A Quote by John Hall Gladstone

To comprehend a man's life, it is necessary to know not merely what he does but also what he purposely leaves undone.

John Hall Gladstone

Quote Topics

Also Comprehend Does Know Leaves Life Man Merely Necessary Undone

Quote Author

John Hall Gladstone
British - Chemist
March 7, 1827 - October 6, 1902

To comprehend a man's life, it is necessary to know not merely what he does but also what he purposely leaves undone. There is a limit to the work that can be got out of a human body or a human brain, and he is a wise man who wastes no energy on pursuits for which he is not fitted; and he is till wiser who, from among the things that he can do well, chooses and resolutely follows the best.

John Hall Gladstone

Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth. This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. One thing we know: our god is also your god. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.

Chief Seattle

The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

Chief Seattle

Business or toil is merely utilitarian. It is necessary but does not enrich or ennoble a human life.

Aristotle

The Kingdom must be advanced not merely extensively, but also intensively. The Church must seek to conquer not merely every man for Christ, but also the whole of man

Greg L. Bahnsen

The fool is not the man who merely does foolish things. The fool is the man who does not know enough to cash in on his foolishness.

Elbert Hubbard

Further, there are things of which the mind understands one part, but remains ignorant of the other; and when man is able to comprehend certain things, it does not follow that he must be able to comprehend everything.

Maimonides

Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

Chief Seattle

A man does not attain the status of Galileo merely because he is persecuted; he must also be right.

Stephen Jay Gould

Bring me a worm that can comprehend a man, and then I will show you a man that can comprehend the Triune God.

John Wesley

Pain does two things: It teaches you, tells you that you're alive. Then it passes away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it leaves you stronger. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it in one degree or another.

Jim Butcher

Then let every one of us, being warned by this sentence of the angel, acknowledge that he as yet cleaves to first principles, or, at least, does not comprehend all those things which are necessary to be known; and that therefore progress is to be made to the very end of life: for this is our wisdom, to be learners to the end.

John Calvin

True Grit is making a decision and standing by it, doing what must be done. No moral man can have peace of mind if he leaves undone what he knows he should have done.

John Wayne

I have the most ill-regulated memory. It does those things which it ought not to do and leaves undone the things it ought to have done. But it has not yet gone on strike altogether.

Dorothy L. Sayers

What is the meaning of human life, or, for that matter, of the life of any creature? To know the answer to this question means to be religious. You ask: Does it make any sense, then, to pose this question? I answer: The man who regards his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life.