Being concerned for the education of the third Earl of Shaftesbury, the first Earl (a man of great forethought) picked the best available tutor -- his name was John Locke -- to advise on the choice of a suitable wife for the young man who was to become the second Earl.

What a pity I was out when your grandfather called.

W. D. Howells: "Nature drives us on at a great pace for a while, and then some fine morning we wake up and find that nature has got tired of us and has left us to taste and conscience. And taste and conscience are by no means so certain of what they want you to do as nature was."

New words

Jeremy Bentham: "There are certain motives which, unless in a few particular cases, have scarcely any other name to be expressed by but such a word as is used only in a good sense. This is the case, for example, with the motives of piety and honour. The consequence of this is, that if, in speaking of such a motive, a man should have occasion to apply the epithet bad to any actions which he mentions as apt to result from it, he must appear to be guilty of a contradiction in terms. But the names of motives which have scarcely any other name to be expressed by, but such a word as is used only in a bad sense, are many more. This is the case, for example, with the motives of lust and avarice. And accordingly, if in speaking of any such motive, a man should have occasion to apply the epithets good or indifferent to any actions which he mentions as apt to result from it, he must here also appear to be guilty of a similar contradiction.

Note to the above: Happily, language is not always so intractable, but that by making use of two words instead of one, a man may avoid the inconvenience of fabricating words that are absolutely new. Thus instead of the word lust, by putting together two words in common use, he may frame the neutral expression, sexual desire: instead of the word avarice, by putting together two other words also in common use, he may frame the neutral expression, pecuniary interest."

A. N. Prior: "In English we generally construct quantifiers out of question-words -- `Whatever' out of `What?', 'However' and `Anyhow' and `Somehow' out of 'How?', and so on. What we need at this point is a quantifier corresponding to the question whether it is the case that p; if we had such a quantifier we could read [Pi]pEpp as `If and only if anywhether then thether'. The standard false proposition [Pi]pp, `For all p, p' could then be read, not roughly as `Everything is true' but simply as `Everywhether'."

E. T. Owen: "In response to your `How long have you been beating your grandmother?' I should say, if practicable, `No long'. If you ask `Is that the first time you have lied today?' I should like to answer `It's the not-anyeth time'."

J. Money: "It is an open question whether it is more useful to attribute certain samples of human behaviour and speech to aggressivity, than to attribute certain samples of psychopathology to demonivity. Dynamic derivatives cannot be made from Nordic roots. There is no attackivity, thinkality, dreamance, knowivity, or choosivity. Perhaps that is why, in contemporary psychology, thinking, dreaming, knowing and choosing are virtually disregarded as dynamic determinants."