“To believe all men honest is folly. To believe none is something worse.”
John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States
“Behold
The approach of him whom none believes,
Whom all believe that all believe,
A pagan in a varnished car.”
The Man With the Blue Guitar (1937)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Do you have more details about the quote "Behold
The approach of him whom none believes,
Whom all believe that all believe,
A pagan in a varnished car." by Wallace Stevens?
Wallace Stevens278
American poet 1879–1955Related quotes
Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright
The God-Seeker (1949), Ch. 4
Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith
Tablet to the First Letter of the Living
“I believe in those whom I love and trust.”
John Connolly The Book of Lost Things
Source: The Book of Lost Things
“To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so, is something worse.”
John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) American politician, 6th president of the United States (in office from 1825 to 1829)
Letter to William Eustis http://books.google.com/books?id=S088AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA319 (22 June 1809), published in Writings of John Quincy, Adams (1914), The Macmillan company. <br class="br">Variant: All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.
W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer
As quoted in Fighting Fire with Fire: African Americans and Hereditarian Thinking, 1900-1942 by Gregory Michael Dorr (RTF document) http://www.wfu.edu/~caron/ssrs/Dorr.rtf. Dorr dates this quote to 1910.
Samuel Johnson book The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia
Source: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 31
Context: “That the dead are seen no more,” said Imlac, “I will not undertake to maintain against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all ages and of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which perhaps prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth: those that never heard of one another would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience can make credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers can very little weaken the general evidence, and some who deny it with their tongues confess it by their fears.
“Yet I do not mean to add new terrors to those which have already seized upon Pekuah. There can be no reason why spectres should haunt the Pyramid more than other places, or why they should have power or will to hurt innocence and purity. Our entrance is no violation of their privileges: we can take nothing from them; how, then, can we offend them?”
Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor
https://archive.org/stream/baburnama017152mbp/baburnama017152mbp_djvu.txt
“All lovers of Christ can believe in him without believing the same things about him.”
Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian
Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.161
Gordon B. Hinckley book Standing for Something
Why do I say this? Faith in a Divine Being, in the Almighty, is the great moving power that can change our lives. With it comes the only lasting comfort and peace of mind. God is our Eternal Father, and He lives. I don't understand the wonder of His majesty; I can't comprehend His glory. But I know that He is intensely interested in our welfare and involved in our lives, that I can speak with Him in prayer, and that He will hear and listen.
Standing for Something: Ten Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes.