Mistaken Quotes - Page 14

• Some drill and bore
  The solid earth, and from the strata there
  Extract a register, by which we learn,
  That he who made it, and reveal'd its date
  To Moses, was mistaken in its age.

  William Cowper

  Science, Age, Earth

  William Cowper (1855). “The Complete Poetical Works of William Cowper: With Life, and Critical Notice of His Writings. Eight Engravings on Steel”, p.151

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• Nothing is so much coveted by a young man as the reputation of being a genius; and many seem to feel that the want of patience for laborious application and deep research is such a mark of genius as cannot be mistaken: while a real genius, like Sir Isaac Newton, with great modesty says, that the great and only difference between his mind and the minds of others consisted solely in his having more patience.

  John Todd

  Real, Men, Differences

  John Todd (1856). “The student's manual: designed”, p.23

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• Mistaken
  regard for what are believed to be divine laws and a sentimental belief in the sanctity of human
  life tend to prevent both the elimination of defective infants and the sterilization of such adults as
  are themselves of no value to the community. The laws of nature require the obliteration of the
  unfit and human life is valuable only when it is of use to the community or race.

  Madison Grant

  Law, Race, Community

  Madison Grant (1922). “The Passing of the Great Race: Or, The Racial Basis of European History”

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• You obviously don't know what an Old Man of the Sea great wealth is. It is not a fat purse and time to spend it. Its owner finds himself beset on every side, at every hour, wherever he goes, by persistent pleaders, like beggars in Bombay, each demanding that he invest or give away part of his wealth. He becomes suspicious of honest friendship--indeed honest friendship is rarely offered him; those who could have been his friends are too fastidious to be jostled by beggars, too proud to risk being mistaken for one.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Men, Sea, Giving

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• Each generation thinks it invented sex; each generation is totally mistaken. Anything along that line today was commonplace both in Pompeii and in Victorian England; the differences lie only in the degree of coverup - if any.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Sex, Lying, Thinking

  Introduction to "Cliff and the Calories" in "Expanded Universe" by Robert A. Heinlein, (p. 355), 1980.

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• The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order, and in the assertion that, without authority, there could not be worse violence than that of authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution. "To establish Anarchy." "Anarchy will be instituted." But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require protection from governmental power, and by there being more and more people who will be ashamed of applying this power.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Thinking, Order, People

  graf Leo Tolstoy (1915). “Social Evils and Their Remedy”

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• [T]here seems to have been an actual decline in rational thinking. The United States had become a place where entertainers and professional athletes were mistaken for people of importance. They were idolized and treated as leaders; their opinions were sought on everything and they took themselves just as seriously-after all, if an athlete is paid a million or more a year, he knows he is important ... so his opinions of foreign affairs and domestic policies must be important, too, even though he proves himself to be ignorant and subliterate every time he opens his mouth.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Athlete, Thinking, Media

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• Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness, but I don't argue with it - especially as I am rarely in a position to prove that it is mistaken. Negative proof is usually impossible.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Faith, Intellectual, Negative

  "Stranger in a Strange Land " by Robert A. Heinlein, (p. 233), 1991.

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• I am willing to believe that my unobtainable sixty seconds within a sponge or a flatworm might not reveal any mental acuity that I would care to call consciousness. But I am also confident [...] that vultures and sloths, as close evolutionary relatives with the same basic set of organs, lie on our side of any meaningful (and necessarily fuzzy) border and that we are therefore not mistaken when we look them in the eye and see a glimmer of emotional and conceptual affinity.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Meaningful, Lying, Believe

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• Idleness, ennui, noise, mischief, riot, and a nameless train of mistaken notions of pleasure, are often classed, in a young man's mind, under the general head of liberty.

  Maria Edgeworth

  Men, Mind, Liberty

  Maria Edgeworth, Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1825). “Works”, p.198

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• Inquire often, but judge rarely, and thou wilt not often be mistaken.

  William Penn

  Often Is, Judging

  1693 Some Fruits of Solitude.

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• In living literature no person is a competent judge but of works written in his own language. I have expressed my opinion concerning a number of English writers; it is very possible that I may be mistaken, that my admiration and my censure may be equally misplaced, and that my conclusions may appear impertinent and ridiculous on the other side of the Channel.

  François-René de Chateaubriand

  Numbers, Judging, May

  "Sketches of English Literature: With Considerations on the Spirit of the Times, Men, and Revolutions". Book by François-René de Chateaubriand, translated by Henry Colburn, Volume II, p.36, 1836.

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• The novel remains for me one of the few forms where we can record man's complexity and the strength and decency of his longings. Where we can describe, step by step, minute by minute, our not altogether unpleasant struggle to put ourselves into a viable and devout relationship to our beloved and mistaken world.

  John Cheever

  Struggle, Men, Records

  National Book Award, September 1958.

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• What Sri Krishna is saying, is that it's a terrible mistake to believe that this life we lead is real. Obviously it's real, but it doesn't last very long in its realness. It's very ephemeral and to mistaken the forms of life, the shapes that life takes, for reality, is not wise.

  Frederick Lenz

  Wise, Real, Mistake

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• Easily mistaken, it is not about a love for adversity, it is about knowing a strength and a faith so great that adversity, in all its adverse manifestations, hardly even exists.

  Criss Jami

  Adversity, Knowing, Manifestation

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.112, Criss Jami

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• Autumn has come to northeast Montana. The vapor of one’s breath, the clarity of the stars, the smell of wood smoke, the stones underfoot that even a full day of sunlight won’t warm- these all say there will be no more days that can be mistaken for summer.

  Larry Watson

  Summer, Stars, Autumn

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• On the whole, I think you should write biographies of those you admire and respect, and novels about human beings who you think are sadly mistaken.

  Penelope Fitzgerald

  Writing, Thinking, Biographies

  Penelope Fitzgerald (2008). “So I have thought of you: the letters of Penelope Fitzgerald”, Fourth Estate (GB)

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• Be eager to lend a patient ear to the opinions of others and think long and hard whether whoever finds fault has reason or not to censure you. And if the answer is yes, correct the fault. If no, give the impression that you have not heard him, or if he is a man whom you respect, explain to him why he is mistaken.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Men, Thinking, Giving

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• When great assurance accompanies a bad undertaking, such is often mistaken for confiding sincerity by the world at large.

  Juvenal

  World, Sincerity, Assurance

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• Why should I expect to be exempt from censure; the unfailing lot of an elevated station? My Heart tells me it has been my unremitted aim to do the best circumstances would permit; yet, I may have been very often mistaken in my judgment of the means.

  George Washington

  Heart, Mean, May

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1834). “The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts”, p.504

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• So modern 'pothecaries, taught the art By doctor's bills to play the doctor's part, Bold in the practice of mistaken rules, Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools.

  Alexander Pope

  Art, Doctors, Practice

  Alexander Pope (2015). “An Essay on Criticism”, p.8, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• I can not be mistaken - what I say and do is historical.I follow my life with the precision and security of a sleep walker

  Adolf Hitler

  Sleep, Historical, Precision

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• Four years ago, the perpetrators believed they would bring America and the rest of the world to chaos, ... But they were mistaken.

  Vladimir Putin

  Years, America, World

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• Some people are mistaken, they think birds need feed to survive, but they don't. The main reason to feed birds is to enjoy them.

  Maggie Elizabeth Jones

  Thinking, People, Bird

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• I am trying to get my paintings a bit lighter in tone, as some of my recent oils have been mistaken for night scenes.

  E. J. Hughes

  Night, Oil, Trying

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