“That good diffused may more abundant grow.”

— William Cowper

Source: Conversation (1782), Line 443.

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William Cowper 174

(1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist 1731–1800

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“The world grows more enlightened. Knowledge is more equally diffused.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

No. 13
1790s, Discourses on Davila (1790)
Context: The world grows more enlightened. Knowledge is more equally diffused. Newspapers, magazines, and circulating libraries have made mankind wiser. Titles and distinctions, ranks and orders, parade and ceremony, are all going out of fashion.
This is roundly and frequently asserted in the streets, and sometimes on theatres of higher rank. Some truth there is in it; and if the opportunity were temperately improved, to the reformation of abuses, the rectification of errors, and the dissipation of pernicious prejudices, a great advantage it might be. But, on the other hand, false inferences may be drawn from it, which may make mankind wish for the age of dragons, giants, and fairies.

“May I reach
That purest heaven, — be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense!
”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

O May I Join the Choir Invisible (1867)
Context: This is life to come, —
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest heaven, — be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense!
So shall I join the choir invisible
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“4545. The Fox may grow grey, but never good.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1749) : Many Foxes grow grey, but few grow good.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

“It may be suspected that the custom of employing a divine man or animal as a public scapegoat is much more widely diffused than appears from the examples cited.”

James Frazer book The Golden Bough

Source: The Golden Bough (1890), Chapter 57, Public Scapegoats.

“This is life to come, —
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest heaven, — be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense!
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

O May I Join the Choir Invisible (1867)

“No life is so charming as a country one in England, and no flowers are sweeter or more lovely than the primroses, cowslips, bluebells, and violets that grow in abundance all around me here.”

Marianne North (1830–1890) English biologist and botanical artist

Recollections of a Happy Life:Being the autobiography of of Marianne North, ed. Mrs John Addington Symonds, Macmillan (1892).

“As aromatic plants bestow
No spicy fragrance while they grow;
But crush'd or trodden to the ground,
Diffuse their balmy sweets around.”

Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) Irish physician and writer

Act I.
The Captivity, An Oratorio (1764)

“Unfortunately, the balance of nature decrees that a super-abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares.”

Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) English actor, writer, and dramatist

As quoted in The Independent (25 February 1989)

“But what good’s abundance if nobody can experience it?”

Karl Schroeder (1962) Author. Technology consultant

Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 23 (p. 256).

“But Eudoxus the Cnidian, who was somewhat junior to Leon, and the companion of Plato, first of all rendered the multitude of those theorems which are called universals more abundant; and to three proportions added three others; and things relative to a section, which received their commencement from Plato, he diffused into a richer multitude, employing also resolutions in the prosecution of these.”

Proclus (412–485) Greek philosopher

Source: The Philosophical and Mathematical Commentaries of Proclus on the First Book of Euclid's Elements Vol. 1 (1788), Ch. IV.

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