Quote from John Constable's letter to Rev. John Fisher 1825
1820s
An Old Man's Thoughts on Many Things, Of Education I
Gilbert Keith Chesterton, as per Mackay's The Harvest of a Quiet Eye, A Selection of Scientific Quotations (1977), p. 34.
Misattributed
As quoted in Mackay's The Harvest of a Quiet Eye, A Selection of Scientific Quotations (1977), p. 34
“All teems with symbol; the wise man is the man who in any one thing can read another.”
II.3.7
The First Ennead (c. 250)
“You can do a few things superbly well, or a lot of things averagely well.”
Popular Quotes, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Twitter
"Le Contrat Social", in: Prejudices: Third Series (1922)
1920s
Context: All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him. If it be aristocratic in organization, then it seeks to protect the man who is superior only in law against the man who is superior in fact; if it be democratic, then it seeks to protect the man who is inferior in every way against both. One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them. All it can see in an original idea is potential change, and hence an invasion of its prerogatives. The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are.
Bennis Warren and Burt Nanus (1985) Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge. Harper and Row. p. 21
1980s
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Prophet
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 6
