Magnanimity Quotes - Page 4

• Acquisition of knowledge is not the end, but the means to the end; the end consists in the attainment, thanks to this knowledge of the higher worlds, of greater and truer self-confidence, a higher degree of courage, and a magnanimity and perseverance such as cannot, as a rule, be acquired in the lower world.

  Rudolf Steiner

  Spiritual, Perseverance, Character

  "How to Know Higher Worlds".

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• The safest kind of praise is to foretell that another will become great in some particular way. It has the greatest show of magnanimity and the least of it in reality.

  William Hazlitt

  Reality, Greatness, Way

  William Hazlitt, James Thornton (1967). “A reply to 'Z.' A letter to William Gifford, esq. Prefatory remarks to Oxberry's New English drama. Liber amoris; or, The new Pygmalion. Characteristics. Preface and critical list of authors from Select British poets”

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• Shall I pass by and leave you lying there because of the expedition you led against Greece, or shall I set you up again because of your magnanimity and your virtues in other respects?

  Alexander the Great

  Lying, Army, Virtue

  "The age of Alexander: nine Greek lives". Book by Plutarch, 1973.

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• What she had believed was indignation or rage or a deep intolerance for injustice came down to this: she was irreducibly in love with this bewitching planet, this thrilling life, this heartbreaking species she belonged to, with its capacity for stupefying destruction and breathtaking magnanimity.

  Thrity Umrigar

  Heartbreaking, Injustice, Breathtaking

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• Like all of us sinners, General Betrishchev was endowed with many virtues and many defects. Both the one and the other were scattered through him in a sort of picturesque disorder. Self-sacrifice, magnanimity in decisive moments, courage, intelligence--and with all that, a generous mixture of self-love, ambition, vanity, petty personal ticklishness, and a good many of those things which a man simply cannot do without.

  Nikolai Gogol

  Ambition, Sacrifice, Men

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• Heroism, self-denial, and magnanimity, in all instances where they do not spring from a principle of religion, are but splendid altars on which we sacrifice one kind of self-love to another.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Spring, Sacrifice, Self

  Charles Caleb COLTON (1849). “L.P.”, p.171

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• It was one of those ridiculous arrangements that couples make when they are separating, but before they are divorced - when they still imagine that children and property can be shared with more magnanimity than recrimination.

  John Irving

  Children, Couple, Divorce

  "A Widow for One Year". Book by John Irving, May 5, 1998.

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• God Most High has said, "Is the reward of virtue aught save virtue?" . . . Know, O man, that the covenant of servanthood is incumbent upon you, and that the covenant of Lordship is incumbent upon His magnanimity, as He Most High has said, ". . . and fulfill your covenant, I shall fulfill My covenant."

  Ibn Ata Allah

  Men, Covenant, Rewards

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• We cannot think too highly of our nature, nor too humbly of ourselves. When we see the martyr to virtue, subject as he is to the infirmities of a man, yet suffering the tortures of a demon, and bearing them with the magnanimity of a God, do we not behold a heroism that angels may indeed surpass, but which they cannot imitate, and must admire.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Humility, Angel, Men

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.212

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• This is the magnanimity of authorship, when a writer having a topic presented to him, fruitful of beauties for common minds, waives his privilege, and trusts to the judicious few for understanding the reason of his abstinence.

  Charles Lamb

  Understanding, Mind, Topics

  Charles Lamb (1864). “Eliana: Being the Hitherto Uncollected Writings of Charles Lamb”, p.25

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• Active beneficence is a virtue of easier practice than forbearance after having conferred, or than thankfulness after having received a benefit. I know not, indeed, whether it be a greater and more difficult exercise of magnanimity, for the one party to act as if he had forgotten, or for the other as if he constantly remembered the obligation.

  George Canning

  Party, Exercise, Practice

  George Canning (1842). “Select Speeches of the Right Honourable George Canning: With a Preliminary Biographical Sketch, and an Appendix, of Extracts from His Writings and Speeches”, p.533

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• Exploding many things under the name of trifles is a very false proof either of wisdom or magnanimity, and a great check to virtuous actions with regard to fame.

