Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)
“No man was ever wise by chance.”
“There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.”
Demonology
1880s, Lectures and Biographical Sketches (1883)
“It is a great folly to wish to be wise alone.”
C'est une grande folie de vouloir être sage tout seul.
Maxim 231.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
Civil Disobedience (1849)
Context: All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote.
“Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish.”
Qui stultis videri eruditi volunt stulti eruditis videntur.
Book X, Chapter VII, 21
See also: An X among Ys, a Y among Xs
De Institutione Oratoria (c. 95 AD)
“It takes a wise man to discover a wise man.”
Xenophanes, 3.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 9: Uncategorized philosophers and Skeptics
Usez, n’abusez point; le sage ainsi l’ordonne.
Je fuis également Épictète et Pétrone.
L’abstinence ou l’excès ne fit jamais d’heureux.
"Cinquième discours: sur la nature de plaisir," Sept Discours en Vers sur l'Homme (1738)
Citas
“Nothing so dates a man as to decry the younger generation.”
Speech at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (8 October 1952)
