“There are but three classes of men — the retrograde, the stationary, the progressive.”
No. 371
Aphorisms on Man (1788)
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Johann Kaspar Lavater 24
Swiss poet 1741–1801Related quotes

“There are three classes of human beings: men, women and women physicians.”
As quoted in Women in Medicine (1968) by Carol Lopate and Josiah Macy, Jr., p. 178.

“There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.”

Introduction, in Hirst (1909), pp. 287–288
The National System of Political Economy (1841)
in "August Blanqui, Heretical Communist," Radical Philosophy 185 (2014)

Source: The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863), Ch.21, p. 412
Context: One of the principal claims of Mr. Darwin's theory to acceptance is, that it enables us to dispense with a law of progression as a necessary accompaniment of variation. It will account equally well for what is called degradation, or a retrograde movement towards a simpler structure, and does not require Lamarck's continual creation of monads; for this was a necessary part of his system, in order to explain how, after the progressive power had been at work for myriads of ages, there were as many beings of the simplest structure in existence as ever.

I, 3
Variant translation: The things which … are esteemed as the greatest good of all … can be reduced to these three headings, to wit : Riches, Fame, and Pleasure. With these three the mind is so engrossed that it cannot scarcely think of any other good.
On the Improvement of the Understanding (1662)

Source: The Modern Rack (1889), Ch. I: The Moral Aspects of Vivisection, p. 15