Famous quotes containing the words material, total and/or variance:
“The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger. It is not contrary to reason for me to choose my total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian, or person wholly unknown to me. It is as little contrary to reason to prefer even my own acknowledged lesser good to my greater, and have a more ardent affection for the former than the latter.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“There is an untroubled harmony in everything, a full consonance in nature; only in our illusory freedom do we feel at variance with it.”
—Fyodor Tyutchev (1803–1873)