Tolerable Quotes - Page 5

• A cultivated mind is one to which the fountains of knowledge have been opened, and which has been taught, in any tolerable degree, to exercise its faculties.

  John Stuart Mill

  Exercise, Mind, Taught

  John Stuart Mill (1870). “Utilitarianism”, p.20

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Imprecision is tolerable and verisimilar in literature, because we always tend towards it in life.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Life, Literature

  "Discussion". Book by Jorge Luis Borges, 1932.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is only Christianity, the great bond of love and duty to God, that makes any existence valuable or even tolerable.

  Horace Bushnell

  Love, Excellence, Religion

  5 Copy quote

• Good manners can render even virtue tolerable.

  Mason Cooley

  Good Man, Virtue, Manners

  4 Copy quote

• Each such answer to the great question, invariably asserted by the followers of its propounder, if not by himself, to be complete and final, remains in high authority and esteem, it may be for one century, or it may be for twenty: but, as invariably, Time proves each reply to have been a mere approximation to the truth tolerable chiefly on account of the ignorance of those by whom it was accepted, and wholly intolerable when tested by the larger knowledge of their successors.

  Thomas Huxley

  Ignorance, Twenties, Finals

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.66, University of Georgia Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We may have an excellent ear for music, without being able to perform in any kind; we may judge well of poetry, without being poets, or possessing the least of a poetic vein; but we can have no tolerable notion of goodness without being tolerably good.

  Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury

  Judging, Veins, Ears

  6 Copy quote

• With just a little effort, life can be more or less exceptionally tolerable.

  Gene Simmons

  Effort, Littles

  4 Copy quote

• We must learn the difficult lesson that the future of Mankind will only be tolerable when our course, in world affairs as in others, is based upon justice and law rather than the threat of naked power.

  Albert Einstein

  Law, Justice, Naked

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.301, Princeton University Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The optimum portfolio depends on the various expectations of choices available and the degree of variance in performance which is tolerable. The greater the number of selections, the less will be the average year-to-year variation in actual versus expected results. Also, the lower will be the expected results, assuming different choices have different expectations of performance.

  Warren Buffett

  Average, Years, Numbers

  7 Copy quote

• Once I stopped drinking and I'd be going out on dates, or hanging out with guys, I'd realize, "Oh, maybe I don't like them that much!" I think the drinking was to make these guys more tolerable.

  Alison Rosen

  Drinking, Thinking, Guy

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a quiet repose and steadiness about the happiness of age, if the life has been well spent. Its feebleness is not painful. The nervous system has lost its acuteness. But, in mature years we feel that a burn, a scald, a cut, is more tolerable than it was in the sensitive period of youth.

  William Hazlitt

  Cutting, Years, Age

  7 Copy quote

• If you look at US internal documents, they explain very clearly what the threat of Cuba was. So, back in the early 1960s the State Department described the threat of Cuba as Castro's successful defiance of US policy, going back to the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine established the US claim to dominate the Western hemisphere and Castro was successfully defying that. That's not tolerable. It is like somebody saying "let's have democracy in Greece," and we just can't tolerate that so we have to destroy the threat at its roots.

  Noam Chomsky

  Successful, Roots, Democracy

  Source: pennpoliticalreview.org

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Though the Negroes are fed, clothed, and housed, and though the Irish peasant is starved, naked, and roofless, the bare name of freemen-the lordship over his own person, the power to choose and will-are blessings beyond food, raiment, or shelter; possessing which, the want of every comfort of life is yet more tolerable than their fullest enjoyment without them.

  Fanny Kemble

  Blessing, Names, Comfort

  Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation, ch. 1, 1863.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'd rather believe in reincarnation than hell. The idea of an afterlife is much so more tolerable when returning is an option.

  Deborah Feldman

  Believe, Ideas, Afterlife

  Deborah Feldman (2012). “Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots”, p.105, Simon and Schuster

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• You may have an overall target to achieve with each prospect, but if you are going to have an ideal outcome for each call, should you not also have a tolerable outcome to fall back on? Something you are willing to put up with if things don't go completely to plan, but something that still moves things forward ever so slightly?

  Chris Murray

  Moving, Fall, Target

  4 Copy quote

• It is often hard to secure unanimity about the borders of legislative power, but that is much easier than to decide how far a particular adjustment diverges from what the judges deem tolerable. On such issues experience has over and over again shown the difficulty of securing unanimity. This is disastrous because disunity cancels the impact of monolithic solidarity on which the authority of a bench of judges so largely depends.

  Learned Hand

  Issues, Impact, Judging

  "The Bill Of Rights". Book by Learned Hand, p. 72, 1958.

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• Making change tolerable is one of the duties of Government.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Government, Making Changes, Duty

  4 Copy quote

• Let us have no ranting tragedies. Too many charactersNot a tolerable woman's part in the play.

  Jane Austen

  Play, Tragedy

  1814 Mansfield Park, ch.14.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• An injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice.

  John Rawls

  Religion, Morality, Injustice

  John Rawls (2009). “A Theory of Justice”, p.4, Harvard University Press

  84 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is only one revolution tolerable to all men, all societies, all political systems: Revolution by design and invention.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Wisdom, Men, Design

  19 Copy quote

• Nature has left every man a capacity of being agreeable, though not of shining in company; and there are a hundred men sufficiently qualified for both who, by a very few faults, that they might correct in half an hour, are not so much as tolerable.

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Shining, Might

  Jonathan Swift (1841). “The Works. Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers, Not Hitherto Published. With Memoir of the Author, by Thomas Roscoe”, p.293

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• How far does one combine resistance to over-control with social justice, i.e. tolerable living for people in general? We are too selfish to be trusted, if left free, to give away enough to make people comfortable enough to give them a chance. Yet if all this is ordered for us, as to some extent it has to be, it so soon leads to tyranny. It is a very difficult problem. If only human beings had more pity, unselfishness, and justice and didn't need coercion to treat each other decently.

  Rose Macaulay

  Selfish, Compassion, Giving

  8 Copy quote

• The lives of great men cannot be writ with any tolerable degree of elegance or exactness within a short time after their decease.

  Joseph Addison

  Men, Degrees, Elegance

  5 Copy quote

• There is no learned man but will confess be hath much profited by reading controversies,--his senses awakened, his judgment sharpened, and the truth which he holds firmly established. If then it be profitable for him to read, why should it not at least be tolerable and free for his adversary to write? In logic they teach that contraries laid together, more evidently appear; it follows then, that all controversy being permitted, falsehood will appear more false, and truth the more true; which must needs conduce much to the general confirmation of an implicit truth.

  John Milton

  Reading, Writing, Men

  32 Copy quote