Quote #5

I never read the life of any important person without discovering that he knew more and could do more than I could ever hope to know or do in half a dozen lifetimes.

Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

More from Joseph Priestley

  1. I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behin…
  2. It is no use speaking in soft, gentle tones if everyone else is shouting.
  3. Could we have entered into the mind of Sir Isaac Newton, and have traced all the steps by which he produced his great works, we might see n…
  4. Like its politicians and its war, society has the teenagers it deserves.
  5. As we read the school reports on our children, we realize a sense of relief that can rise to delight that thank Heaven nobody is reporting …
  6. Living in an age of advertisement, we are perpetually disillusioned. The perfect life is spread before us every day, but it changes and wit…
  7. As I conceive this doctrine to be a gross misrepresentation of the character and moral government of God, and to affect many other articles…
  8. Many a man is praised for his reserve and so-called shyness when he is simply too proud to risk making a fool of himself.

All Joseph Priestley quotes