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The greatest of fools is he who imposes on himself, and in his greatest concern thinks certainly he knows that which he has least studied, and of which he is most profoundly ignorant.
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
Thinking
Fools
Ignorant
Thinks
Concern
Certainly
Fool
Imposes
Greatest
Profoundly
Least
Studied
More quotes by Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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
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
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
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
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
Nothing affects the heart like that which is purely from itself, and of its own nature such as the beauty of sentiments, the grace of actions, the turn of characters, and the proportions and features of a human mind.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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
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
It is the hardest thing in the world to be a good thinker without being a good self examiner.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
They who are great talkers in company have never been any talkers by themselves, nor used to private discussions of our home regimen.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
Temper, if ungoverned, governs the whole man.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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
Through certain humors or passions, and from temper merely, a man may be completely miserable, let his outward circumstances be ever so fortunate.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
I would be virtuous for my own sake, though nobody were to know it as I would be clean for my own sake, though nobody were to see me.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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
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
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
When men are easy in themselves, they let others remain so.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
The heart is never neutral.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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
