“There is no cheating in nature and the simple unsought feelings of the soul. There must be a truth involved in it, though we may but in part lay hold of the meaning.”
Phantastes (1858)
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George MacDonald127
Scottish journalist, novelist 1824–1905Related quotes
Sallustius Roman philosopher and writer
III. Concerning myths; that they are divine, and why.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Niccolo Machiavelli book Discourses on Livy
Book 1, Ch. 4 (as translated by LJ Walker and B Crick)
Discourses on Livy (1517)
Context: The demands of a free populace, too, are very seldom harmful to liberty, for they are due either to the populace being oppressed or to the suspicious that it is going to be oppressed... and, should these impressions be false, a remedy is provided in the public platform on which some man of standing can get up, appeal to the crowd, and show that it is mistaken. And though, as Tully remarks, the populace may be ignorant, it is capable of grasping the truth and readily yields when a man, worthy of confidence, lays the truth before it.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–1994) public figure, First Lady to 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy
Press Statement issued the day before her marriage to Aristotle Onassis, NY Times (20 October 1968)
Context: We know you understand that even though people may be well known they still hold in their hearts the emotions of a simple person for the moments that are the most important of those we know on earth — birth, marriage, death. We wish our wedding to be a private moment in the little chapel among the cypresses of Skorpios.
“The intention of cheating no one lays us open to being cheated ourselves.”
François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
L'intention de ne jamais tromper nous expose à être souvent trompés.
Maxim 118.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 29
Edward R. Murrow (1908–1965) Television journalist
Speaking as the Director of USIA, in testimony before a Congressional Committee (May 1963) http://pdaa.publicdiplomacy.org/?page_id=6
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist
Letter to a relative, (1861).
Context: I think I have fairly heard and fairly weighed the evidence on both sides, and I remain an utter disbeliever in almost all that you consider the most sacred truths [... ] I can see much to admire in all religions [... ] But whether there be a God and whatever be His nature; whether we have an immortal soul or not, or whatever may be our state after death, I can have no fear of having to suffer for the study of nature and the search for truth.