Famous quotes containing the words average, ground and/or pressure:
“But the whim we have of happiness is somewhat thus. By certain valuations, and averages, of our own striking, we come upon some sort of average terrestrial lot; this we fancy belongs to us by nature, and of indefeasible rights. It is simple payment of our wages, of our deserts; requires neither thanks nor complaint.... Foolish soul! What act of legislature was there that thou shouldst be happy? A little while ago thou hadst no right to be at all.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
“But with some small portion of real genius and a warm imagination, an author surely may be permitted a little to expand his wings and to wander in the aerial fields of fancy, provided ... that he soar not to such dangerous heights, from whence unplumed he may fall to the ground disgraced, if not disabled from ever rising anymore.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)
“Today’s pressures on middle-class children to grow up fast begin in early childhood. Chief among them is the pressure for early intellectual attainment, deriving from a changed perception of precocity. Several decades ago precocity was looked upon with great suspicion. The child prodigy, it was thought, turned out to be a neurotic adult; thus the phrase “early ripe, early rot!””
—David Elkind (20th century)