STEWART, Dugald Quotes
(1753-1828), Scottish philosopher
The faculty of imagination is the great spring of human activity, and the principal source of human improvement. As it delights in presenting to the mind scenes and characters more perfect than those which we are acquainted with, it prevents us from ever being completely satisfied with our present condition, or with our past attainments, and engages us continually in the pursuit of some untried enjoyment, or of some ideal excellence. Destroy this faculty, and the condition of man will become as stationary as that of the brutes.
An uncommon degree of imagination constitutes poetical genius.
There are very few original thinkers in the world, or ever have been; the greatest part of those who are called philosophers, have adopted the opinions of some who went before them, and so having chosen their respective guides, they maintain with zeal what they have thus imbibed.
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