A Quote by Vittorio Alfieri

If ardent passions push not men on to lofty enterprise, calm wisdom never will accomplish it.

Vittorio Alfieri

Quote Topics

Accomplish Ardent Calm Enterprise Lofty Men Never Passions Push Will Wisdom

Quote Author

Vittorio Alfieri
Italian - Dramatist
January 16, 1749 - October 8, 1803

As countless as grains of sand by the sea are human passions, and they all differ; all of them, vile or lofty, begin by being under a man's control and then become his terrible masters. Blessed is he who has chosen the most lofty of passions: his immeasurable bliss grows and multiplies tenfold with every hour and minute, and he penetrates deeper and deeper into the infinite paradise of his soul.

Nikolai Gogol

Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work least, for their minds are occupied with their ideas and the perfection of their conceptions, to which they afterwards give form.

Leonardo da Vinci

When passions and appetites are stronger than the intellect, men are savages; when the intellect governs the passions, when the passions are servants, men are civilized. The people need education - facts - philosophy.

Robert Green Ingersoll

Of course I believe in free enterprise but in my system of free enterprise, the democratic principle is that there never was, never has been, never will be, room for the ruthless exploitation of the many for the benefit of the few.

Harry S. Truman

Standing armies can never consist of resolute robust men; they may be well-disciplined machines, but they will seldom contain men under the influence of strong passions, or with very vigorous faculties.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

When you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests and their selfish views.

Benjamin Franklin

Recall that whatever lofty things you might accomplish today, you will do them only because you first ate something that grew out of the dirt.

Barbara Kingsolver

I have often felt as though I had inherited all the defiance and all the passions with which our ancestors defended their Temple and could gladly sacrifice my life for one great moment in history. And at the same time I always felt so helpless and incapable of expressing these ardent passions even by a word or a poem.

Sigmund Freud

But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.

Robert A. Heinlein

Focus on what it is that you want, set a realistic goal. Start setting goals that you feel you can accomplish. Don't try to go right to the top in one leap. Every time you accomplish a goal you develop the strength and wisdom to accomplish the next one.

Chuck Norris

I'm not an ardent feminist - well, maybe I am an ardent feminist. I just roll my eyes at the way women are constantly used and how sensitive men are about photographs of themselves.

Sally Mann

A nation orients itself by its own geniuses, and derives from them its ideas of its own ideals, but the guiding star serves also as a light to other nations. As speech has been created by a few great men, the most extraordinary wisdom lies concealed in it, a wisdom which reveals itself to a few ardent explorers but which is usually overlooked by the stupid professional philologists.

Otto Weininger

To all who want to accomplish something I say, Go into the silence regularly for power and wisdom to accomplish.

Elizabeth Towne

When you turn the discussion onto talk of religion, you will soon start to reveal a whole range of views ranging from the ardent supporter to the ardent atheist.

Arthur Hertzberg

What we want is not mainly to colonize Nebraska with free men, but to colonize Massachusetts with free men-to be free ourselves. As the enterprise of a few individuals, that is brave and practical; but as the enterprise of the State, it is cowardice and imbecility. What odds where we squat, or bow much ground we cover? It is not the soil that we would make free, but men.