  Jonathan Swift

  Names, Action, Fame

  Jonathan Swift (1861). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: With Cop'ous Notes and Additions”, p.612

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• Those who are successfully to lead their fellow-men, should have once possessed the nobler feelings. We have all known individuals whose magnanimity was not likely to be troublesome on any occasion; but then they betrayed their own interests by unwisely omitting the consideration, that such feelings might exist in the breasts of those whom they had to guide and govern: for they themselves cannot even remember the time when in their eyes justice appeared preferable to expediency, the happiness of others to self-interest, or the welfare of a State to the advancement of a party.

  Arthur Helps

  Leadership, Party, Eye

  Sir Arthur Helps (1883). “Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd”

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• Never expect justice from a vain man; if he has the negative magnanimity not to disparage you, it is the most you can expect.

  Washington Allston

  Men, Vanity, Justice

  Washington Allston (1850). “Lectures on Art, and Poems”, p.173

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• The most unpardonable privilege that men enjoy is their magnanimity.

  Germaine Greer

  Men, Privilege, Enjoy

  "The Madwoman's Underclothes". Book by Germaine Greer, 1986.

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• It boils down to this: we should have done with humbug, and let war be war, and not a game ... If there were none of this magnanimity business in warfare, we should never go to war, except for something worth facing certain death for.

  Leo Tolstoy

  War, Should Have, Games

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• Faith is from within; it is the outbreaking of human spontaneity; it is force of soul, grandeur of sentiment, magnanimity, generosity, courage. Its formulas are naturally unintelligible in their literal tenor; for, otherwise, they would represent that which is scientifically known, and would not be the mere provisional clothing of that which is not objectively given, but subjectively projected from the inmost depth of the soul.

  William Batchelder Greene

  Generosity, Soul, Depth

  William Batchelder Greene (1871). “The Blazing Star”, p.6

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• If hindrances obstruct the way, Thy magnanimity display. And let thy strength be seen: But O, if Fortune fill thy sail With more than a propitious gale, Take half thy canvas in.

  William Cowper

  Half, Way, Gale

  William Cowper (1874). “The poetical works of William Cowper, ed: with notes and biographical introd. by William Benham”, p.171

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• We have not sought this conflict; we have sought too long to avoid it; our forbearance has been construed into weakness, our magnanimity into fear, until the vindication of our manhood, as well as the defence of our rights, is required at our hands.

  Robert Toombs

  Rights, Hands, Long

  Robert Augustus Toombs (1860). “Speech of Hon. Robert Toombs: On the Crisis. Delivered Before the Georgia Legislature, December 7, 1860”, p.3

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• One of the magnanimities of woman is to yield.

  Victor Hugo

  Women, Yield

  Victor Hugo (2007). “Hugo's Works: Les Miserables (St. Denis)”, p.205, Wildside Press LLC

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• Magnanimity will not consider the prudence of its motives.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Generosity, Motive, Prudence

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• The attributes of God have been carefully explored. But the Devil's attributes have been left vague. I think I've found one of them. It is he who puts the prices on things." "Doesn't God put a price on things?" "No. One of his attributes is magnanimity. But the Devil is a setter of prices, and a usurer, as well. You buy from him at an agreed price, but the payments are all on time, and the interest is charged on the whole of the principal, right up to the last payment, however much of the principal you think you have paid off in the meantime.

  Robertson Davies

  Thinking, Devil, Lasts

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• In dealing with good people one should be magnanimous; in dealing with bad people one should be strict. In dealing with average people one should combine magnanimity and strictness.

  Zicheng Hong

  Average, People, Taoism

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• There are good points about all... wars. People forget self. The virtues of magnanimity, courage, patriotism, etc., are called into life. People are more generous, more sympathetic, better, than when engaged in the more selfish pursuits of peace.

  Rutherford B. Hayes

  Selfish, War, People

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• The intellect, divine as it is, and all worshipful, has a habit of lodging in the most seedy of carcasses, and often, alas, acts the cannibal among the other faculties so that often, where the Mind is biggest, the Heart, the Senses, Magnanimity, Charity, Tolerance, Kindliness, and the rest of them scarcely have room to breathe.

  Virginia Woolf

  Heart, Tolerance, Mind

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