It is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals that their maxims have a plausible air; and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first principles. They are light and portable. They are as current as copper coin; and about as valuable. They serve equally the first capacities and the lowest; and they are, at least, as useful to the worst men as to the best. Of this stamp is the cant of not man, but measures; a sort of charm by which many people get loose from every honourable engagement.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
“Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents” (1770)
Quotations about:
unwise
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
TECMESSA: Ignorant men
Don’t know what good they hold in their hands until
They’ve flung it away.Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Ajax, l. 964 [tr. Moore (1959)]
Alt trans.:
- “Men of perverse opinion do not know / The excellence of what is in their hands, / Till some one dash it from them.” [George Young (1888)]
- "Men of ill judgement oft ignore the good / That lies within their hands, till they have lost it."
- "For those who are base in judgement do not know the good they hold in their hands until they cast it off."
