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Nothing is more ridiculous than ridicule.

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury

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Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
Age: 84 †
Born: 1801
Born: April 28
Died: 1885
Died: October 1
Politician
Statistician
London
England
Ridicule
Ridiculous
Nothing

More quotes by Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury

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In nature, all is managed for the best with perfect frugality and just reserve, profuse to none, but bountiful to all never employing on one thing more than enough, but with exact economy retrenching the superfluous, and adding force to what is principal in everything.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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It is the same with understanding as with eyes to a certain size and make, just so much light is necessary, and no more. Whatever is beyond brings darkness and confusion.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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Gravity is of the very essence of imposture it does not only mistake other things, but is apt perpetually almost to mistake itself.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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Truth is the most powerful thing in the world, since even fiction itself must be governed by it, and can only please by its resemblance. The appearance of reality is necessary to make any passion agreeably represented, and to be able to move others we must be moved ourselves, or at least seem to be so, upon some probable grounds.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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Remember that there is nothing in God but what is godlike and that He is either not at all, or truly and perfectly good.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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Temper, if ungoverned, governs the whole man.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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It is the saying of an ancient sage that humor was the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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The most natural beauty in the world is honesty and moral truth. For all beauty is truth. True features make the beauty of the face true proportions, the beauty of architecture true measures, the beauty of harmony and music.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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It is not wit merely, but temper, which must form the well-bred man. In the same manner it is not a head merely, but a heart and resolution, which must complete the real philosopher.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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The most natural beauty in the world is honesty and moral truth. For all beauty is truth.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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The face of Truth is not less fair and beautiful for all the counterfeit visors which have been put upon her.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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Wit is its own remedy. Liberty and commerce bring it to its true standard. The only danger is the laying an embargo. The same thing happens here as in the case of trade: impositions and restrictions reduce it to a low ebb nothing is so advantageous to it as a free port.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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Never did any soul do good but it came readier to do the same again, with more enjoyment. Never was love or gratitude or bounty practiced but with increasing joy, which made the practicer still more in love with the fair act.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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Men of sense are really all of one religion. But men of sense never tell what it is.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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True features make the beauty of a face, and true proportions the beauty of architecture.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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The passion of fear (as a modern philosopher informs me) determines the spirits of the muscles of the knees, which are instantly ready to perform their motion, by taking up the legs with incomparable celerity, in order to remove the body out of harm's way.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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When men are easy in themselves, they let others remain so.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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As many as are the difficulties which Virtue has to encounter in this world, her force is yet superior.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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We may have an excellent ear for music, without being able to perform in any kind we may judge well of poetry, without being poets, or possessing the least of a poetic vein but we can have no tolerable notion of goodness without being tolerably good.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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Pedantry and bigotry are millstones, able to sink the best book which carries the least part of their dead weight. The temper of the pedagogue suits not with the age and the world, however it may be taught, will not be tutored.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury