"Perfectibility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... logically enough, desirous of reestablishing the Inquisition; the other professed by all the illustrious teachers of mankind, by Pythagoras, Jesus, Socrates, Pascal, &c., which, believing in the goodness of the Creator and the perfectibility of man, endeavors to found upon earth the reign of justice, fraternity, and equality. A more important work on Socialism is that of Dr. Guepin, of Nantes, Philosophie du Socialisme; and M. Lecouturier announces a Science ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... the hour and of the century. It is believed to be the panacea for all ills, individual and social. But, precisely, what does this passion for education signify if not that, either intelligently or otherwise, all believe in the perfectibility of the soul, and that it will have all the time that it needs for the process. The absorbing devotion to intellectual training suggests the inquiry as to whether many who affirm that they are agnostic concerning immortality are not in reality earnest in their faith; for why should ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... arose; his person, voice, and manner all greatly in his favour. In his first attack he used the arms, which in general have been considered as belonging to the other side of the question. He quizzed Mr. Owen most unmercifully; pinched him here for his parallelograms; hit him there for his human perfectibility, and kept the whole audience in a roar of laughter. Mr. Owen joined in it most heartily himself, and listened to him throughout with the air of a man who is delighted at the good things he is hearing, and ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... the century had seen, before they had passed the age of thirty, the rapid development of steam navigation, the illumination of towns and houses by gas, the opening of the first railway." In the consciousness of the average householder miracles like these formed the pattern of his belief in the perfectibility of the human race. ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... of life. With considerable literary acquirements, and much pretensions to science, he gave himself up to all the reveries and schemes of modern philosophy; with Southey, Godwin, and the whole class, he was continually dreaming about the perfectibility of human nature, and believed that innocence was alone to be found in that portion of humanity, which approached the nearest to the state of nature. With these notions, which he succeeded, in some measure, in imparting to his young and interesting partner, he declined establishing himself in any ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas
... than approach to gush, with which similar handling on the part of Dickens too often affects some of us. The sin and the punishment of the Doctor, the thoroughly human figures of Genestas and the rest, save the situation from this and other drawbacks. We are not in the Cockaigne of perfectibility, where Marmontel and Godwin disport themselves; we are in a very practical place, where time-bargains in barley are made, and you pay the respectable, if not lavish board of ten francs per day for entertainment ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... a foolish philosophy, which believed in ennui as an evidence and a means of human perfectibility. The only exertions which it is capable of producing, are of a subordinate character. It may give to passion a fearful intensity, consequent on a state of moral disease; but human virtue must be the result of far higher causes. The exercise of principle, the generous force ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... once apparently random and divergent lines of that Providence now seem to be flowing to a common point, and terminating in one great result—the improvement and happiness of our race. Abating much of what has been extravagantly vaunted about the march of mind and the perfectibility of human society, it is still visibly true that the general condition of the world is improved and improving. Vast accessions have been made to science; knowledge has been diffused over a wider surface, than was ever before known; ignorance ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various |
