Multitudes Quotes - Page 19

• We meet With few utterly dull and stupid souls: the sublime and transcendent are still fewer; the generality of mankind stand between these two extremes: the interval is filled with multitudes of ordinary geniuses, but all very useful, and the ornaments and supports of the commonwealth.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Stupid, Two, Support

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• Hark to that shrill, sudden shout,
  The cry of an applauding multitude,
  Swayed by some loud-voiced orator who wields
  The living mass as if he were its soul!

  William C. Bryant

  Soul, Oratory, Cry

  William Cullen Bryant, “The Flood Of Years”

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• For the multitude of worldly friends profiteth not, nor may strong helpers anything avail, nor wise counselors give profitable counsel, nor the cunning of doctors give consolation, nor riches deliver in time of need, nor a secret place to defend, if Thou, Lord, do not assist, help, comfort, counsel, inform, and defend.

  Thomas a Kempis

  God, Wise, Strong

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• A well regulated commerce is not, like law, physic, or divinity, to be overstocked with hands; but, on the contrary, flourishes by multitudes, and gives employment to all its professors.

  Joseph Addison

  Hands, Law, Giving

  Joseph Addison (1856). “The works of ... Joseph Addison, with notes by R. Hurd”, p.274

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• Most of our fellow-subjects are guided either by the prejudice of education or by a deference to the judgment of those who perhaps in their own hearts disapprove the opinions which they industriously spread among the multitude.

  Joseph Addison

  Heart, Prejudice, Opinion

  Joseph Addison (1858). “Works, Including the Whole Contents of Bp. Hurd's Edition: Withletters and Other Pieces Not Found in Any Previous Collection; and Macaulay's Essay on His Life and Works”, p.258

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• A solid and substantial greatness of soul looks down with neglect on the censures and applauses of the multitude.

  Joseph Addison

  Greatness, Soul, Looks

  Joseph Addison (1721). “The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq”, p.256

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• For my own part, I am apt to join in the opinion with those who believe that all the regions of Nature swarm with spirits, and that we have multitudes of spectators on all our actions when we think ourselves most alone.

  Joseph Addison

  Believe, Thinking, Our Actions

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1853). “The Spectator: With a Biographical and Critical Preface, and Explanatory Notes ...”, p.40

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• When I consider the wonderful activity of the mind, so great a memory of what is past, and such a capacity of penetrating into the future: when I behold such a number of arts and sciences, and such a multitude of discoveries hence arising,--I believe and am firmly persuaded that a nature which contains so many things within itself cannot be mortal.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Art, Memories, Believe

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• We two [Deucalion and Pyrrha, after the deluge] form a multitude.
  [Lat., Nos duo turba sumus.]

  Ovid

  Future, Two, Duos

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• All the objects pursued by the multitude not only bring no remedy that tends to preserve our being, but even act as hinderances, causing the death not seldom of those who possess them, and always of those who are possessed by them.

  Baruch Spinoza

  Remedy, Objects, Possessed

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• Patriotism covers a multitude of sins.

  Carolyn Wells

  Patriotism, Sin

  Carolyn Wells (1908). “The Carolyn Wells Year Book of Old Favorites and New Fancies for 1909”

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• Happy those
  Who in the after-days shall live, when Time
  Hath spoken, and the multitude of years
  Taught wisdom to mankind!

  Robert Southey

  Wisdom, Years, Taught

  Robert Southey (1853). “The Poetical Works of Robert Southey: Complete in One Volume”, p.8

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• Friends should be weighed, not told; who boasts to have won a multitude of friends has never had one.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Friends, Should, Boast

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• Quite the ugliest face I ever saw was that of a woman whom the world called beautiful. Through its silver veil the evil and ungentle passions looked out, hideous and hateful. On the other hand, there are faces which the multitude, at first glance, pronounce homely, unattractive and such as "Nature fashions by the gross," which I always recognize with a warm heart-thrill. Not for the world would I have one feature changed; they please me as they are; they are hallowed by kind memories, and are beautiful through their associations.

  John Greenleaf Whittier

  Beautiful, Fashion, Memories

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• Time is hastening on, and we
  What our fathers are shall be,--
  Shadow-shapes of memory!
  Joined to that vast multitude
  Where the great are but the good.

  John Greenleaf Whittier

  Time, Memories, Father

  John Greenleaf Whittier (1873). “The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier”, p.174

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• Demean thyself more warily in thy study than in the street. If thy public actions have a hundred witnesses, thy private have a thousand. The multitude looks but upon thy actions; thy conscience looks into them: the multitude may chance to excuse thee, if not acquit thee; thy conscience will accuse thee, if not condemn thee.

  Francis Quarles

  Retirement, Looks, May

  Francis Quarles (1844). “Enchiridion Institutions, Essays and Maxims, political, moral & divine. Divided into four centuries. By Francis Quarles”, p.79

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• There is no process of amalgamation by which opinions, wrong individually, can become right merely by their multitude.

  John Ruskin

  Opinion, Process, Amalgamation

  John Ruskin (1873). “Pt. 1-2. of general principles and of truth”, p.2

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• The mischief springs from the power which the monied interest derives from a paper currency which they are able to control, from the multitude of corporations with exclusive privileges which they have succeeded in obtaining, and unless you become more watchful in your states and check this spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges you will in the end find that the most important powers of government have been given or bartered away.

  Andrew Jackson

  Spring, Government, Important

  John Stilwell Jenkins, Andrew Jackson (2011). “Life and Public Services of Gen. Andrew Jackson, Seventh President of the United States: Including the Most Important of His State Papers”, p.366, New Leaf Publishing Group

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• Those voices you hear are like the voice of a multitude, which lifts its sound on high; for jubilant praises, offered in simple harmony and charity, lead the faithful to that consonance in which is no discord, and make those who still live on earth sign with heart and voice for the heavenly reward.

  Hildegard of Bingen

  Heart, Simple, Voice

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• The few took advantage of the ignorant many. They pretended to have received messages from the Unknown. They stood between the helpless multitude and the gods. They were the carriers of flags of truce. At the court of heaven they presented the cause of man, and upon the labor of the deceived they lived.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Men, Heaven, Ignorant

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.4144, Library of Alexandria

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• It must be assumed and established as a principle, that the right of private property must be regarded as sacred. Wherefore, the law ought to favor this right and, so far as it can, see that the largest possible number among the masses of the population prefer to own property.... But if the productive activity of the multitude can be stimulated by the hope of acquiring some property... , it will gradually come to pass that, with the difference between extreme wealth and extreme penury removed, one class will become the neighbor to the other.

  Pope Leo XIII

  Wisdom, Law, Class

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• The goodness of God to mankind is no less evinced in the chastisement with which He corrects His children than in the smiles of His providence; for the Lord will not cast off forever, but though He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies.

  Hosea Ballou

  Children, Grief, Compassion

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• Multitudes of words are neither an argument of clear ideas in the writer, nor a proper means of conveying clear notions to the reader.

  Adam Clarke

  Mean, Ideas, Argument

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• I cannot see the war as historians see it. Those clever fellows study all the facts and they see the war as a large thing, one of the biggest events in the legend of the man, something general, involving multitudes.

  William Saroyan

  Clever, War, Men

  William Saroyan (1936). “Inhale & exhale”, Books for Libraries

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• The rice bowl is to me the most valid reason in the world for doing anything. A piece of one's soul to the multitudes in return for rice and wine does not seem to me a sacrilege.

  Han Suyin

  Wine, Soul, Doe

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