Famous quotes containing the words american, calvinist and/or philosopher:
“It is useless to check the vain dunce who has caught the mania of scribbling, whether prose or poetry, canzonets or criticisms,—let such a one go on till the disease exhausts itself. Opposition like water, thrown on burning oil, but increases the evil, because a person of weak judgment will seldom listen to reason, but become obstinate under reproof.”
—Sarah Josepha Buell Hale 1788–1879, U.S. novelist, poet and women’s magazine editor. American Ladies Magazine, pp. 36-40 (December 1828)
“Mr. Treat is described as a Calvinist of the strictest kind, not one of those who, by giving up or explaining away, become like a porcupine disarmed of its quills, but a consistent Calvinist, who can dart his quills at a distance and courageously defend himself.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Sir, that all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)