Maxims Quotes - Page 6

• A maxim is a conclusion upon observation of matters of fact, and is merely speculative; a "principle" carries knowledge within itself, and is prospective.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Principles, Matter, Facts

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• Maxims are to the intellect what laws are to actions; they do not enlighten, but they guide and direct, and, although themselves blind, are protective.

  Joseph Joubert

  Law, Action, Enlightening

  Joseph Joubert (1896). “Pensées of Joubert”

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• The highest ideal man can form of his own powers, is that which he is destined to attain. Whatever the soul knows how to seek, it cannot fail to obtain. This is the law and the prophets. Knock and it shall be opened, seek and ye shall find. It is demonstrated; it is a maxim.

  Margaret Fuller

  Men, Law, Effort

  Margaret Fuller, Bell Gale Chevigny (1976). “The Woman and the Myth: Margaret Fuller's Life and Writings”, p.242, UPNE

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• The maxims for success laid out by the powerful are never much good as guides for those who aren't powerful.

  Elizabeth Janeway

  Powerful, Guides, Powerlessness

  Elizabeth Janeway (1981). “Powers of the weak”, William Morrow & Co

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• The true historian, therefore, seeking to compose a true picture of the thing acted, must collect facts and combine facts. Methods will differ, styles will differ. Nobody ever does anything like anybody else; but the end in view is generally the same, and the historian's end is truthful narration. Maxims he will have, if he is wise, never a one; and as for a moral, if he tell his story well, it will need none; if he tell it ill, it will deserve none.

  Augustine Birrell

  Wise, Views, Style

  Augustine Birrell (1923). “The collected essays & addresses of the Rt. Hon. Augustine Birrell, 1880-1920”

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• Whatever is not nailed down is mine." This is the motto of the exploiter. "Whatever can be pried loose is not nailed down." This is the second maxim in a country where people are rich, caring little in their present prosperity what shall become of the future.

  David Starr Jordan

  Country, Caring, People

  David Starr Jordan (1910). “The Call of the Nation: A Plea for Taking Politics Out of Politics”

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• Search out the wisdom of nature, there is depth in all her doings; she seemeth prodigal of power, yet her rules are the maxims of frugality.

  Martin Farquhar Tupper

  Nature, Depth, Frugality

  Martin Farquhar Tupper (1860). “Tupper's Complete Poetical Works: Containing "Proverbial Philosophy," "A Thousand Lines," "Hactenus," "Geraldine," and "Miscellaneous Poems"”, p.18

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• The Grecian’s maxim would indeed be a sweeping clause in Literature; it would reduce many a giant to a pygmy; many a speech to a sentence; and many a folio to a primer.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Giants, Literature, Speech

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.4

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• This is one of the innovator’s dilemmas: Blindly following the maxim that good managers should keep close to their customers can sometimes be a fatal mistake.

  Clayton Christensen

  Mistake, Good Man, Sometimes

  Clayton Christensen (2015). “The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail”, p.4, Harvard Business Review Press

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• Here is one of the best means to acquire humility; fix well in mind this maxim: One is as much as he is in the sight of God, and no more.

  Francis of Assisi

  Mean, Humility, Sight

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• CENTAUR, n. One of a race of persons who lived before the division of labor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation, and who followed the primitive economic maxim, "Every man his own horse."

  Ambrose Bierce

  Life, Horse, Men

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.29, 谷月社

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• ...it is not only the general principles of justice that are infringed, or at least set aside, by the exclusion of women, merely as women, from any share in the representation; that exclusion is also repugnant to the particular principles of the British Constitution. It violates one of the oldest of our constitutional maxims...that taxation and representation should be co-extensive. Do not women pay taxes?

  John Stuart Mill

  Justice, Words Of Wisdom, Principles

  John Stuart Mill (1867). “Speech of John Stuart Mill, M.P., on the Admission of Women to the Electoral Franchise: Spoken in the House of Commons, May 20th, 1867”, p.5

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• 'T is an old maxim in the schools, That flattery 's the food of fools; Yet now and then your men of wit Will condescend to take a bit.

  Jonathan Swift

  School, Men, Cooking

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Sheridan, John Nichols (1801). “The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D., Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin”, p.121

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• Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God.

  Pope Leo XIII

  Powerful, Character, Men

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• Cecil's dispatch of business was extraordinary, his maxim being, "The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once."

  Samuel Smiles

  Business, Way, Extraordinary

  'Self-Help' (1859) ch. 9

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• A physician who treated mental cases says that he based his diagnosis on the way his patients moved: "The body never lies" was his maxim.

  Gerald Jonas

  Dance, Lying, Dancing

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• Another of Cicero's maxims was that if you must do something unpopular, you might as well do it wholeheartedly, for in politics there is no credit to be won by timidity.

  Robert Harris

  Credit, Might, Wells

  Robert Harris (2006). “Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome”, p.47, Simon and Schuster

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• To live with our enemies as if they may some time become our friends, and to live with our friends as if they may some time become our enemies, is not a moral but a political maxim

  Thomas Paine

  Political, Enemy, May

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• We seldom repent of speaking little, very often of speaking too much: a vulgar and trite maxim, which all the world knows and, but which all the world does not practice

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Practice, Doe, World

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• Men are very apt to run into extremes, hatred to England may carry come into an excess of Confidence in France... I am heartily disposed to entertain the most favourable sentiments of our new ally and to cherish them in others to a reasonable degree; but it is a maxim founded on the universal experience of mankind, that no nation is to be trusted farther than it is bound by its interest; and no prudent statesman or politician will venture to depart from it.

  George Washington

  Running, Men, History

  George Washington, David Maydole Matteson (1936). “The Writings of George Washington: From the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799”

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• These are the rules of big business. They have superseded the teachings of our parents and are reducible to a simple maxim: Get a monopoly; let Society work for you; and remember that the best of all business is politics, for a legislative grant, franchise, subsidy or tax exemption is worth more than a Kim-berly or Comstock lode, since it does not require any labor, either mental or physical, for its exploitation.

  Frederic C. Howe

  Teaching, Simple, Parent

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• The simple rely on a bolstering mass of maxim and precept, so do the timid, so do the mentally lazy – and so do all of us, more than we imagine.

  John Wyndham

  Simple, Lazy, Imagine

  John Wyndham (2003). “The Day of the Triffids”

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• The maxim is, that whatever can be affirmed (or denied) of a class, may be affirmed (or denied) of everything included in the class. This axiom, supposed to be the basis of the syllogistic theory, is termed by logicians the dictum de omni et nullo.

  John Stuart Mill

  Science, Class, Nomenclature

  John Stuart Mill (1858). “A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive: Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation”, p.117

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• I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.

  George Washington

  Honesty, Constitution, Affair

  George Washington (1810). “Washington's Farewell Address to the People of the United States”, p.16

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• I do not approve the maxim which desires a man to know a little of everything. Superficial knowledge, knowledge without principles, is almost always useless and sometimes harmful knowledge.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Knowledge, Men, Desire

  Jean de La Bruyère, Luc de Clapiers marquis de Vauvenargues (1903). “La Bruyère and Vauvenargues: Selections from the Characters, Reflexions and Maxims”

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