Questions in Political Economy, Politics, Morals, Metaphysics, Polite Literature, and Other Branches of Knowledge: For Discussion in Literary Societies, Or for Private Study. With Remarks Under Each Question, Original and Selected

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R. Hunter, 1823 - 400 pages

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Page 377 - tis all a cheat ; Yet, fooled with hope, men favour the deceit ; Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay : To-morrow's falser than the former day ; Lies worse, and, while it says we shall be blest With some new joys, cuts off what we possessed.
Page 117 - It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society.
Page 233 - Caesars' palace came The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly, Of distant sentinels the fitful song Begun and died upon the gentle wind. Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood Within a bowshot.
Page 233 - twere anew, the gaps of centuries ; Leaving that beautiful which still was so, And making that which was not, till the place Became religion, and the heart ran o'er With silent worship of the great of old...
Page 248 - Since it is the understanding that sets man above the rest of sensible beings, and gives him all the advantage and dominion which he has over them...
Page 338 - This too is certain, that the admiration and love of order, harmony, and *° proportion, in whatever kind, is naturally improving to the temper, advantageous to social affection, and highly assistant to virtue, which is itself no other than the love of order and beauty in society.
Page 180 - There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences.
Page 296 - In the window of his mother's apartment lay Spenser's Fairy Queen ; in which he very early took delight to read, till by feeling the charms of verse, he became, as he relates, irrecoverably a poet. Such are the accidents...
Page 252 - I may be positive in, that the power of abstracting is not at all in them; and that the having of general ideas, is that which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes; and is an excellency which the faculties of brutes do by no means attain to. For it is evident, we observe no footsteps in them, of making use of general signs for universal ideas; from which we have reason to imagine, that they have not the faculty of abstracting, or making general ideas, since they have no use of words,...
Page 378 - That any character — from the best to the worst, from the most ignorant to the most enlightened — may be given to any community, even to the world at large, by applying certain means, which are to a great extent at the command and under the control, or easily made so, of those who possess the government of nations.

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