Maxims Quotes - Page 13

• Every man who has seen the world knows that nothing is so useless as a general maxim.

  Nathan Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild

  Men, Useless, World

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• That the system of morals propounded in the New Testament contained no maxim which had not been previously enunciated, and that some of the most beautiful passages in the apostolic writings are quotations from Pagan authors, is well known to every scholar... To assert that Christianity communicated to man moral truths previously unknown, argues on the part of the asserted either gross ignorance or wilful fraud.

  Henry Thomas Buckle

  Beautiful, Ignorance, Writing

  Henry Thomas Buckle (1865). “History of Civilization in England: In Five Volumes”, p.166

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• When the Church obtained the direction of the civil power, she soon modified or abandoned the tolerant maxims she had formerly inculcated; and, in the course of a few years, restrictive laws were enacted, both against the Jews and against the heretics.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Years, Law, Atheism

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1865). “History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe”, p.29

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• There's a very old recording maxim that goes, 'Distance makes depth.' I've used that a hell of a lot-whether it's tracking guitars or the whole band. People are used to close-miking amps, but I'd have a mic out around the back, as well, and then balance the two. Also, you shouldn't have to use EQ in the studio if the instruments sound right. You should be able to get the right tones simply with the science of microphone placement.

  Jimmy Page

  Distance, Guitar, Two

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• I set it down as a maxim, that it is good for a man to live where he can meet his betters, intellectual and social.

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Men, Intellectual, Social

  William Makepeace Thackeray (1869). “Miscellanies: The book of snobs. Sketches and travels in London. Denis Duval”, p.119

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• An idle man has a constant tendency to torpidity. He has adopted the Indian maxim that it is better to walk than to run, and better to stand than to walk, and better to sit than to stand, and better to lie than to sit. He hugs himself into the notion, that God calls him to be quiet.

  Richard Cecil

  Running, Lying, Men

  Richard Cecil, Josiah PRATT (the Elder.) (1854). “Remains of the Rev. Richard Cecil ... With a view of his character, by the Rev. Josiah Pratt ... To which is prefixed a memoir of his life signed: J. Cecil . Tenth edition”, p.177

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• I set out with a perfect distrust of my own abilities, a total renunciation of every speculation of my own, and with a profound reverence for the wisdom of our ancestors, who have left us the inheritance of so happy a Constitution and so flourishing an empire, and, what is a thousand times more valuable, the treasury of the maxims and principles which formed the one and obtained the other.

  Edmund Burke

  Profound, Perfect, Principles

  Edmund Burke (1852). “The Works and Correspondence of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke”, p.269

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• Political economy is the science of free society. Its theory and its history alike establish this position. Its fundamental maxims, Laissez-faire and 'Pas trop gouverner' are at war with all kinds of slavery, for they in fact assert that individuals and peoples prosper most when governed least.

  George Fitzhugh

  War, Political, Fundamentals

  George Fitzhugh (1854). “Sociology for the South: or, The failure of free society”, p.7, [s.n.]

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• It is a maxim that no man was ever enslaved by influence while he was fit to be free.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Influence, Fit

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• The French under the old monarchy held it for a maxim that the king could do no wrong . The Americans entertain the same opinion with respect to the majority.... If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the omnipotence of the majority.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Kings, Omnipotence, America

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• It is a maxim of wise government to treat people not as they should be but as they actually are.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Wise, Government, People

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• I think I have learned, in some degree at least, to disregard the old maxim ""Do not get others to do what you can do yourself."" My motto on the other hand is; ""Do not do that which others can do as well.

  Booker T. Washington

  Business, Thinking, Hands

  Booker T. Washington (2006). “Up from Slavery: Easyread Comfort Edition”, p.240, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Where one is hopelessly undecided as to what to say, there (as Confucius would have said, if they had given him the opportunity) silence is golden.

  Lewis Carroll

  Opportunity, Silence, Golden

  Lewis Carroll (1979). “The Letters of Lewis Carroll: ca. 1837-1885”

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• Ah! the best righteousness of our man-of-war world seems but an unrealized ideal, after all; and those maxims which, in the hope of bringing about a Millennium, we busily teach to the heathen, we Christians ourselves disregard.

  Herman Melville

  Christian, War, Men

  Herman Melville (1850). “White-jacket; Or, The World in the Man-of-war”, p.378

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• The so-called Transcendentalists are not the only people who deal in Transcendentals. On the contrary, we seem to see that the Utilitarians,--the every-day world's people themselves, far transcend those inferior Transcendentalists by their own incomprehensible worldly maxims.

  Herman Melville

  People, World, Transcendentalism

  Herman Melville (2017). “Pierre: Or, the Ambiguities”, p.182, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Act so that the maxim of your act could be made the principle of a universal law.

  Immanuel Kant

  Law, Principles, Action

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• Must I remind you that a chain is no stronger than its weakest link?

  Jerome Cady

  Strength, Stronger, Links

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• [H]ow do I pity those who (assuming the name of friends) surround themselves with maxims importing the wisdom of doubt and suspicion, 'til they impose on themselves that very hard task of laboring through life without ever knowing a human creature to whom they can make the proper use of language and freely speak the dictates of their hearts!

  Sarah Fielding

  Friendship, Heart, Names

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• I am so far from thinking the maxims of Confucius and Jesus Christ to differ, that I think the plain and simple maxims of the former, will help to illustrate the more obscure ones of the latter, accommodated to the then way of speaking.

  Matthew Tindal

  Jesus, Simple, Thinking

  Matthew Tindal (1730). “Christianity as Old as the Creation: Or, The Gospel, a Republication of the Religion of Nature. |. ...”, p.342

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• Active, successful natures act, not according to the maxim, "know thyself," but as if prompted by the commandment: will a self, and so become a self.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Successful, Self, Active

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• The saying, "The Magyar is much too lazy to be bored," is worth thinking about. Only the most subtle and active animals are capable of boredom.--A theme for a great poet would be God's boredom on the seventh day of creation.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Animal, Thinking, Boredom

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• In the unbending of the arm to do the deed there is experience worth all the maxims in the world.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Experience, World, Deeds

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.234, Simon and Schuster

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• The counting-room maxims liberally expounded are laws of the Universe. The merchant's economy is a coarse symbol of the soul's economy. It is, to spend for power, and not for pleasure.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Money, Law, Soul

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.381

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• There are cases where examinations are admitted, namely, before the coroner, and before magistrates in cases of felony. That appears to me to go rather in support of the general rule than in destruction of it. Every exception that can be accounted for is so much a confirmation of the rule that it has become a maxim, Exceptio probat regulam.

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Support, Examination, Confirmation

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• It is a maxim in our law that a plaintiff must shew that he stands on a fair ground when he calls on a Court of justice to administer relief to him.

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Law, Justice, Relief

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