Famous quotes containing the words proper distance, proper and/or distance:
“All ceremonies are in themselves very silly things; but yet, a man of the world should know them. They are the outworks of Manners and Decency, which would be too often broken in upon, if it were not for that defence, which keeps the enemy at a proper distance.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“Anyone, however, who has had dealings with dates knows that they are worse than elusive, they are perverse. Events do not happen at the right time, nor in their proper sequence. That sense of harmony with place and season which is so stong in the historian—if he be a readable historian—is lamentably lacking in history, which takes no pains to verify his most convincing statements.”
—Agnes Repplier (1858–1950)
“Are we not madder than those first inhabitants of the plain of Sennar? We know that the distance separating the earth from the sky is infinite, and yet we do not stop building our tower.”
—Denis Diderot (1713–1784)