Joseph Priestley Quotes

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  • Too many christians have been chargeable with... confounding the Logos of Plato with that of John , and making of it a second person in the trinity, than which no two things can be more different.

    Christian   Plato   Two  
    Joseph Priestley (1782). “An History of the Corruption of Christianity”, p.462
  • This is unfortunately a world in which things find it difficult, frequently impossible, to live up to their names.

  • To me there is in happiness an element of self-forgetfulness. You lose yourself in something outside yourself when you are happy; just as when you are desperately miserable you are intensely conscious of yourself, are a solid little lump of ego weighing a ton.

  • Could we have entered into the mind of Sir Isaac Newton, and have traced all the steps by which he produced his great works, we might see nothing very extraordinary in the process.

    Mind   Might   Steps  
    Joseph Priestley, John Towill Rutt (1831). “The Theological and Miscellaneous Works. Ed. with Notes by John Towill Rutt”, p.346
  • What I have known with respect to myself, has tended much to lessen both my admiration, and my contempt, of others.

    Joseph Priestley, John Towill Rutt (1831). “The Theological and Miscellaneous Works. Ed. with Notes by John Towill Rutt”, p.346
  • In completing one discovery we never fail to get an imperfect knowledge of others of which we could have no idea before, so that we cannot solve one doubt without creating several new ones.

    Joseph Priestley (1780). “The theological and miscellaneous works of Joseph Priestley”, p.372
  • Every man, when he comes to be sensible of his natural rights, and to feel his own importance, will consider himself as fully equal to any other person whatever

    Men   Rights   Natural  
    'An Essay on the First Principles of Government' (1768) pt. 1
  • Will is nothing more than a particular case of the general doctrine of association of ideas, and therefore a perfectly mechanical thing.

    Joseph Priestley (1777). “The Doctrine of Philofophical Neceffity Illustrated: Being an Appendix to the Difquifitions Relating to Matter and Spirit. To which is Added an Anfwer to the Letters on Materialism, and on Hartley's Theory of the Mind [by Joseph Perington].”, p.36
  • As I conceive this doctrine to be a gross misrepresentation of the character and moral government of God, and to affect many other articles in the scheme of Christianity, greatly disfiguring and depraving it; I shall show, ... that it has no countenance whatever in reason, or the Scriptures; and, therefore, that the whole doctrine of atonement, with every modification of it, has been a departure from the primitive and genuine doctrine of Christianity.

    "A History of the Corruptions of Christianity". Book by Joseph Priestley, Part II: Opinions Relating to the Doctrine of Atonement, Introduction, 1782.
  • From the fame opinion of a soul distinct from the body came the practice of praying, first for the dead, and then to them with a long train of other absurd opinions, and superstitious practices.

    Practice   Long   Soul  
    Joseph Priestley (1782). “An History of the Corruption of Christianity”, p.442
  • The feeling of it to my lungs was not sensibly different from that of common air; but I fancied that my breast felt peculiarly light and easy for some time afterwards. Who can tell but that, in time, this pure air may become a fashionable article in luxury. Hitherto only two mice and myself have had the privilege of breathing it.

    Science   Light   Air  
    Joseph Priestley (1775). “Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air: Vol. II. By Joseph Priestley, ...”, p.102
  • The wisdom of one generation will be folly in the next.

  • [The doctrine of air] I was led into in consequence of inhabiting a house adjoining to a public brewery, where I at first amused myself with making experiments on the fixed air [carbon dioxide] which I found ready made in the process of fermentation . When I removed from that house I was under the necessity of making the fixed air for myself; and one experiment leading to another, as I have distinctly and faithfully noted in my various publications on the subject, I by degrees contrived a convenient apparatus for the purpose, but of the cheapest kind.

    Air   House   Firsts  
    "Life and Correspondence of Joseph Priestley". Book by John Towill Rutt., 1831.
  • The more elaborate our means of our common sense is, the less the common sense it becomes.

  • I have procured air [oxygen] ... between five and six times as good as the best common air that I have ever met with.

    Science   Air   Oxygen  
  • Had Mr. Gibbon lived in France, Spain, or Italy, he might with the fame reason have ranked the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the worship of saints and angels among the essentials of Christianity, as the doctrines of the trinity and of the atonement.

    Joseph Priestley (1793). “An History of the Corruptions of Christianity”, p.469
  • How glorious, then, is the prospect, the reverse of all the past, which is now opening upon us, and upon the world. Government, we may now expect to see, not only in theory and in books but in actual practice, calculated for the general good, and taking no more upon it than the general good requires, leaving all men the enjoyment of as many of their natural rights as possible, and no more interfering with matters of religion, with men's notions concerning God, and a future state, than with philosophy, or medicine.

