“There is a physical, not moral, impossibility of supplying the wants of the intellect in the state of civilisation at which we have arrived.”

— Florence Nightingale

Cassandra (1860)
Context: There is a physical, not moral, impossibility of supplying the wants of the intellect in the state of civilisation at which we have arrived. The stimulus, the training, the time, are all three wanting to us; or, in other words, the means and inducements are not there.
Look at the poor lives we lead. It is a wonder that we are so good as we are, not that we are so bad. In looking round we are struck with the power of the organisations we see, not with their want of power. Now and then, it is true, we are conscious that there is an inferior organisation, but, in general, just the contrary.

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Florence Nightingale 81

English social reformer and statistician, and the founder o… 1820–1910

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