“The finest minds seem to be formed rather by efforts at original thinking, by endeavours to form new combinations, and to discover new truths, than by passively receiving the impressions of other men's ideas.”
Essay on the Principle of Population (1798; rev. through 1826)
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Thomas Robert Malthus60
British political economist 1766–1834Related quotes
Will Gompertz (1965) British journalist
Think Like an Artist (2015)
Rollo May (1909–1994) US psychiatrist
Source: The Courage to Create (1975), Ch. 1 : The Courage to Create, p. 21
Francis Hutcheson (philosopher) (1694–1746) Irish philosopher
An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections (1728), Treatise II: Illustrations upon the Moral Sense, Sect. I
“To be modern only means to fill new forms with eternal truths.”
Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister
Modern sein heißt nichts anderes als ewige Inhalte in wechselnde neue Formen zu füllen.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)
“The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
“The mind that opens to a new idea, Never comes back to its original size.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Actually said by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. in his book The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table: "Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions."
Misattributed
Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835) German (Prussian) philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the University of Berlin
Source: The Limits of State Action (1792), Ch. 16