Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
Age: 84 †
Born: 1801
Born: April 28
Died: 1885
Died: October 1
Politician
Statistician
London
England
Good
Least
Excellent
Tolerably
May
Judge
Vein
Able
Goodness
Tolerable
Music
Notion
Possessing
Wells
Ears
Veins
Without
Judging
Poetic
Well
Poet
Poets
Kind
Poetry
Perform

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

Image
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
Image
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
Image
No one was ever the better for advice: in general, what we called giving advice was properly taking an occasion to show our own wisdom at another's expense and to receive advice was little better than tamely to another the occasion of raising himself a character from our defects.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
When men are easy in themselves, they let others remain so.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
Image
Temper, if ungoverned, governs the whole man.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
It is necessary a writing critic should understand how to write. And though every writer is not bound to show himself in the capacity of critic, every writing critic is bound to show himself capable of being a writer for if he be apparently impotent in this latter kind, he is to be denied all title or character in the other.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
Image
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
Image
Tis the strumpet's plague To beguile many, and be beguiled by one.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury