It is probable a true history of human events would show that a far larger proportion of our acts are the results of sudden impulses and accident, than of that reason of which we so much boast.
James Fenimore Cooper, The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea (1823), preface.
What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have yet to be discovered.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Fortune of the Republic (1878).
Ingratitude’s a weed in every clime,
Sir Samuel Garth, Epistle to the Earl of Godolphin, L.27.
It thrives too fast at first, but fades in time.
“A cucumber is bitter.” Throw it away. “There are briars in the road.” Turn aside from them. This is enough. Do not add, “And why were such things made in the world?”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (c. 180 A.D.).
And what is reason? Be she thus defined:
Edward Young, The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, & Immortality (1742–45), VII. L. 1,526.
Reason is upright stature in the soul.
While Reason drew the plan, the Heart inform’d
James Thomson (1700–1748), Liberty ( (1734) Pt. IV, L. 262.
The moral page and Fancy lent it grace.
The philosophy of my heart is libertarian. I don’t like the idea of the exploitation of man by man. I believe that one day human civilization will overcome this somehow. But that is not to say that I favour the state as the owner of everything, no, no, no. I can’t conceive of that. I lean a lot towards self-management, with all of the risks it entails for any important institution.
José Mujica (Uruguay’s president, 2010–2015), from “A conversation with President José Mujica, M.R. and H.C. Montevideo,” The Economist (August 2014).
What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?
The chaplain in Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange (1962), Part Two, Chapter 3.
Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think.
Jean de La Bruyère, as quoted in Selected Thoughts from the French: XV Century-XX Century, with English Translations (1913), pp. 132-133, by James Raymond Solly. Not sourced beyond that, however.
The wise man looks into space and does not regard the small as too little, nor the great as too big, for he knows that, there is no limit to dimensions.
Master Zhuang, from 莊子/秋水.