Let us carefully observe those good qualities wherein our enemies excel us; and endeavor to excel them, by avoiding what is faulty, and imitating what is excellent in them.
Sometimes attributed to Plato.
To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.
When the candles are out, all women are fair.
The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.
Alt trans. (larger context): "The correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting — no more — and then it motivates one towards originality and instills the desire for truth. Suppose someone were to go and ask his neighbors for fire and find a substantial blaze there, and just stay there continually warming himself: that is no different from someone who goes to someone else to get to some of his rationality, and fails to realize that he ought to ignite his own flame, his own intellect, but is happy to sit entranced by the lecture, and the words trigger only associative thinking and bring, as it were, only a flush to his cheeks and a glow to his limbs; but he has not dispelled or dispersed, in the warm light of philosophy, the internal dank gloom of his mind."
He who cheats with an oath acknowledges that he is afraid of his enemy, but that he also thinks little of God.
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
WIST is my collection of quotations I find meaningful, moving, amusing (intended or not), well-phrased, and/or to which I just say I "Wish I'd Said That." But just because I quote it here doesn't mean I actually agree with it. If you have any comments, corrections, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to
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