A Quote by Henry David Thoreau

For the most part we stupidly confound one man with another. The dull distinguish only races or nations, or at most classes, but the wise man, individuals.

Henry David Thoreau

Quote Topics

Another Classes Confound Distinguish Dull Individuals Man Most Nations One Man Only Part Races Wise Wise Man

Quote Author

Henry David Thoreau
American - Author
July 12, 1817 - May 6, 1862

The only real difference between a wise man and a fool, Moore knew, was that the wise man tended to make more serious mistakes—and only because no one trusted a fool with really crucial decisions; only the wise had the opportunity to lose battles, or nations.

Tom Clancy

The gods confound the man who first found out How to distinguish hours! Confound him, too, Who in this place set up a sun-dial, To cut and hack my days so wretchedly Into small portions.

Plautus

It is, however, a most astonishing but incontestable fact, that the history of the evolution of man as yet constitutes no part of general education. Indeed, our so-called "educated classes" are to this day in total ignorance of the most important circumstances and the most remarkable phenomena which Anthropogeny has brought to light.

Ernst Haeckel

The most important in the history of nations and individuals was once the most trivial, and vice versa. The plebeian, who is called today the 'man in the street,' can never see and understand the significance of the hidden seed of things, which in time must develop or die.

Ameen Rihani

The most popular man under a democracy is not the most democratic man, but the most despotic man. The common folk delight in the exactions of such a man. They like him to boss them. Their natural gait is the goose step.

H. L. Mencken

It depends on how you define the word "racialist." If you mean being conscious of the differences between men and nations, and from that, races, then we are all racialists. However, if you mean a man who despises a human being because he belongs to another race, or a man who believes that one race is inherently superior to another, then the answer is emphatically "No."

Enoch Powell

Man can learn self-discipline without becoming ascetic; he can be wise without waiting to be old; he can be influential without waiting for status. Man can sharpen his ability to distinguish between matters of principle and matters of preference, but only if we have a wise interplay between time and truth, between minutes and morality.

Neal A. Maxwell

Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.

Ernest Hemingway

Nothing can confound a wise man more than laughter from a dunce.

Lord Byron

The wise men of old have sent most of their morality down the stream of time in the light skiff of apothegm or epigram; and the proverbs of nations, which embody the commonsense of nations, have the brisk concussion of the most sparkling wit.

Edwin Percy Whipple

Out of all those centuries the Greeks can count seven sages at the most, and if anyone looks at them more closely I swear he'll not find so much as a half-wise man or even a third of a wise man among them.

Desiderius Erasmus

To speak the truth is the most difficult of all arts, for in its "pure" form, not connected with the interests of individuals, groups, classes, or nations, truth is almost completely unsuitable for use by the Philistine and is unacceptable to him.

Maxim Gorky

The most beautiful as well as the most ugly inclinations of man are not part of a fixed biologically given human nature, but result from the social process which creates man.

Erich Fromm

A man goes to the village to visit the wise man and he says to the wise man, “I feel like there are two dogs inside me. One dog is this positive, loving, kind, and gentle dog and then I have this angry, mean-spirited, and negative dog and they fight all the time. I don't know which is going to win.” The wise man thinks for a moment and he says, “I know which is going to win. The one you feed the most, so feed the positive dog.

Jon Gordon

How nations and races of men are to be so governed as may be most conducive to the improvement and happiness of all is one of the most interesting questions that can be offered to our consideration.