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What does competency in the long run mean? It means to all reasonable beings, cleanliness of person, decency of dress, courtesy of manners, opportunities for education, the delights of leisure, and the bliss of giving.

Edwin Percy Whipple

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Edwin Percy Whipple
Age: 67 †
Born: 1819
Born: March 8
Died: 1886
Died: June 16
Author
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Writer
Gloucester
Massachusetts
Persons
Delight
Decency
Person
Beings
Leisure
Giving
Wealth
Bliss
Mean
Education
Manners
Competency
Long
Opportunity
Reasonable
Competencies
Means
Dress
Cleanliness
Running
Opportunities
Delights
Doe
Dresses
Courtesy

More quotes by Edwin Percy Whipple

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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
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A politician weakly and amiably in the right, is no match for a politician tenaciously and pugnaciously in the wrong.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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We like the fine extravagance of that philosopher who declared that no man was as rich as all men ought to be.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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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
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The minister's brain is often the poor-box of the church.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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Talent is full of thoughts, Genius is thought. Talent is a cistern, Genius a fountain.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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Mirth is a Proteus, changing its shape and manner with the thousand diversities of individual character, from the most superfluous gayety to the deepest, moat earnest humor.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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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
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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
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Nature does not capriciously scatter her secrets as golden gifts to lazy pets and luxurious darlings, but imposes tasks when she presents opportunities, and uplifts him whom she would inform. The apple that she drops at the feet of Newton is but a coy invitation to follow her to the stars.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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The contemplation of beauty in nature, in art, in literature, in human character, diffuses through our being a soothing and subtle joy, by which the heart's anxious and aching cares are softly smiled away.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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Lord Chatham and Napoleon were ns much actors as Garrick or Talma. Now, an imposing air should always be taken as evidence of imposition. Dignity is often a veil between us and the real truth of things.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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Some men find happiness in gluttony and in drunkenness, but no delicate viands can touch their taste with the thrill of pleasure, and what generosity there is in wine steadily refuses to impart its glow to their shriveled hearts.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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Irony is an insult conveyed in the form of a compliment.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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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
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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
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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
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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
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God is glorified, not by our groans, but our thanksgivings and all good thought and good action claim a natural alliance with good cheer.
Edwin Percy Whipple