Disposition Quotes - Page 18

• To write anything tolerable, the mind must be in a natural, proper disposition; provocatives, in that case, as well as in another,will only produce miserable, abortive performances.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Writing, Creativity, Mind

  Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield (1855). “The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author”, p.553

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• Civility, which is a disposition to accommodate and oblige others, is essentially the same in every country; but good breeding, asit is called, which is the manner of exerting that disposition, is different in almost every country, and merely local; and every man of sense imitates and conforms to that local good breeding of the place which he is at.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Country, Men, Different

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• Ill-nature is a sort of running sore of the disposition.

  Josh Billings

  Running, Ill

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• For me, who only desire to become wise, not more learned or eloquent, these logical or Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of no use.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Wise, Desire, Use

  Michel de Montaigne (1850). “Works, Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy: With Notes from All the Commentators, Biographical and Bibliographical Notices &c., &c”, p.215

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• The moral disposition of the age appears in the refinement of conversation.

  Mary Somerville

  Women, Age, Moral

  Mary Somerville (1854). “Physical Geography: By Mary Somerville ...”, p.508

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• An insult is either sustained or destroyed, not by the disposition of those who insult, but by the disposition of those who bear it.

  Saint John Chrysostom

  Bears, Insult, Destroyed

  Saint John Chrysostom, Edward Budge, Charles Marriott (1842). “To the People of Antioch”, p.51

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• Good fortune and a good disposition are rarely given to the same man.

  Livy

  Men, Luck, Fortune

  "History of Rome". Book by Livy. Book XXX, section 42,

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• The most necessary disposition to relish pleasures is to know how to be without them.

  Anne-Therese de Marguenat de Courcelles

  Moderation, Pleasure, Know How

  "A Mother's Advice to Her Son". Book by Anne Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, 1726.

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• ... continual hard labor deadens the energies of the soul, and benumbs the faculties of the mind; the ideas become confined, the mind barren, and, like the scorching sands of Arabia, produces nothing; or, like the uncultivated soil, brings forth thorns and thistles. Again, continual hard labor irritates our tempers and sours our dispositions; the whole system become worn out with toil and fatigue; nature herself becomes almost exhausted, and we care but little whether we live or die.

  Maria W. Stewart

  Ideas, Soul, Mind

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• Babies are born with neither good nor bad character. Normal people - as they grow, learn and are trained - develop better or worse dispositions and habits of conduct.

  Edwin J Delattre

  Baby, Character, People

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• To be individual, my friends, to be different from others, is the only way to become distinguished from the common herd. Let us be glad, therefore, that we differ from one another in form and in disposition. Variety is the spice of life, and we are various enough to enjoy one another's society; so let us be content.

  L. Frank Baum

  Different, Spices, Variety Is The Spice Of Life

  L. Frank Baum (2008). “8 Books in 1: L. Frank Baum's "Oz" Series, Volume 2 of 2. Little Wizard Stories of Oz, Tik-Tok of Oz, The Scarecrow Of Oz, Rinkitink In Oz, The Lost Princess Of Oz,”, p.430, Shoes & Ships & Sealing Wax

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• Peace ... was contingent upon a certain disposition of the soul, a disposition to receive the gift that only detachment from self made possible.

  Elizabeth Goudge

  Self, Soul, Detachment

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• Golf is a particularly severe strain upon the amiability of the average person's temper, and in no other game, except bridge, is serenity of disposition so essential.

  Emily Post

  Golf, Average, Games

  Emily Post (2007). “Etiquette: In Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home”, p.527, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Whatever the Holy Spirit prompts a true Christian to do for the glory of God, He allures him to do in a modest way, and with a disposition of indescribable tenderness.

  Charles Seymour Robinson

  Christian, Way, Spirit

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers". Book by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p.321, 1895.

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• a weak and irresolute disposition is often more destructive than determined vice.

  Lady Caroline Lamb

  Weakness, Vices, Determined

  Lady Caroline Lamb (1822). “Graham Hamilton”, p.6

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• [There are dangers in] the disposition to hunt down rich men as if they were noxious beasts.

  Winston Churchill

  Men, Rich, Beast

  Winston Churchill (1959). “Great Contemporaries”

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• A very small offence may be a just cause for great resentment: it is often much less the particular instance which is obnoxious to us than the proof it carries with it of the general tenor and disposition of the mind from whence it sprung.

  Sir Fulke Greville

  Mind, May, Causes

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• It is worth thought what kind of mind or condition or disposition is open to flattery; for poison would not be spread if the rats ate it not.

  James Vila Blake

  Mind, Poison, Rats

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• The greatest human virtue bears no proportion to human vanity. We always think ourselves better than we are, and are generally desirous that others should think us still better than we think ourselves. To praise us for actions or dispositions which deserve praise is not to confer a benefit, but to pay a tribute. We have always pretensions to fame which, in our own hearts, we know to be disputable, and which we are desirous to strengthen by a new suffrage; we have always hopes which we suspect to be fallacious, and of which we eagerly snatch at every confirmation.

  Samuel Johnson

  Heart, Thinking, Vanity

  Samuel Johnson (1848). “The Wisdom of the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler”, p.216

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• Perhaps the most eloquent of the hard virtues is courage, the disposition to encounter adversity head-on and strive to overcome it.

  Ted Malloch

  Adversity, Overcoming, Encounters

  "Doing Virtuous Business: The Remarkable Success of Spiritual Enterprise". Book by Ted Malloch, 2011.

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• A frequent intercourse and intimate connection between two persons make them so like, that not only their dispositions are moulded like each other, but their very face and tone of voice contract a certain analogy.

  Pope Agapetus I

  Two, Voice, Connections

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• Two famous happy warriors - Reagan and his political soulmate, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - knew they were fighting their own ideological and external wars. But they did so with the sunny dispositions and positive outlooks of those who knew they were on the right side of history.

  Monica Crowley

  Soulmate, War, Fighting

  "Monica's Manifesto". Interview with Kathryn Jean Lopez, www.nationalreview.com. July 13, 2012.

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• There are two very natural propensities which we may distinguish in the most virtuous and liberal dispositions, the love of pleasure and the love of action. If the former is refined by art and learning, improved by the charms of social intercourse, and corrected by a just regard to economy, to health, and to reputation, it is productive of the greatest part of the happiness of private life.

  Edward Gibbon

  Art, Two, History

  Edward Gibbon (2015). “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire V1: the History Focus”, p.348, 谷月社

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• Excellence or virtue in a man will be the disposition which renders him a good man and also which will cause him to perform his function well.

  Aristotle

  Men, Good Man, Excellence

  Aristotle (1996). “The Nicomachean Ethics”, p.39, Wordsworth Editions

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• If a man of good natural disposition acquires Intelligence [as a whole], then he excels in conduct, and the disposition which previously only resembled Virtue, will now be Virtue in the true sense. Hence just as with the faculty of forming opinions [the calculative faculty] there are two qualities, Cleverness and Prudence, so also in the moral part of the soul there are two qualities, natural virtue and true Virtue; and true Virtue cannot exist without Prudence.

  Aristotle

  Men, Two, Soul

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