    Philosophy   Book   Past  
    Joseph Priestley (1791). “Letters to the Right Honourable Edmund Burke: Occasioned by His Reflections on the Revolution in France, &c”, p.145, Birmingham
  • The mind of man can never be wholly barren. Through our whole lives we are subject to successive impressions; for, either new ideas are continually flowing in, or traces of the old ones are marked deeper. If, therefore, you be not acquiring good principles be assured that you are acquiring bad ones; if you be not forming virtuous habits you are, how insensibly soever to yourselves, forming vicious ones.

    Men   Ideas   Mind  
    Joseph Priestley, Henry Ware (1834). “Views of Christian truth, piety, and morality: selected from the writings of Dr. Priestley : with a memoir of his life”, p.171
  • In completing one discovery we never fail to get an imperfect knowledge of others.

    Joseph Priestley (1780). “The theological and miscellaneous works of Joseph Priestley”, p.372
  • The greater is the circle of light, the greater is the boundary of the darkness by which it is confined. But, notwithstanding this, the more light get, the more thankful we ought to be, for by this means we have the greater range for satisfactory contemplation. time the bounds of light will be still farther extended; and from the infinity of the divine nature, and the divine works, we may promise ourselves an endless progress in our investigation them: a prospect truly sublime and glorious.

    Nature   Mean   Science  
    Joseph Priestley (1780). “The theological and miscellaneous works of Joseph Priestley”, p.373
  • Orthodoxy, my Lord,: said Bishop Warburton, in a whisper, — orthodoxy is my doxy, — heterodoxy is another man's doxy.

    Men   Doctrine   Bishops  
    "Memoirs", Volume I, p. 572, as quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations, p. 197-98, 1922.
  • It is no use speaking in soft, gentle tones if everyone else is shouting.

  • Let us not... contend about merit , but let us all be intent on forwarding the common enterprize , and equally enjoy any progress we may make towards succeeding in it; and above all, let us acknowledge the guidance of that Great Being, who has put a spirit in man, and whose inspiration giveth him understanding .

    Joseph Priestley (1790). “Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air and Other Branches of Natural Philosophy, Connected with the Subject ...: Being the Former Six Volumes Abridged and Methodized, with Many Additions”, p.43
  • Most of the early Christian writers thought the text "I and my Father are one," was to be understood of an unity or harmony of disposition only. Thus Tertullian observes, that the expression is unum , one thing, not one person; and he explains it to mean unity, likeness, conjunction, and of the love that the Father bore to the Son. Origen says, "let him consider that text, 'all that believed were of one heart and of one soul,' and then he will understand this, 'I and my Father are one".

    Christian   Father   Mean  
  • It is known to all persons who are conversant in experimental philosophy, that there are many little attentions and precautions necessary to be observed in the conducting of experiments, which cannot well be described in words, but which it is needless to describe, since practice will necessarily suggest them; though, like all other arts in which the hands and fingers are made use of, it is only much practice that can enable a person to go through complex experiments, of this or any kind, with ease and readiness.

    Joseph Priestley (2013). “Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air”, p.7, Cambridge University Press
  • It is sufficiently evident from many circumstances, that the doctrine of the divinity of Christ did not establish itself without much opposition, especially from the unlearned among the Christians, who thought that it savoured of Polytheism , that it was introduced by those who had had a philosophical education, and was by degrees adopted by others, on account of its covering the great offence of the cross , by exalting the personal dignity of our Saviour.

    Joseph Priestley (1871). “A History of the Corruptions of Christianity”, p.19
  • The greater part of critics are parasites, who, if nothing had been written, would find nothing to write.

  • It pleased God to make one nation the medium of all His communications with mankind: This the nation of the Jews has done to a considerable degree in all ages As civilization extended, they by one means or another became most wonderfully dispersed through all countries; and at this day they are almost literally everywhere, the most conspicuous, and in the eye of reason and religion, the most respectable nation on the face of the earth.

  • Lying is a crime the least liable to variation in its definitions. A child will upon the slightest temptation tell an untruth as readily as the truth. That is, as soon as he can suspect that it will be to his advantage; and the dread that he afterward has of telling a lie is acquired principally by his being threatened, punished, and terrified by those who detect him in it, till at length, a number of painful impressions are annexed to the telling of an untruth, and he comes even to shudder at the thought of it.

    Joseph Priestley (1831). “The Theological and Miscellaneous Works. Ed. with Notes by John Towill Rutt”, p.196
  • We find upon all occasions, the early Christian writers speak of the Father as superior to the Son, and in general they give him the title of God , as distinguished from the Son; and sometimes they expressly call him, exclusively of the Son, the only true God ; a phraseology which does not at all accord with the idea of the perfect equality of all the persons in the Trinity. But it might well be expected, that the advances to the present doctrine of the Trinity should be gradual and slow. It was, indeed, some centuries before it was completely formed.

    Christian   Father   Son  
    Joseph Priestley (1871). “A History of the Corruptions of Christianity”, p.16
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    Joseph Priestley quotes about: Atonement Science