Author of quotes: Anthony Ashley Cooper Shaftesbury

If people deny to talk seriously about some subjects, they will talk about them ironically.

There is nothing more stupid and obmanchiva half-hearted skepticism. For while the doubt is attached only to one side, on the other, the stronger grows the accuracy. One side stupidity seems ludicrous, and the other more inflated and more and more lies.

For bad choices there is no excuse.

What is for certain - the absurdity, for others - proof.

One who is confident in life after death, does not need excessive worries about the fate of virtue in this world.

The only poison to the mind - passion. For the false argument will quickly change, if there is passion.

The artist, if he is not devoid of genius, understands the truth and unity in thought, he realizes that he will cease to be natural, if too closely to follow nature and to reproduce it.

Will never be free of sharp mind there, where taken away the freedom to ridicule.

Pedantry and bigotry are mill, which is able to drown any book that involves at least a fraction of their dead weight.

The most difficult thing in the world, is to be a good thinker without being a rigorous critic himself; and checked the source - in conversation with himself.

The spirit of persecution gave rise to the spirit of irony.

The more pressure, the sharper the satire. Worse than slavery, so it is thinner.

The only way to save human sanity and keep rationality in the world is to give freedom sharp mind.

If people are suffering talk about their flaws, is the best indication that they are corrected.