James Mackintosh

Sir James Mackintosh (October 24, 1765 – May 30, 1832) was a Scottish jurist, politician and historian. He was trained as a doctor and barrister, and worked also as a journalist, judge, administrator, professor and philosopher.

Sourced

• Diffused knowledge immortalizes itself.
  • Vindiciæ Gallicæ (1791).

• The Commons, faithful to their system, remained in a wise and masterly inactivity.
  • Vindiciæ Gallicæ (1791).

• Disciplined inaction.
  • Causes of the Revolution of 1688, chapter vii, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• The frivolous work of polished idleness.
  • "Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy", Remarks on Thomas Brown, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Unsourced

• It is right to be contented with what we have, never with what we are.
  • Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy.

• Tiffin. What?
  • Life, index.

• The powers of a man's mind are directly proportioned to the quantity of coffee he drinks.