Quote#Wisdom
If wrecks and ruins and desolation of kingdoms are marks of…
Quote byJeremy Collier · 1650–1726
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Treasury of Thought (1881), p. 218, Greatness.
English (original)
If wrecks and ruins and desolation of kingdoms are marks of greatness, why do we not worship a tempest, and erect a statue to the plague? A panegyric upon an earthquake is every jot as reasonable as upon such conquests as these.
— Jeremy Collier
More from Jeremy Collier
People's opinions of themselves are commonly legible in their countenances.
Envy [...], like a cold poison, [...] benumbs and stupefies. And thus conscious as it were of its own impotence, it folds its arms in despair, and sits cursing in a corner.
A man may as well expect to grow stronger by always eating, as wiser by always reading. Too much over-charges nature, and turns more into disease than nourishment. 'Tis thought and digestion which makes books serviceable, and gives health …
By reading a man does as it were antedate his life, and makes himself contemporary with the ages past. And this way of running up beyond one's nativity is much better than Plato's pre-existence, because here a man knows something of the …
This is brave Bear-Garden language!
Everyone has a fair turn to be as great as he pleases.