“Virtue is not always amiable. Integrity is sometimes ruined by prejudices and by passions.”
John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States
9 February 1779
1750s, Diaries (1750s-1790s)
“In the human heart there is a perpetual generation of passions, such that the ruin of one is almost always the foundation of another.”
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)
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François de La Rochefoucauld156
French author of maxims and memoirs 1613–1680Related quotes
Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German novelist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate
As quoted in The New York Times (21 June 1939)
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Source: Introduction to 1961 edition of Sceptical Essays (1961)
“There is not a passion so strongly rooted in the human heart as envy.”
Richard Brinsley Sheridan The Critic
Act I, sc. i.
The Critic (1779)
“He was, this smoldering, passionate young pianist, generous, lovable, deeply gentle of heart.”
William Kapell (1922–1953) American classical pianist
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). <br class="br">About
“Wicked people have nothing human about them except passions: they are almost their virtues.”
Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist
“The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one's own.”
Willa Cather book The Professor's House
Book I, Ch. 8
The Professor's House (1925)
P. D. Ouspensky book Tertium Organum
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.