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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

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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
Nobody
Virtue
Though
Would
Virtuous
Sake
Clean

More quotes by 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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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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When men are easy in themselves, they let others remain so.
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 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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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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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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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
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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
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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
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Temper, if ungoverned, governs the whole man.
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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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
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The heart is never neutral.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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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
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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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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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Tis the strumpet's plague To beguile many, and be beguiled by one.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
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The one and only formative power given to man Is thought. By his thinking he not only makes character, but body and affairs, for as he thinketh within himself, so is he. Prejudice is a mist, which in our journey through the world often dims the brightest and obscures the best of all the good and glorious objects that meet us on our way.
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