"Every fiction since Homer has taught friendship, patriotism, generosity, contempt of death. These are the highest virtues; and the fictions which taught them were therefore of the highest, though not of unmixed, utility."

--

Source : Sir James Mackintosh (1835). “Memoirs of the life of the Right Honorable Sir James Mackintosh”, p.42

James Mackintosh

#Generosity Quotes #Fiction Quotes #Taught Quotes

“If you play an audiotape of a yawn to blind people, they'll yawn too.”
“One cannot too soon forget his errors and misdemeanors. To dwell long upon them is to add to the offense.”
“Big Walter used to say, he'd get right wet in the eyes sometimes, lean his head back with the water standing in his eyes and say, 'Seem like God didn't see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams - but He did give us children to make them dreams seem worth while.'”
“Men have had the vanity to pretend that the whole creation was made for them, while in reality the whole creation does not suspect their existence.”

Source : Camille Flammarion (1871). “The Wonders of the Heavens”, p.195
“Data, data everywhere, but not a thought to think.”

Source : John Allen Paulos (2007). “A Mathematician Plays The Stock Market”, p.72, Basic Books
“I find that in letters you can make things whatever you wish them to be.”
“Like most men, Jimmy Jim was neither all good nor all bad. It is just that when he was bad, gentler people saw in him a disturbing fury. People, a lot them, don't understand fury. They understand anger and even hatred, but fury is one of those old words that have gone out of style. Jimmy Jim Bundrum understood it. It rode his shoulder like a parrot.”

Source : Rick Bragg (2010). “Ava's Man”, p.35, Vintage
“Children are best corrected to the point of their understanding, not to the extent of a parent's frustration.”

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