Let Observation, with extensive view,
Survey mankind from China to Peru;
Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife,
And watch the busy scenes of crowded life. [ Dr. Johnson ]
A man of many letters, (i.e. of extensive learning).
In all instances where our experience of the past has been extensive and uniform, our judgment concerning the future amounts to moral certainty. [ Beattie ]
On the approach of spring, I withdraw without reluctance from the noisy and extensive scene of crowds without company and dissipation without pleasure. [ Edward Gibbon ]
Nothing, in truth, has such a tendency to weaken not only the powers of invention, but the intellectual powers in general, as a habit of extensive and various reading without reflection. [ Dugald Stewart ]
The study of the mathematics is like climbing up a steep and craggy mountain; when once you reach the top, it fully recompenses your trouble, by opening a fine, clear, and extensive prospect. [ Jeremiah Day ]
There is no real elevation of mind in a contempt of little things; it is, on the contrary, from too narrow views that we consider those things of little importance which have in fact such extensive consequences. [ Fenelon ]
I could write down twenty cases, wherein I wished God had done otherwise than He did; but which I now see, had I had my own will, would have led to extensive mischief. The life of a Christian is a life of paradoxes. [ Cecil ]
Errors to be dangerous must have a great deal of truth mingled with them; it is only from this alliance that they can ever obtain an extensive circulation; from pure extravagance, and genuine, unmingled falsehood, the world never has, and never can sustain any mischief. [ Sydney Smith ]
There are two distinct sorts of what we call bashfulness; this, the awkwardness of a booby, which a few steps into the world will convert into the pertness of a coxcomb; that, a consciousness, which the most delicate feelings produce, and the most extensive knowledge cannot always remove. [ Mackenzie ]
From extensive acquaintance with many lands, I unhesitatingly affirm that everywhere God has provided pure water for man, and that the wines drunk are often miserable and dirty. I have found water everywhere that I have traveled, in China and India, Palestine and Egypt, - and everywhere water has been my beverage. [ Thomas Cook, the Tourist ]
As it often happens that the best men are but little known, and consequently cannot extend the usefulness of their examples a great way, the biographer is of great utility, as, by communicating such valuable patterns to the world, he may perhaps do a more extensive service to mankind than the person whose life originally afforded the pattern. [ Fielding ]
Those that are the loudest in their threats are the weakest in the execution of them. In springing a mine, that which has done the most extensive mischief makes the smallest report; and again, if we consider the effect of lightning, it is probable that he that is killed by it hears no noise; but the thunderclap which follows, and which I most alarms the ignorant, is the surest proof of their safety. [ Colton ]