“Nothing is more stimulating and more salutary to (or for) the inner (or inward) development than the exemple of men devoted to the good. It is in the company of men pursuing a same ideal that the still weavering (or unsteady) soul can set oneself ("se fixer", Fr) and stick to (or attach to) everything that is noble and generous.”

— African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 58.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Nothing is more stimulating and more salutary to (or for) the inner (or inward) development than the exemple of men dev…" by African Spir?

African Spir photo

African Spir 98

Russian philosopher 1837–1890

Related quotes

“Men in general are neither very good nor very bad, but mediocre… Man with his vices, his weaknesses, his virtues, this confused medley of good and ill, high and low, goodness and depravity, is yet, take him all in all, the object on earth most worthy of study, of interest, of pity, of attachment and of admiration. And since we haven't got angels, we can attach ourselves to nothing greater and more worthy of our devotion than our own kind.”

Alexis De Tocqueville (1805–1859) French political thinker and historian

Letter to Eugene Stoffels (Jan. 3, 1845) as quoted by Thomas Molnar, The Decline of the Intellectual (1961) Ch. 11 "Intellectual and Philosopher"
Original text:
Les hommes ne sont en général ni très-bons, ni très-mauvais : ils sont médiocres. [...] L'homme avec ses vices, ses faiblesses, ses vertus, ce mélange confus de bien et de mal, de bas et de haut, d'honnête et de dépravé, est encore, à tout prendre, l'objet le plus digne d'examen, d'intérêt, de pitié, d'attachement et d'admiration qui se trouve sur la terre; et puisque les anges nous manquent, nous ne saurions nous attacher à rien qui soit plus grand et plus digne de notre dévouement que nos semblables.
1840s

“We can, following the exemple of Kant, consider the moral development and improvement of men, as the supreme goal of human evolution.”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 61.

“Men who have a tempestuous inner life and do not seek to give vent to it by talking or writing are simply men who have no tempestuous inner life.
Give company to a lonely man and he will talk more than anyone.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

“There neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified — more supremely noble than this very poem — this poem per se — this poem which is a poem and nothing more — this poem written solely for the poem's sake.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

The Poetic Principle (1850)

“There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes against you.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Hound of the Baskervilles

Variant: There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.
Source: The Hound of the Baskervilles

“In brief, we do more research on men in prison, men in the military, and men in general than we do on women for the same reason we do more research on rats than we do on humans.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part II: The Glass Cellars of the disposable sex, p. 189.

“In this world everything that is won to the ideal, is an eternal (or imperishable, - "impérissable", Fr.) good.”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 53.

“A writer can do nothing for men more necessary, satisfying, than just simply to reveal to them the infinite possibility of their own souls.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

“And if it is grievous to be doomed one day to cease to be, perhaps it would be more grievous still to go on being always oneself, and no more than oneself, without being able to be at the same time other, without being able to be at the same time everything else, without being able to be all.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VII : Love, Suffering, Pity

“There is nothing so easily made offensive as good reasoning; and men of clear logical minds, if not gifted at the same time with tact, make more enemies than men with bad hearts and unsound understandings.”

Arthur Helps (1813–1875) British writer

Source: Brevia: Short Essays and Aphorisms. (1871), p. 114

Related topics