"Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything."

Sydney Smith Philosophy See all quotes by Sydney Smith →

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“My idea of heaven is, eating pâté de foie gras to the sound of trumpets.”

“When I hear any man talk of an unalterable law, the only effect it produces upon me is to convince me that he is an unalterable fool.”

“I am old, but I certainly have not that sign of old age, extolling the past at the expense of the present.”

“My living in Yorkshire was so far out of the way, that it was actually twelve miles from a lemon.”

“I look upon Switzerland as an inferior sort of Scotland.”

“Bishop Berkeley destroyed this world in one volume octavo; and nothing remained after his time, but mind — which experienced a similar fate from the hand of Mr. Hume, in 1737.”

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Indology1959

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"I'm as much satisfied as ever that we have followed a right course on the war question. It must be right for us, because we have followed our own conscientious convictions. But in proportion as we are…"

— Richard Cobden

Politics1804–1865

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"Owen believed in common archetypes rather than a common ancestor, and his conduct presents an archetype of the modern creation scientists, except that they submit to peer review rarely, and none of th…"

— Aron Ra

Politics1962

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"When I meet people who say, "Oh, there's no hope, Peter, look at the things that are going wrong, and those stupid people in Bosnia, there are going to be things like that all around the world, power-…"

— Pete Seeger

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