“Human nature is imperfect.”
Howard v. Gosset (1844), 6 St. Tr. (N. S.) 365.
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Edward Hall Alderson 7
Lawyer and jurist 1787–1857Related quotes
Book I, 715b.15
Generation of Animals
Source: The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse
'Modus Vivendi' (p.29)
Gray's Anatomy: Selected Writings (2009)
Source: Sanitary Economy (1850), p. 17
Context: Abstract perfection should always be the direction aimed at by human efforts, however imperfect they may be; and the success of sanitary legislation will be indicated by the nearness or the distance of its actual practice from this perfect idea.
“Nature abhors imperfect work
And on it lays her ban;
And all creation must despise
A tailless man.”
Prehistoric Smith, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
The Temper of Our Time (1967)
Context: Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.