Attribute

Famous quotes containing the word attribute:

    In truth, knowledge is a great and very useful quality; those who despise it give evidence enough of their stupidity. Yet I do not set its value at that extreme measure that some attribute to it.
    Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)

    Much attribute he hath, and much the reason
    Why we ascribe it to him; yet all his virtues,
    Not virtuously of his own part beheld,
    Do in our eyes begin to lose their gloss,
    Yea, like fair fruit in an unwholesome dish,
    Are like to rot untasted.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    Long before Einstein told us that matter is energy, Machiavelli and Hobbes and other modern political philosophers defined man as a lump of matter whose most politically relevant attribute is a form of energy called “self-interestedness.” This was not a portrait of man “warts and all.” It was all wart.
    George F. Will (b. 1941)