
“Those who have least to do are generally the most busy people in the world.”
Vol. 2, letter 3.
Sir Charles Grandison (1753–1754)
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 345.
“Those who have least to do are generally the most busy people in the world.”
Vol. 2, letter 3.
Sir Charles Grandison (1753–1754)
“It's always the good men who do the most harm in the world.”
As quoted in American Heritage (December 1955), p. 44
Context: I disagree with my brother Charles and Theodore Roosevelt. I think that Lee should have been hanged. It was all the worse that he was a good man and a fine character and acted conscientiously. These facts have nothing to do with the case and should not have been allowed to interfere with just penalties. It's always the good men who do the most harm in the world.
1910s, Citizenship in a Republic (1910)
1.
The Law
Context: Medicine is of all the Arts the most noble; but, owing to the ignorance of those who practice it, and of those who, inconsiderately, form a judgment of them, it is at present far behind all the other arts. Their mistake appears to me to arise principally from this, that in the cities there is no punishment connected with the practice of medicine (and with it alone) except disgrace, and that does not hurt those who are familiar with it. Such persons are like the figures which are introduced in tragedies, for as they have the shape, and dress, and personal appearance of an actor, but are not actors, so also physicians are many in title but very few in reality.
“Silence is the severest criticism.”
Often misquoted as "Silence is sometimes the severest criticism."
Source: Notes of Thought (1883), p. 57
Nītiśataka 74; translated by B. Hale Wortham
Śatakatraya
“Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always like it the least.”
29 January 1748
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)