Edwin Percy Whipple Quotes

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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

  Laughter, Wall, Army

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1851). “Literature and life, lects”, p.48

  47 Copy quote

• Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Inspirational, Life, Book

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1871). “Literature and Life”, p.38

  17 Copy quote

• Cheerfulness in most cheerful people is the rich and satisfying result of strenuous discipline.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Happiness, Motivational Sports, Discipline

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1875). “Success and Its Conditions”, p.198

  20 Copy quote

• Talent jogs to conclusions to which Genius takes giant leaps.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Giants, Genius, Talent

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1859). “Lectures on Subjects Connected with Literature and Life”, p.162

  7 Copy quote

• Wit is an unexpected explosion of thought.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Unexpected, Explosions, Wit

  7 Copy quote

• Dignity is often a veil between us and the real truth of things.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Real, Veils, Dignity

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1851). “Literature and life, lects”, p.74

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  Perseverance, Strong, Caves

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1866). “Character and Characteristic Men”, p.14

  4 Copy quote

• A large portion of human beings live not so much in themselves as in what they desire to be. They create what is called an ideal character, in an ideal form, whose perfections compensate in some degree for the imperfections of their own.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Character, Perfection, Desire

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1875). “Success and Its Conditions”, p.186

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  Beauty, Art, Character

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1871). “Success and Its Conditions”, p.207

  27 Copy quote

• Of the three prerequisites of genius; the first is soul; the second is soul; and the third is soul.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Soul, Three, Genius

  26 Copy quote

• Whenever you find humour, you find pathos close by its side.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Sides, Pathos, Humour

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1851). “Literature and life, lects”, p.60

  6 Copy quote

• The saddest failures in life are those that come from not putting forth the power and will to succeed.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Inspirational, Life, Success

  7 Copy quote

• True wisdom, indeed, springs from the wide brain which is fed from the deep heart; and it is only when age warms its withering conceptions at the memory of its youthful fire, when it makes experience serve aspiration, and knowledge illumine the difficult paths through which thoughts thread their way into facts,--it is only then that age becomes broadly and nobly wise.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Wise, Memories, Spring

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1875). “Success and Its Conditions”, p.2

  7 Copy quote

• Genius is not a single power, but a combination of great powers. It reasons, but it is not reasoning; it judges, but it is not judgment; imagines, but it is not imagination; it feels deeply and fiercely, but it is not passion. It is neither, because it is all.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Passion, Imagination, Judging

  6 Copy quote

• God is glorified, not by our groans, but by our thanksgivings.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Thanksgiving, Thankful, Funny Thanksgiving

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1875). “Success and Its Conditions”, p.195

  10 Copy quote

• The strife of politics tends to unsettle the calmest understanding, and ulcerate the most benevolent heart. There are no bigotries or absurdities too gross for parties to create or adopt under the stimulus of political passions.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Party, Passion, Heart

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1866). “Character and Characteristic Men”, p.49

  4 Copy quote

• Sin, every day, takes out a patent for some new invention.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Patents, New Inventions, Sin

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1861). “Essays and Reviews”, p.74

  8 Copy quote

• Even in social life, it is persistency which attracts confidence, more than talents and accomplishments.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Perseverance, Accomplishment, Talent

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1866). “Character and Characteristic Men”, p.14

  5 Copy quote

• No language can fitly express the meanness, the baseness, the brutality, with which the world has ever treated its victims of one age and boasts of the next. Dante is worshipped at that grave to which he was hurried by persecution. Milton, in his own day, was "Mr. Milton, the blind adder, that spit his venom on the king's person"; and soon after, "the mighty orb of song." These absurd transitions from hatred to apotheosis, this recognition just at the moment when it becomes a mockery, saddens all intellectual history.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Song, Kings, Hatred

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1851). “Literature and life, lects”, p.4

  6 Copy quote

• What a lesson, indeed, is all history and all life to the folly and fruitlessness of pride! The Egyptian kings had their embalmed bodies preserved in massive pyramids, to obtain an earthly immortality. In the seventeenth century they were sold as quack medicines, and now they are burnt for fuel! The Egyptian mummies, which Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth. Mummy is become merchandise.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Kings, Pride, Pyramids

  7 Copy quote

• The great characteristic of men of active genius is a sublime self-confidence, springing not from self-conceit, but from an intense identification of the man with his object, which lifts him altogether above the fear of danger and death, which gives to his enterprise a character of insanity to the common eye, and which communicates an almost superhuman audacity to his will.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Character, Eye, Self Confidence

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1851). “Literature and life, lects”, p.87

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Cheer, Alliances, Action

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1875). “Success and Its Conditions”, p.195

  9 Copy quote

• Pretension is nothing; power is everything.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Power, Pretension

  4 Copy quote

• The bitterest satires and noblest eulogies on married life have come from poets.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Eulogy, Married, Poet

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1851). “Literature and life, lects”, p.14

  7 Copy quote

• Books -lighthouses erected in the great sea of time -books, the precious depositories of the thoughts and creations of genius -books, by whose sorcery times past become time present, and the whole pageantry of the world's history moves in solemn procession before our eyes, -these were to visit the firesides of the humble and lavish the treasures of the intellect upon the poor.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Time, Moving, Book

  7 Copy quote

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