James Mackintosh Quotes

• The powers of a man's mind are directly proportional to the quantity of coffee he drank.

  James Mackintosh

  Coffee, Men, Mind

  53 Copy quote

• Men are never so good or so bad as their opinions.

  James Mackintosh

  Men, Opinion

  'Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy' (1830) sect. 6 'Jeremy Bentham'

  15 Copy quote

• It is right to be content with what we have, never with what we are.

  James Mackintosh

  Positive

  4 Copy quote

• The Commons, faithful to their system, remained in a wise and masterly inactivity.

  James Mackintosh

  Faith, Wise, Faithful

  Vindiciae Gallicae sec. 1 (1791)

  7 Copy quote

• Diffused knowledge immortalizes itself.

  James Mackintosh

  Knowledge, Self Knowledge

  James Mackintosh (1791). “Vindiciae Gallicae”, p.199

  18 Copy quote

• A vice utterly at variance with the happiness of him who harbors it, and, as such, condemned by self-love.

  James Mackintosh

  Self, Vices, Harbors

  Sir James Mackintosh (1834). “A general view of the progress of ethical philosophy: chiefly during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries”, p.117

  6 Copy quote

• Those who differ most from the opinions of their fellow men are the most confident of the truth of their own.

  James Mackintosh

  Men, Fellow Man, Opinion

  Sir James Mackintosh (1851). “The Miscellaneous Works of the Right Honourable Sir James Mackintosh: Complete in One Volume”, p.27

  4 Copy quote

• Maxims are the condensed good sense of nations.

  James Mackintosh

  Inspiring, Maxims, Good Sense

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, p. 638-39, quoted on the title page of Broom's Legal Maxims (1911), 1922.

  7 Copy quote

• The frivolous work of polished idleness.

  James Mackintosh

  Work, Polished, Frivolous

  James Mackintosh (1872). “On the Progress of Ethical Philosophy: Chiefly During the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries”, p.232

  7 Copy quote

• It is not because we have been free, but because we have a right to be free, that we ought to demand freedom. Justice and liberty have neither birth nor race, youth nor age.

  James Mackintosh

  Freedom, Responsibility, Rights

  Sir James Mackintosh (1835). “History of the Revolution in England in 1688: Comprising a View of the Reign of James II. from His Accession, to the Enterprise of the Prince of Orange”, p.24

  4 Copy quote

• The feminine graces of Madame de Sevigne's genius are exquisitely charming; but the philosophy and eloquence of Madame de Stael are above the distinction of sex.

  James Mackintosh

  Sex, Philosophy, Grace

  Sir James Mackintosh (1835). “Memoirs of the life of the Right Honorable Sir James Mackintosh”, p.217

  4 Copy quote

• Praise is the symbol which represents sympathy, and which the mind insensibly substitutes for its recollection and language.

  James Mackintosh

  Mind, Language, Praise

  Sir James Mackintosh (1851). “The Miscellaneous Works of the Right Honourable Sir James Mackintosh: Complete in One Volume”, p.95

  5 Copy quote

• The wealth of society is its stock of productive labor.

  James Mackintosh

  Wealth, Labor, Productive

  Sir James Mackintosh (1848). “The miscellaneous works of the Right Honourable Sir James Mackintosh”, p.429

  4 Copy quote

• Those who preached faith, or in other words a pure mind, have always produced more popular virtue than those who preached good acts, or the mere regulation of outward works.

  James Mackintosh

  Mind, Regulation, Virtue

  Sir James Mackintosh (1836). “Memoirs of the Life of the Right Honourable Sir James Mackintosh”, p.411

  4 Copy quote

• Every fiction since Homer has taught friendship, patriotism, generosity, contempt of death. These are the highest virtues; and the fictions which taught them were therefore of the highest, though not of unmixed, utility.

  James Mackintosh

  Generosity, Fiction, Taught

  Sir James Mackintosh (1835). “Memoirs of the life of the Right Honorable Sir James Mackintosh”, p.42

  4 Copy quote

• Whatever is popular deserves attention.

  James Mackintosh

  Song, Attention, Popularity

  7 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Edmund Burke

Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey

Sir Fowell Buxton, 1st Baronet

Henry Stephens Salt

William Pitt

Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux

Thomas B. Macaulay

Sydney Smith