Purposes

Famous quotes containing the word purposes:

    So shall you hear
    Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
    Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
    Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
    And in this upshot, purposes mistook
    Fallen on th’inventors’ heads.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    One of the baffling things about life is that the purposes of institutions may be ideal, while their administration, dependent upon the faults and weaknesses of human beings, may be bad.
    Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)

    I find that the respectable man, so called, has immediately drifted from his position, and despairs of his country, when his country has more reason to despair of him. He forthwith adopts one of the candidates ... as the only available one, thus proving that he is himself available for any purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no more worth than that of any unprincipled foreigner or hireling native, who may have been bought.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)