I posted this in a different forum years ago in a
thread about quotes -
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance.
This principle is, contempt prior to examination."
Misattributed to
Herbert Spencer .
Actually a misquote from
William Paley.
Also from William Paley in
Natural Theology : or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature (1802)
"Virtue is infinitely various.
There is no situation in which a rational being is placed, from that of the best instructed Christian down to the condition of the rudest barbarian, which affords not room for moral agency; for the acquisition, exercise, and display of voluntary qualities, good and bad.
Health and sickness, enjoyment and suffering, riches and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, power and subjection, liberty and bondage, civilisation and barbarity, have all their offices and duties, all serve for the formation of character: for when we speak of a state of trial, it must be remembered, that characters are not only tried, or proved, or detected, but that they are generated also, and formed, by circumstances.
The best dispositions may subsist under the most depressed, the most afflicted fortunes."
I just read this for the first time today when I was searching that first quote that I've enjoyed for about 22 years.
My take on it is this example from my life:
My wife and I were driving north on Interstate 93 from NH to Vermont on our honeymoon about 8 years ago.
We saw a mess of splattered ducks up ahead with a MC biker holding an injured duck in his arms by the side of the carnage on the road.
We pulled over to offer assistance if we could.
He was a scary, rough 1% MC patched guy with tears welling in his eyes from desperation, frustration & compassion.
He saw cars ahead of him run right
through a family of ducks crossing the road without swerving or slowing. No brakelights. Nothing.
He knew the area so we took the duck and followed him to the local animal emergency clinic.
We chatted with him there and he's friends with our friend that's the Prez of a Cape Cod Chapter 1% MC.
It doesn't matter where he came from or what he's done in the past, when it came to that injured duck that he wanted to help he was a 10 year old kid with a good heart.
That was one of the most touching events of my life.
Very common English idiom
"don't judge a book by its cover"
origin - Roman author Juvenal (1st and 2nd centuries AD)