A Quote by Oliver Goldsmith

When we take a slight survey of the surface of our globe a thousand objects offer themselves which, though long known, yet still demand our curiosity. — © Oliver Goldsmith
When we take a slight survey of the surface of our globe a thousand objects offer themselves which, though long known, yet still demand our curiosity.
Suppose we wonder whether we should trust the deliverances of our basic epistemic competences. If those are indeed our basic competences, then in order properly to satisfy our curiosity we will inevitably rely on one or more of them. So, either we squelch our curiosity or we will have to fall into the circularity or regress to which the skeptic objects.
The world is not as it was when it came from its Maker's hands. It has been modified by many great revolutions, brought about by an inner mechanism of which we very imperfectly comprehend the movements; but of which we gain a glimpse by studying their effects: and their many causes still acting on the surface of our globe with undiminished power, which are changing, and will continue to change it, as long as it shall last.
Our country asserts for itself the glory of being the freest upon the surface of the globe... but one dark spot still dimmed its lustre. Domestic slavery existed among a people who had themselves disdained to submit to a master.
Our globe is under new dramatic environmental pressure: our globe is warming, our ice caps melting, our glaciers receding, our coral is dying, our soils are eroding, our water tables falling, our fisheries are being depleted, our remaining rainforests shrinking. Something is very, very wrong with our eco-system.
I think that popular culture takes a long time to catch up to what's actually happening in the world. Women have had to take care of themselves for quite a while. Actually, not had to take of themselves, but have wanted to take care of themselves, so I think it's a big transition that our country and our society has been going through a long time.
Things which we see are not by themselves what we see ... It remains completely unknown to us what the objects may be by themselves and apart from the receptivity of our senses. We know nothing but our manner of perceiving them.
To receive applause for works which do not demand all our powers hinders our advance towards a perfecting of our spirit. It usually means that thereafter we stand still.
By the help of God and with His precious assistance, I say that Algebra is a scientific art. The objects with which it deals are absolute numbers and measurable quantities which, though themselves unknown, are related to "things" which are known, whereby the determination of the unknown quantities is possible.
Among the innumerable mortifications which waylay human arrogance on every side may well be reckoned our ignorance of the most common objects and effects, a defect of which we become more sensible by every attempt to supply it. Vulgar and inactive minds confound familiarity with knowledge and conceive themselves informed of the whole nature of things when they are shown their form or told their use; but the speculatist, who is not content with superficial views, harasses himself with fruitless curiosity, and still, as he inquires more, perceives only that he knows less.
When great nations fear to expand, shrink from expansion, it is because their greatness is coming to an end. Are we, still in the prime of our lusty youth, still at the beginning of our glorious manhood, to sit down among the outworn people, to take our place with the weak and the craven? A thousand times no!
We must, like a painter, take time to stand back from our work, to be still, and thus see what's what. . . True repose is standing back to survey the activities that fill our days.
Some paradox of our natures leads us, when once we have made our fellow men the objects of our enlightened interest, to go on to make them the objects of our pity , then of our wisdom , ultimately of our coercion.
The first step in wisdom is to know the things themselves; this notion consists in having a true idea of the objects; objects are distinguished and known by classifying them methodically and giving them appropriate names. Therefore, classification and name-giving will be the foundation of our science.
The life of the ancient Greeks and Romans has profoundly influenced our own, and yet the ways in which they affect us do not present themselves on the surface of our ordinary experiences.
Irresolution on the schemes of life which offer themselves to our choice, and inconstancy in pursuing them, are the greatest causes of all our unhappiness.
There is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market, and from its fertility it will ere long yield more than half of our whole produce and contain more than half our inhabitants.
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