A Quote by George Henry Lewes

Most expositions of Aristotle's doctrines, when they have not been dictated by a spirit of virulent detraction, or unsympathetic indifference, have carefully suppressed all, or nearly all, the absurdities, and only retained what seemed plausible and consistent. But in this procedure their historical significance disappears.

George Henry Lewes

Quote Topics

Been Carefully Consistent Dictated Disappears Historical Historical Significance Indifference Most Nearly Only Plausible Procedure Seemed Significance Spirit Suppressed Unsympathetic

Quote Author

George Henry Lewes
English - Philosopher
April 18, 1817 - November 30, 1878

Starting reforms in the Soviet Union was only possible from above, only from above. Any attempt to go from below was suppressed, suppressed in a most resolute way.

Mikhail Gorbachev

Every Jewish holiday has a religious significance, a historical significance, and a relevance to the time of year in the natural calendar of the seasons and trees and growing things, as well as a personal significance. So you are always looking backward, outward, inward and forward.

Marge Piercy

All the important human advances that we know of since historical times began have been due to individuals of whom the majority faced virulent public opposition.

Bertrand Russell

The philosophy of protectionism is a philosophy of war. The wars of our age are not at variance with popular economic doctrines; they are, on the contrary, the inescapable result of a consistent application of these doctrines.

Ludwig von Mises

The spirit of the world encloses four kinds of spirits, diametrically opposed to charity--the spirit of resentment, spirit of aversion, spirit of jealousy and the spirit of indifference.

Jacques-Benigne Bossuet

Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

A story so cherished it has to be dressed in casualness to disguise its significance in case the listener turned out to be unsympathetic.

Diane Setterfield

The bourgeois thinkers of the eighteenth century thus turned Aristotle's formula on its head: satisfactions which the Greek philosopher had identified with leisure were now transposed to the sphere of work, while tasks lacking in any financial reward were drained of all significance and left to the haphazard attentions of decadent dilettantes. It now seemed as impossible that one could be happy and unproductive as it had once seemed unlikely that one could work and be human.

Alain de Botton

Life is full of strange absurdities, which, strangely enough, do not even need to appear plausible, since they are true.

Luigi Pirandello

[Aristotle] was the most eminent of all the pupils of Plato.... He seceded from Plato while he was still alive; so that they tell a story that [Plato] said, " Aristotle has kicked us off, just as chickens do their mother after they have been hatched.

Plato

Sensible Catholics have for generations been ignoring the views on contraception held by reactionary old men in the Vatican, but alas, since it is the business of all religious doctrines to keep their votaries in a state of intellectual infancy (how else do they keep absurdities seeming credible?), insufficient numbers of Catholics have been able to be sensible.

A.C. Grayling

It is not a matter of indifference whether we like oysters or clams, snails or shrimp, if only we know how to unravel the existential significance of these foods.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Nobody's really unsympathetic, I think. People do good and bad things. If a character's totally unsympathetic, they're not real and I'm not interested.

Matthew Macfadyen

I've been typed as historical fiction, historical women's fiction, historical mystery, historical chick lit, historical romance - all for the same book.

Lauren Willig

The jealous man lives in hell. Drop comparing and jealousy disappears, meanness disappears, phoniness disappears. But you can drop it only if you start growing your inner treasures; there is no other way.