Quote

There is a serious and resolute egotism that makes a man interesting to his friends and formidable to his opponents.

Edwin Percy Whipple

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Edwin Percy Whipple
Age: 67 †
Born: 1819
Born: March 8
Died: 1886
Died: June 16
Author
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Writer
Gloucester
Massachusetts
Makes
Men
Resolute
Formidable
Egotism
Opponents
Serious
Friends
Interesting

More quotes by Edwin Percy Whipple

Image
The universal line of distinction between the strong and the weak is that one persists the other hesitates, falters, trifles, and at last collapses or caves in.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Heroism is no extempore work of transient impulse--a rocket rushing fretfully up to disturb the darkness by which, after a moment's insulting radiance, it is ruthlessly swallowed up,--but a steady fire, which darts forth tongues of flame. It is no sparkling epigram of action, but a luminous epic of character.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Genius may be almost defined as the faculty of acquiring poverty.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
There is a natural disposition with us to judge an author's personal character by the character of his works. We find it difficult to understand the common antithesis of a good writer and a bad man.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
As men neither fear nor respect what has been made contemptible, all honor to him who makes oppression laughable as well as detestable. Armies cannot protect it then and walls which have remained impenetrable to cannon have fallen before a roar of laughter or a hiss of contempt.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
We all originally came from the woods! it is hard to eradicate from any of us the old taste for the tattoo and the war-paint and the moment that money gets into our pockets, it somehow or another breaks out in ornaments on our person, without always giving refinement to our manners.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Pretension is nothing power is everything.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Irony is an insult conveyed in the form of a compliment.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Nature and society are so replete with startling contrasts that wit often consists in the mere statement and comparison of facts, as when Hume says that the ancient Muscovites wedded their wives with a whip instead of a ring.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Character is the spiritual body of the person, and represents the individualization of vital experience, the conversion of unconscious things into self-conscious men.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
No education deserves the name unless it develops thought, unless it pierces down to the mysterious spiritual principle of mind, and starts that into activity and growth.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
What a man does with his wealth depends upon his idea of happiness. Those who draw prizes in life are apt to spend tastelessly, if not viciously not knowing that it requires as much talent to spend as to make.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Sydney Smith playfully says that common sense was invented by Socrates, that philosopher having been one of its most conspicuous exemplars in conducting the contest of practical sagacity against stupid prejudice and illusory beliefs.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
A man of letters is often a man with two natures,--one a book nature, the other a human nature. These often clash sadly.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Even in social life, it is persistency which attracts confidence, more than talents and accomplishments.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Of the three prerequisites of genius the first is soul the second is soul and the third is soul.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
A thought embodied and embrained in fit words walks the earth a living being.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
The minister's brain is often the poor-box of the church.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Felicity, not fluency of language, is a merit.
Edwin Percy Whipple