“The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.”
L'homme qui peut empreindre perpétuellement la pensée dans le fait est un homme de génie; mais l'homme qui a le plus de génie ne le déploie pas à tous les instants, il ressemblerait trop à Dieu.
Source: A Daughter of Eve (1839), Ch. 3: The Story of a Happy Woman.
The Works of Virgil translated into English verse by Mr. Dryden, Volume II (London, 1709), "Dedication", p. 213.
“Upon the whole, a contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.”
No. 574 (30 July 1714).
The Spectator (1711–1714)
“The U. S. is the greatest, best country God has ever given man on the face of the earth.”
Hannity's America (6 June 2008) http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/174546/june-19-2008/sean-hannity-loves-america
“Each person's greatest room for growth is in the areas of his or her greatest strength.”
Source: Now, Discover Your Strengths (2001), p. 8
Source: Why We Fail as Christians (1919), p. 60
Context: The greatest obstacle that confronted Tolstoy lies rooted deep in the soul of man. It is the fear of poverty and the dread of want which ages of struggle with man and beast and with all the adverse elements of nature has bred in us. Surely history teaches us too well the nature and character of man for us to believe readily that there are many fathers and mothers who would ever consent to become Christians on the conditions set forth by Tolstoy.... who to day would fail to condemn unreservedly any father who would take his babies from a comfortable home to live hungry and shelterless in the forests and fields. From the dawn of the world the chief duty of a parent has been to keep his family secure from want.
“In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul.”
Foreword to The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom (1987)
General sources
Context: In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul. It may be difficult to find because by midlife it is overgrown, and some of the wildest thickets that surround it grow out of what we describe as our education. But the channel is always there, and it is our business to keep it open, to have access to the deepest part of ourselves.
“The greatest man of action is he who is the greatest, and a life-long, dreamer.”
Education (1902)
Context: He who knows naught of dreaming can, likewise, never attain the heights of power and possibility in persuading the mind to act.
He who dreams not creates not.
For vapor must arise in the air before the rain can fall.
The greatest man of action is he who is the greatest, and a life-long, dreamer. For in him the dreamer is fortified against destruction by a far-seeing eye, a virile mind, a strong will, a robust courage.
And so has perished the kindly dreamer — on the cross or in the garret.
A democracy should not let its dreamers perish. They are its life, its guaranty against decay.
Thus would I expand the sympathies of youth.
Thus would I liberate and discipline all the constructive faculties of the mind and encourage true insight, true expression, real individuality.
Thus would I concentrate the powers of will.
Thus would I shape character.
Thus would I make good citizens.
And thus would I lay the foundations for a generation of real architects — real, because true, men, and dreamers in action.
