatness we realize our own littleness”

Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) Roman Catholic saint

First Mansions, Ch. 2 : The Human Soul, as translated by the Benedictines of Stanbrook (1911), revised and edited by Fr. Benedict Zimmerman
Interior Castle (1577)
Context: We shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavoring to know God; for, beholding His greatness we realize our own littleness; His purity shows us our foulness; and by meditating upon His humility we find how very far we are from being humble.

Charles Thomson photo

“Let the world admire the supposed wisdom and valor of our great men. Perhaps they may adopt the qualities that have been ascribed to them, and thus good may be done. I shall not undeceive future generations.”

Charles Thomson (1729–1824) American patriot leader (1729-1824)

Remarks on his abandonment of a personal account of the early history of the United States and the American Revolution, as quoted by Benjamin Rush in his memoirs.

Abraham Lincoln photo
Jean Ingelow photo
Eldridge Cleaver photo

“We shall have our manhood. We shall have it or the earth will be leveled by our attempts to gain it.”

Eldridge Cleaver (1935–1998) American activist

"Initial Reactions on the Assassination of Malcolm X"
1960s, Soul on Ice (1968)

Albert Pike photo

“We are too apt to erect our own little and narrow notions of what is right and just, into the law of justice, and to insist that God shall adopt that as His law; to measure off something with our own little tape-line, and call it God's law of justice. Continually we seek to ennoble our own ignoble love of revenge and retaliation, by misnaming it justice.”

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. III : The Master, p. 70
Context: Justice in no wise consists in meting out to another that exact measure of reward or punishment which we think and decree his merit, or what we call his crime, which is more often merely his error, deserves. The justice of the father is not incompatible with forgiveness by him of the errors and offences of his child. The Infinite Justice of God does not consist in meting out exact measures of punishment for human frailties and sins. We are too apt to erect our own little and narrow notions of what is right and just, into the law of justice, and to insist that God shall adopt that as His law; to measure off something with our own little tape-line, and call it God's law of justice. Continually we seek to ennoble our own ignoble love of revenge and retaliation, by misnaming it justice.

George Saintsbury photo

“We shall not busy ourselves with what men ought to have admired, what they ought to have written, what they ought to have thought, but with what they did think, write, admire.”

George Saintsbury (1845–1933) British literary critic

Vol. 1, pp. 4–5
A History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe from the Earliest Texts to the Present Day

Related topics