Miscellany Quotes:

A Miscellany is a collection without a natual ordering relation.

- John Edensor Littlewood

topic: Mathematics, Relation, Collections, Miscellany

The secret of culture is to learn, that a few great points steadily reappear, alike in the poverty of the obscurest farm, and in the miscellany of metropolitan life, and that these few are alone to be regarded,--the escape from all false ties; courage to be what we are; and love what is simple and beautiful; independence and cheerful relation, these are the essentials,--these, and the wish to serve,--to add somewhat to the well-being of men.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

source: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.427

topic: Life, Happiness, Beautiful, Miscellany, Metropolitan

Happy will that house be in which the relations are formed from character; after the highest, and not after the lowest order; the house in which character marries, and not confusion and a miscellany of unavowable motives.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

source: Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2447, Delphi Classics

topic: Happy, Character, Order, Miscellany

Alas for America as I must so often say, the ungirt, the diffuse, the profuse, procumbent, one wide ground juniper, out of which no cedar, no oak will rear up a mast to the clouds! It all runs to leaves, to suckers, to tendrils, to miscellany. The air is loaded with poppy, with imbecility, with dispersion, & sloth.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

source: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph H. Orth, Glen M. Johnson (1994). “The Topical Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.76, University of Missouri Press

topic: Running, Clouds, Air, Masts, Miscellany

The 'EU in a Nutshell' is a miscellany of facts and anecdotes about the system which rules us. It's a book you can delve into in pursuit of a particular fact, or crack open for entertainment at virtually any page.

- Daniel Hannan

topic: Book, Anecdotes, Cracks, Miscellany

Skepticism is unbelief in cause and effect.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

source: Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Essays and English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Five Foot Shelf of Classics, Vol. V (in 51 Volumes)”, p.294, Cosimo, Inc.

topic: Causes, Skepticism, Cause And Effect, Miscellany