
“Virtue is not always amiable. Integrity is sometimes ruined by prejudices and by passions.”
9 February 1779
1750s, Diaries (1750s-1790s)
Il y a dans le coeur humain une génération perpétuelle de passions, en sorte que la ruine de l'une est presque toujours l'établissement d'une autre.
Maxim 10.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
Il y a dans le coeur humain une génération perpétuelle de passions, en sorte que la ruine de l'une est presque toujours l'établissement d'une autre.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
“Virtue is not always amiable. Integrity is sometimes ruined by prejudices and by passions.”
9 February 1779
1750s, Diaries (1750s-1790s)
As quoted in The New York Times (21 June 1939)
Source: Introduction to 1961 edition of Sceptical Essays (1961)
“There is not a passion so strongly rooted in the human heart as envy.”
Act I, sc. i.
The Critic (1779)
“He was, this smoldering, passionate young pianist, generous, lovable, deeply gentle of heart.”
Claudia Cassidy, " In Memory of William Kapell, Who Left Us Richer in Music http://www.williamkapell.com/articles/cassidy.html", Chicago Tribune (October 30, 1953).
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“Wicked people have nothing human about them except passions: they are almost their virtues.”
“The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one's own.”
Book I, Ch. 8
The Professor's House (1925)
Source: Tertium Organum (1912; 1922), Ch. I
Context: The most difficult thing is to know what we do know, and what we do not know.
Therefore, desiring to know anything, we shall before all else determine WHAT we accept as given, and WHAT as demanding definition and proof; that is, determine WHAT we know already, and WHAT we wish to know.
In relation to the knowledge of the world and of ourselves, the conditions would be ideal could we venture to accept nothing as given, and count all as demanding definition and proof. In other words, it would be best to assume that we know nothing, and make this our point of departure.
But unfortunately such conditions are impossible to create. Knowledge must start from some foundation, something must be recognized as known; otherwise we shall be obliged always to define one unknown by means of another.